There is nothing essential about being a man,

I am not a Butler fan. I think she's a lightweight ideologue caught in the lightweight ideologue box.

All one needs do is change the metaphor. Instead of a man box, how about a man exoskeleton, one that restricts but also protects and enhances and is designed to match the "essence" of the biological unit that wears it.

Is hunting "performative" for lionesses? Do they not learn it from watching their moms? How does the alpha in a pack know he or she is the alpha? Why model yourself after your alpha parent and not, like your siblings, after your beta aunts and uncles?

Essence is real, and social norms are an accommodation to them. That is a prison box for outliers, whose rights we should respect, but only for outliers. For the rest of us, it's a toolbox.