Judith Butler Quotes

A man who reads effeminate may well be consistently heterosexual, and another one might be gay. We can't read sexuality off of gender.

Nothing is either all masculine or all feminine except having sex.

We have to look at queerness as a means towards challenging normativity.

My sexuality is irrelevant.

To be sure he's a Man, the male must see to it that the female be clearly a Woman, the opposite of a Man, that is, the female must act like a faggot.

I had always been a tomboy - I still am, at heart.

I was always just so feminine. I don't think anyone who ever met me would describe me as a man.

Once upon a time, growing up male gave little boys a sense of certainty about the natural order of things. We had short hair, wore pants, and played baseball. Girls had long hair, wore skirts, and, no matter how hard they tried, always threw a baseball just like a girl.

I think most men, heterosexual and homosexual, enjoy being considered sexual objects.

When I was born, there was a very isolated idea of what it meant to be a man or a woman, and you belonged to one gender or the other.

I look a little bit like Barbie and talk a little bit like Ken. It's easier for me to sit in the middle of the boys' club than to be surrounded by people concerned about getting their hair and nails done.

I'm more androgynous, because men are supposed to be more spatial, women more literal - I'm a tomboy.

Girls can wear jeans, cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots, 'cause it's okay to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading.

A lot of kids are bullied because of their sexual identity or expression. It's often the effeminate boys and the masculine girls, the ones who violate gender norms and expectations, who get bullied.

Can't blame men for wanting him. And wouldn't be surprised if Dad even mildly flirted back. Dad somewhat enjoyed being called gay. He said it made women want to prove the assertion wrong.

I'm trying to illuminate how perilously narrow we draw the concepts of masculinity and sexuality in our male culture - particularly in black male culture - and to help people to see that there's room enough for everyone.

It's definitely part of it, that the men were having fun and doing the interesting things but also, I don't know, I'm just thinking more about gender and how maybe in some way I am more of a boy than a girl.

All men are homosexual, some turn straight. It must be very odd to be a straight man because your sexuality is hopelessly defensive. It's like an ideal of racial purity.

For men, being too put-together implies femininity.

People in the States used to think that if girls were good at sports their sexuality would be affected.

I'm not convinced that what are traditionally considered to be male energies or qualities or female energies or qualities really have as much to do with gender as many people think they do.

I think heterosexuality and homosexuality are a kind of psychosis, and the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I was a tomboy.

When I first went to Milan, my agent said you have to give off a strong, masculine energy. They don't like campiness. They like boys to appear straight and to appear masculine. I quickly learned the game of it and how to navigate around it.

Let's call a spade a spade: when people look at me, they say, 'Oh, she's the androgynous one.' I'll tell you what type of character I would never be offered out there: The femme fatale. Or the white-trash, heterosexual hillbilly.