Trump's Second Term Threatens Academic Freedom

World-renowned gender and queer theorist Judith Butler, professor at UC Berkeley, continues to voice critical perspectives despite heightened threats to academic freedom following the inauguration of Trump's second administration. In an exclusive written interview with Hankyoreh, Professor Butler revealed that "I have been considering refuge if the situation worsens," while noting "I am a relatively privileged person" and expressing concern for those facing greater risks.

The Trump administration has conducted anti-Semitism investigations targeting major U.S. universities, and UC Berkeley, where Butler teaches, submitted student and faculty lists to the government. This incident in progressive California has sent shockwaves through academia.

"The Deportation Cases of the Past Year Have Been Chillingly Horrific"

Professor Butler sharply criticized the reality following Trump's return to power, stating "the deportation cases I've witnessed over the past year have been chillingly horrific." She emphasized that "those at greatest risk of harm in the United States are immigrants, students on international visas, and people deprived of social welfare benefits including medical services and affordable educational opportunities."

"None of us anticipated witnessing scenes of such authoritarian violence. The federal government has been threatening universities despite being obligated to support education."

In some states, the term 'gender' itself has become unusable in educational settings, and legal rights are being stripped away, including bans on gender-affirming medical services for transgender youth. Butler characterized this as "not only chilling but harmful."

Anti-Discrimination Becomes a Tool of Oppression

Professor Butler sharply pointed out the reality that anti-discrimination movements have been co-opted as tools of the reactionary right. In America's anti-gender campaigns, 'gender' is distorted as code for pedophilia and a means of indoctrinating children into homosexuality.

Christian fundamentalists in the U.S., South Korea, and elsewhere have attacked Butler, labeling her a 'pedophile.' In 2017 at a conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, an effigy of Butler was burned in a scene reminiscent of medieval witch hunts.

Butler countered: "There are claims that knowledge of LGBTQ+ worlds and lives is harmful to youth, but depriving young people of knowledge about their own world is itself harmful."

From Gender Theory to Radical Democracy

Butler, who opened a new chapter in gender and queer theory with 'Gender Trouble' in 1990, is not simply a gender theorist. Her philosophy aims for radical democracy and consistently questions who is not protected from injury and death, and who does not have status as a life worthy of mourning.

Through works like 'Undoing Gender,' 'Excitable Speech,' 'Precarious Life,' and 'The Force of Nonviolence,' Butler has consistently emphasized 'livable lives' and interdependence. She stresses that "precarious life is life considered disposable" and that we must become "a place where all life can be mourned."

From 'Red' to 'Gender' in South Korea

South Korean society shows similar patterns. Korea, which once labeled communists as 'Reds,' now extends this stigma to 'gender.' In 2024, National Human Rights Commission Chairperson Ahn Chang-ho stated that "the anti-discrimination law could be exploited for communist revolution," and former President Yoon Suk-yeol cited 'eradicating pro-North anti-state forces' as justification for martial law.

Butler met with Hankyoreh 21 in Seoul in December 2024, 12 hours after Yoon's martial law declaration, predicting that "martial law could cost Yoon his presidency"—which indeed came to pass. At the time, Butler diagnosed Yoon's martial law as a "confession."

The Psychoanalytic Mechanism of Political Denunciation

Butler explains that "a psychoanalytic perspective is necessary to understand the political sphere."

"Certain types of political denunciation involve mechanisms of transference and projection operating simultaneously. One group condemns another as destroyers of the nation, but the denunciation itself enacts that very destruction."

Nationalism operates in this way, defining who belongs to the nation and who should be excluded. This is a form of xenophobia or racism that can gradually lead to militarized borders, detention camps, and denial of asylum rights, she warned.

"We Must Present Both Critique and Imagination"

Butler identified what intellectuals should do when political and religious powers threaten the right to know and academic freedom as "presenting critique and imagination simultaneously."

"We must track and understand how the 'anti-gender ideology' movement is becoming increasingly effective, but we must also present a vision of a world that affirms human complexity. Those who are intersex or whose actual experience doesn't align with the biological sex assigned at birth must be recognized."

This means that gender is closer to a spectrum or mosaic than a rigid, mutually exclusive binary opposition.

Confronting Through Collective Courage

Butler sent warm New Year's greetings to Hankyoreh and its readers, conveying a message of hope.

"Find strength in each other, resist individualism and heroism and depression, build local communities, and revel in intellectual life, the world of art, and multilingualism. Imagine together, dream together, and cultivate collective courage as a way of life."

In Trump's second term in 2025, facing powers that respond to the question 'Who's Afraid of Gender?' with ideological censorship and threats, Butler expressed determination to clarify and defend academic freedom as much as possible. She warns that religious or state powers seeking a return to a 'stable' patriarchal order can emerge as forces of salvation and restoration by stirring up fear, urging us toward vigilant criticism and solidarity.