"Gender Trouble" is one of the most important works in contemporary feminist theory and gender studies, and is considered a foundational text of queer theory. Its impact was not limited to academic circles but sparked intense discussions within both the feminist and the gay and lesbian movements. Through a critical re-reading of the works of Beauvoir, Foucault, Wittig, Irigaray, Lévi-Strauss, Lacan, Freud, Rubin, Kristeva, Judith Butler attempts a critical genealogy of the construction of the categories of gender, sexuality, desire, and the body as identity categories, which she sees as products of "compulsory" heterosexuality and phallocentrism. Extending the positions that subjectivity is produced discursively and that biological sex is a political category that underpins heterosexuality, she advances the groundbreaking argument that the supposed coherence between biological sex, social gender, and sexuality is nothing more than the repetitive stylistic performance of specific acts over time, acts that acquire their meaning within a context of heteronormativity. This performativity of gender, which gives the impression of a gendered core, a hidden psychic substance, resulting in gender being perceived as real, is nevertheless nothing more than an imitation without an original, a continuous parody of the very concept of the original. In this context, the failed imitation, the unsuccessful execution of the command "to be a given gender" can disrupt gender categories, creating fissures that allow for its re-signification.

"There is an aspect of the conditions of production of the text that is not always understood: it was not simply produced by the university, but by converging social movements in which I participated, and within a lesbian and gay community on the East Coast of the United States where I lived for fourteen years before writing this book. Despite the dislocation of the subject that the text performs, there is a person here: I went to many meetings, bars, and demonstrations and saw many kinds of genders, understood that I myself was at the crossroads of some of them, and encountered sexuality at several of its cultural extremes. I met many people who were trying to find their way within a significant movement for sexual recognition and freedom, and I felt the joy and disappointment that goes hand in hand with being part of this movement both in its optimism and its internal dissension. At the same time that I had settled into the university, I was also living a life outside its walls, and although Gender Trouble is an academic book, it began for me with a crossing: sitting at Rehoboth Beach, wondering if I could connect the different sides of my life..."

Judith Butler