Lets Talk Gender
I identify as non-binary/genderqueer and use they/them pronouns. I started to venture into the world of exploring my gender identity in the spring of 2022. It probably began slightly sooner, as more and more people I was around were queer or questioning in some realm. For me, it was a moment of sitting down in the mud along the ice-cold waters that feed into Baker Lake, that I had this sense in myself that I don’t resonate with being 100% a woman.
For me, I experience gender as a construct. A social system that was created by people, and in many ways to control people via other constructs like patriarchy. Before going forward I would like to include some definitions. These definitions are all from the book Seeing Gender by Iris Gottlieb.
Assigned sex: The sex assigned to an individual at birth, which usually corresponds to the gender identity a person was raised with. It may or may not align with a person’s gender identity.
Biological sex: The physical characteristics of reproductive organs, secondary sexual characteristics, chromosomes, and hormones. This is not binary; some scientists argue that it is a continuum.
Cisgender: Someone whose gender identity and sex assigned at birth are the same.
Gender identity: The internal feeling of one’s gender. This can be different from gender expression and sex assigned at birth. Some common identities are: woman, man, transgender, genderqueer, agender.
Gender expression: How one displays their gender through dress, social behavior, and/or demeanor.
Gender binary: The belief that there are only two genders: male and female.
Gender fluid: Someone whose gender varies on the spectrum and is expressed dynamically.
Genderqueer: Someone who does not identify with the gender binary. This term is often used as an umbrella that includes gender fluid, agender, gender non-conforming, etc.
Okay, back to gender as a construct. In many ways, gender roles have been used to control people. To tell women that their place is in the home, with the kids, to be the one who nurtures and cares for the children and her husband. The man, on the other hand, has been told that his place is as the provider and the protector of the family, as the strong one who never cries or shows emotional vulnerability, and who is the patriarch of the family and holds the most power. These family structures have played out well beyond the walls of our homes, as we live in a patriarchal society that enforces these notions. I also want to note that intersectionality around gender(and life) is an INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT COMPONENT TO ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND. This is how race, gender, ability, sexuality, etc. intersect in creating a variety of barriers within society.
We have come a long way from living in this picture, and as I am able to identify systems of race and gender as systems that have been put in place to oppress people, I am also able to identify the systems that have existed within my own consciousness for so long. What was once truth with a capital T, I now see as a construct and have begun the work to deprogram myself psychologically from these systems.
I often encounter the notion that this dissolving of gender or influx of new gender identities is a new thing, and it isn’t. Colonization and Western culture has instilled this notion of the gender binary. The gender binary is in the bible, and thus took the world by storm and was enforced as Truth with a capital T in many brutal and unthinkable ways. The existence of women in power and gender fluidity in indigenous cultures became a threat to the colonial way of life, and thus acts of brutality, violence, and genocide were used to erase those whose existence challenged the foundations of Western society.
“That we do not fit easily into preexisting, officially recognized categories is the correlative of our culture of origin… Neither does our thought fit the categories that have been devised to organized western intellectual enterprise.”
— Paula Gunn Allen, First Nations Scholar
Around the world, the existence of those outside the gender binary has been around for centuries. II femminiello in Italy, Muxe, Zaptotec culture in Oaxaca, Mexico, Mahu in Hawaii, Sekrata in Madagascar, Sistergirls and Brotherboys in the Tiwi Islands of Australia, Hirjas of India, Two-Spirits of the USA and Canada, and the list goes on and on. These people still exist today. Effects of colonization and the ongoing persecution of these people enforce a binary that has created a stigma around what are the medicine people, seers, spiritual leaders, and valued members of their communities, culture, and society. Their very existence is a stand for decolonization, liberation, and freedom today.
Now returning to my own story….
During COVID-19 I was definitely experiencing some of my lowest lows in mental health and decided to hop on the trend of dying my hair. I went blonde, purple, and blue over the course of a few months, and while I was recovering from my depths I was starting to explore my identity through my physical expression.
One day, after a backpacking trip in the Mount Baker Wilderness I returned home with my bleached hair just soaked in sunscreen, sweat, and bug spray. It didn’t even feel like hair at that point, and I decided it had to go. My sweet sweet housemate and friend gave me an impromptu pixie cut and it felt sooooo good to be able to just let go of the hair that had been with me for all these tumultuous times. Hair carries energy, and I felt like I was stepping into a fresh start. And a sexy one too ; )
With my new doo, I was noticing a shift in how I felt and how I was being perceived. I had more people than ever ask me my pronouns and felt like the range to express myself and gender was increased tenfold (quick note, don’t assume someone’s gender identity based on how they look. Gender identity is different from gender expression). I was able to dress more masculine on some days and more feminine on others and see how it affected how I felt internally about my gender. It felt so cool to be able to explore beyond the binary that I had lived my whole life by.
This brings me to the lake, the big ah-ha. Once this thought entered my consciousness and I began to inquire why I had identified my whole life as a girl/woman. It became clear to me that it was mostly because I had been socially conditioned to think that gender was what was in my pants. But what was in my pants wasn’t necessarily in line with how I felt. I feel queer. I feel fluid.
Living on the West Coast in the safe bubble of Bellingham, exploring my pronouns and gender was an incredibly affirming process. I started to use she/they but found that the default that people used was still always she/her. Then started to identify as any pronoun, she/they/he/etc., and again the default was she/her. I started to experience dysphoria with she/her pronouns because while I would state that I was not 100% woman, constantly being referred to as she/her made it feel like I was still being put into the box of 100% woman all the time. So I started using they/them.
When I hear myself referred to as they/them I feel affirmed. I feel seen. I feel like the totality of my identity gets to have space and what it means to be Jennie is whatever I feel like at the moment. It has taken some time to feel confident in the vulnerability of sharing my pronouns and identity in all the spaces I am in. Correcting pronouns for myself is not always easy and has taken a lot of emotional energy, especially when I don’t feel respected. For many, this notion of the gender binary is still truth with a capital T, or is just taking a while for people to wrap their heads around it and use pronouns that they are not used to using for people. What is important to remember, is that we don’t have to understand someone fully to respect their identity and them as a person. These have been the moments that break my heart wide open in the best ways— the people who don’t understand/agree 100% but are committed to respecting me and other queer people in our identities because we are people deserving of respect, space to be our authentic selves, and love regardless of our differences.
I understand that for many people this is new and I am committed to patience. I am also committed to taking a stand for my identity in ensuring that people use the correct pronouns because when they do I am able to feel like myself. My whole, gender-fluid, ever-evolving self.
I also want to note that while I identify as gender fluid/queer I still hold a lot of privilege around being white and being straight passing. I urge us all to be the best allies we can be for the BIPOC(Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community and the LGBTQIA+ community and to keep intersectionality in mind. I request that we all go out of our way to educate ourselves on these systems(google is your friend!), and support BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ businesses, artists, communities, and individual people with our dollars, our hearts, and our attention so that we can all take the steps toward collective liberation, acceptance, generosity, abundance, community, and love. At the end of the day, we are all people, you and me, one in the same.
