Let's face it. We're undone by each other. And if we're not, we're missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact.
Judith ButlerI want to say that the way in which we understand gender actually changes the way we live gender.
Judith ButlerThe real question is how do you survive at the same time you pose those risks? Because you need to survive. And it seems to me that you survive in community or in solidarity, with others who are taking the risk with you.
Judith ButlerThere is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original.
Judith ButlerGenocide is not a legitimate option. It's not ok to decide that an entire population has no right to live in the world. No matter whether these relationships are very proximate or very distant, there is no entitlement to expunge a population or to demean its basic humanity.
Judith ButlerIt's not like it's a brand new vocabulary that permits to have a new reality. It's rather a new vocabulary that lets us see that our lives have always been more complex than traditional categories allow. So, I think, you know, maybe the introduction of new words permits us to rethink what we've taken for granted about what forms bodies take, what the name is for certain kinds of sexual, intimate relations, how we think of a life.
Judith Butler