post-structuralist philosopher queer theorist
Judith Butler is an American academic whose theories of the performative nature of gender and sex were influential within Francocentric philosophy, cultural theory, queer theory, and some schools of philosophical feminism from the late 20th century. Her best-known book is Gender Trouble (1990) and its sequel Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (1993). In these works, Butler built upon the familiar cultural-theoretic assumption that gender is socially constructed rather than innate and that conventional notions of gender and sexuality serve to perpetuate the traditional domination of women by men and to justify the oppression of homosexuals and transgender persons.
Butler’s work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory.