why are gender attributes performative, rather than expressive?

Unfortunately, the people here are highly defensive when it comes to this type of ideology, but you're talking about the roots of Gender Critical feminism.

Ask any one person what it means to be feminine and you'll get a list of stereotypes, "wears makeup", "looks pretty", "is motherly", but there are billions of women who do not fit those stereotypes while still identifying as female.

See, "gender" is not, and never has been, how someone acts... but how society EXPECTS you to act. Feminism started the separation of sex and gender by pushing people to realize that the gender stereotypes and gender roles were separate from sex itself. So rather than being an expression of who you are, GENDER is the PERFORMANCE of what you're expected to act like.

The reason many people here find this offensive is because it goes against the stereotypes ingrained in their minds that makes up transgender ideology. Yes, MRI studies exist to show that among (a highly selective group of individuals) they can find a correlation and then claim correlation = causation as the logical fallacy goes.

But we all know that the human soul does not exist, so why would anyone be in doubt as to finding physical changes in the brain based on how a person acts, how a person thinks, etc? All MRI studies do is confirm that brains change to match the performances we put on, what we learn as we grow, and how we act.

Using the same exact methodology, we have found differences between Democrat and Republican brains, but no one is claiming people are born democrat / republican or that Republicans cannot become democrats or vice-versa.

See, what "gender" ultimately comes down to is a set of sexist attributes forced upon a group of people based purely on their sex. It's no wonder that the transgender movement is trying to escape these attributes; but rather than overthrowing the burden of gender they're fully embracing it to the extremes.

As we see here, people IDENTIFY with the "gender expression" (ahem, performances) that society tells us that belongs to the identity. EXPRESSION refers to how a person naturally expresses a trait, performance is what a person performs to look like a trait. Isn't it rather obvious that debunked myths of identity are just that, myths? Identity is who you decide you are based on what groups society tells you exist.

I identify as a liberal as society gives me the group of liberal, I identify as a feminist because that group is available. Once we take on an identity we perform the actions that that identity has unless we maintain our individuality and continue to grow beyond that identity.

They aren't. Judith Butler is wrong. Gender is class, and it's determined by how you're predominantly perceived during your formative years. The idea that it's performative is the kind of thing people think when they live in societies where fetuses aren't aborted because they're female and female genital mutilation and so-called "honour" killings aren't routine. It's a sign of bourgeois privilege when people believe that.

Ditch Bundel and read/watch Julie Bindel. They're cultural expressions. I don't even understand your question... how else would it work.

The current generation is so obsessed with gender roles it's insane. You guys are 50x more regressive than the 1980s in which I grew up. It's like Victorian England. I literally had someone tell me wearing pants and riding a bicycle made a woman trans.

It's all an act. Nobody is really gay or transgendered.

I have always been feminine.

Gender is expressive Mr. Troll, your Judith Butler is a transphobic TERF and I refuse to read any of what she says.

From the sounds of it, your TERF is arguing that women aren't born women but this tabula rasa theory has been disproved and is stupid. I know I was born a woman, it is YOU who needs to accept that I'm a woman.

Phobes like you are the reason we have to fight so hard to get the rights we deserve. Try picking up a book and reading it.