It is possible to perform gender as one does a role in a play. There are lines to memorize, a costume to wear, makeup to fool the eye, movements to learn, and sub-text to develop so the scene comes alive. People have done such performances in theater and ceremony for thousands of years.
Occasionally we hear about a person such as Billy Tipton who 'fools' people about gender for most of their life. Though there are people who have an ambiguous gender presentation that leaves us straining for clues, it seems very important to most of us to be placed in one of a few gender categories in those initial seconds of scrutiny. To this end, could it be that we each perform our gender in an elaborate real life play?
I think we do. Certainly I was able to convince people for quite a few years that I was male, even though I did not believe that myself. Now that I'm not performing in that role any longer (I was getting type cast) most people have no trouble seeing me as female.
Have you had the experience of knowing a person in one context and then not recognizing them in another? Someone you see around the office, wearing the same office face and office wardrobe every day; you run into them in a club or in a store on the weekend and don't know who they are? Do we see people as they 'truly' are, or do we see the role they play in a particular social context?
Have you ever tried to pass as the 'opposite sex?' If not, give it a try. Just once. As an experiment. On Halloween, maybe. Even if you aren't successful, I bet you'll find that you are more aware than you thought you were of the role we perform when doing gender.
I'm willing to bet that about 90% of you wouldn't try that experiment even at gun point. (I'm assuming that my audience is queer, else that would be 99%.) Guess what? I wouldn't either. I had a chance last summer in a theater makeup workshop to 'butchify' myself (their terminology). I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. I do not ever want to be seen as 'male' again!
Let's forget about physical sex for a minute. (I'll get back to it, promise.) Can you see a range of genders that cover what we usually call feminine and masculine? Can you say that k.d. lang tending the campfire on Absolute Torch And Twang is not performing gender? Jane Siberry has an album titled, When I Was A Boy, and Dar Williams has a song so entitled; John Wayne and Alan Alda have both played no-nonsense roles, mais quelle difference! It's a real stretch to say that some of these people are the same gender, just because of what they have between their legs.
And about that region between the legs. What does it have to do with gender? It's invisible most of the time, and when it's not it isn't like it gets used in any standard way. I've been in sessions where anything that would do anything with anything did so. Sex is a lot more complex than just cocks and cunts; gender immensely more so.
Think about the people you know and all the many and different gender roles they play. The incredible variety of activities we queer people call 'sex.' Why do we draw a line down the middle and label one side 'female' and the other 'male?'
I'll be honest. I don't like lines that separate people into classes. I think it is demeaning to draw a border around a person and say, "This line and this label defines who you are and what you may do." I try to always question labels. I consider myself lesbian, because I am generally attracted to women, but I don't see that as necessarily ruling out men, if they are close enough to my definition of 'women.' Because for me, genitals do not overpower all other aspects of a person's being.
Consider: it is quite possible that you've been attracted by and even been sexually intimate with a transsexual person and not been able to tell. Some people find this possibility terribly upsetting; some people find it rather exciting. Do nice trannies tell? Should they?