Abandoning trans people is ‘fascist logic’, says feminist philosopher Judith Butler

Feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar Judith Butler has said that abandoning trans people is akin to “operating within a fascist logic.”

The academic, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, criticised those in power who appear to believe trans people are an expendable part of the political discussion.

“Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic,” they said. “That means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice and a third, a fourth. Then what happens?”

Butler’s comments came during an interview with El Pais, after they were ranked among the top influential pioneers of the year.

During a discussion about the current state of political discourse, Butler was asked whether Donald Trump’s rejection of so-called gender identity helped him win the presidential election.

“People were already living with many fears about the economy, war, climate catastrophe,” they said. “Trump knew how to exploit and repackage those fears to scapegoat minorities. That message appealed to anxiety.”

Trump was an expert at combining prejudicial issues in his favour, attacking political opponent Kamala Harris as “the woke, the Marxist, the feminist, Black and brown, who presumably supports trans surgery”, Butler added.

“On the left, we don’t know how to appeal to people’s deep passions. We think we’re very smart and very critical. But where’s the radical imaginary by which people will be passionately absorbed?

“I did not like the blame game that started after the defeat. I did not like the pundits who said: ‘Oh, we didn’t realise how anti-trans and anti-migrant people are’.”

Following the election in November, some Democrats, including US house representatives Tom Suozzi and Seth Moulton, said the party should ban trans women from competitive sports.

“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face,” Moulton told The New York Times. “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.

“But, as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

When asked about Democrats veering away from supporting trans rights because they “affect very few people,” Butler argued: “You could say that about the Jews, Black people or Haitians.”

On vice-president Harris, they said: “I don’t agree with a lot of what she stands for, fracking, migration, Palestine, and I did not actively support her candidacy. But I did vote for her.

“We have a pernicious history of misogyny which is being celebrated in the person of Trump. He has done more than any other American person to demean and degrade women as a class. The more people who say they can ‘live with’ racism and misogyny in a candidate, even if they’re not enthusiastic racists, the more the enthusiastic racists and fascists become stronger.”

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