Who’s afraid of Judith Butler, the “godmother of queer theory”?

There was a time when outlandish theories about gender were confined to the fringes of social-science faculties. Now such notions—and particularly the idea that sex is mutable—are debated everywhere, from kitchen tables and pubs to state legislatures, thanks to a few academics. Chief among them is Judith Butler of the University of California, Berkeley, known as “the godmother of queer theory”. As the revolution Butler helped start has recently met with more intellectual and political resistance, the author has written a new book in its defence.