An Essential Queer Book Everyone Must Read

Voices and reading for the marginalised

6 min read

Just now

I do love to talk about a good book, particularly when it covers queer themes, and that is exactly what I’m going to do today discussing Who’s Afraid of Gender? by American philosopher and feminist Judith Butler.

Judith Butler is very well known as a feminist and advocate of queer liberation. She is probably most well-known for her book Gender Trouble, which analyses the nature of gender and puts forth her concept of gender performativity, which posits that gender is a performance people enact to fit in certain roles expected of them by society.

Who’s Afraid of Gender? isn’t a dense philosophy book that sets out to cover the nature of gender as her previous work does. Instead, Butler devotes the book to attacking what she calls the anti-gender movement of today. Figures such as Joanne Rowling, Chris Rufo and even the administration of Donald Trump are all mentioned in the book numerous times as Butler tries to dissect and get to the bottom of what this movement is.

My first impression of Who’s Afraid of Gender? was that it works very well communicating a clear message. I read Gender Trouble some time ago, and I’m not afraid to admit I had some trouble grasping it, turning to reading guides and reviews in order to get a good…