system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Since gender is a social construct, does that mean if the construct didn't exist, gender dysphoria wouldn't exist?

Hey guys, there's a lot of confusing terminology for a lay person flying around lately, and I'm trying to piece together everything I've been hearing about gender and related issues.

I've heard that gender is a social construct, like race, meaning that the category distinction (male/female/etc) is socially constructed and maintained and separable from physiological facts. And that category membership transcends physiological facts by informing behavior and societal treatment and things.

Does this mean that if our culture lacked these categories and the social structure that surrounds them that gender dysphoria wouldn't exist? Or would there still be issues stemming from brain-body mapping (as I have heard that gender dysphoria is predicated on)?
gpt
Something being a social construct does not stop it from being loaded with meaning both to others and to the individual who operates within that category. That meaning could be a positive attachment or a source of stress if the label does not quite fit. 

In Judith Butler's book "Gender Trouble" the author makes the argument that if we detach the symbols from a shared coherent meaning we would be freer to act as we wish without the constraints that those categories impose on us.

So if there was no male or female these categories wouldn't mean anything. So an individual with gender dysphoria would be free to behave  in a way more closely aligned to their own preferences rather than in a way that follows a set of norms. 

To illustrate: 
Alex has gender dysphoria. Alex was labeled male at birth. Alex likes to bake cupcakes, wear mascara, and read to children. As it stands Alex faces social sanctions for engaging in those behaviors because of the label. Taking away the label of male should then take away the norm and the sanctions for violating that norm.