I don’t think this is true though, because what I’m talking about is masculinity and femininity, not gender. The aesthetics of masculinity and femininity are influenced by and came from gender constructs, there’s no denying that, and what fits under those aesthetics constantly changes and varies based on circumstance and time, and of course these aesthetics can feed into and influence conceptions of gender and other things significantly, but they are still able to be treated as primarily aesthetics.

First of all, with your example, Scotland masculinity is associated with kilts and skirts because of a cultural association and how that aesthetic was constructed. Yes, it came from gender, patriarchal norms, conditions, etc, but the aesthetic itself is only a small part of gender and an aspect that would exist regardless of gender’s existence (as in, if we removed all the material and social pressures for people to be a binary gender, not if we removed it from existence retroactively); Definitely not in the same exact form, but people would still follow aesthetic trends and preferences. And, even if we were to snap our fingers and delete gender, people would probably still identify with and prefer presenting as masculine or feminine or both or neither or whatever new things people create. And of course, what they would perceive as each would vary significantly from person to person.

Case in point: GNC trans people. Trans tomboys and femboys exist, and they are not only valid but very based and cool. These are people who find gender affirmation in feminine aesthetics as a man and masculine aesthetics as a woman. Butch lesbian women exist, too, and consider themselves women despite many of them also explicitly presenting as masculine, as well.

My overall point is that a kind of revolutionary masculinity would not involve trying to rehabilitate reactionary ideas for the sake of appeasing men, by claiming that certain personality traits or behaviors are somehow manly or not manly, but instead a creation of an aesthetic that appeals to those who identify with the aesthetic of masculinity in general right now, but with more revolutionary undertones. Effectively, accelerating the abstraction of the signifier away from the material to then reground a new swathe of signifiers we create in revolutionary movements and material beliefs. That sounds right, idk