Judith Butler Explains the Gender Panic

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Judith Butler is one of the world's leading scholars and philosophers on issues of gender, sexuality, and the cultural phenomena that surround them. They are the author of the landmark 1990 book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, and more recently the 2024 follow-up work Who's Afraid of Gender?

Butler joined Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson to discuss the way people around the world -- mostly conservatives, but some who consider themselves leftists, too -- have become fearful and angry about what they call "gender ideology," why they're mistaken, and what might be done about it.

🏳️‍⚧️ Who's Afraid of Gender?: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374608224/whosafraidofgender/

0:00-4:34 How Gender Became a Right-Wing Panic

4:34-7:59 What “Gender Ideology” Really Means

7:59-13:27 Responding to Kathleen Stock

13:27-16:15 What Performativity Actually Means

16:15-23:28 Matt Walsh and the Demand for Simple Answers

23:28-26:25 Anti-Trans Politics and the Turn Toward Fascism

26:25-31:39 Feminism, TERFs, and Trans Rights

31:39-34:45 How Butler’s Views Have Evolved

34:45-40:53 Anti-Capitalism and Gender as a Distraction

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