From a global icon a bold essential account of how a fear of gender is fueling reactionary
politics around the world. Judith Butler the groundbreaking thinker whose iconic book Gender
Trouble 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" that are dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a
dangerous perhaps diabolical threat to families local cultures civilization-and even "man"
himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures this movement has sought to nullify
reproductive justice undermine protections against sexual and gender violence and strip trans
and queer people of their rights to pursue a life without fear of violence. The aim of Who's
Afraid of Gender? is not to offer a new theory of gender but to examine how "gender" has become
a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes fascist formations and transexclusionary
feminists. In their vital courageous new book Butler illuminates the concrete ways that this
phantasm of "gender" collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction. Operating in
tandem with deceptive accounts of "critical race theory" and xenophobic panics about migration
the anti-gender movement demonizes struggles for equality fuels aggressive nationalism 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 bold call to refuse the
alliance with authoritarian movements and to make a broad coalition with all those whose
struggle for equality is linked with fighting injustice. Imagining new possibilities for both
freedom and solidarity Butler offers us a hopeful work of social and political analysis that
is both timely and timeless-a book whose verve and rigor only they could deliver.
