https://www.cbc.ca/doczone/features/timeline-transgender-through-history

In the status quo, transgender people are fighting for basic human rights and respect while many view them as a condition of postmodern thought.  People view all non binary gender identities as a new concept, however it has been existent since the beginning of time and it was more complex than just defining anyone that doesn’t fit into the category of woman or man as “transgender.”  Non binary people have been fighting to be recognized since before the Stonewall Riots, for example there was the Compton Cafeteria Riot 3 years earlier in 1966, but resistance to binary identity goes back even further. On a global scale, binary gender was not natural or assumed, it was enforced through invasion and colonization by western countries in order to achieve their ideal society based off of their own utopian desires of uniformity, absolute control, and productivity that leads to maximum wealth for the elite (the people they deemed as “the best” for no reason other than that they said so).  In South East Asia they have hundreds to thousands of years of culture that was not constrained to gender, for example, they had what they called Hijras in India. Hijras were a designated third gender that did not conform with a specific identity and they were highly respected, and even known to have special powers. They would be at weddings and births to bless the people until the British colonial rule made it illegal to be a Hijras. Japan also had a third gender system, called Wakashus, who were honored and respected as beautiful gender fluid individuals. Many Native tribes in Europe and America were known to have a transformative system in which the gender was fluid. In the United States the Navajo tribe would recognize four genders and outside of the four, if someone didn’t fit into any then they would also be seen as extra powerful and respected.  In the Native American garden of eden they recognized 5 genders (Female, male, Two Spirit female, Two Spirit male, and transgendered) and were also supportive of LGBT folks.  This non-binary gender system was the first thing white colonial European settlers struck down in many cases, to control the behavior and identities of the tribe as they took the land.  One of the reasons that they did so is because it was also easier to oppress large amounts of people when there were only two options and one was depicted as superior.  White leaders did the same thing with the separation between white people and colored people. When there is only two options, one group may feel superior and be more able to dominate over the other half of the population based upon the ideal that they are inherently better.

I asked many people the seemingly simple question “What does it mean to be a woman?”  Despite the simplicity, many got confused when trying to answer. Here’s some of the answers I received:

“Oh fuck, ok well give me a second…I don’t really know, I don’t know if I know myself.  I guess it should be similar to how to define a man. I personally relate to men a lot more than I do women but I still consider myself to be a woman so it’s confusing. I guess it depends who you’re surrounded by.”

“Objectively its just to be a female adult in society.”

“Well I don’t know, I’m not a woman.”

“I think you definitely have some properties to be a woman that are feminine and it’s definitely different than being a man.  I’d say to be a woman it’s hard, I’ll give you that.”

“Holy shit, I’ve never ever even considered how I would answer this.  Its feminine traits but it’s also being strong and providing. Women are way fucking smarter and better than men.  It’s like growing up my dad wasn’t around and I got to see my mom have traits that aren’t traditionally feminine which made me view women a lot different than other people.”

“You have to be strong and smart and independent to be a good woman.”

“Strong.”

“That’s like such a deep question and I don’t know the answer”

“First off, vagina.  I think a lot of woman in our generation tend to over extend and over commit.  Women are strong but soft, they’re a balance of a lot of different things. We have jobs and are also mothers raising children which isn’t as common for men.”

“I don’t know how to describe that.  To be a woman you’re another member of society, you have your own purpose you’re serving like every other member of society on the planet.”

“How would I know that, I am a man?  I like women. I look at women as equal as a person, sure they’re the opposite sex but other than that part I don’t know, a person is a person. The women’s movement isn’t new, Queen Cleopatra and Queen Shiba, Margaret Thatcher, there’s women that ruled as dictators.  Women can be more emotional and get away with it in our society, if a man started crying in a grocery store everyone would freak out, women are luckier than men in that regard, men suck it up and that stigma and separation will always be there because that’s how it is, men aren’t supposed to show weakness whereas women can.”

“I was going to say the ability to bear children but trans women can’t do that so I don’t know..it also can’t be about chromosomes because of gender identity so I really have no idea.”

Many people related the gender to human experience.  By calling it “hard” to be a woman, they defined half the population’s experience of the world into one category. That’s why it is confusing to many to describe, because human beings are different yet by defining ourselves within the construct of a binary gender system we become controlled by what people envision the gender we were assigned as.  The confusion of this question to all of the people I asked also shows that this western construction of a binary gender system is so ingrained in our heads as important that we blindly follow, yet have no idea why we do so, and we don’t even know what it means. Others described a sex, rather than a gender; a sex is based off of the anatomy that you were born with, yet gender is based upon personality and human experience, which is why having only two categories of human experience is harmful to our personal development and self discovery.  Several people described being a woman as “strong” and “independent” which historically has been a male trait, but today it is something that you would say any good human being must be, which begs the question “why gender?” Some other people said women are completely equal to men, then why separate us? What is unique to experiencing the world under the label of “woman,” and if there is no difference because we are all equal then why not do away with the concept of gender completely? The purpose of asking so many people this question was not to find one definite or correct answer, because there isn’t one.  The purpose was to show people that they don’t understand a concept that they act according to constantly in their daily lives, and to force the reader ] to grapple with the fact that we weren’t born to act this way, that society forced this upon the world…but why? What does society get by putting every person into one of two categories?

Sex and gender are different. Medical News Today states “In general terms, “sex” refers to the biological differences between males and females, such as the genitalia and genetic differences. “Gender” is more difficult to define, but it can refer to the role of a male or female in society, known as a gender role, or an individual’s concept of themselves, or gender identity.” When people describe gender by anatomy they eliminate all transgender and non binary people from being able to express themselves as they see fit.  Transgender youth are the most at risk for suicides of any population in the country because the social stress of discovering yourself and purpose through artificial binaries are toxic to the development of human beings.  You also eliminate all intersex people who were born with a combination both male and female anatomy. If these people are unable to express themselves through gender, they are unable to define their human experience by anything besides “other” because of how crucial gender has been made by society is in defining ourselves.  Because of this social stigma and the man made necessity to define one’s self and one’s human experience through gender, many doctors perform surgeries on intersex individuals that can be dangerous and are unnecessary just because of societal stigma. At this point gender binaries are no longer only a threat to people’s human experience, self discovery, rights, equality, and mental health, but a threat to the human body.

A binary is by definition “composed of, or involving two things,” so why did the west impose a binary system upon the world when it didn’t naturally exist and humans are complex creatures?  We know that many cultures understood the complexity of gender and expression, and that today in modern society people struggle to understand themselves through a specific lense.  Binaries are a way for governments and cultures to control how people directly experience the world. When you are automatically defined as male or female, you use that definition to define yourself and that impacts your view of the world and how you behave.  Suddenly someone is not a unique person with infinite paths and experiences, they now are given two that they use in their everyday lives to define themselves and their experiences. Binaries are important to people seeking control because rather than having a spectrum where people could behave and transform themselves in a variety of ways they are restricted to two boxes, and that is easier to limit and restrict.  Suddenly, the government was able to pit men and women against each other with different laws and rights because there were only two options of what a person could be and experience. The men that were in power and taking control of society could easily maintain control when they projected the idea that men were stronger and superior, and therefore were able to initiate gender roles. When born a female, a person was suddenly expected to grow into a woman and let that define her. She was then expected to bare children, take care of the home, cook, clean, be fragile, feminine, and caring.

Without specific gender binaries people around the world never would have been able to oppress and degrade over half of the population as easily as they were. It was easier to suppress a large amount of people when there were only two categories.  They never would have been able to put so many people into a single category, make them feel worthless, and take away their voice, forcing them to act as they’re told, as if they only have one option of how to experience life.  

All over the world women were subjected to harmful gender segregated phenomenons and had a lack of rights. In China foot binding was a particularly harmful phenomenon where women were expected to tightly wrap their feet to change the shape to be smaller and more feminine, and in doing so it was so extremely painful that women could not even walk and were enslaved to their homes, thus furthering the patriarchal system that dictated that only men could have jobs or any sort of power.  Today in Kenya (a country that was colonized until 1964) there’s still high amounts of gender taboos, women are often shamed for getting their periods and have difficulty even obtaining menstrual products. In many cultures female genital mutilation which is dangerous and involves removing the clitoris as a societal norm.

America is supposed to be the country of equality yet last week Alabama annihilated half of their population by legally banning all abortions, even those caused by rape or incest.  By doing this they’re able to also keep the poor oppressed, and control the sexual lives and tendencies the country. The rich men who created this law will always have access to abortion for those around them they wish to provide it for, they’ll hire a private doctor or fly their mistress, daughter, etc. to another state or if necessary country.  The rich white men that voted for this bill have passed the most restrictive abortion laws in the states with the largest proportions of women of color in their states, and they’re able to target such a large group of people through a single law because of the power they’ve been able to achieve through being on the “right” end of a binary. Rich men will always be able to get birth control for the women they choose to have sex with, and will always be able to have the sex they wish, yet they’re attempting to control the behavior of the public and women overall.  By targeting half of the population that society has dictated as one specific type of person, they are able to keep poor women in poverty and put many into it. Outside of the United States this is a constant problem as well, in Mexico feminists are at an extremely high risk for violence and even murder for seeking rights and equality. The term is referred to as femicide because an entire population of males has been pitted against all females through binaries in an attempt to create chaos and violence, further allowing the rich and powerful men to stay in power.  

Through binaries the rich leaders all around the world are able to control bodies, control experiences, control wealth, and control perspectives. Still today women everywhere are tied to ridiculous beauty standards that have created a large amount of eating disorders on a global scale and are subjected to high rates of rape and domestic abuse.  Women are told they need diets and surgery to be beautiful. Men are told that they can’t cry, that they must experience the world through an emotionless masculine lens. Nobody is truly free when a binary standard is in place, because you are being told how to experience the world based on the body you were born into.  Binaries have and always will be about controlling the human experience.

No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body.

Margaret Sanger, an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse

People have wrongly correlated gender with who a person is and how they experience the world in media and society because that’s what they’ve been taught.  Many people think that the only option in life is to experience the world through a specific lens based upon the body we were born into. Below are popular memes that show that people today still incorrectly believe that gender makes a person who they are because of the binary system that has been superimposed.

Media and advertising are extremely toxic in many ways because its a reflection of the utopian desires of some that create and project societal beauty standards and aesthetic principles onto many. Whether this be the beautiful love interest in a romantic comedy, or the buff actor on the Axe Body Spray commercial, we’ve all seen the constant generalizations and depictions of the human experience and how we are all supposed to be.

“It’s very true that you can be both selfless and selfish at the same time. What we tend towards, particularly in filmmaking, is this binary sort of, ‘This is a good guy, this is a bad guy.’ And I quite like the fact that life is a bit more complex than that.”

Hugh Grant

In advertising women are from Venus and men are from Mars.  Advertisers use the idea that men and women are inherently different to develop stories, create conflict, and provide persuasive imagery to sell products that differentiate the male experience from the female experience.  Most people are only shown imagery of what the ideal is, what’s supposedly “normal,” as if there’s one way to live correctly. Advertising buys into society’s utopian depictions to sell people products that may create the life that is spoon fed to them as perfect. Because of the society that has been created, advertising based on stereotypes has always been existent and has furthered gender norms exponentially.  Since the beginning of the free market, different products were made to depict a different experience between a man than a woman, and nothing in between. Even today advertising still uses this binary sort of advertising, depicting a man’s experience as something completely unique from a woman’s, yet no room for any experience that is not made through the lens of gender.  A car is depicted as a “man’s car” as if driving a car is a different experience for a person based off of their gender. A mother is the face of cleaning products because that’s the traditional role women were supposed to play as if being a mother or a woman gives you an automatic desire to clean.

“The conversation on gender is shifting and it’s time that brands started listening. Generation Z is leading the way and redefining gender, making a traditional binary understanding feel outdated and out of touch. More than a third of generation Z strongly agree that gender does not define a person as much as it used to and brands will need to move on from a reliance on outdated stereotypes in advertising to stay relevant.”

Michelle Du Prat, executive strategy director at Household

Kids are taught in binaries constantly. To understand the world they are taught the difference between a cat and a dog, a hot dog and a hamburger, an apple and an orange. To comprehend life children are taught oversimplified versions of experiences and that and way of perceiving surroundings transfers to us later in life.  From a young age most children play some sort of sport whether that be in gym or on a team, and either way they are taught that they either win or lose.  This sort of mentality is drilled into our heads that all situations are in binaries, that there is always a winner or a loser. This is how we are taught to think, to be productive members of society that don’t question the way things are because we are taught to accept simplicity and binaries.

Anyone with a child knows that children learn about the world through binary options: up or down, hot or cold, big or little, inside or outside, wet or dry, good or bad, boy or girl, man or woman.

-Phyllis Schlafly, an American constitutional lawyer, movement conservative, and conservative

Children are also taught in gender binaries, that everyone is either a girl or a boy. When I was a kid we used to sing “boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider, girls go to college to get more knowledge.” This harmful separation and over simplicity from a young age sets us up to not question gender binaries, or any binary that we are shoved into while we are trying to discover ourselves within society’s parameters.

Within psychology people are often divided into Type A personalities vs. Type B. Type A people are scribed as outgoing, ambitious, rigidly organized, highly status-conscious, sensitive, impatient, anxious, proactive, and concerned with time management. People with Type A personalities are often described as high-achieving “workaholics”.  Type B people are described as they do not get irritated or angry easily. They are laid back and relaxed. They rarely tend to be aggressive or frustrated, and are not anxious to complete tasks. These oversimplifications are a metaphor for the larger way that we constantly classify people into binary groups.

The middle class and its influence has gotten smaller in 40 countries for every generation since the baby boomers, and the living standards of the middle class have lowered in the past 30 years. As the middle class disappears on a global scale, people are forced to gravel between poverty and wealth because there is increasingly no in between. Even wealth is no longer allowing for a spectrum, it is becoming a binary that is created by those in power. Companies are increasingly becoming rich and allowing for the rest of the population to become poor. The wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation’s wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%. (CNBC)  The utopian desires of the rich become more clear as the middle class disappears, to have a world where only some are successful and it is nearly impossible for the rest to succeed. As our society becomes more binary there is less hope among average citizens, the American dream is something that you essentially have to be asleep to believe, and this binary way of thinking translates to the everyday actions of citizens. White people often blame immigrants or colored people for “stealing their jobs” when they are unable to succeed, while the cause is actually a side effect of the binary system that the rich and powerful have created to stay in control and in power, while everyone else has no chance of success.

America’s political and judicial system is a perfect example of how extensive the binary way of thinking is in the functionality of society.  When voting for the highest office in The United States, the presidency, we have a republican option and a democratic option and throughout American history, a third party has never won.  When democrats are in control of the House or Senate they are able to push their particular agenda. Bi partisan bills and committees are uncommon because many political issues are either democratic or republican, and each side wants to obtain as much power as possible to further their own agenda.  In the house, currently the Climate Change Caucus consists of only 8 people. It is supposed to be bipartisan because it is an issue that affects everyone. However, because climate change is seen as a Democratic issue only, only 4 Republicans will join so only 4 Democrats can join and this fighting is detrimental to our society. The binary system prevents fair policy for all citizens.  This two party system is not only in America either, many other countries all over the world, including Jamaica, Australia and Malta function in the same binary way.

The American judicial system is built off of the same binary principle that the election system is. Sentencing is either guilty or innocent, and mandatory minimum sentencing provides no room for in between.  The people who are the most susceptible to unfair sentencing and convictions are the people who have been consistently hurt by binaries the most, the poorest and most disadvantaged/oppressed in society. We as a society label people as law abiding citizens or criminals, and once people have been sentenced as guilty, (even if it was a nonviolent crime) they are labeled as criminal for life and it goes on their recored. It is far less likely that people will hire a criminal than someone with no record, and they are further othered by society as a failure and a threat through binary judgement and categorization.

Mandatory minimum sentencing has disproportionately affected blacks, Hispanics and others who often don’t have the financial means to fight back.

Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky since 2011