An Instant Sunday Times Bestseller

'A profoundly urgent intervention' Naomi Klein

Shouldn't we know what we're arguing about?

From one of the most influential thinkers of our time, an enlightening, essential account of how a fear of gender is fuelling reactionary politics around the world

Judith Butler, the ground-breaking philosopher whose work has redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on gender that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed ‘anti-gender ideology movements’ dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilization – and even ‘man’ himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to abolish reproductive justice, undermine protections against violence, and strip trans and queer people of their rights.

But what, exactly, is so disturbing about gender? In this vital, courageous book, Butler carefully examines how ‘gender’ has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations and transexclusionary feminists, and the concrete ways in which this phantasm works. Operating in tandem with deceptive accounts of critical race theory and xenophobic panics about migration, the anti-gender movement demonizes struggles for equality and leaves millions of people vulnerable to subjugation.

An essential intervention into one of the most fraught issues of our moment, Who's Afraid of Gender? is a galvanizing call to make a broad coalition with all those who struggle for equality and fight injustice. Imagining new possibilities for freedom and solidarity, Butler offers us an essentially hopeful work that is both timely and timeless.

"An argument for how a fear of gender is fuelling reactionary politics around the world from one of the leading authorities on the subject" - Financial Times, What to Read in 2024

"One of our foremost thinkers returns with an essential polemic on gender, an urgent frontline of the culture wars... Who’s Afraid of Gender? calls for gender expression to be recognized as a basic human right, and for radical solidarity across our differences. With masterful analysis of where we’ve been and an inspiring vision for where we must go next, this book resounds like an impassioned depth charge" - Esquire, Best Books of 2024

"Timely… urgent… Butler’s work contributes to a long and rich history… they draw attention to the ways that the issue of gender can bring people together instead of driving them apart" - iNews

"Compelling… it is refreshing to see such a tribal issue interrogated with thoughtful research, as opposed to vicious fearmongering" - Evening Standard

"An appeal for gender diversity… this is the most accessible of Judith Butler’s books so far, an intervention meant for a wide audience… urgent" - Guardian

"Both a clarifying exploration of how we got here and a clarion call for different, less fearful, less cramped ways of thinking about the world. With their signature critical focus on what we think of as ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’, Butler pins down the history behind the contemporary cultural battle over gender" - Dazed

"This book is Judith Butler’s response to the demonisation and politicisation of gender theory… Across the globe, Butler claims, fascist passions are being stirred… Whatever political cause is being served by these passions, it is certainly not freedom… in order to have necessarily difficult debates about the right to bodily autonomy we need to identify what is a real threat to freedoms and what isn’t" - New Statesman

"One of America’s foremost theorists and philosophers, known for their influential work in gender studies, queer theory and third-wave feminism, has returned with an investigation into why gender has become one of the fraught issues of the moment" - iNews, Best New Books, March 2024

"A vital read by one of the greatest living third-wave feminist philosophers, Judith Butler navigates the tumultuous realm of gender identity in order to reveal just how straightforward it really is. Butler questions what it is society finds so disturbing about gender, tracing the history of gender politics through their invaluable theoretical lens" - Evening Standard

"When I first began reading Who's Afraid of Gender, I was at the gym. A bro walked past, fingers clicking, nodding. I like this! they said. Reading during the break! I nodded back. Yeah, bro. And when I returned to Butler, everything I knew — or thought I knew — went on breaking" - ABC News

"Philosopher and gender studies scholar Judith Butler is back with Who’s Afraid of Gender?, an exploration into the dangers of anti-gender ideology, trans-exclusionary thinking and homophobic rhetoric... sure to be a pertinent, thought-provoking read" - Country and Town House, Best New Books 2024

"A cogent and deeply thoughtful case against the right’s attempts to limit ideas of gender to male and female, offering philosophical and historical evidence to support a fluid system in which all people might present authentically" - Los Angeles Times

"In their first trade-press book, Butler makes a concerted effort to keep Who’s Afraid of Gender? accessible and jargon-free... the rigor of the thought and the work of accompanying the movement of that thought brings its own kind of pleasure" - Slate

"The philosopher turned pop celebrity dismantles how gender has been constructed as a threat throughout the modern world — to national security in Russia; to civilization, according to the Vatican; to the traditional family . . . In a single word, “gender” holds the power to seemingly drive people mad with fear" - New York Times

"If we want to see the political temperature fall to something that might allow for progress, there are few thinkers better placed to guide us than Butler. Crucially, Butler sets out an ethical vision for how gender freedoms and rights might be better integrated within a collective “broader struggle for a social and economic world that eliminates precarity and provides health care, shelter, and food” for everyone everywhere" - Lancet

"A surprise Sunday Times bestseller. Butler’s is a wide-reaching academic tract which positions the brutality of the British gender debate on the worldwide stage next to the anti-trans political heft anchored by Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni and Vladimir Putin. It takes judicious aim at The Vatican’s arch hypocrisy on child abuse. Online dialogue is short, sharp, reactive and can be vituperative. Conversely, we may be living through a golden age of trans-adjacent literature" - Evening Standard

"A deeply informed critique of the malicious initiatives currently using gender as a political tool to arouse fear... This is a wonderfully thoughtful and impassioned book on a critically important centerpiece of contemporary authoritarianism and patriarchy. A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes" - Kirkus Reviews

"Thoughtful and powerfully assured, this is an essential take on an ongoing political battle" - Publishers Weekly

"Judith Butler is no stranger to publishing groundbreaking works... Now, Butler’s latest work explores how fear and discomfort around [traditional gender roles and sexuality] is fuelling a global rise in reactionary politics — and offers solutions to combat the growing intolerance of individual differences" - W Magazine, Best Books of 2024

"An international celebrity academic. . . Butler's influence is immense" - New Yorker

"The radical theorist who spawned a gender-queer nation - and became a pop celebrity in the process" - The Cut