comment: >
  
  
  Gender identity is not the same thing as gender roles, norms, or expression, although the two are obviously related. It's the same kind of relationship the feeling of pain has to the word "ow". The word "ow" is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But pain in and of itself is not. Similarly, gender [as Butler is using the term] is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But gender identity, which is a distinct underlying thing, is not.
  
  This is really informative and explains something that has confused me for a long time. Thank you for educating some of my ignorance. Is there anything you could recommend that explains Gender Identity more?
context: Is anyone saying that social constructs are wrong per se?
  Democracy is a social construct.
  Marriage is a social construct.
  Justice is a social construct.
  Absolutely no one is saying that social constructs are bad. The point is - social constructs is something we can CHANGE (to improve). It's not something set in stone. >
  
  Exactly, as OP states social constructs are just groups or terms we use to help us understand the world. Doing so isn't inherently bad and is actually very useful if not necessary. I think what OP is confusing here is that, with many social constructs, they do have a history that is not good. Take race for example, a social construct with an almost exclusively bad history and purpose. Now, acknowledging that fact isn't saying that we should never use any words or groupings around people's backgrounds or that all social constructs are bad, it just means that we should work to both acknowledge the history and work to fix/replace the bad parts where necessary. >
  
  I agree that the way we treated social constructs has been problematic in the past. My point is that it doesn't mean we should tear them apart. Instead, we can embrace differences without discriminating against anyone.
  Of course, questioning the system is always a good thing. I definitely do. >
  
  It's not about tearing them apart, it's just about ensuring that we don't trap ourselves within them.  
  There's a lot of posts like this on CMV, where everyone sort of just... wonders where some supposed opposition is coming from, because no one's noticing any but the OP. >
  
  Well, one, Butler is way the fuck obtuse and is not the best way to get an initial understanding of these things.
  But:
  
  We, humans, need reference frames to understand the world. We naturally gravitate to categorizing things. There's nothing wrong with the distinction between "female" and "male." 
  
  The problem is that the distinction between "female" and "male" (sexes) has become a distinction between "woman" and "man" (gender [roles]) that is, generally speaking, oppressive particularly but not exclusively to women. It creates a set of expectations that deny people the ability to pursue their own interests independent of what they themselves actually want.
  
  Butler says there's indeed no such thing as a "woman," since the definition is not widely accepted. She wants to find a new subject of feminism. And this confuses me. Her gender performativity also confuses me. If gender isn't innate but something performed (and doesn't even exist), then what's the point of even saying that people can identify as X or Y? Wouldn't that go against TG?
  
  This is the 8756243876523847562346598th thread that boils down to two distinct uses of gender.
  Gender identity is not the same thing as gender roles, norms, or expression, although the two are obviously related. It's the same kind of relationship the feeling of pain has to the word "ow". The word "ow" is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But pain in and of itself is not. Similarly, gender [as Butler is using the term] is constructed, expressive, voluntary to some extent, culturally variable, etc. But gender identity, which is a distinct underlying thing, is not.
  
  Should we deconstruct reference frames? Wouldn't it be better to accept that there's a norm but people can fall out? And most importantly, if we do deconstruct them, how do we build new ones?
  
  A valid question!
  I'd argue the point of deconstruction is to understand the construction itself and decide whether and how to rebuild it. Constructions are too built into the way we view the world for us to totally do away with them, but they're also too often wrong for us to not examine them.
  For example, physics needed a bunch of deconstructing after the discovery of quantum mechanics. The foundations on which physics was built - of a bunch of little billiard balls flying around with definite speeds and velocities and bouncing off of each other - were bad ones, and we needed to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. And so a large part of the initial development of quantum mechanics was just getting back to what we already knew with that foundation.
  Or to get back to social issues: transitioning involved a lot of deconstruction and reconstruction in my personality. I was socialized as a man in a way that didn't prepare me for the challenges I'd face as a woman, and it led me to many conclusions that turned out to be false with that new perspective. So I ended up having to treat a lot of things that I "knew" as conditional and uncertain, dig down into the roots of those things, pull out a few roots, and then rebuilt the things that seemed true from that perspective.
  Butler might not agree with me on this, but I believe in deconstructing to reconstruct better. Every generation ought to do it at least once, not with the idea of changing everything, but with the idea of being willing to change anything that isn't working anymore, and to follow the consequences of that where they lead.