Introduction: The Stakes of Authenticity
Essentialism and Its Discontents
The Uses and Limits of Theory
Authorizing Strategies
What Does It Mean to Be Oneself?
Outline of the Book

Chapter 1. Essentialism, Emancipation, and the Self: Authenticity’s Meanings and Value
“Being Oneself” as a Normative Self-Relationship
Action and Becoming
Authority and Ownership
Authenticity and Emancipation
From Authenticity to Authenticity Claims

Chapter 2. Social Movements and the Politics of Experience: Being Oneself as a Practice of Critique
Critiques Grounded in an Authentic Self
Critiques Grounded in Experience
Assessing Authenticity Claims
Between Essentialism and Strategic Essentialism
Not Truth but Truthfulness

Chapter 3. Complicity and Resistance: Realizing Oneself Through the Law
Vocation, Artistic Expression, and Conscience
Complicity’s Illiberal Effects
Authenticity Against Democracy
Authenticity as a Practice of Resistance

Chapter 4. Gender and Embodiment in Trans Politics: Visions of Becoming Who One Is
Gender, Self-Knowledge, and Self-Actualization
Essentialism and Its Effects
Beyond Fixity and Certainty
Positive and Negative Authenticities

Conclusion: Democracy and the Powers That Make Us Who We Are

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index