Judith Butler: Gender Wars
The Controversial Feminist at the Heart of the Gender Debate
On the evening of July 7, 1984, a young couple left a potluck supper in Bangor, Maine. It was the last journey they took together.
A car filled with teenagers on an errand to buy alcohol slowed as it approached the couple. Insults were yelled their way from the car windows. The couple sped up their pace. Three boys aged 15-17 got out of the car and started taunting the pair. The pair ran, acutely aware they were in danger.
The boys caught up with one of them, an asthmatic, and kicked and beat him as he lay on the floor fighting for breath. One of them thought it’d be a good idea to throw him off a nearby bridge.
They picked him up from the ground and took him to the edge of State Street Bridge. He held onto a rail and begged them not to throw him into the river as he could not swim. They pried his fingers from the railing and pushed him into the darkness below.
The boys returned to a party with the alcohol they had bought and bragged about the incident. Hours later, the body of the young man was pulled from the river by police.
The man was gay. He had been tormented and bullied since childhood for having an effeminate manner. He had walked since childhood, as Judith…
