Is gender a social construct?

Is gender a social construct? I believe the answer is both yes and no.

The trappings of gender certainly are. What men and women are supposed to wear and do for a living were for eons socially mandated and this has begun to change. Many people play with this more expression side of the equation for their own motivations without any internal core disconnect which is perfectly fine.

The identity side is more complex and I believe has a biological component. It is the same feeling that told David Reimer he was a boy despite his childhood rearing thus proving John Money wrong. This is the hard wired part of gender which is not changeable and is tied to the dysphoria of people whose identity does not match the demands of their birth sex. It is what keeps a great many transgender people up at night weighing what to do.

The answer is both yes and no. It just depends on which component one is considering.