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• 1 2017-04-24T08:31:06-07:00 Seeing Past The Gender Binary 22 How men's and women's magazines exclude those who do not identify within the gender binary. plain 429070 2017-05-13T14:44:08-07:00

  Sex and Gender are two different things. Sex is what your doctor says your birth anatomy categorized as. Gender is how you present yourself to the world. Sex is what makes you 'male' or 'female' (or, intersex), and gender is what makes you 'macho', 'tomboy', 'camp', 'femme', 'butch' etc. So, you can be a 'female' who is 'macho' even though that's traditionally considered masculine. One can have different extents of masculinity and femininity within their personality and can choose to identify with with the parts that feel right. There is no one way of being a woman or man, or a person, for that matter - at there are may available identities in between.

   

  Sexuality lies at the intersection of sex, gender, expression and attraction and refers to how one expresses themselves as a sexual being, or does not. Sexual orientation refers to lasting desire (romantic and/or sexual) for one or more sexes and/or genders, however is only a piece of one's sexual identity.

   

  Many people are confused when they get to the Q+ part of LGBTQ+. 'Q' indicates Questioning/Queer/Genderqueer, which includes people who feel their gender and/or sexual identities fall outside of the categories of man and woman. They would prefer to fall in between, or outside of the binary entirely.

   

   

  Gender “is a form of categorization and social control” which “tells us how to treat and respond to others.” This rigid structure in which one can only be one of two options is known as the gender binary, which excludes those who not conform to gender expectations.

   

  In her book Gender Outlaws, Kate Bornstein explores some of the social markers through which gender is communicated and determined:

  “Physical cues include body, hair, clothes, voice, skin, and movement….[b]ehavioral cues include manners, decorum, protocol, and deportment….[t]extual cues include histories, documents, names, associates, relationships–true or false–which support a desired gender attribution….[m]ythic cues include cultural and sub-cultural myths which support membership in a given gender. This culture’s myths include archetypes like: weaker sex, dumb blonde, strong silent type, and better half….[p]ower dynamics as cue include modes of communication, communication techniques, and degrees of aggressiveness, assertiveness, persistence, and ambition,” Bornstein writes.

  Gender expression is the way one chooses to present gender to others through dress, grooming, speech etc.

  Gender attribution is when someone looks at another person and categorizes them based on various learned social cues. Outside of transgender groups and their allies, attribution in our society always operates within the binary.
  
  According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's (GLAAD) media reference, Transgender "refers to a gender identity, which is a 'social or psychological' rather than a 'biological' identity. In this way, a transgendered person's identity might be different from the sexual or biological identity they were born with. Therefore, someone who is assigned 'male' at birth but identifies as a woman may be transgender, or a trans-woman. Likewise, someone who is assigned 'female' might identify as a man and is also a transgender person, or trans-man.
  

  “It can be difficult for trans people to be seen as the gender they identify with for a multitude of reasons. They may not have the time, money, or ability to change their expression. They may not want to change certain things (or anything) about themselves in order to be more in line with what cis society expects. They may be non-binary and cannot pass as their gender in a cisnormative society no matter how they dress or express themselves. Furthermore, there is no completely “right” way to do a certain gender. There are cues that we have come to see as male or female, but one cannot do every marker of a certain gender because there is no ideal set of gender markers.”

  Gender is not black and white. Sexes - male and female - are, right?
  
  NOPE!

  Male and female form two ends of a spectrum. There are many intermediate conditions arising from anomalies in sex chromosome configuration beyond XX and XY possibilities, differences in how the fetus reacts to hormones, or variations in the mode of sexual development.

  These can be referred to as intersex variations and "may or may not be accompanied by ambiguous genitalia or reproductive organs which are neither strictly male nor female."

  Many people point to the idea of the seemingly binary nature of sex, however it’s actually very common and natural for people to have different variations of chromosomes, gonads, and sex hormones.
  
  In fact, according to Lori Girshwick of Transgender Voices, 1 in 100 births deviate from the expectations we have of male and female bodies. Even in non-intersex people, there are no real distinct sex categories.

  “Real variation exists in every measurable attribute used to assign the categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ to bodies. Facial hair, voice pitch, hormone levels, chromosome makeup, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, as well as people who are intersex all prove that ‘biology’ is not a clear-cut basis for category and offers faulty criteria for determining a gender binary” (Girshwick 33-34).