This book explores, among all the possible paths within these debates, how Austin's concern to understand how we do things with words came to lead to what Judith Butler, as a feminist, as a philosopher, and as a queer theoric, does with performativity.

To this end, it is addressed, first of all, to a genealogical context in which explicit works and discussions on linguistic performatividad (such as those of Jacques Derrida, Jonathan Culler or Shoshana Felman) converge in conjunction with the work of other authors who, while not explicitly treated, make possible their particular reception by Butler, such as Michel Foucault.

Secondly, it is a question of understanding the reformulation of performativity in the field of sexual and generic identities, with which Butler displaces gender and sex from the whole of the things that we are in the order of the things we do. Relationships between body and language, matter and textuality, sex and gender thus undergo a far-reaching transformation on philosophy, gender studies and identity policies.

The exchange of criticism between Butler and authors such as Seyla Benhabib, Nancy Fraser or Pierre Bourdieu contributes to understanding some of these effects, and also to deepen some of our author's political priorities: resistance to the effects of generic normativity and, in particular, of the "two sexes, two genders" system, in the direction of a more open version , inclusive and proliferating of identity.