Katha Pollitt, the longtime feminist critic and commentator at The Nation, on the latest blather from Judith Butler (in The Atlantic, not The Nation, which tends to tread rather lightly on this topic); an excerpt:

The central idea of Who’s Afraid of Gender? is that fascism is gaining strength around the world, and that its weapon is what Butler calls the “phantasm of gender,” which they describe as a confused and irrational bundle of fears that displaces real dangers onto imaginary ones. Instead of facing up to the problems of, for example, war, declining living standards, environmental damage, and climate change, right-wing leaders whip up hysteria about threats to patriarchy, traditional families, and heterosexuality….

Butler is obviously correct that the authoritarian right sets itself against feminism and modern sexual rights and freedom. This nothing new….But is the gender phantasm as crucial to the global far right as Butler claims? Butler has little to say about the appeal of nationalism and community, insistence on ethnic purity, opposition to immigration, anxiety over economic and social stresses, fear of middle-class-status loss, hatred of “elites.” If I had to say why Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is so popular, it would be less his invocation of the gender phantasm and more his ruthless determination to keep immigrants out, especially Muslim ones, along with his delivery of massive social services to families in an attempt to raise the birth rate. He neatly combines anti-feminist rhetoric about women’s duty to produce more Hungarians with policies that aim to make it easier for mothers to hold jobs, which is, however tacitly, feminist….

The chapter of Who’s Afraid of Gender? that is most relevant for American and British readers is probably the one about the women, many of them British, whom opponents call “TERFs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), but who call themselves “gender-critical feminists.” It’s a clunky, confusing label, and Butler spends a lot of time attacking it. About the substance of gender-critical-feminist arguments, they have much less to say. They discuss only two authors at any length, the philosopher Kathleen Stock and J. K. Rowling. Butler does not engage with their writing in any detail—they do not quote even one sentence from Stock’s Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism, a serious book that has been much discussed, or indeed from any other gender-crit work, except for some writing from Rowling, including her essay in which she describes domestic violence at the hands of her first husband, an accusation he admits to in part….

Butler wants to dismiss gender-crits as fascist-adjacent: Indeed, in an interview, they compare Stock and Rowling to Putin and the pope. Unfortunately for Butler, many of the major figures in the movement are liberals and leftists, many are lesbians, and many, such as Joan Smith and Julie Bindel, have a long history of fighting misogyny and male violence.

It does seem odd that Butler, for whom everything about the body is socially produced, would be so uninterested in exploring the ways that trans identity is itself socially produced, at least in part—by, for example, homophobia and misogyny and the hypersexualization of young girls, by social media and online life, by the increasing popularity of cosmetic surgery, by the libertarian-individualist presumption that you can be whatever you want. Butler seems to suggest that being trans is being your authentic self, but what is authenticity? In every other context, Butler works to demolish the idea of the eternal human—everything is contingent—except for when it comes to being transgender. There, the individual, and only the individual, knows themself….

Butler calls for a coalition of allies to combat the gender phantasm. That would be a very good thing, but they’re preaching to the choir. They cite the civil-rights activist and singer Bernice Johnson Reagon’s call for “difficult coalitions” but forget that coalitions necessarily involve compromise and choosing your battles, not just accusing people of sharing the views of fascists if they don’t believe, for example, that a man can have a baby or that people should be able to change their gender just by filling out a form. Why would gender-critical feminists join such a movement?

Butler seems to want their opponents to simply cave…So here’s a thought: What if instead of trying to suppress the questioning of skeptics, we admit we don’t have many answers? What if, instead, we had a conversation? After all, isn’t that what philosophy is all about?

Butler, of course, isn't a philosopher, in any familiar sense of that term: "analytic," "classical German," "Socratic," "Marxist," "Nietzschean."  Or if she is a "philosopher," it's in the same sense that Ayn Rand, Leo Strauss, or Derrida are.  Like the latter charlatans, the point is not to have a "conversation.