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A Penis and a Dress: Why the Gender Binary Needs to Go Away

Started by Shana A, May 23, 2012, 09:30:33 AM

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Shana A

Allison Hope
PR specialist and journalist

A Penis and a Dress: Why the Gender Binary Needs to Go Away
Posted: 05/22/2012 8:26 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-hope/gender-binary_b_1531490.html

If your genitalia don't match the gender you most identify with, the American Psychiatric Association slaps you with the weighted label "gender identity disorder." There's current dialogue around changing the label to "gender incongruence," but it still boils down to the same ignorance: Society is placing judgment on you because you don't play by the rules.

What kind of message are we continuing to send to pregnant people everywhere? We live in such a deeply gendered society that our kids have no fighting chance when it comes to freedom of gender expression. Mainstream voices continue to use the wrong dialogue to talk about those who transcend gender norms; the recent Washington Post piece "Transgender at five" is a perfect example. By using language like "gender identity problems" and "condition" to describe a child who doesn't want to dress, act, or play like a girl just because this child was born with a vagina, the piece reinforces the existing model rather than poking holes in it. Our tunnel-visioned, outmoded landscape needs a fresh, fundamental critique. We're looking at biological sex and gender in all the wrong ways.

The solution? We need to raze the binary gender system entirely.
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Oscar Wilde


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SourCandy

I think the problem is deeper than Gender to an extent, I think ultimately it's tied into the "tribe/team" mentality. We feel a need as people to create teams and groups, then define ourselves based on rival teams and groups. And Boy-Girl is simply one of the oldest examples. Which is why I think society and people have a hard time accepting people who aren't "team players"

I don't know if the Binary should go away completely either, It's natural for there to exist duel concepts, and ultimately it's through the differences of cultural concepts that we define ourselves (I mean if male and female didn't exist as two things we would probably get some bland in-between, as oppose to a dynamic in-between created through molding two forces).

But I do agree that it needs to be chipped down to be less of a overwhelming force. I honestly don't know how to fix it, to me it seems like an ingrained human trait, which is passed down by parents who really only know how to teach manners through a spectrum of what is or isn't acceptable (and part of that is their concepts of gender norms).

I think it's like asking to get rid of hate, bullying, and discriminating. It comes down to needing a fundamental change in everyone which is too much to ask of such a diverse world of goods and bads.

There are ways to chip at it I guess, moving to a gender neutral bathroom system might help, getting rid of the gender question on forums that don't need it, time...

It makes me think, and I hope that one day we can at least get closer to a world that is less ready to define people as abnormal for how they feel I guess...
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suzifrommd

Quote from: SourCandy on May 23, 2012, 10:03:39 AM
I think the problem is deeper than Gender to an extent, I think ultimately it's tied into the "tribe/team" mentality. We feel a need as people to create teams and groups, then define ourselves based on rival teams and groups. And Boy-Girl is simply one of the oldest examples. Which is why I think society and people have a hard time accepting people who aren't "team players"

Very perceptive, Sour. That was the first thing that clued me in that I was non-binary - that I didn't seem to feel like I was a member of the male "team"

Quote from: SourCandy on May 23, 2012, 10:03:39 AM
I don't know if the Binary should go away completely either,

The binaries seem to need it. Many of them feel comfortable with members of their own kind. Not all of them, but I know many of them use this as a way to help them feel comfortable with their surroundings.

I'm a high school computer science teacher. I'm always trying to get more girls to sign up for my classes. One of the suggestions that seems to have worked is to seat them together when I made my seating chart. It seems to have made a difference - more girls now stay for the more advanced classes.

Quote from: SourCandy on May 23, 2012, 10:03:39 AM
It makes me think, and I hope that one day we can at least get closer to a world that is less ready to define people as abnormal for how they feel I guess...
Yeah, that about says it for me.
Have you read my short story The Eve of Triumph?
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