In other words, such a statement presupposes that the “I” exceeds its determination, and even produces that very excess in and by the act which seeks to exhaust the semantic field of that “I.” In the act which would disclose the true and full content of that “I,” a certain radical concealment is thereby produced. For it is always finally unclear what is meant by invoking the lesbian-signifier, since its signification is always to some degree out of one’s control, but also because its specificity can only be demarcated by exclusions that return to disrupt its claim to coherence. What, if anything, can lesbians be said to share? And who will decide this question, and in the name of whom? If I claim to be a lesbian, I “come out” only to produce a different “closet.” The “you” to whom I come out now has access to a different region of opacity. […] For being “out” always depends to some extent on being “in”; it gains its meaning only within that polarity. Hence, being “out” must produce the closet again and again in order to maintain itself as “out.” In this sense, outness can only produce a new opacity; and the closet produces the promise of a disclosure that can, by definition, never come. Is this infinite postponement of the disclosure of “gayness,” produced by the very act of “coming out,” to be lamented? Or is this very deferral of the signified to be valued, a site for the production of values, precisely because the term now takes on a life that cannot be, can never be, permanently controlled?
– Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” The Gay and Lesbian Studies Reader, 1993, pg. 309.
