Make(ing) Up GenderThe lights went on and off twice indicating that the show was about to start. The excited audience crowded into compact rows of folding seats. The bar, located in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, smelled of stale Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and cheap whiskey. The walls were covered in decapitated and mutilated mannequins with messages like “Fuck Gender. Fuck people!” written with permanent marker. As soon as a seductive song began to play, the performer took to the stage; his dark green military uniform fit his muscular form perfectly, a large bulge in his pants was clearly visible, and his mustache was thick and black. He sat in a lonely chair and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a white tank top, then reached down to unbutton his pants while thrusting his hips to the beat of the music. Then he stood up and turned to take off his tank top to flex and show off his well-defined back muscles. The performer pulled her pants to the floor (and a rolled-up pair of socks) to reveal a sparkly pink thong, turned and revealed a voluptuous cleavage outfitted with nipple tassels that she danced clockwise. He tore the mustache from his face, straddled the chair and tempted the crowd as he removed his wig, throwing his long brown hair over his shoulders in one motion. Within two minutes the performer had evoked a sexual response from nearly everyone in the room, regardless of their sexual orientation, undergoing a dramatic metamorphosis from first performing to being perceived as male and then as female. In Judith Butler's “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution”: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, “gender is defined as a fluid identity established by a bodily gesture… half of the paper… of gender], there would be no gender” ( Ibid. 522). The feminist declaration that the personal is political is even more significant in this age when the individual is seemingly powerless in the face of oligarch-controlled governments and inhumane patriarchal political structures. While gender in isolation may be meaningless, the construction of gender and the experience of gender are universal and important because its potential expansion brings people together to protect or rebel against the political frameworks and social norms that govern the world today. Works Cited Beautiful Boxer. Dir. Ekachai Uekrongtham. Perf. Asanee Suwan, Sorapong Chatree. GMM Pictures, 2003.Butler, Judith. "Performative acts and gender constitution: an essay in phenomenology and feminist theory". Theater Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. Press.