There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Gender is a way to hide from the simple truth we all tell: 'Hey, I'm here, I have a body.'
To say that gender is performative is a little different because for something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk and speak and talk in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman.
We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or something that is simply true about us, a fact about us, but actually it's a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and reproduced all the time, so to say gender is performative is to say that nobody really is a gender from the start.
I don't believe in categorising a gender, as it makes for discord. People always say, 'That's what men are like' or, 'That's what women do'; I don't really feel that at all. I think that's because I have two fathers, three brothers, a husband and two sons. I'm surrounded by maleness, and I couldn't possibly summarise them into a type.
I don't see gender as the most significant fact of human existence.
I feel like there's no such thing as gender.
When I was born, there was a very isolated idea of what it meant to be a man or a woman, and you belonged to one gender or the other.
I confused gender identity with sexual orientation. Your gender identity is about who you are, how you feel, the sex that you feel yourself to be. Sexual orientation is who you're attracted to.
Sexuality is who you are personally attracted to... But gender identity is who you are in your soul.
When we say gender is performed, we usually mean that we've taken on a role or we're acting in some way and that our acting or our role playing is crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to the world.