A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story '

Next, Butler theory suggest that bodily representation are subversive within sexual minorities. This in essence is Butler proposing that bodily representation within the queer community go against the social conventions which have been gendered by social norms. She states “Such acts, gestures, enactments, generally constructed, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means.” this points out performativity as being a key factor in social representation, the inner reality gets presented by the outer reality, although this suggests that acts and gestures are natural it too suggests that subversive

She discusses two conclusions drawn out by Esther Newton in a statement within Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America , Newton states that drag is a double inversion, it shows the internal reality as being male and the outside reality as being female, while also presenting that the internal reality is female and the outside being female. Although transvestism is not a theme in A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, drag supports the idea of gender performativity because it is a series of acts which are used to create an effect, though it’s a parody the act identifies a clear image of a woman. An illustration of the internal and out realities being different in A Girl like me: The Gwen Araujo Story is earlier in the narrative of the film. After the family party when Eddie is dressed in a dress and his family look ashamed, the film cuts to a baseball park, Eddie’s mother is trying to normalise Eddy by making him do masculine activities such as

As previously said Butler describes a domain in which the social norms of gender, sex and desire all take part. This was constructed by formal and informal means which try to ‘normalise’ people who don’t conform to the social norm. In an interview Butler states that one of these institutionalised methods is psychiatric normalization, initially going against the social norm in term of sex and gender was considered and illness which led psychiatrists to try to ‘normalise’ their patients, this procedure has now been terminated but other informal methods such as bullying still exist. From this Butler aspires to a new idea of gender one which becomes a reality and one which is less violent and one which breaks the conventions and stereotypes put in place by social norms. This idea of a less violent idea of gender relates back to Butlers notion that in order for progression in feminist theory, the feminine gender has to transform. Digression, not violence, within feminism can still be identified, in 1997 Feminist Sheila Jeffrey’s branded transgenderism “deeply problematic from a feminist perspective and that transsexualism should be seen as a violation of human rights.” Although this remark isn’t violent, it definitely disrespects gendered women and men who haven’t conformed to the social norm much like Jeffrey’s hasn’t, yet her criticism still ridicules another sexual minority. Jeffrey’s is