Who's Afraid of Gender?: Solidarity, Radical Democracy, and the Global Politics of the Anti–Gender Ideology Movement: A Conversation with Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam

For this installment of Q², we continue our focus on the upsurge in the political targeting of queer and trans peoples, knowledges, areas of study, and scholars that we began in the previous Q² section (June 2024, 30.3), which focused on US right-wing attacks on queer of color critique.

A conversation between Judith Butler and Jack Halberstam that took place at the Dia Center in New York City on April 6, 2024 discussing the release of Butler's new book Who's Afraid of Gender?, this Q² discusses the global scope and ambitions of varied right-wing social movements, religious institutions, feminist groups, and liberal thinkers who in different ways oppose and target so-called “gender ideology” and trans and nonbinary political struggle. While at times it is the state that seeks to delegitimate and outlaw transgender and nonbinary lives, as Butler and Halberstam discuss, just as often it...