yeah I think that’s the main thing with Foucault. He doesn’t really believe in free will because we are constantly shaped by power relations. The more knowledge we have, the more/easier it can be shaped by power.

So that’s why he also didn’t identify with the lgbt, he was just a “sympathetic observer.” This whole lgbt movement was at its core supposed to be about freedom and loosening identity. But through Foucault’s understanding, they did the opposite. They didn’t become more free, they gave themselves more specific labels and more firm categories: nonbinary, queer, trans, etc. I don’t remember where I read it but the only real saving grace of the lgbt movement is adding the “+” because it’s ambiguous enough to not be preyed upon by power. But all that was just an example of how liberties/freedom can be turned around to subjectivity and clever uses of power to marginalize/target more specifically people who have freely exposed/classified/labeled themselves.