Performative language (2020)
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Such an important principle to keep in mind!
She's more establishing a technical framework of understanding how gender comes to mean what it does and reproduce that meaning over time.
But I also know that some element of gender expression is present in nearly all human cultures across time, and it is a powerful meaning maker both for individuals and societies, and that being more aware of that and doing it intentionally seems to make it a more powerful act, not less.
And just on a practical level it's still not clear to anyone really what elements of human experience are strictly mediated through gender performance and which are inescapable parts of our biology. I welcome exploration and play in this area, but I can't confidently assert that a genderless future is even possible, or desirable if it is. It really does seem to be as much a part of us as storytelling, or music. I may be wrong on this and that's fine and time will tell.
But again both people and cultures find deep meaning and even selfhood in expressing gender, and I don't feel like, from here in 2022, we have the understanding to say they are wrong to do so.
For example a purse is a very useful item in an urban environment, so every man who doesn't use one is performing gender by rejecting a practical tool because of its gendered signals.
We don't tend to notice these minor acts of gender performance because they're embedded in the culture and expected of us, but they are still performance. People who egregiously transgress gender expectations, which is I think what you are referring to as gender performers maybe, are choosing transgression but not performance. The performance is already there in one way or another, and imo they are as or more authentic than the rest of us in their willingness to acknowledge that and bear the social consequences of it.
"No means no" is a tautology. It's performative language. Not all performative language is outgroup behavior we should vilify. Performing a larger statement about consent with a terse slogan is a good thing.
Moreover, it seems "political" here is used as "up for debate" rather than notions of "disingenuous persuasion" - your question almost reads "How could anyone possibly disagree with the idea that rape is bad?" Meta-politicization?
Even the word "consent" itself is politicized because most wokes, for whatever reason, can only seem to discuss it by echoing bullet points from a Planned Parenthood lobby handout.
(If you don't believe me, toss 'em the standard-issue "Check Your Comprehension" question from the end of the first lecture on medical consent: "a 14-year old falls and breaks her leg, but her parents aren't around. Can she consent to treatment? How does this change if she's pregnant?" More often than not, they'll double down on their lack of understanding by losing their shit and calling you a pedophile or somesuch, because they only understand this concept in relation to sex.)
To anyone even passingly familiar with 21st-century US politics, the meaning is almost certainly clear ("Rape Bad"), but it ultimately provides nothing of value - no substance, no meat - and therefore, no murder of the concept it's ostensibly employed to kill - unless you've already been initiated into 21st-century US politics, and thus already aware that "no" is the English word for "no", that "yes" (English: "yes") is a different thing altogether, and that doing Yes when No (and sometimes even No when Yes) is a Bad Thing that one should not do.
If Ben Shapiro published an episode titled "Sometimes No means Yes", I think we could all guess what the subject is, approximately how the episode might unfold, even without knowing the guest or specifics of the interview. There's virtually no other reason for him to choose a title like that except to be political.
He might even surprise us, launching into a completely-innocent and factual deep dive on etymology, words and concepts lost to time, expressions in Hebrew and Latin and Greek that changed meaning over the centuries, anecdotes of kings and generals giving their blessing without giving their blessing, and so on. But the subtext would still be clear - or at least presumed - precisely because it's political.
Prior to it becoming a hashtag, I most frequently heard this expression in relation to Authority, alongisde "the rules are the rules" - another essentially-useless expression whose primary use is to quash any further discussion of the subject at hand.
More insidiously, it provides no practical guidance for the "grey areas" in which most cases of sexual assault/rape occur. Damn near everybody knows it's wrong, bad, illegal, stupid, gross, etc. to force themselves on someone in an alley at knifepoint, and virtually nobody who's not insane and/or on drugs does this.
If "no means no" (and surely it does), and she doesn't say "no", what can we conclude? Anything useful? Remember, this is not up for discussion unless you are pro-rape, and only a pro-rapist would attempt to introduce nuance here - so which rhyming slogan should the drunk college kids remember in this case? What of the TA or adjunct who graduated last year, staying late to help a current senior - perhaps one who very enthusiastically consents?
NO [clap emoji] MEANS [clap emoji] NO. Thank you, Beckeigh, very cool.
In short, it's useless for explaining consent to people who might genuinely not understand consent (and thus useless for solving the problem), but it is an ideal way to get murmurs of agreement at brunch and/or trigger The Left and/or The Right.
After all, who could possibly disagree? ("It says so in the name!") Who could add to the perfection of this phrase? Shh! The answer does not come through intellect, but through meditating on the sound "no" until the Buddha himself appears, wearing a yellowed campaign button bearing a mysterious and dire message about a BUSH of some kind.
Most of all, it's political because it prevents discussion (and understanding) - unless, it is said, you're a card-carrying member of some pro-rape political party or something.
I've also seen some subreddits will try to out-radical themselves. The /r/vegan subreddit, last I checked, was leaning leftist / communist. I'm not a communist, so I quit going there. I already know how to be vegan. The big chain grocery stores around me already carry vegan products I like.
People don't really go on the Internet looking to be convinced, and search engines won't necessarily bring you to convincing pages.
A lot of people have been convinced by the big creators like Contrapoints or Philosophy Tube. (Or, sadly, Jordan Peterson.) For me the healthy option is probably to give up talking to people on Reddit or Hacker News about anything important at all. How about a nice game of chess?
It's true, so how's that for post-truth?
Next lesson: deconstruction.