One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s _Gender Trouble_ is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated (...) social _performance _rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent. (shrink)

In ____Bodies That Matter,__ Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most "material" dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in _Gender_ _Trouble,_ Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain "sex" from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She offers (...) a clarification of the notion of "performativity" introduced in _Gender Trouble_ and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; "Paris is Burning," Nella Larsen's "Passing," and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of "performativity" and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory. (shrink)

This article will provide a critique of tworecent English marriage law decisions, thefirst concerning a (female to male) transgenderman and the second a (male to female)intersexed woman. It will do so throughconsideration of the dialogue between each andthe landmark transgender case of Corbett v. Corbett. It will highlight howboth decisions, in seeking to minimise the factof `departure' from Corbett, serve toreproduce key elements of that decision whichserve to undermine the future prospects fortransgender law reform in the English context.In particular, both (...) decisions, in differentways, or with different emphases, ensure that`legal sex' continues to be determined by(bio)logical and temporal factors. Crucially,however, as in Corbett, it is legalanxiety over the boundaries of the `natural',and the homophobia of law, that underscoresthis anxiety, that account for these particularconstructions of `legal sex'. (shrink)