voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. the debate about sex, gender and identity has become perhaps the most hotly contested front in the culture wars. at its heart are deep disagreements about what makes us who we are, the limits of self—determination, and the relationship between the individual and wider society. my guest is the philosopher and gender theorist judith butler, whose ideas on genderfluidity and transgender rights have put them at odds with conservative politicians, authoritarian rulers, religious leaders and some feminists too.

is this a debate in which both sides are driven by fear? judith butler, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. i'm glad to be here. well, it's a pleasure to have you here. you have a long academic career. you've written some very well—known books on gender theory. i just wonder, in your view, whether this debate about gender has fundamentally changed? has the climate around it really changed? yes, i think it has. i think at the beginning of gender studies, a very important field within feminism, in the beginning

of queer theory, we talked about gender in different ways. we talked about the gender division of labour or gender differentials when we're discussing literacy or education — how many men or women are getting certain benefits. it was an important way of thinking about a powerful social structure in society, mainly with the idea of trying to achieve greater equality or trying to understand why hierarchies exist and what we might do to get over them. but there was also gender identity, which is different from gender as a mode of analysis and a way of thinking about power differentials in society. and, of course, gender identity has to do with becoming a man, becoming a woman, how one perceives oneself, how one lives in one�*s body. and these topics are important for many people and have become

more controversial over time. many people watching and listening now will think, actually, "this is pretty simple, pretty "straightforward." to define what a man is and what a woman is doesn't require a lot of discussion on a university campus. we all know, don't we, what a man is and what a woman is? well, the question of sex determination and how it works is a big issue in health care and medicine and in biology. so scientists have, in fact, changed their paradigms over the years, and there's still open and interesting discussion about what is more primary. is it what we observe — perceptual data? is it chromosomes? is it hormones? is it a combination of those things? what about social and psychological factors? do they count as well? how do we recognise that? so, actually the question of sex determination

is an interdisciplinary form of inquiry, and quite important. are we talking just about humans or other creatures? so, just to be clear, then, judith, i perhaps assumed that biological sex was pretty straightforward. you know, at birth you are assigned male orfemale and that was about biology. and i then thought, "well, gender and all of the discussion today "around gender is much more about societal constructs, "about the pressures brought to bear upon people "from the point of birth. "it's a much more nuanced, a much more fluid area. "but biology and sex really isn't." are you saying that sex itself is fluid? no, i'm not saying that sex itself is fluid. i worry that that term "fluidity" is a bit overused. it was never a favourite term of mine, although i see i'm associated with it. it's kind of comic to me in that regard. to be clear, you have defined yourself as nonbinary, so in that sense...

yes, but that's hardly fluid. thatjust means i don't fit in either category very well. but that's always been true. it's not something new. it's just there's a word for it now. so, when evolutionary biologists like richard dawkins say, "actually, there is something "fundamentally binary about sex. yes. "..about x and y chromosomes," is he right or wrong in your view? well, x and y chromosomes are more often distinct than not. but sometimes a y is broken and sometimes there's a double x or double y. and dawkins himself would certainly be among those who would agree to that. i think the real question is developmental biology and the feminist work that's been done in that area. and in that area, interactive models have become extremely important. we can't say sex is over here at a biological level, and then gender is over here at the cultural and social level, because if we see how sexual development takes place, it's actually always in interaction with

an environment. and in another effortjust to be clear about terms, before we get deeper into this debate, when you talk about gender, you've made it plain over years that you find something about gender which is performative. and this word "performative" seems quite important, but i'm not entirely sure i understand it. so what do you mean about the way in which we use gender in a performative way? well, let me go back to something you said earlier, which might be helpful. you said in the beginning an infant is born and there's biological sex, and there's sex assignment. biological sex is not social or cultural. it's just there. but you said sex assignment is there as a social practice, as a legal practice, as a medical practice. right? so determining a sex is, at that very moment, a social practice. we might even say that a sex is established through social,

legal and medical means when we are talking about sex designation. now, if you say "biology" and you mean something completely simple, then i don't know — it seems most scientists might take exception to that, since what dimension of biology are we talking about? usually, in a hospital, there's a perceived difference. a young child has a penis or it does not. click... you know, check that box. but what do we know about the chromosomal composition of that person, the hormonal composition of that person, or how that person is going to live in the wake of that sex assignment? will they like it? will they not? will they find it liveable, something they can work with? fine. will they find it insufferable, something they can't live with? no. and then the big question is...they have a right... do they have a right to change that assignment? and if we're in favour of liveable lives, then we say yes. now, you've been writing books for more than three decades. the latest one, who's afraid of gender?, if i may say so,

is politically provocative. because what you... i should hope so. what you seem to be doing is saying there is a sort of global alliance of political forces which runs from — to pluck them out of the air — the pope in the vatican, vladimir putin in the kremlin, donald trump's republicans on manoeuvres in the united states, to a whole host of other authoritarians, including orban in hungary, erdogan in turkey and a whole host of other socially conservative political movements. all of them, all of these different movements, rulers and people, part of an alliance which is anti—gender in your view. there is an organisation with technology and members and documents that is simply called the anti—gender ideology movement. so, my worry has been that people don't know that this movement exists. and some of the local debates we hear about about gender — yes and no to gender —

don't realise that these debates are happening at a much larger level with extreme consequences. most of the anti—gender ideology movement people are telling us that books should be removed from school, that words should not be used, that sex education should be abolished, that natal sex is natural and god—given, and that there's nothing social, cultural or biologically complex for any of us. you call that deeply authoritarian. indeed, you tie it to tropes of fascism — you know, racial purity, obsession with the sort of family unit. i guess i would object to that. i think that someone like orban is a good example. he is clearly anti—gender. he puts that in his speeches and we can document that. and when he goes to the united states and talks to cpac, he also talks against gender, this nefarious

ideology — the vatican calls it a diabolical ideology. so this is documented in this book. right. my point was going to be, though, that while you label all these different authoritarians, isn't the truth that many people who are not living under the thumb of authoritarian rule, many people who live in democracies and, you know, who think about issues and think about what they truly believe, they come out on the side of, you know, what in many democracies are called socially conservative movements. they, in democracies, vote many times for people who advocate these views which you tie to a form of authoritarianism or, indeed, fascism. i think you might be misconstruing my position, so i hope you don't mind if i clarify. please. i think that one of the aims of the anti—gender ideology movement, as it's been articulated through latin america, through eastern europe

and now through central africa and parts of east asia, is to maintain that gender is a destructive force and that it will destroy the family, it will destroy your sex identity, it will take away the ideas of mother and father, that it's destructive on the order of the atomic bomb or like the ebola virus, which are figures that many of these opponents use. so when we're talking about that movement, we are talking about people who are stirring up fears and who are also in favour of increasingly strong governments and the limitation of freedoms, which includes the freedom of women to pursue reproductive rights. but we don't have to look far afield to see the power of the political movement, because it's there in the united states, your own country. of course, it's in the evangelical community. and we see democratically elected state legislatures which are taking policy

decisions which you deeply disapprove of to limit access of young people to hormone treatments and other therapies. actually, i don't have an opinion on that, so i would ask you to be a little more cautious. i think young people deserve to explore their genders in a judgment—free environment, and i think they should take their time in figuring out who they want to be and how they want to be called and what kind of health care they need. what about education? ithink... you know, state legislatures are being much tougher in terms of restricting certain books and informations from the school curriculum. i think it's a good thing that people learn about human sexuality and that they understand the diversity of human sexuality, different sexual orientations... including information about transgender identity? of course. you see, donald trump is going to the people in 2024 saying this, and i'm

going to quote him — "i'll ask congress to pass a bill establishing that there "are only two genders recognised by the government, "male and female. "these are assigned at birth." and he goes on to say, "no serious country should be telling its children "that they were born possibly with the wrong gender," "a concept," he says, "that was never heard of "in all human history. "under my leadership, this madness will end." yes, of course, it's... transgender people can be found throughout history and throughout various indigenous cultures and in various places in the united states. the problem is that transgender people have not been able to come out very freely or openly. trump's own health education department under his last regime refuted his effort to say that gender is nothing other than natal sex, the sex assigned at birth — and they tried to push this along and they came up against so many legal battles

and so many scepticisms from the scientific community, including scientific american, that they had to give it up. so he can do that for rhetorical reasons, but everything in that sentence turns out to be false. well, i can tell, judith butler, that you relish the fight with people like donald trump... no. ..or indeed the pope or viktor orban or vladimir putin. no. i've never had a fight with any of them. i actually... well, it's a rhetoricalfight. it's an intellectual battle, which... no. actually, if you look carefully, you'll see that my book is actually an effort to tone it down, because people are afraid of gender. they imagine it's preposterous, it's ridiculous, it's dangerous, it will destroy the family, it'll destroy religion. it has none of those powers. but i suppose what i was going to ask you is whether you worry about the fact that not only, you know, are you, one way or another, taking on these forces that we've just discussed, but you're also antagonising, and in a sense,

taking on a significant sample of feminists. you know what. .. i would imagine you call... i don't know if you call yourself a feminist. i've always been a feminist and i will die a feminist. so, does it concern you that in this country, the united kingdom, for example, there is a significant body of feminist opinion which thinks you've got this wrong. i understand that, but what saddens me greatly, and i would expect it might sadden you as well, is that feminists who rehearse the same arguments that putin, orban, meloni, milei, bolsonaro, erdogan rehearse... but they don't. yes, they do. they would absolutely refute that. no, no, that's not true. you'd have to document that for me, but i've been reading them rather carefully. perhaps you're reading them more carefully than i am. i'd like to know if that's true. but... well, let me just give you a quote from a review of your book from a feminist who's got a powerful voice in the uk, sarah ditum. she writes, "judith butler is out to pathologise "those who disagree with her.

"she doesn't differentiate between the authoritarian "bigotry of a viktor orban and the right�*s balancing "concerns of a left—wing feminist." well, i think that's just wrong. i pathologise no—one. i do think there's a fantasmatic scene in which gender is being discussed. so you ask me, "has it become more controversial?" yes. "are there unnecessary fears about what gender "is or what it can do?" yes. "do we need a more modest and sober analysis of "what gender actually is and what it is not?" yes, that is exactly right. so i pathologise no—one, but i do think that much of the discussion of gender is infused with this idea that it's going to take rights away, that it's going to strip people of their rights, it's going to take over the territory of women, it's going to undermine feminism — and actually the anti—gender ideology movement, if we look at the right—wing movement as it's constituted itself, it's against feminism,

it's against gay and lesbian parenting rights, it's against trans people. so it actually includes all of us together. and we would be so foolish not to fight it together. so what i ask the trans exclusionary feminists is, "why haven't you much... "especially if you call yourself left, why haven't "you distinguished your arguments more strongly "from those of bolsonaro and orban and putin?" that's what i'm waiting for, and i haven't yet seen it. but i think they would say, "why, also, have you not accepted that there is a great "deal of complexity and nuance to some of these very "practical questions when it comes to, for example, "tra nsgender rights? " if one takes a signal issue for a lot of feminists in the uk, it's about the sanctity of safe spaces for women. . . yes. ..particularly women who've experienced sexual abuse... yes. ..at the hands of males. yes. and the concern they have is that if one goes down the track of self—identification,

and indeed perhaps even certification of transgender people — and in this case, it would be a transgender woman who was assigned at birth to be male — they say allowing those people into women—only safe spaces actually takes away security, the right to security, of women in that space. because they're imagining those trans women as sexual violators. now, there might be one or two. we can bring out the cases in which they were. but do they stand for an entire group of people? well, no. i think what they're doing is empathising deeply with those women who've suffered abuse in the past and don't want to be in a space with somebody who walks in — and to put it crudely — with a penis. well, i... it seems to me that — and i hope you would agree with me — that not all people who have a penis are sexual violators. not at all. but in the minds —

and this is about empathy — in the minds of those particular women who've sought out a safe space, free, if i can put it this way, of penises, it's a problem... it is a problem. ..when somebody�*s identifying as a woman walks in, but they know that person has a penis. well, i think we have to ask ourselves some questions. for instance, in women's prisons, by whom are women in prison sexually violated? the largest number of people who are in fact violating them are guards. 0k? and other women. and occasionally you will get that very rare instance of a trans woman who will be a violator, but she doesn't get to stand for the whole class. so if we really care about sexual violence in prison, we also want to know what happens if a trans woman is put in a men's prison. what happens to that person's body? are they safe from sexual violation? i think not. so, clearly, if we're against sexual violence in prison, we need

a comprehensive policy that includes the rights not to be harmed by all inmates, by all of those imprisoned, regardless of gender. you said to me earlier that one intention behind this book is to actually defuse some of the tensions, perhaps lower the temperature in the current gender debate. yes. the temperature is very high. yes. and we've seen that some of the people you disagree with in academia or in writing — and i'm thinking of kathleen stock, for example, like you, a professor of philosophy, who left the university of sussex... i know. ..after vilification and she would say intimidation by trans activists... yes. i just wonder whether your... the vilification goes both ways, and my hope was to try to write a book that was not about vilifying. i think we actually need to have a quieter, more thoughtful conversation about these issues without attributing aims of sexual violation to trans women,

without making lots of fearful claims... but... ..as if we're... i'm sorry to interrupt, but it's just going back to the point earlier. do you think that associating, for example, british feminists with authoritarians and sometimes even neofascists around the world, do you think that is lowering the temperature? oh, i think most of the british feminists i know are very much on my side. i know that many are, but i'm talking about those who are not. well, it's a small group and they are very loud and they have made their views known. and, unfortunately, they very often write in snide ways with lots of invective. and i'm sorry that kathleen stock lost her position under those conditions. i actually think we need not to vilify one another, and i hope for conversations and even coalitions in which these invective—filled scenes can be turned into something more thoughtful. yeah.

i was going to end with a thought about coalitions, because it seems to me you have a very big sort of world view and ambition. you want the gender activism that you're involved in, and the writing, to be part of a much bigger movement forjustice in terms of... let's remember... ..race and other minorities. ..feminism is gender activism. feminism is gender activism. i just wonder whether you think the message you are sending to the world is truly going to unite these different interests, these different... i think it'll make people think twice. and if i achieve that, that's great. but you have to realise that we're living in a world, for instance, where people... ..where nations that signed the istanbul convention... what does the istanbul convention do? it protects women and children against harm and violation in the family, in the workplace, in the public sphere. they, the folks who are taking their signature away from the istanbul convention,

including erdogan himself, don't want the word "gender—based violence" in that convention. they don't want to use "gender—based violence". just a final thought... and gender... no. ..about the state of world politics, because we're almost out of time. i understand. but gender—based violence is a feminist issue. right. do you think... gender equity is a feminist issue. these people are against feminists, so we do need to get together in order to see that we don't want to be associated with authoritarians who are going to rob us of all of our rights. final thought. that's my final thought. yeah. well, here's my final question, then. you'll have to come up with a thought. when you look around the world at the shape of global politics — we talked about donald trump, we talked about vladimir putin, we could talk about authoritarianism or social conservatism on the rise in so many different parts of the world — do you think the tide is with you or against you? i'm not acting as an individual here. i think we are responsible

for making the tide. we have to... we have to ally feminists, queer, trans people who are against the hideous treatment of migrants, who are against war, who want to see a more equal free world, who want to cohabit on a planet that isn't destroyed. i think we have to fight for that vision. judith butler, we have to end there. but i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. 0k. all right. thank you very much. hello, there.

tuesday was another chilly day for most of us, but there was plenty of glorious sunshine across more northern and western parts of the country through the day. behind me, the scene of central glasgow with the blue skies overhead, temperatures reaching, again, the mid—teens celsius here, but quite a contrast further east where we had more cloud pushing in off the north sea. it was pretty chilly here in cambridge with those grey leaden skies, even the odd spit and spot of drizzle. the next few days it stays similar with chilly weather for all of us, but staying really chilly across eastern areas where we hold on to the cloud, best of the sunshine further west closer to this area of high pressure. but for wednesday, we're still in a run of northerly winds, particularly brisk close to north sea coasts. and much of the northwest of europe remains locked with this arctic air mass in place. so it does remain on the chilly side both by day and by night. however, again, wednesday eastern areas will see most of the cloud, the strongest of the breeze, maybe a few showers. best of the sunshine will be northern and western areas. i think we could see more sunshine

around on wednesday than we've had the last few days, but slightly chillier air mass, i think — highs of 13—14 degrees in the warmest spots, single digits along north sea coasts. so as we head through wednesday night, we could see an area of more organised showers, long spells of rain pushing into northern scotland. there will be some snow on the hills — the air is cold enough for that. elsewhere, it's a dry and a chilly night, a touch of frost where skies will be clear. thursday, then, it's a similar story. another chilly day starts off with some sunshine, could see the cloud building up, so we ought to see some scattered showers developing across northern and eastern england and scotland. again, wintry on the hills of both northern england and scotland, but some sunny spells in between. best of the temperatures down towards the south west, 12—13 degrees — chilly for most. subtle changes as we head into friday, we start to see low pressure beginning to develop and push northward. so i think it'll turn cloudier through the day on friday across southern britain and northern ireland, outbreaks of rain here. still quite chilly, though, across the northern half of the uk — certainly, showers will be of sleet and snow certainly over the hills.

quite a messy picture to come. again, question marks on this. you'll have to stay tuned to the forecast for the details. but it looks like friday will be another chilly day, temperatures of 8—12 celsius from north to south. as you move out of friday into the start of this coming weekend, it looks like low pressure will take over across the south. the country will be turning windier with a strong easterly wind. outbreaks of rain, longer spells of rain, in fact, maybe some wintriness over the high ground. for the northern half of the country — scotland, northern ireland — doing pretty well on saturday with some sunshine, but chilly, a few wintry showers certainly on the hills. temperatures beginning to creep up, though, in the south as we start to draw some warmer air off the near continent. and that's the theme to come. as we look further ahead then, into the weekend and into the following week, it does look like low pressure will be sticking close by, pretty much dominating the scene, in fact, bringing showers or longer spells of rain. there will be some sunshine, i think, around, but generally staying unsettled. one thing we will notice is we will lose this arctic air mass which has been sitting across the country for over

a week and replace it with some warmer air from the near continent. so that will be noticeable as we move through the weekend, into the following week, into the early part of may. temperatures will be creeping up closer to the seasonal norm. however, with low pressure always nearby, i think it will generally stay on the unsettled side. but details will change so stay tuned.

live from london. this is bbc news. the us senate has given final approval for tens of billions of dollars in military aid for ukraine, israel and taiwan after months of stalemate in congress. to our friends to ourfriends in ukraine, our allies in nato and our allies in israel, and to sue billions around the world in need of help, help is on the way. america's top diplomat antony blinken is visiting china, where he's expected to urge beijing to end its military support for russia a special report from the english channel — as a bbc team witnesses a fatal migrant crossing, just hours after a bill is passed aimed at stopping them.