Editing Judith Butler (section)

===''Gender Trouble'' (1990)===
{{Main|Gender Trouble}}

''Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity'' was first published in 1990, selling over 100,000 copies internationally, in multiple languages.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Loizidou|first=Elena|date=2007-04-11|title=Judith Butler: Ethics, Law, Politics|pages=1|doi=10.4324/9780203945186|isbn=978-0-203-94518-6}}</ref> Similar to "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution," ''Gender Trouble'' discusses the works of [[Sigmund Freud]], [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Julia Kristeva]], [[Jacques Lacan]], [[Luce Irigaray]], [[Monique Wittig]], [[Jacques Derrida]], and [[Michel Foucault]].<ref name="Direk-2020">{{cite book |last=Direk |first=Zeynep |title=Ontologies of Sex: Philosophy in Sexual Politics |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ep7pDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA112 |series=Reframing the boundaries |date=15 June 2020 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |pages=112 |isbn=978-1-78660-664-8 |oclc=1122448218 |chapter=4. Different Ontologies in Queer Theory}}</ref>

Butler offers a critique of the terms ''gender'' and ''sex'' as they have been used by feminists.<ref>{{cite book|title=Judith Butler| chapter=A Dictionary of Critical Theory |url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?entry=t306.e100&srn=1&ssid=460269119#FIRSTHIT|publisher=Oxford reference Online Premium|isbn=978-0-19-953291-9|date=January 2010|doi=10.1093/acref/9780199532919.001.0001}}</ref> Butler argues that feminism made a mistake in trying to make "women" a discrete, ahistorical group with common characteristics. Butler writes that this approach reinforces the binary view of gender relations. Butler believes that feminists should not try to define "women" and they also believe that feminists should "focus on providing an account of how power functions and shapes our understandings of womanhood not only in the society at large but also within the feminist movement."<ref>{{cite book|title=Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/|publisher=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|year=2017}}</ref> Finally, Butler aims to break the supposed links between sex and gender so that gender and desire can be "flexible, free floating and not caused by other stable factors" (David Gauntlett).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Butler |first=Paul |date=2004 |title=Embracing AIDS: History, Identity, and Post-AIDS Discourse |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20866614 |journal=JAC |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=102 |jstor=20866614 }}</ref> The idea of identity as free and flexible and gender as performative, not an essence, has become one of the foundations of [[queer theory]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=He |first=Li |date=2017 |title=The Construction of Gender: Judith Butler and Gender Performativity |url=https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/25878697.pdf |journal=Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research |volume=124 |pages=4 |via=Atlantis Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Browne |first=Evie |date=2019 |title=ALIGN Guide: Gender norms, LGBTQI issues and development |url=https://www.alignplatform.org/2-queer-theory-and-gender-norms |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240229031241/https://www.alignplatform.org/2-queer-theory-and-gender-norms#js-page |archive-date=February 29, 2024 |access-date=February 28, 2024 |website=Advancing Learning and Innovation on Gender Norms (ALIGN) |url-status=live }}</ref>