Editing Judith Butler

{{Infobox person
| picture = Judith Butler al CCCB 2018.jpg
| caption = Butler in 2018
| date_birth = February 24, 1956
| place_birth = Cleveland, Ohio, USA
| nationality = American
| pronouns = [[she/her]] or [[they/them]]<ref name="Ferber">{{Cite web |title=Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in 'anti-intellectual times' |last=Ferber |first=Alona |work=newstatesman.com |date=22 September 2020 |access-date=31 October 2020 |url= https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230621144649/https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref>
| gender = Nonbinary<ref name="kian">{{Cite web |title=Judith Butler on her Philosophy and Current Events |author=kian |work=Interviews by Kian |date=27 December 2019 |access-date=31 October 2020 |url= https://interviewsbykian.wordpress.com/2019/12/27/judith-butler-on-her-philosophy-and-current-events/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329113120/https://interviewsbykian.wordpress.com/2019/12/27/judith-butler-on-her-philosophy-and-current-events/ |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref>
| occupation = Philosopher, writer
| known_for = 
}}
'''Judith Pamela Butler''' is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave [[Feminism|feminist]], queer theory, and literary theory. Their 1990 book ''Gender Trouble'' introduced the idea of [[Gender expression|performing or "doing" gender]]<ref name="Fischer">{{Cite web |title=Think Gender Is Performance? You Have Judith Butler to Thank for That. |last=Fischer |first=Molly |work=The Cut |date=21 June 2016 |access-date=4 May 2020 |url= https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/judith-butler-c-v-r.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230223024038/https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/judith-butler-c-v-r.html |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref> and criticized the [[gender binary]].<ref name="famo_Judi">{{Cite web |title=Judith Butler |author= |work=famousphilosophers.org |date= |access-date=4 May 2020 |url= https://www.famousphilosophers.org/judith-butler/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230618224903/https://www.famousphilosophers.org/judith-butler/|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>

Butler uses singular they pronouns.<ref>Kathryn Fischer (May 13, 2020). "[https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/queerspiegel/gender-und-grammatik-das-pronomen-ist-frei-vom-koerper-aber-es-ist-nicht-frei-vom-geschlecht/25826376.html Das Pronomen ist frei vom Körper - aber es ist nicht frei vom Geschlecht]". ''Der Tagesspiegel'' (in German). Retrieved September 24, 2020. [https://web.archive.org/web/20230327084943/https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/queerspiegel/gender-und-grammatik-das-pronomen-ist-frei-vom-koerper-aber-es-ist-nicht-frei-vom-geschlecht/25826376.html Archived] on 17 July 2023</ref>

In 2012 they were presented with the Theodor W. Adorno Award for outstanding achievement in philosophy.

In 2013, Darin Barney of McGill University wrote that:
{{quote|Butler's work on gender, sex, sexuality, queerness, [[feminism]], bodies, political speech and ethics has changed the way scholars all over the world think, talk and write about [[identity]], subjectivity, power and politics. It has also changed the lives of countless people whose bodies, genders, sexualities and desires have made them subject to violence, exclusion and oppression.<ref>{{cite news|last=Barney|first=Darin|title=In Defense of Judith Butler|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/darin-barney/in-defense-of-judith-butler-mcgill_b_3346589.html|work=Huffington Post|accessdate=9 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407210822/https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/darin-barney/in-defense-of-judith-butler-mcgill_b_3346589.html|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>}}

Butler lives with their partner Wendy Brown, a political theorist; they have a son together.


==Quotes==
{{quote|If someone asks for recognition as a given gender or wishes to be addressed by a certain [[pronoun]], it is important to honor that request for recognition and change one's language practice.<ref name="kian2019">{{Cite web |title=Judith Butler on her Philosophy and Current Events |author=kian |work=Interviews by Kian |date=27 December 2019 |access-date=19 June 2021 |url= https://interviewsbykian.wordpress.com/2019/12/27/judith-butler-on-her-philosophy-and-current-events/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329113120/https://interviewsbykian.wordpress.com/2019/12/27/judith-butler-on-her-philosophy-and-current-events/ |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref>}}

{{quote|It is always brave to insist on undergoing [[Transition|transformations]] that feel necessary and right even when there are so many obstructions to doing so, including people and institutions who seek to pathologize or criminalize such important acts of [[Identity|self-definition]]. I know that for some feels less brave than necessary, but we all have to defend those necessities that allow us to live and breathe in the way that feels right to us. [[Surgery|Surgical intervention]] can be precisely what a trans person needs – it is also not always what a trans person needs. Either way, one should be free to determine the course of one's gendered life.

[...] Nothing is more important for transgender people than to have access to excellent health care in trans-affirmative environments, to have the legal and institutional freedom to pursue their own lives as they wish, and to have their freedom and desire affirmed by the rest of the world. This will happen only when [[transphobia]] is overcome at the level of individual attitudes and prejudices and in larger institutions of education, law, healthcare, and kinship.

[...]I think we have to accept a wide variety of positions on gender. Some want to be [[gender-free]], but others want to be free really to be a gender that is crucial to who they are.

[...]''Gender Trouble' was written about 24 years ago, and at that time I did not think well enough about trans issues. Some trans people thought that in claiming that gender is performative that I was saying that it is all a fiction, and that a person’s felt sense of gender was therefore “unreal.” That was never my intention. I sought to expand our sense of what gender realities could be.<ref name="Williams">{{Cite web |title=Gender Performance: The TransAdvocate interviews Judith Butler |last=Williams |first=Cristan |work=TransAdvocate |date= |access-date=4 May 2020 |url= https://www.transadvocate.com/gender-performance-the-transadvocate-interviews-judith-butler_n_13652.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230529123747/https://www.transadvocate.com/gender-performance-the-transadvocate-interviews-judith-butler_n_13652.htm |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref>}}

{{quote|I am enjoying the world of 'they.' When I wrote ''Gender Trouble'', there was no category for 'non-binary' – but now I don't see how I cannot be in that category.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Judith Butler calls out transphobia as “one of the dominant strains of fascism in our times” |last=Bollinger |first=Alex |work=LGBTQ Nation |date=7 September 2021 |access-date=11 September 2021 |url= https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/09/judith-butler-calls-transphobia-one-dominant-strains-fascism-times/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230501191348/http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/09/judith-butler-calls-transphobia-one-dominant-strains-fascism-times/ |archive-date=17 July 2023 }}</ref>}}

==Selected works==
*''Gender Trouble'' (1990)
*''Imitation and Gender Insubordination'' (1990)
*''Bodies That Matter'' (1993)
*''Excitable Speech'' (1997)
*''Undoing Gender'' (2004)
*''Giving an Account of Oneself'' (2005)

==Further reading==
*Finlay, Toby (2017). [https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=luja Non-Binary Performativity: A Trans-Positive Account of Judith Butler's Queer Theory] (PDF)

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category: Authors]]
[[Category: Nonbinary people]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Judith}}
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	{{quote\|Butler's work on gender, sex, sexuality, queerness, [[feminism]], bodies, political speech and ethics has changed the way scholars all over the world think, talk and write about [[identity]], subjectivity, power and politics. It has also changed the lives of countless people whose bodies, genders, sexualities and desires have made them subject to violence, exclusion and oppression.<ref>{{cite news\|last=Barney\|first=Darin\|title=In Defense of Judith Butler\|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/darin-barney/in-defense-of-judith-butler-mcgill_b_3346589.html\|work=Huffington Post\|accessdate=9 October 2013\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407210822/https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/darin-barney/in-defense-of-judith-butler-mcgill_b_3346589.html\|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>}}		{{quote\|Butler's work on gender, sex, sexuality, queerness, [[feminism]], bodies, political speech and ethics has changed the way scholars all over the world think, talk and write about [[identity]], subjectivity, power and politics. It has also changed the lives of countless people whose bodies, genders, sexualities and desires have made them subject to violence, exclusion and oppression.<ref>{{cite news\|last=Barney\|first=Darin\|title=In Defense of Judith Butler\|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/darin-barney/in-defense-of-judith-butler-mcgill_b_3346589.html\|work=Huffington Post\|accessdate=9 October 2013\|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407210822/https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/darin-barney/in-defense-of-judith-butler-mcgill_b_3346589.html\|archive-date=17 July 2023}}</ref>}}

	Butler ~~is a lesbian and~~ lives with their partner Wendy Brown, a political theorist; they have a son together.		Butler lives with their partner Wendy Brown, a political theorist; they have a son together.