Summary Of The Film 'Have You Have Surgery?'

Often times issues of transgender identity comes down to genitalia. If not blunt questions such as, “Have you had surgery?” which is a highly problematic question for numerous reasons, the glances towards crotches attempting to figure out what you have in your pants don’t escape unnoticed. Even Mikael knows this and for a swimming adventure they roll a penis out of molding clay in order to give the illusion that he has male genitalia. They also cut their female bathing suit into a male style swim short. When Mikael comes in and reverts to Laure inside the house, the penis must be put away. As Zulueta writes,
Laure hides her prosthetic penis in a box containing her baby teeth. These charged objects symbolize two stages of development in Laure's childhood: the baby teeth represent the passage from infant to child and the artificial penis symbolizes the transformation from childhood to adolescence and simultaneously from female to male. (109)

This also represents the hiding of one’s true self from parents and family when there is gender incongruence. The family is shown as warm, loving, and supportive and yet even children know when they are crossing gender boundaries that it must remain unspoken and …show more content…
It feels similar to the scene in Boys Don’t Cry (1999) where John and Tom set upon Brandon to examine his genitalia and then perform a “corrective” rape. What’s so troubling about the scene in Tomboy is that we don’t expect this learned behavior to manifest itself in children so young. As John and Tom demand acknowledgement from Lana about what Brandon “really” is, the boys in Tomboy make Lisa confirm Mikael’s sex and then force her to admit that if Mikael is female bodied that would make them lesbians and that would be “disgusting” all of which forces the audience to address our own issues with homosexuality and