Judith Butler makes the argument in her most influential book, “Gender Trouble,” that gender is a performance; it's what the gender does at particular times, rather than universal standards of gender. The distinction between the two is what creates an idea or perception of gender. According to Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble”: “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (33). Furthermore, this philosophical difference between the universal and preformative and how universals are unsuccessful in capturing the true gender identification, can be best explained by Samira Sasani and Diba Arjmandi: “by this view, she regards body
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Alex’s procedure to do so is seen by her mother as a threat to her universal standards of what a being a girl encompasses, which follows the universal standards that Butler renounces. She, accordingly, takes it upon herself to thwart any further development of thoughts by her daughter, by trying to operate and strengthen the exact impression she has on the female image and for her daughter. As stated by Margaret Frohlich: “Her mother, Suli, who wanted to have four daughters when she was younger, responds to Alex’s decision to stop taking the corticoids by inviting Ramiro, a surgeon specializing in the correction of physical abnormalities, his wife, Erika, and their son, Álvaro, to their home” (161). She invigorates her image of her child being a female by trying to carry out an operation with the help of a friend. The arrival of Ramiro, the surgeon who would perform the surgery, and his family is taken to Karken’s account without any true reason other than a casual visit. The film makes it very clear that the real reason for the visit is for an operation for Alex to remove her penis, conveying the main point of Martin Deborah’s idea: “through editing and narrative structure, the film stages the ongoing attempts to inscribe gender on (intersex) bodies… her mother wants her to have the operation which would render her genitals unambiguously female…” (36). After the eventual success of the operation, in the ideology of the mother, this action would remove any doubt towards Alex’s sexual orientation and give a clear gender performance of her daughter. As a matter of fact, this operation would strengthen the forced gender identification of Alex, even though she does not follow the feminine performance. This forced gender identification via the forced feminine performance of the mother onto Alex, can be attributed to the fact that her mother wants
Alex’s procedure to do so is seen by her mother as a threat to her universal standards of what a being a girl encompasses, which follows the universal standards that Butler renounces. She, accordingly, takes it upon herself to thwart any further development of thoughts by her daughter, by trying to operate and strengthen the exact impression she has on the female image and for her daughter. As stated by Margaret Frohlich: “Her mother, Suli, who wanted to have four daughters when she was younger, responds to Alex’s decision to stop taking the corticoids by inviting Ramiro, a surgeon specializing in the correction of physical abnormalities, his wife, Erika, and their son, Álvaro, to their home” (161). She invigorates her image of her child being a female by trying to carry out an operation with the help of a friend. The arrival of Ramiro, the surgeon who would perform the surgery, and his family is taken to Karken’s account without any true reason other than a casual visit. The film makes it very clear that the real reason for the visit is for an operation for Alex to remove her penis, conveying the main point of Martin Deborah’s idea: “through editing and narrative structure, the film stages the ongoing attempts to inscribe gender on (intersex) bodies… her mother wants her to have the operation which would render her genitals unambiguously female…” (36). After the eventual success of the operation, in the ideology of the mother, this action would remove any doubt towards Alex’s sexual orientation and give a clear gender performance of her daughter. As a matter of fact, this operation would strengthen the forced gender identification of Alex, even though she does not follow the feminine performance. This forced gender identification via the forced feminine performance of the mother onto Alex, can be attributed to the fact that her mother wants