It is quite extraordinary how relevant this book remained today though it was originally published 30 years ago. Of course, discussions about gender and sex in the general (cishet) public is probably doomed to remain infantile as always, but also in feminist circles, it appears there are still very vocal remnants of an antiquated, essentialist sort of 'feminism' that still occupies influential positions in the media, in particular those of the Anglosphere, frequently abusing this power more in the service of harming trans people than helping cis women. But even beyond that, even transgender people frequently tend to fall onto essentialist fallacies, and not just of the "transmedicalist" variety. Mind you, I'm not referring to the "born in the wrong body" cliché, as I doubt there's a single trans person that doesn't express that idea only to make gender dysphoria remotely intelligible to those unacquainted with any meaningful discussion of the subject but even certain things such as a distinction between an arbitrary, cultural gender along an essentially fixed sex, which is a false one.
Due to that, I can't possibly understate how ahead of its time this work truly is - it doesn't only deconstruct gender as an arbitrary fiction but also sex itself, which Butler exposes as likewise an assembly of structured signs, rather than a stable manifestation of nature. Especially wonderful, in my opinion, was her observation of a scientific study that included persons of an ambiguous aggregation of sex characteristics - especially "XX males" and "XY females", all seemingly cisgender, it must be noted (that is, assigned these genders at birth and would be described as intersex by contemporary terminology) and exposes how even such a study had to cherry-pick an arbitrary quality to organize these people, rather than their organization arising naturally - by elaborating that the categories were based on the external shape of the genitals, and noting how other characteristics and signs of sex, that usually tend to appear in somewhat similar aggregates in their formation of sex-signs, were ignored, proving that even sex itself is in fact not cleanly-cut and must be arbitrarily assigned through cultural mechanisms. It is noteworthy to mention that it is estimated that around 1.7% of the population are considered "intersex" (and that, too, is arbitrarily defined and disincludes less severe "deviations" in normal distribution of attributes) so if our method of assigning signs to sex do not include such a noteworthy number, it just speaks to its irrelevance and falsity, more than anything.
I believe that Butler's argument in favor of a performative theory of gender is a very solid one, which is unfortunately very frequently misrepresented, as if it literally meant that people thought of themselves as playing a role, rather than a role being the aggregate of many intentionally constructed, unintentionally constructed and culturally constructed signifiers that aren't ever truly reduced to something as vulgar as literal acting, but rather the effect of powerful cultural systems that allocate individuals to various categories. I do not say this with pride, as I too once misunderstood the term as such, but I'm glad that now I know better.
I must also note the excellence of the argument here in favor of an open, deconstructive feminism rather than one that tries to gain subjectivity for women by enclosing them in the same manners that produced their own condition as sexed and objectified people - I hope the feminist movement will adopt a position of universal emancipation, recognizing the arbitrariness of the identities assigned by society rather than embrace superstitious identities and their false appeal to nature as fortresses.
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