Subjectivity is a widely explored topic in dementia studies, in both the humanities and the social sciences. Persistent discourses of “a loss of self” in dementia have been challenged by scholars, who argue for the need for continued recognition of the person with dementia and that subjectivity in dementia may be sustained. So far, however, there is a lack of discussion about the significance of gender, and how being recognised as a subject overall is closely intertwined with being recognised as a gendered subject. This article explores how gender matters to the recognition of subjectivity in dementia. But it also explores how dementia as a position of cognitive otherness may impact upon and disrupt gender performativity. The discussion builds on narratives from an interview study on intimacy and sexual relationships among heterosexual couples living with Alzheimer’s disease, as well as the narrative of the Swedish autobiographical novel Minns du? [Do you remember?] (Beckman, 2019), in which the nonbinary transgender narrator Alice seeks to recollect the memories of their partner AnnaBelle, who is living with a memory-related illness. The article shows how reiterations of gender could be significant in sustaining subjectivity for a person with dementia. But it also shows how cultural tropes of persons with dementia as strange(rs), children or animals position them as unintelligible and thus as unrecognisable gendered subjects. The novel, in contrast, provides an alternative form of worldmaking in which intersubjective recognition is not dependent on either cognitive function or binary gender within a heterosexual matrix.

在人文科学和社会科学中，主观性是痴呆研究中广泛探讨的主题。关于痴呆症的“自我丧失”的持久论述一直受到学者的挑战，他们认为有必要继续承认痴呆症患者，并且认为痴呆症的主观性可能会持续存在。但是，到目前为止，关于性别意义的讨论还很少，关于如何被整体认可为主题与如何被认可为性别主题紧密相关。本文探讨了性别对于痴呆症主观认识的重要性。但是，它也探讨了痴呆症作为认知他人地位的方式如何影响和破坏性别表现。Minns du？[你还记得吗？]（贝克曼，2019年），其中非二进制跨性别叙述者爱丽丝试图回忆他们伴侣与记忆力相关疾病的安娜·贝尔的记忆。这篇文章表明了重申性别对于维持痴呆症患者的主观性可能具有重要意义。但这也显示了痴呆症患者（如陌生人，儿童或动物）的文化取向如何将其定位为难以理解的性别，因此无法识别为性别对象。相反，该小说提供了一种另类的世界创造形式，其中主体间的识别不依赖于认知功能或异性恋矩阵中的二元性别。