My Path to Understanding Gender

What is gender to me? I guess I’ve never really thought about it before. I mean, I’ve followed a pretty heteronormative path in life.

Hmm, well this is as good a time as any to really delve into the vast unexplored chasm that is my gender identity!

First and foremost let’s begin with what Henry Coonrod knew about gender beforehand:

 

1. That gender is different than sex (or biological gender)
2. That gender identity exists on a spectrum, not a binary
3. That each gender identity experiences life differently
4. That there is privilege in being cisgendered
5. That there is prejudice towards people who identify their gender as outside the binary
6. That people can change their gender

 

Starting from these six facts I decided to expand my horizons, and learn more about the gender spectrum. Gender Spectrum is a fantastic website, the first thing that pops up when you google “gender”. On one simple web page is anyone’s introduction to four important topics:

 

1. The Gender Spectrum
2. The privilege of cisgendered peoples
3. The troubles of gender expansive peoples
4. And a basic terminology list so you can understand 2 and 3

 

Okay, let’s start with the gender spectrum. Before I came to Putney I only knew of two genders, boys and girls. I had never really thought beyond that binary. In fact, I’m not sure I even identified as a boy consciously. I never had to say it outloud.  It is crazy that I never had to be defined outside of this ‘normal’. The privilege that comes with being the part of the broad ‘Us’ rather than the dehumanizing label of ‘Them’.

 

Looking back I know I didn’t fit perfectly into the boy category. Here are some reasons why:

 

1. When I was in preschool I dressed up as a princess
2. I had always had a lot of girl friends
3. I was never really into sports
4. I was always reading
5. The only television I watched in elementary school was the discovery channel
6. I enjoyed baking and cooking from a young age

 

This isn’t to say that I now identify as a girl, but that I don’t fit perfectly into the category of “boy”.

 

“Now what I just described certainly applies to a few of you. Yeah there are people for which these descriptions end up being true. The problem here is options, and if you counted we have only two. Two options to describe every person in this room, each and every one of you. Two options to describe every person in this world, 7 billion individual identities, simplified into two” (Killermann, Tedx).

 

Sam Killermann, of It’s Pronounced Meterosexual, shows how crazy it is that everyone in the world is suppose to fit in these two categories. Even going from biological sex we can see that everyone is anatomically different, that penis and vagina are simply broad categories. Falling in line with the binary system is falling in line with the hegemony society perpetuates. On a shallow level, a  person who does so benefits from this system.

 

This leads me into Gender and privilege:

 

“To understand this more intuitively, think about the last time you were in a public setting and needed to use a restroom. For cisgender individuals, this rarely presents a problem or question…Yet for an individual who does not fit into narrowly defined expectations of gender presentation or identity, restroom use can present a whole host of challenges, sometimes even becoming a matter of life and death” (www.genderspectrum.com).

 

I am a cisgendered person, I have never needed to think about which bathroom I was going to use. I have never hesitated over “male” or “female” when I filled out a form. I have never feared violence for declaring my gender identity, neither physical nor psychological. There has never been an overwhelming conflict in myself over what gender I identify as or how other people will react when I tell them. Even as I write these privileges I know that I am not understanding what it truly means to be on a gender spectrum. People are individuals, and what I’ve covered above are just common issues I know of, through my heterosexual gaze. I can choose to never worry about the issues others face, because they don’t affect my life. This is my privilege.

 

I have just begun to educate myself on the gender spectrum, where and how I fall on this spectrum, and how my location gives me privilege. I now have the choice to live in ignorance or to pursue this understanding further. I have the privilege to go about my life without empathizing with people outside the gender binary. However, I choose to pursue this understanding, because I don’t perfectly fit inside these binary categories. I believe that no one can perfectly fit into these boxes, that we all demonstrate “feminine” and “masculine” qualities every day (whatever those mean). We are all individual people, so how can we be separated by only two categories? Aren’t we all outside the binary?

 

Sources

 

Killermann, Sam. “Breaking through the Binary: Gender Explained Using Continuums | It’s Pronounced Metrosexual.” Its Pronounced Metrosexual. Web. 28 Jan. 2016. <http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2011/11/breaking-through-the-binary-gender-explained-using-continuums/&gt;.

 

Killermann, Sam. “My TED Talk: Understanding the Complexities of Gender | It’s Pronounced Metrosexual.” Its Pronounced Metrosexual. Web. 28 Jan. 2016.

 

“Understanding Gender.” Gender Spectrum. Web. 28 Jan. 2016. <https://www.genderspectrum.org/quick-links/understanding-gender/&gt;.