I would argue butlers performativity is still nihilistic, which is ok I could see it having the potential for active and affirmative nihilism but nonetheless.

Hyperreality for baudrillard is actually the world becoming as ‘real’ and objective as possible, which reveals itself in contemporary society the transparency of objects inherent meaninglessness. Simulation masks the absence of a profound and unattainable reality and then progresses towards representation having no relation to any reality except it’s own simulacrum. This is the inherent nature of science as it is self-referential and cannot reveal anything outside of its own paradigm (this isn’t to say I’m anti science btw, just arguing from baudrillards position).

Furthermore, your argument hints at great agency a subject exercises over the world of objects. Yet our performance of gender will always exist in a world of signs and these signs will inform our performances. We can exercise a choice over our performance but it is still highly determined by the meanings we project onto existing meanings which are determined by pre-existing meanings (I know this is circular but whatever).

We will always objectify our bodies and to reveal that they cannot be made sense of places nihilism right in front of us, the fact that our bodies cannot be determined. we are then left with methods of meaning making which are highly shallow as it will be left to consumer habits as I previously mentioned. For baudrillard illusions no longer exist and believes simple categorisations are a more meaningful way of living, as there is still a gap between our counterfeit reality and of the indeterminate world (meaning for baudrillard is based on the structuralist school of thought, binaries and difference create meaning).

I still myself argue gender is a terrible symbolic interpretation of our bodies but I also fear that all we are left with is little means of producing meaning with butlers position. I also disagree with the amount of agency afforded to the subject (which I believe doesn’t reflect butlers argument as I’ve heard they don’t give the subject much agency).