Judith Butler addresses TERFs and the work of Sheila Jeffreys and Janice Raymond

Judith Butler is a preeminent gender theorist and has played an extraordinarily influential role in shaping modern feminism. She’s written extensively on gender and her concept of gender performativity is a central theme of both modern feminism and gender theory. Butler’s essays and books include Performative Acts and Gender Constitution (1988), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993) and Undoing Gender (2004). However, the concept of gender perfomativity has been used – and some would assert – abused to support a number of positions that misconstrues Butler’s work. I therefore wanted to ask Butler about what she really thinks about gender and the trans experience. Along the way Butler specifically addresses TERFs and the work of Sheila Jeffreys and Janice Raymond. Cristan Williams: You spoke about the surgical intervention many trans people undergo as a “very brave transformation.”

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