She/He/They/Me: An Interactive Guide to the Gender Binary

by Robyn Ryle

An accessible guide for learning about gender identity for those questioning their own genders, generally curious about gender, or interested in better understanding someone else's identity.

If you've ever questioned the logic of basing an entire identity around what you have between your legs, it's time to embark on a daring escape outside of the binary box. Written in a choose-your-own path style, you'll explore over one hundred different scenarios that embrace nearly every definition of gender around the globe and throughout history in a refreshingly creative exploration of the ways gender colors and shapes our world.

In She/He/They/Me, Dr. Robyn Ryle, professor of sociology and gender studies at Hanover College in Indiana, thoughtfully discusses gender constructs, expectations, and transitions along with covering everything from the science, biology, and psychology of gender to the philosophy, legality and societal implications.

This is a must-read for better understanding and celebrating LGBTQ+, nonbinary, and transgender identities and a great resource for parents of gender queer kids.

Praise for She/He/They/Me:

"An engaging, choose-your-own-adventure-style guide to gender that encourages readers to travel down paths with which they may not be familiar. These guided thought experiments are opportunities to consider just how strongly our gender assignments influence our daily lives." -Psychology Today

"This is a wonderful book on the nuance of gender. I think the flip-book "choose your own adventure" style is novel and allows for a custom reading experience. The back and forth makes it friendly and easy to digest." -Lara B. (Amazon Customer)

"Light and accessible, this is a smart and streamlined journey through the nuances of gender identity." -Booklist

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Gender, Transgender, Psychology, Feminism

448 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2019

About the author

Robyn Ryle is a writer who also teaches sociology and gender studies at a small liberal arts college in Indiana. Her young adult novel, FAIR GAME, about a girls' basketball team that challenges the boys to a high stakes game, putting their season, their futures and three cherished friendships on the line, is available for pre-order now.

She's also the author of three nonfiction books. THROW LIKE A GIRL, CHEER LIKE A BOY: THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER, IDENTITY, AND RACE IN SPORTS will be available in paperback in August 2023. SHE/HE/THEY/ME: AN INTERACTIVE GUIDE TO THE GENDER BINARY is a 2020 ALA Stonewall Book Award Honoree. She's also written a sociology of gender textbook, QUESTIONING GENDER: A SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION, available in its 5th edition in October 2023.

She has essays and stories at Newsweek, Gawker, CALYX Journal, Tin House and Belt Magazine, among others. You can find her on Twitter, @RobynRyle and IG, @robynrryle.

Reviews

[Bogi Takács]

It is a cool idea to do a choose-your-adventure book about gender, but I found the execution really disappointing. Besides a lot of small (and sometimes not so small) inaccuracies, the book would've seriously needed more playtesting. A lot of the later entries erase the choices you make earlier on. Here are some reviews that point out specifics -

By Avery: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
By Alexa: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

These kinds of mistakes would be frustrating even if the book was one of those Fighting Fantasy adventures (oh my G-d I read so many of those), but when it comes to identity, I feel the situation is even worse, because the thoughtless branching erases your most personal decisions.

Avery and Alexa point out many details related to nonbinary themes, but I want to briefly add that the intersex plotlines also have both contradictions and erasure.

Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library (and I was on the holds list forever, so the book's popular...)

[Elliot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was so wildly disappointing. Given the title and cover design I was expecting a book that explores numerous different gender expressions and experiences. What I got was an extremely binary book. I took a few different paths and discovered, to great disappointment, that the bulk of the book focuses on very binary experiences. It seems designed for cisgender stories. If you try to follow a genderqueer path good luck. There is a branch where you have to pick either acceptance or rejection from your family at a young age. If you pick rejection the rest of the branch reads as cis. If you pick acceptance and are nonbinary you get a page at best, then proceed down the same path. Even if you take a trans branch the later sections overlap with the cis ones. It's really frustrating.

Here's the thing: there's a lot of good info in this book for those who are new to ideas of gender and feminism. It's a decent primer for people who are not familiar with these concepts at all. However, if you're well versed in gender, or a member of the queer community, the odds are good you will find this book off-putting or alienating. After interacting with this book for several hours I really want someone to write the book I thought this would be when I picked it up. I'm glad I borrowed this one and didn't buy it.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

مدل نوشتار کتاب جالب بود، لزومی نداشت پشت سرهم بخونی و مدل گیم‌بوک ها انتهای هر چپتر می‌تونستی ادامه مسیر رو انتخاب کنی، البته تو این کتاب برای منسجم شدن مطالبی بود که میخواستی دریافت کنی. چون مسیر های مختلفی رو می‌تونستی برای شروع و ادامه خوندن پیش بگیری.

اوایل کتاب راجع به تعریف جندر و جندر ترنزیشن و فرهنگ های مختلف و باورهای مختلف گفته بود.
Gender, like many other social identities, is partly forced upon us by the societies in which we live. You didn’t choose to be born into a culture that believes that there are two genders instead of just one or an infinite number.

یه سری معرفی هاش خیلی خوب بودن و یه سری موردهاش  عجیب بودن. از فرهنگ ها و کشور هایی گفته بود که فقط تو تعاریف اولیه‌شون دو جنسیت نداشتن و بیشتر بوده.
نکته مهم راجع به خوندن کتاب اینه که آماده پذیرش تفاوت های فرهنگی باشی و فکر نکنی مدل تفکر و تربیت فرهنگت، روش درسته و بقیه ابلهن.

مثلا هیجرا های هندو.
هیجرا ها نه مردن نه زن و فرایند مدلیه که باهاش به دنیا نمیاد، بعدا اون جنسیت رو میگیره.

 As a hijra in India, you get to have some say in your gender assignment, something you wouldn’t get in many other cultures.

اینطوریه که طرف اول پسر به دنیا میاد ولی یه بازه ای تو زندگیش، یکی از خداهای هندی باچارا ماتا فرا میخونتش و شخص اگه به این فراخوانی جواب بده باید جنسیتش رو عوض کنه و بشه هیجرا، موهاش رو بلند کنه، لباس های زنانه بپوشه بعد یه سری تربیت ها زیر نظر یه گورو ببینه و از اون به بعد وارد جامعه هیجرا ها میشه که پولی بهشون میدن و فیگور مهمی برا اعتقادات هیندو ها هستن. 
حالا این شخص می‌تونه ندای خدا رو برا هیجرا شدن جواب نده، ولی تو زندگی بعدیش نازا به دنیا میاد و برا فرهنگی که بچه دار شدن خیلی توش مهمه، این ریسک رو نمیکنن.

تو ریگ‌ودا جنسیت های خیلی متنوع تری تو اساطیرشون وجود داره که شامل مردانی با رحم، یا خدای مردی که سینه داره یا کردی که حامله میشه. اصلا اینا برای هند باستان خیلی عادی بوده.

مثال دیگه آلیهاهای موهاوه Mohave های آمریکای شمالی اند.
این فرایند تعیین جنسیت با دیدن رویا توسط مادر باردار وقتی شخص هنوز تو رحمشه صوت میگیره و یه سری نشانه ها به مادر راجع به آلیها شدن بچه‌ش میده.
این بچه پسر به دنیا میاد اما در حدود سن ده سالگی، رفتار های مردانه معمول رو دنبال نکرده و به سوی رفتار های خانومانه میره، لباس های مرسوم‌تر برای خانم ها رو میپوشه و در جوامع در محل های مخصوص خانم ها می‌ره. 

همچنین یه مراسمی میگیرن که آلیها شدن رسمی بشه و در اون مطمئن بشن که شخص واقعا قرار بود الیها بشه یا همون پسر بمونه. تو این مراسم که همه قبیله دایره میزنن، دو خانم شخص رو میارن وسط و سرود های مخصوص الیها خونده میشه و اگه بچه تو این مراسم همراه خانم ها برقصه، الیها بودنش اثبات میشه و از اون به بعد لباس الیها میپوشه و اسم دخترونه براش انتخاب میشه و ارگان های بدنش به اسم ارگان های خانم ها نامگذاری میشن.

الیها ها با مرد ها ازدواج میکنن و تو فرهنگ موهاوه اتفاقا خیلی راحت هم همسر انتخاب میکنن. بعد از ازدواج اینها پریود هم میشن. بدین صورت که بطور سیمبولیکی بین پاهاشون رو میبرن و خونریزی رو ایجاد میکنن و تمام رفتار هایی که با خانم ها در طول پریودیشون میشه و ملاحظاتی که دارن، برای این ها هم رعایت میشه.

حالا شاید به نظر برسه که خب خانم شد که چرا میگن جنسیت سوم، اما نکته ای که هست اینه که همه قوانین خانم ها هم براشون اجرا نمیشه و به سریش قوانین مرد ها و یه سریش قوانین خودشونه. که بحث های ازدواج و زندگی در خانه و میراث گذاری و ایناست.

تو اروپای شرقی، جنسیتی وجود داره به اسم ورجین های قسم خورده بالکان. این افراد در بدو تولد خانمند اما در به سالی قسم باکرگی میخورند و علیرغم حفظ اسم اولیه خودشون، لباس ها و رفتار و شغل مردانه میشه. حتا با پرونون مردانه خطاب میشن. این ها مراسم تدفین مانند آقایان نمیگیرند و از اون طرف مانند خانم ها ازدواج هم نمیکنند. از طرفی با اینکه مانند آقایان اجازه حمل و استفاده از سلاح دارند، اما اگه مورد حمله قرار گیرند با شخص حمله کننده مدلی برخورد میشه و مجازات میشه که انگار به زن حمله کرده.

تو یونان باستان، زن رو ورژنی از مرد میدونستن، همون طور که مرد رو ورژنی از خدایان میدونستند. اندام جنسیشون رو هم اونهمه متفاوت از هم نمیدونستن. و نه ابله نبودن که تفاوت رو نبینن، ولی تفاوتش براشون مثل فرق رنگ مو یا رنگ پوست بوده، برا پوست سیاه نمیگی پوست نیست یه اندام متفاوت دیگه است که. از لحاظ بافت-جنین شناسی هم اندام جنسی زن و مرد تا خیلی مراحل یکین.

کتاب اومده بود گفته بود اینکه فکر می‌کنی چقدر احمقانه فلان مدلی فکر میکنن اینکه همون فلان ماست از چیزی نشأت میگیره که بهش میگن، اتنوسنتریسم. برتریت دادن فرهنگ خودمون به باقی فرهنگ ها و قبولش به عنوان نرم اصلی.
ETHNOCENTRISM
The belief or attitude that one’s own culture is normal and therefore superior to all others.


راجع به برتریت جنسی و دسته بندی جنسیت و جامعه پدرسالار و مادرسالار هم زیاد صحبت کرده بود.

Because of androcentrism, you might be seen as superior to girls and women, especially if you’re a white, cisgender, straight boy. You’ll be seen as superior not because of anything you do but just because of who you are.
On the other hand, there are costs that come with being on the top in a system like this. As a boy at the top of patriarchy, you’re expected to fit a very narrow definition of what it means to a boy and follow all the specific and sometimes contradictory rules of masculinity.
If you’re not white or straight or cisgender or able-bodied or tall enough or strong enough, you might also lose out on some of the patriarchal dividend, or the good stuff that men and boys receive in a patriarchal society.

می‌گفت یه سری بررسی های تاریخی نشون داده این دسته بندی بر اساس اندام جنسی تو یه سری تمدن ها اصلا معنی نداشته و احتمالا بعد از برخوردشون با آنگلواروپاییا ها این مفهوم وارد فرهنگشون شده.
If, as a group, you don’t really attach importance or meaning to genitals, then you wouldn’t see a reason to organize your sexual or romantic behavior around them.

اصلا یه جا اومده بود گفته بود
Up until puberty, most of the differences between girls and boys are social rather than biological. In fact, even after puberty, humans as a species have very little gender-based differentiation compared to other species.

از قرن هجدهم به بعد بوده که این دیمورفیسم جنسیتی به وجود اومده.
Sexual dimorphism is the belief that there are two discrete and objectively real biological categories called male and female. Discrete means that you can only be in one category or the other; you can’t be both male and female at the same time. Objectively real means that anyone could look at the criteria you’ve developed to sort people into two categories and would come to the exact same conclusion about which category you belong to.

As far as criteria for deciding your gender, the presence or absence of a penis seems fairly straightforward.


تو یه سری قبایل آفریقا جنسیت و اندام جنسی، تو تسلط شخص و قدرت شخص هیچ تاثیری نداشته و چیزی که مهم بوده سن اون آدم بوده. رهبر قبیله نه طبق جنسیت که طبق تجربه و بیشتر سن اون شخص انتخاب می‌شده. (یه سریشون هنوز هم این مدلین)


راجع به درخواست فرهنگی اجتماعی و اصلا تعریف جنسیت ها هم حرف های جالبی داشت.

the possibility of infinite genders exists only as way of understanding gender rather than an actual gender system. Infinite genders is a mindset, so while you might be in a place that claims to have only one gender or two genders, you’ve seen through that illusion to the more complicated truth of the situation—the number of possibilities for gender categories is really endless.
Maybe one truth about gender is that no one can live out a perfect version, regardless of how your particular culture lays out the rules.
And maybe, to make things even more interesting, you’re doing a different gender depending on the time of year. Or the day of the week. Or the hour. The gender you’re doing at lunch is completely different from the gender you’re doing come bedtime.


بعد اینکه به یکی بگی دختری یا پسری و فقط همین دو رو انتخاب کن چیز فرهنگی ایه و لزوما چیز درستی نیست و این داره تغییر می‌کنه. همون طوری که مفهوم وارد دخترونه و پسرونه در طول زمان و در محیط های مختلف فرق داشته و داره.

If you were a girl among the Mundugumor, you’d find that people in your culture don’t make many important distinctions between what it means to be a boy or a girl. They hold up the same basic set of ideals for everyone, regardless of their gender. The characteristics that are most highly valued among the Mundugumor include violence, competitiveness, being jealous, and being ready to take action and fight.
As a girl being socialized among the Mundugumor, you’ll be rewarded for getting into fights and punished for behaving in too weak or passive a manner

و این دختر پسر یا هرچیز دیگه بودن چیزیه که خود شخص باید بهش برسه نه لزوما بهش بچسبونن. تو قوانین کشور های مختلف داره لزوما باینری یا کلا انتخاب کردن جنسیت از مسائل قانونی و رسمی حذف میشه.

Gender assignment is what happens when someone puts you into a gender category appropriate to your particular culture. gender assignment is what happens when someone announces, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” or “It’s something else entirely!” or “It’s no one’s business what it is!”

اصلا تو یه سری فرهنگ ها همین که بچه به دنیا میاد با نگاه به اون پایین بهش نمیگن خب به‌به پسره، باید یه سری اتفاقا دیگه هم بیوفته تا شخص رو به عنوان پسر و مرد بپذیرند.

In some cultures, gender assignment happens later because children aren’t thought of as being fully gendered until later in life, often after some kind of initiation ritual. For example, among the Awa people of New Guinea, boys must undergo a series of rituals to “dry out” their bodies, as they believe excess moisture will make it impossible for the boys to mature physically into men. Part of these rituals involve induced bleeding, without which the Awa believe the boys will fail to physically become men.

the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea believe that boys aren’t born with jerungdu, the essential substance that makes them men. They don’t become men until later in life when they ingest jerungdu in a ritual setting.

بعد از این ها کلی راجع به سکسوال اورینتیشن و تفاوت های نژادی تو هر کدوم این ها و اتفاقات بلوغ و ... صحبت کرده بود که فکر کنم دیگه زیادی از کتاب چیزی آوردم.

فقط در آخر این دوتا هم داشته باشیم:

You’re not sure yet about your gender identity. That’s okay. In fact, maybe it makes more sense than all the people who seem to be so certain about their gender identity. Who you are in terms of your gender is a big deal and it will make a huge difference to your life experiences. How can anyone know that when they’re just a kid? Why do we expect anyone to have these answers for sure when they’re five or ten or twenty or fifty?

If you’re born into a culture or time period that has a different way of making sense of people with bodies like yours, then your body is probably less likely to be seen as something that needs to be “fixed.” There might not be any rules laid out for exactly how you’re supposed to live.

[Sasha]

This is rather different from what I expected tbh.

Then again, I can’t really tell you what *exactly* I expected? I just know it wasn’t quite this.

Story time: I‘ve been questioning my gender for a while now, and I‘m nowhere near getting an answer. I thought maybe this book could offer some insight, lead to some exploration etc. A „follow your own path“-style book for gender? That’s perfect.

I think my biggest is issue was that sometimes the passages don’t quite add up. I was actually following a nonbinary path, but then we got to the topic of sexuality and all my options were either lesbian, gay, straight and bisexual in binary terms, or queer or „i‘m neither man nor woman“. Even the last two paths end up with the topic of whether you’re married or not and later (at least if unmarried) with the question: are you a man or a woman?
Well, neither! Wasn’t that the point?

Also, the language: mostly, the author speaks of an assigned gender, but occasionally drops a „born as [gender]“ as well as „feel as [gender]“. Neither is great.
And the much loathed binary definition of bisexuality being about „both“ men and women. No, no it’s not. How many more times, years, decades do bi people need to tell you?

In the end I didn’t read much further because I sensed I would only become more frustrated. It’s a great concept and I can’t say it’s without merit (not having read enough being the reason). It definitely wasn’t the right fit for me though. And in terms of language it does need to do better.

[Avery (Book Deviant) · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the most fascinating things about this book is the fact that it's written in a choose-your-own-adventure style, leading you through a journey unique to yourself and your choices. I was excited to take two different types of paths: the one that I wished I had taken, and the one I currently lived with. Despite being extremely excited for this book, and hoping it would be as amazing as it sounded . . . it just never lived up to the expectations. It also never lived up to what it promised.

Read my full review on The Book Deviant.

[Ally Muterspaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Robyn Ryle’s second book, a reader is able to "choose" their own gender journey in a world that socializes gender based on medical sex assignments. Ryle presents the reader with scenarios regarding gender assignment at birth, sexuality and dating, among other cultural conversations regarding gender. While mostly focusing on North American cultures, the book challenges the reader to recognize that gender constructs dictate how people of different races, gender presentations, and sexual orientations navigate the world. However, the book has some logistical oversights. In certain scenarios of the book, there are only binary gender options available for a reader, and nonbinary people would not be able to complete their gender journey. While gender dichotomy is ingrained into people since birth, there are more nuances to navigating gender socialization than the book proposes. Overall, this is an accessible introductory book for how the reader can think about their own gender socialization, but it does not fully challenge white cisgender readers to think about their privileges in resisting gender expectations.

[Peoyogon · Rating 1 out of 5]

The concept is neat but wow, the execution is terrible. The real trouble with this lies within its problematic descriptions and frankly un-inclusive layout. Are you an Enby like me, read the title, and interested to see how your gender carries into other cultures? Too bad, fuck you. The book will briefly mention the Non-Binary Spectrum in a quick gender section of the book and then immediately purge the idea as we continue on to explore other topics.

My take away: this book is geared to attempt to educate folks who are not familiar with the complexities and the diverse nature of gender, sexuality, romantic interest, and sexual characteristics and their relations with many different personal and cultural facets. This utterly fails on all accounts and is extremely problematic.

[Michelle - Treading Water · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a truly incredible read. Full disclaimer, the author of this book was one of my favorite professors during undergrad. I went into it expecting to like it because I like her views on the world. But it was so much more original and enjoyable than I had anticipated.

She/He/They/Me teaches the reader about the social construction of gender through a choose your own adventure style narrative (for example, choose whether you're from a country that views gender as binary, choose whether your gender identity matches your assigned gender at birth, etc.). My first time through I picked answers that were true only to myself, then I started playing around with other paths. I'm so impressed the the way in which Ryle was able to provide detailed teachings about your gender identity and gender roles by asking increasingly detailed questions about your demographics. By the end, I wasn't just learning about my gender as a female, but reading SPECIFICALLY about being a bisexual white married woman who identifies as "she" living in a disabled body in the United States. The chapters build upon one another until you reach a "conclusion" and have the option to return to a prior chapter.

Honestly, the most impressive part of this book is the scope of people that will make up its audience. I have already recommended it to my husband (who really only knows much about gender at all because he married a sociologist) and a friend of mine in Tennessee currently teaching sociology. This would be great for kids in school trying to understand sociology and the impact of gender, and you could do SO MANY assignments with it; for example, "choose a path where you are a person of color who is the opposite gender from which you identify and living in a different country" to learn specific elements of that person's experience. Or as a non-academic reader you could explore your own path, the path of your friends, your partner(s), and the rest of the world if you're just curious. While covered in quotations and academic sources, this is a book that reads in a more mainstream nonfiction fashion, to the point that I think it will be equally appealing to academics and non-academics alike.

Very importantly, you don't have to know anything about gender going into this to enjoy it (part of why I recommended it to my husband, and part of why it will be great for students). Ryle builds the book from the ground up, starting with the basics and ramping up until she lands you in the nuanced depths of research and social construction. But even if you did just teach a course on gender a couple of years ago like I did, you may still learn something new like I did.

I am proud I was taught by a woman who is so creative and is contributing so much to the world with her words. Not only can this book give someone a more communal sense of where he/she/they fit in the world, I can truly see it inspiring people to seek empathy for others after learning the surprising ways their experiences may be both similar and different. And this is definitely a time when the world needs a little more empathy. I want to thank NetGalley and Source Books for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review (and despite my inherent bias, every word was indeed honest).

[Cynthia Nicola · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Choose Your Own Adventure style book for exploring genders, pronouns, and so much more! I chose an adventure that matched my actual adventure and I learned so much! I will probably revisit this book and choose different adventures to learn more. The style of the book made it an easier read. Recommended read!

[Buchdrache · Rating 3 out of 5]

Der Ansatz ist spannend als chose your own path Buch. Hab leider nicht viel neues daraus ziehen können. Ist eher was für Leute, die sich wirklich noch nie mit dem Thema Geschlecht auseinandergesetzt haben.

[Jung · Rating 1 out of 5]

// too complicated //

Learn about the many possible forms that gender can take.

full note https://notes.io/q8Tre

What is gender? That’s the question at the center of this book– but spoiler alert: they’re not going to provide you with a definitive answer. Indeed, there is no such answer! Gender can be different things for different people in different societies at different times. It can even be different things for the same people at different stages in their lives. 

Instead of a single, fixed phenomenon, we can imagine gender as being like a landscape, across which societies and individuals can chart various courses. Each course reveals another possibility – and the possibilities are nearly endless. 

As a result, we can’t map out the terrain of gender in its entirety; there’s simply too much ground to cover. But there are some crucial junctions at which the possibilities of gender branch off, like paths extending from a series of crossroads. In this book, we’ll explore some of those main crossroads and paths. 

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The traditional view of gender is simplistic, reductive and problematic.

Before we set off on our journey to explore the possibilities of gender, we first need to lose some of our baggage. Otherwise, we’ll be carrying too much weight to travel freely. 

To lighten our load, we must set aside the simplistic, conventional notion of gender that can drag down our thinking about the subject. 

Let’s start by laying it out on the table and examining its logic. Gender is typically thought of as a natural, objective distinction that divides people into one of two categories: male or female. If you’re male, you normally have a penis, and you act in certain ways people call “masculine” – like being dominant and feeling sexually attracted to women. Conversely, if you’re female, you normally have a vagina, and you act in certain ways people call “feminine” – like being passive and feeling sexually attracted to men. 

That’s more or less the “common sense” understanding of gender in modern Western society. Notice what’s baked into it: a set of unexamined assumptions about what’s “objective,” “natural” and “normal,” coupled with a series of black-and-white, binary oppositions, like masculine/feminine, penis/vagina and dominant/passive. All of these assumptions and oppositions are highly questionable, for reasons we’ll look at in the course of our journey. 

With this conventional notion of gender, we can also notice a lot of conflation going on between concepts and aspects of reality that should be distinguished from each other. In thinking about gender this way, we’re mixing up biological sex, gender assignment, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation – blurring them together into a confusing mess of ideas. 

We’ll unpack all of these concepts in due time. For now, the important thing to note is simply this: the conventional notion of gender is pretty reductive – and deeply problematic. 

As we’ll see, the reality of gender is much more complicated. It involves many other factors, dimensions and possibilities, which are overlooked or even outright obscured by the “common sense” understanding of gender. 

And, as is often the case, this “common sense” may be common, but it doesn’t really make much sense, at least in terms of capturing the complexities of reality. In the journey ahead, we’ll be striving to do these complexities better justice.

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There could be societies with no gender.

Now that we’ve left behind some of our baggage, we can begin our journey. Right at the start, we find ourselves at a crossroads, with two paths open to us. The first one leads to all of the possible societies in which gender exists. The second one leads to those in which it doesn’t exist. 

Let’s start with the second path. 

What would a genderless society look like? Well, people would still be distinguishable by their biological sex. In other words, they’d still have different genitalia, hormones and chromosomes related to their reproductive systems. But this society wouldn’t divide them into gender categories on the basis of such differences. That is to say, people wouldn’t be classified as “men,” “women” or any other gender term, nor would they be given any social status or behavioral expectations related to those classifications. 

To wrap your mind around this possibility, think about it this way. Human beings have all sorts of physical differences, from the color of their hair to the shape of their earlobes. The difference between their reproductive systems is just one of many physical variations that could be used to distinguish people from one another. But in modern Western society, we attach much more significance to the difference between people’s reproductive systems than that between, say, the size of their feet.

In theory, though, we could ascribe just as little importance to the one difference as the other. In that case, calling people “men” and “women” would seem as weird as calling them “big foots” and “little foots.” And it would seem even stranger to view and treat them as fundamentally different types of human beings on the basis of such distinctions! 

But has any such society ever actually existed? 

Well, it’s possible that prehistoric societies lacked a concept of gender – or maybe they had one, but simply didn’t attach much importance to it, compared to other traits. There are some examples of this second possibility in more recent human history. For instance, before European colonization, the Yoruba people of Africa’s main measure of social status was seniority – and for them, seniority had nothing to do with whether someone was male or female. 

That being said, every culture that we know about has had some concept of gender – but many different concepts are possible. We’ll take a look at them in the next chapter.

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There could be societies with one, three or even infinite genders.

As we enter the realm of societies in which gender exists, we arrive at another crossroads – this one branching into four paths. Each path represents a different answer to a single question: How many genders are there? There’s the familiar answer of “two,” but that’s just one possibility. Let’s take a look at the other three. 

First, we have societies in which there’s only one gender. 

Consider the ancient Greeks, for example. Although they thought about people as being men or women, they didn’t consider them to be fundamentally different types of human beings. Instead, women were seen as inferior versions of men. Even their reproductive organs were thought of as different varieties of the same basic body parts; in their view, vaginas and ovaries were simply internalized versions of penises and testes. 

Next, we have societies in which there are more than two genders. In addition to the familiar masculine and feminine, these societies have additional genders, which are called gender-variant categories. Around the world, there have been societies with gender-variant categories throughout human history. 

Here’s an example. Traditionally, the Mohave people of North America had a gender-variant category called alyha. These tribe members were classified as boys at birth. However, by the age of ten or eleven they were behaving in ways that the Mohave considered feminine, perhaps by playing with dolls or wearing bark skirts. 

Eventually, they were rechristened with feminine names, and they’d often marry men and even participate in menstruation ceremonies – but they weren’t considered women. For example, they had their own separate set of rules regarding lineage names and courtship rituals. 

Finally, we have societies in which there are infinite genders. At present, these societies are only hypothetical – but as individuals, we can adopt this view of gender right now, and we can imagine a whole society that might share it someday. 

To get into the infinite-gender mindset, ask yourself the following question: If you identify as a man or a woman, do you behave in ways that your culture considers “masculine” or “feminine” in every single aspect of your life, at every waking moment? 

Surely you deviate from these gender norms in one way or another. And the same is true of everyone else. Thus, each of us can be thought of as embodying a unique version of gender, representing just one of infinite possible variations.

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A two-gender society can be patriarchal or matriarchal.

Now that we’ve seen some examples of gender norms and socialization, we can ask some more fundamental questions: What’s the point of these norms? And why bother teaching them to children in the first place? 

The answer to this seems pretty obvious: boys are being prepared for roles of power and steered away from roles of caring, while the reverse is true for girls. 

To put it another way, both boys and girls are being prepared to live in a patriarchal society – a society in which men have more power than women.

Patriarchy is marked by gender inequality between men and women, and this inequality is usually accompanied by androcentrism – a worldview in which men and masculinity are seen as superior to women and femininity. For example, allegedly masculine traits, like being rational, are seen as superior to allegedly feminine traits, like being emotional. 

As for measuring gender inequality, we can use a variety of statistics related to men and women’s differing levels of health, education, economic status and political power. By looking at these statistics, international organizations like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum can quantify and rank countries’ overall levels of inequality. The countries can then be divided into three categories: those with low, medium and high levels of gender inequality. 

In the low gender-inequality country of Rwanda, for example, 58 percent of legislative seats were occupied by women as of 2019 – earning it first place in this measure of women’s political power. In contrast, those figures were a dismal 22 percent in the US and 12 percent in Syria, which have medium and high levels of gender inequality, respectively. 

As these examples demonstrate, patriarchal societies can be unequal to a greater or lesser degree. But those aren’t the only possibilities for the balance of power in a two-gender society. The whole balance could be flipped, resulting in a matriarchal society – that is, a society in which women possess more power than men overall. 

What would a matriarchal society look like? Stay tuned to find out.

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Matriarchy isn’t just the opposite of patriarchy, and gender equality might require transcending a two-gender society.

You might suppose that a matriarchal society would look just like a patriarchal society in reverse – with women dominating men, rather than the other way around. But if the anthropological record is any indication, that’s not necessarily the case. 

Now, there’s controversy among researchers over whether any society has ever been truly matriarchal, and debate over what the word “matriarchy” even means in the first place. But there have been some societies in which power has tended to be held more by women than by men. For the sake of simplicity, let’s call these matriarchal societies and look at some of their general features. 

To begin with, matriarchal societies tend to be nonhierarchical; that is to say, there aren’t major differences in social or economic status between their various members. For example, material goods tend to be equally distributed, and decisions tend to be made through group consensus. The women have slightly more power than the men, but the imbalance isn’t as large as it tends to be in patriarchal societies. 

Now, you might be thinking that this sounds promising – but why not just skip the last part and make everyone completely equal, regardless of gender? In other words, why not create a society that’s neither a patriarchy nor a matriarchy, but rather one that’s free of any form of gender inequality? 

Well, that’s the ultimate objective of many feminists – but others would argue that it’s a fantasy. As long as there are two genders, some would contend, one of them will always tend to dominate over the other. That’s just the inevitable outcome of creating a dichotomy between two things; one of them ends up being seen as superior to other. Just think of other dichotomies in traditional Western thought, such as mind/body and rational/emotional.

But even if this argument is correct, that doesn’t mean we’re stuck with a choice between just having matriarchy or patriarchy. There would still be other possibilities, such as the ones we looked at earlier: creating a society with no genders, more than two genders or even infinite genders. 

As long as we’re speculating, we can imagine all sorts of other possibilities. For example, in a distant future in which “people” might be free-floating consciousnesses uploaded to a digital cloud, what would gender become? 

Who knows? And that’s the point: the world of gender is full of possibilities!

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As an individual, your gender journey begins with your gender assignment.

Up until now, we’ve been looking at possible answers to the following set of questions: For a given society, is there the concept of gender? If yes, how many genders are there? How are they defined? What are their norms? How are those norms instilled? And which gender has more power? 

The answers to these questions define the broad contours of what gender looks like in a particular society; they shape an overall gender landscape, so to speak. But individual human beings still need to navigate that landscape for themselves, and there are all sorts of possible paths they can take. 

From this point on, let’s assume we’re dealing with the type of society that most of us are familiar with: a two-gender, patriarchal society, which has some degree of overall gender inequality in favor of men. And for the purpose of establishing some of the technical details of the scenarios ahead, let’s also assume that we’re talking about the modern US. 

Within this society’s gender landscape, what are some of the main crossroads and pathways that an individual’s life might traverse? 

Well, imagine yourself beginning this journey. Let’s start before birth, when you’re a fetus of about eight weeks old. At this point, you’re anatomically indistinguishable from a fetus of another biological sex. In the area of your body where your genitals will develop, you have a mass of tissue called a genital tubercle. Depending on the hormones to which this genital tissue is exposed, it will usually develop into a penis or a clitoris. 

If it ends up longer than 2.5 cm when you’re born, the doctors will identify it as a penis and proclaim you a boy. If it’s shorter than 1 cm, they’ll classify it as a clitoris and declare you a girl. Either way, you’ll have received your gender assignment – the gender category into which your society places you. 

But what if your genital tissue ends up somewhere between 1 and 2.5 cm? In that case, you’d be said to have ambiguous genitalia, and you’d be characterized as intersex. This is an umbrella term that covers any condition in which a person’s anatomy doesn’t fit neatly into either of the traditional biological sex categories of male or female. 

In the next chapter, we’ll take a closer look at intersexuality.

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Gender assignments can be more loosely applied, opening up space for different gender identities.

Imagine once more that you were born with a visible intersex condition – but this time, your doctor and family were ethically opposed to the concealment-centered model. As an alternative, they might follow the patient-centered model.

In this model, your doctor and family will choose a gender for you at birth – but it’ll be a provisional one, and they’ll assign it to you with the understanding that you might want to revise it when you’re older. 

As you grow up, your family and doctor will avoid subjecting you to any irreversible procedures. Rather than viewing your condition as a pathology, they’ll see and treat it as just a natural part of who you are. Sure, other people might see it as strange; indeed, this is a fear that motivates the concealment-centered model. But that’s a societal problem, not a medical problem. 

With that in mind, your doctor and family will freely share information with you about your condition, and they’ll respect your wishes if you later identify as a different gender than the one they initially settled upon. In that case, your gender assignment would be at odds with your gender identity – the way you see yourself in terms of gender. 

Of course, other people can find themselves in this situation as well. You could be biologically female and receive a feminine gender assignment, but have a male gender identity. In that case, you’d be a trans man – in contrast to a cis man, whose biological sex, gender assignment and gender identity are all in alignment from birth. If the case were the other way around, you’d be a trans woman, in contrast to a cis woman. 

You could also be a nonbinary or genderqueer person who identifies as neither male nor female exclusively. Or you could be agender and identify with no gender category at all! 

In all these cases, your gender identity will have become something different than your initial gender assignment. Because this can happen to anyone, regardless of the sexual organs they were born with, some intersex activists advocate the patient-centered model for everyone, not just intersex infants. 

That way, our gender assignments would be less firmly imposed on us, and we’d all be in a better position to revise them later in life, if we needed to realign them with our gender identities.

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The possibilities of gender are virtually endless. Besides the two genders with which we’re all familiar, societies can have one, three, infinite or even no genders. Within two-gender societies, there can be quite a lot of variety between different cultures’ gender norms, gender inequality and gender socialization processes; for example, one culture can teach its girls to be passive, while another can teach its girls and boys to be equally assertive. People’s individual experiences of gender are shaped by their gender assignment, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. Some people’s gender identities differ from their gender assignments, and their gender expressions can be at variance from their culture’s gender norms. 

[Kendra Andrus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and effective format/concept (choose your own adventure), but got tedious and overwhelming to try to read it all that way, so I eventually just read it straight through which led to some repetition and disjunct flow. Still, an easy and informative book on the important and befuddling issue of gender in our human cultures. A good first read for those curious to learn and understand. Should incite more research and conversations. Would be good to discuss with others.

[Cerys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Choose your own adventureThis is a non-fiction book like I haven't seen before. Discussing everything to do with gender - wether it's sexuality, inequality, upbringing, race - She/He/They/Me is a 'choose your own adventure' style book. Now, you may be wondering how on earth a non-fiction book could work as a choose your own adventure book, but trust me, it works.The book begins with a short overview explaining what gender is. This is only a few pages long so it doesn't get into the nitty-gritty details, but Ryle gives you enough to work with if you're new to the whole gender discussion for you to make your way through the book.From the beginning Ryle encourages the reader to explore many different pathways, wether you explore your own, a path similar to your own, or the complete opposite. I chose to follow my own pathway for the most part, but at some points I decided to play devil's advocate and see what she had to say for a different branch.How does this work?Like I have said, this is a 'choose your own path' or 'choose your own adventure' book, and Ryle consistently refers to your experience with gender as your "gender adventure". I found this a really interesting way to think about gender and for me it was something I enjoyed.As this is an "adventure", you never really know where you're going to end up. At the end of every chapter Ryle asks the reader a question. For example, at the end of chapter 1 she asks "Do people in the time and place where you're born think about gender at all?" There are 2 possible paths your answer could take.Answer 1: You're born into a time and place exists - Go to Chapter 10Answer 2: You're born into a time and place where gender doesn't exist - Go to Chapter 11I decided to play devil's advocate here and went to chapter 11 - even though it was way outside of my own experience - just to see what she had to say. There was a brief paragraph talking about a gender-non-conforming society that ended with "Sorry, but it looks like there's no escaping gender just yet. Go to 10."This is something that happened often in the book and I didn't enjoy it. This is probably a bad example, but often I felt cheated out of that path and as though Ryle was trying to push her opinion onto you even if you wanted to explore a different path and way of thinking. It felt as though if Ryle didn't like it or think it was possible then she shut down that train of thought immediately. It was frustrating when I definitely had a different opinion to the options she deemed 'correct' or worthy of being discussed. I would have liked to have had a conversation with her about the times she shuts down these pathways, as it felt kind of close minded at times to not even give it an opportunity to be discussed.What does this book talk about?This book covers a number of topics and I am not going to list them incase I miss one out. But I can guarantee that there will be something in this book that interests you.Personally, I followed the path that reflected my own experiences, but I might go back one day and read more. I found learning about the way different cultures view gender very interesting, but I did have a problem with certain aspects of this. For example, when it came to choosing your path, the choices may be "You live in the United States", "You live in Buenos Ares", "You live in Sweden." I live in none of these places, and I am sure many readers won't live in these places either. If I wanted to follow my own pathway, how am I supposed to choose when none of these are correct? I chose the US as I am sure it is the closest to the UK, but even some of the things in the following chapter didn't match up as, get this, the US and the UK are different places.I loved finding out that Sweden has a word "hen" that is an official part of the Swedish language while also having gender-neutral preschools - or nurseries. Furthermore, I had no idea that "the United States had one of the worst rates of women dying from pregnancy-related complications in the developed world."ProblemsApart from my own personal annoyances with certain aspects, this book does have a few problems. There are times, when talking about Trans people, Ryle uses some phrases like "born male" and "born female" which could have been easily avoided, as at other times she uses the terms "assigned male" and "assigned female". It would have been much better - and clearer for those using this book to learn - if Ryle had stuck with one phrase. Furthermore it might have been more clear if there was a note from Ryle explaining the differences between the two, if she was using the different phrases to mean different things, that is.I have also discovered that, for example, if you choose the path of a trans women, when it comes to sexuality, from then on the book assumes the path you have chosen is the path of someone cisgendered. Additionally, if you choose a path of someone with a trans identity but unsupportive parents/guardians, you are put back into the closet with no opportunity to come out. As a result, if you don't choose the path of someone cisgendered you are likely to hit a dead end at some point and end up following a path that assumes that you are cis.ConclusionOverall this is an interesting and quick read. If you want to choose a path - whether that is your own path or someone else's - you can finish this book in around an hour. This is good if you want to pick something up for a little while, and its also good if you want to go back at another time and explore a different pathway.I am not giving this 5 stars as I feel like Ryle pushed her own opinion on certain matters too often. In a factual, non-fiction book I feel like it is important to at least explore every option without shunning it immediately. Furthermore, as I have mentioned, some of the language used is not very clear or entirely inclusive and these are aspects that could have been easily changed.However, overall I really love how much the book makes it clear that your "gender adventure" is all to do with how you feel and your choice. While it discusses how you view gender or how you portray your gender may be a product of your society or upbringing, ultimately it comes down to how you feel, which is why many people change the way they portray themselves to the world as they grow up and are less influenced by their parents and school teachers, and are able to make clear decisions about themselves, for themselves.

[Zahiryn Vélez Hernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I think this book, by definition, is a textbook.

And I looove textbooks.

They might not be as fun as novels or memoirs… But there’s something enchanting about knowing that you’re reading information assembled with the intention of teaching. I know I find it downright fascinating. When I read that “She/He/They/Me: For the Sisters, Misters, and Binary Resisters” was written as a choose-your-own-adventure… Well, immediately, I was even more fascinated. Skeptical, too, of course! I had never heard of non-fiction written this way.

I think the book, overall, worked. Written as an introduction to all things gender —and its expression through identities, roles and preferences—, the book is basic but vast, covering a lot of ground. It’s not as comprehensive as gender and sexuality demand; this, though understandable, will be a bigger or smaller flaw depending on the path your story walks. I believe this was particularly glaring in non-cisgender “adventures”, which was a big shame, considering how fully the title and cover include non-binary identities as part of the book’s audience.

My experience reading my path, as a cisgender woman, had me nodding along. In most pages, I felt seen and understood. Being seen is always worthwhile, and through the pages, I confirmed things I already suspected about myself and got to explore others. I particularly loved how the book started. The first choice made it clear that “gender” is not a tangible, unchanging concept:

“You’re born into a time and place where gender exists…
…You’re born into a time and place where gender doesn’t exist.”

Gender, and everything we understand by it today, was constructed once. Throughout human history, our perception of it has changed and evolved; it’s been defined and redefined, and I think the book made this clear with subtle aplomb.

Despite all its virtues, I don’t think the book is perfect. But after reading paths that differed drastically from my own life, however, I thought this experience the book’s biggest success. Though flawed, the book lets its audience inhabit the skin of many others. As a professor —of graphic design, not gender studies—, I couldn’t help but think that the book, complemented with more thorough essays, would allow for very interesting dynamics in a classroom. I would definitely use it, if my classes ever veered into gender.

I hope the author comes back to this project. I truly believe that a second edition —one that expanded on the non-binary paths— could turn a good book, into a great one. In the meantime, I do recommend this version. We need more literature willing to tackle gender as the fluid, ever-changing concept that it is. This book manages, and it does so in a very interesting way.

[Heta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voin suositella kirjaa, mutta tietyin varauksin. Jos suosittelisin kirjaa sukupuolivähemmistöön kuuluvalle, antaisin maksimissaan kolme tähteä, ja jos suosittelisin sitä cissukupuoliselle, voisin antaa viisikin.

Kirja oli siis kattava paketti sukupuolesta ja uskon etenkin aiheeseen aiemmin juurikaan perehtymättömän cissukupuolisen oppivan siitä paljon. Sukupuolesta jonkin verran lukeneena en oppinut juuri mitään uutta, ainakaan omaan tilanteeseeni liittyen, siihen kirja oli liian yleinen.

Lapsuudesta tuttu "Siirry sivulle X" -rakenne oli hauska ja kiinnostavampi, kuin tavallisesti pötköön kirjoitettu tietokirja. Siirtymät eivät kuitenkaan aina ihan toimineet. Yhtäkkiä piti, hyvin aikaisessa vaiheessa, vain tietää, mikä oma sukupuoli on ja miten haluaa transitioitua. Mistä se pitäisi tietää, jos tämä on ensimmäinen kirja, jonka aiheesta lukee? Toki voi kokeilla erilaisia polkuja, sehän siinä on idea, mutta kieli oli jotenkin aika karkeaa, "sinä olet tämä ja piste" -tyylistä. Siksi tuntuu, että kirja on enemmän suunnattu cisihmisille, jotka haluavat oppia sukupuolivähemmistöistä.

Lisäksi kirjan kielessä tuntuu vähän pahalta, että ennen kuin pääsee valitsemaan ei-binäärisiä polkuja, puhutaan suoraan "olet tyttö", eikä "olet syntymässä määritelty tytöksi", aivan kuin kirjoittaja ei tajuaisi näiden kahden eroa.

Välillä luvut alkoivat aivan erilaisella oletuksella, kuin mitä olin valinnut päätyäkseni sinne. Toki näin kattavassa kirjassa polut ovat hyvin monimutkaisia ja virheitä voi sattua, ja lopulta luvun aihe kyllä kosketti itseänikin, mutta aina polku ei ollut aivan saumaton.

Kirja alkoi nopeasti kiertää kehää. Palasin taaksepäin ja valitsin huvikseni vähän eri vaihtoehtoja, mutta päädyin silti aina lopulta samaan paikkaan. Lopuksi toki selasin koko kirjan läpi ja silmäilin myös lukuja, joihin en valinnoillani päätynyt koskaan. Uskon, että kirjan voi lukea myös tällä tavalla kannesta kanteen, jos haluaa oppia yleisemmin sukupuolesta.

Suosittelen kirjaa ensisijaisesti ihmisille, jotka haluavat oppia muiden sukupuolikokemuksesta. Kirjassa on lyhyet luvut ja se sopii parhaiten erilaisten kiinnostavien sukupuolipolkujen seuraamiseen, jotka eivät ole lukijan kohdalla omakohtaisia. Siten siitä nähdäkseni saa eniten irti ja pääsee tutustumaan erilaisten ihmisten kokemukseen omasta sukupuolesta omassa kulttuurissaan. Oman sukupuolen tutkimiseen en varsinaisesti suosittele tätä kirjaa. Toki jollekin toiselle tämä voi olla parempi ja tärkeämpi lukukokemus, mutta minulle se ei ollut.

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 5 out of 5]

She/He/They/Me: For the Sisters, Misters, and Binary Resisters is a fabulous book that takes the reader on a route through the reality of social history and customs that come along with gender roles and identities. It starts by asking whether you are born in a time and place that gender exists. Your answer determines the next page you go to. My journey took me to a society where people are born with two genders. Since my gender assignment, expression, and identity are all matching, you would think my journey would be a hop, skip, and a jump and done, but Robyn Ryle explores more about gender than you think and finds elements to complicate things such as how we feel about our bodies, disabilities, the work we do, access to birth control and more.


I love the warm and optimistic tone of this book. I loved going to a new page and seeing “Congratulations!” as the first word. Of course, it’s not all fun and games. Ryle recognizes realistic cultural biases and oppression, but the tone is so warm and comforting that the book makes a person want to continue the journey. It was intriguing and even fun to follow other possible journies that lead us all to questioning how we think about gender.

She/He/They/Me will be released on March 5th. I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

She/He/They/Me at Sourcebooks
Robyn Ryle author site

★★★★★
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This offered an interesting tour through the possibilities and pitfalls of gender. It seems well suited to people with curiosity about the topic, but who aren't especially well versed. Because of the interactive "chose-your-own-adventure" organization, I found it hard to pick up and put down, so my most productive reading came in long sessions.

The most interesting turn for me came when I meant to pick option 'A' but turned to the wrong page ( I think I meant to pick 'cis male' and instead picked a more gender-fluid option), and felt jarred and out of sorts, disoriented from my expectation. That was a clear moment that gave me pause to think about disorienting gender can be for some people. If I was peeved by a simple mis-reading, it is humbling to contemplate how jarring mis-gendering in life might be.

While I'm glad to have read it, I do think of this as more of a starting point for a longer, deeper dive into considering what gender means for individuals and society.

[Susie Dumond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This choose-your-own-gender-adventure is an informative and approachable way to unpack gender, sexuality, socialization, intersectionality, and identity. It's a great tool in a lot of ways - for exploring your own identity, for learning about gender in different times and places, and for putting yourself in the shoes of someone with a very different lived experience. The concept of gender can be hard to wrap your head around, and this is such a refreshingly unique way of approaching it. She/He/They/Me is a great introduction for those new to conversations about gender and for those who want to explore what a different world could look like.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

I received a copy of this book from Sourcebooks as an ARC via NetGalley. The opinions expressed are my own.

An interesting concept, A Choose-Your-Own-Gender book. However, I felt this book was more about exploring the history of gender, than to help someone who was questioning their gender.

There are many facts presented as well as terminology, however I feel that this book was more theoretical as to showcasing what a chosen path would actually look like. No real life testimonials to show how people are really living. I think the most used phrases in the book are "you might ..." and "maybe you..."

The nature of the choose-your-own style of book also led to a ton of repeating knowledge. I started skimming after a while.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came into this book wanting to learn more about pronouns, genders, etc. (The book ended up being a little light on the pronoun stuff but it was great on everything else!)

This book kind of gives you "create your own adventure" vibes. Initially, I wasn't thrilled with that but after a little bit, I realized that it was done this way so you could go through your own gender journey & have that adequately explained to you in a general sort of way. In my opinion, this needs to happen so you can understand someone else's gender journey. (I am hopeful that this was in fact intended.) At the end of each journey, you have the option to go back & take another gender journey.

Despite not enjoying the "create your own adventure" style of the journey, at first, I ended up enjoying this book.

[Emily Stine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love what this book is. The "choose your own adventure" style shows the arbitrary nature of gender and how society influences us more than anything. I like the real world examples woven in and went through a good number of different pathways. If you are really into this kind of stuff, understanding gender as a construct, you are familiar with a lot of it.
However this book is good st letting people think about their own concepts of gender, taking a step back and asking why we believe something about gender. It's a great introduction into understanding what we mean by "gender is a sovial construct" and if you need to start somewhere, this is a great place.

[Zee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the choose your own adventure style. I also like how there was an occasional definition box and I did learn a bit. This book seems geared towards people who aren't familiar with the complexities of gender

However, while there are some non binary paths to follow there were still some options that were quite restrictive and binary at weird times. It seems to touch on genderqueer identities on a surface level

[Kirsten Tattersall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fascinating take on teaching the concept of gender. It's presented in the form of a choose your own adventure novel which is wildly interesting in a nonfiction. For me it fell a little bit short, but it's a really interesting teaching tool.

[soph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like choose-your-own-adventure books and this one was about genders so of course I'd be interested. I firstly picked answers from my own experiences (and learn things) and then chose other options to see what it could be. In a way this was great because there were a lot of explanations and definitions but for a book about genders, most choices were only about being a man or a woman which really put me off. But the choose-your-own-adventure was a great way to make us learn about genders, about our own experience, and try a totally different experience.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received the book on NetGalley and it was a great one. It was an amazing journey, skipping backwards and forwards, depending on the answer. It was also one of the more amazing books I have read ever and very educational when it came to the topic.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative and was an interesting way to read a book with the follow your own path. If you are this, go to, if you are this go to (different chapter) until the end in reached. My husband and I read it to each other.

[Lacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Really enjoyed the choose your own adventure style of this book.

[Orrin Bennett-McPhail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the lag out of this boom while not a perfect way to explain gender fluidity it’s a very good way to further your understanding of different people and how they express themselves.

[Emily✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

In real life, there are a lot of things about gender that we don't get to create. This book, however, is a "create-a-path" book, allowing you to explore how different possibilites interact in complicated, sometimes convoluted ways, to form our experiences of gender.

She/He/They/Me is a choose-your-own-adventure style non-fiction guide to gender. As far as I'm aware, this is a completely unique concept and I think it mostly pays off here. The format is a bit more inviting and invigorating than typical non-fiction, which should help readers who are hesitant about the topic. I did a first read-through following my own personal gender path, then doubled back to explore other paths and eventually ended up reading the entire book through (at least, I think I managed to hit every chapter). The format does make the reading feel more fun and less like homework, and seems to go by more quickly. However, there are a few things that I think would have made this book's format a bit more useful.

1. Page numbers! There are 161 "chapters" (most are only a page or two long) that you're directed to flip through in order to follow the path of your chosen "adventure." I didn't find it terribly difficult to find the right page, but numbered pages would certainly have helped. Plus, it will be more difficult to reference certain things without being able to reference a page number.

2. An index! There were multiple times while reading that I wanted to jump back to something I'd read previously, but had no idea where in the book the page might be! Due to the nature of the format, the ideas and themes are scattered throughout the book. An index could help track down all the chapters related to being transgender, for example, or relating to puberty.

3. A glossary of terms. Throughout the book, there are little vocabulary boxes in the chapters for terms such as "cissexism", "pansexual", "heteronormativity", etc. However, unless you read the whole book through, you're liable to miss some of these definitions. A glossary to collect the vocabulary would be helpful.

4. I'm given to understand that the digital version of the book has some serious pitfalls in design for flipping between chapters, though I read the physical book myself and can't speak to this personally.

One of the best things about the format was the way it emphasized the diverse nature of gender experiences. At the end of most of the chapters, the reader is given a choice of which chapter to turn to next based on a gendered experience. For example, at the end of the first chapter, you're asked to choose whether you're born into a time and place where gender exists, or a time and place where gender doesn't exist. Immediately, this choice drives home in a very visceral way the idea that gender has not always existed in the way that we experience it here today. Some of the path choices available at the end of chapters were enough to pique my interest to choose a pathway dissimilar to my own lived truth, and explore a different experience that I would not have otherwise considered.

In a lot of ways, Robyn Ryle did a fantastic job of covering a lot of ground. She/He/They/Me approaches gender from all sorts of different angles and lenses, and looks at how a variety of different identities and experiences impact our gender, including sex (genitalia, hormones, chromosomes), race, ability, nationality, and sexuality. (I'd have liked to see religion be more included, but I understand that's quite a can of worms to introduce into a book like this.) For example, Ryle shows how, in patriarchal cultures, man is considered the default while woman and non-binary is considered abnormal; in a couple particular chapters, Ryle interrogates the method doctors in the US use to determine whether a newborn infant is a boy or girl, in which a single centimeter of genitals makes the difference:

[T]hat one centimeter is important because it gives an indication of what you can't do with your collection of genital tissue. Specifically, a clitoris is a clitoris if it's not long enough to allow the person to pee standing up or to achieve vaginal penetration. [...M]en are the norm that needs to be specified. Women [and intersex] are the deviation from the norm.

I also liked Ryle's use of the term "temporarily abled," acknowledging that everyone alive will experience some form of disability at some point, which makes it strange to consider that our culture automatically assumes "abled-ness."

On the whole, the inclusivity was done well, though unfortunately there were some areas that could have been improved.

1. The one short chapter on asexuality is a bit of a doozy. Firstly, Ryle defines it as "not [being] interested in a having a sexual relationship with anyone," which is... not correct. An accurate definition would be: " not experiencing sexual attraction towards others." It's funny, because she goes on to say that asexuality and celibacy are often mistakenly conflated, when she herself seems to have conflated them. After all, one could potentially describe celibacy as "not [being] interested in a having a sexual relationship with anyone," and that would be valid. The chapter also implies that asexuality equates to not engaging in sexual activity, which is not always or necessarily true.

2. The only way to be directed to the chapter on aromanticism is via the asexuality chapter, when in reality one can be aromantic without also being asexual. The aromantic pathway is also extremely disappointing, as it immediately directs you towards a chapter on romantic relationships rather than giving a choice to skip directly to the "You don't get married" chapter.

3. Ryle defines bisexuality as an attraction to "both men and women," "both genders," or to "males and females." She does not indicate any other possible definitions for bisexuality, and her given definition is very binary, and generally considered incorrect among the bisexual community. More commonly, bisexuality is defined as attraction to two or more genders, or to one's same gender as well as other genders.

4. The various chapters involving transgender identities included a host of inaccuracies. Terms like "born a girl/boy" or "born a biological woman/man" were prevalent, and at one point Ryle wrote "stealthy" when she ought to have written "stealth." There is also an upsetting pathway that unfolds like so for a transwoman: Chapter 72 on being a transgender sends you to Chapter 28 if "your parents reject your transgender or gender-expansive identity" --> Chapter 28 ends with only one path choice, towards Chapter 40 "For now, you conceal your transgender identity and live as a cisgender person" --> 40 regards puberty, and asks whether you develop earlier or later than your peers ("other boys" in this case) (there is also a third choice for intersex here) --> If you choose that you develop later than your peers, you're sent to Chapter 92 which begins, "It feels like everyone else's voice is settling into a deeper range, while yours still sounds like a girl's. Your body is still smooth and hairless. Being last sucks." Aside from a pre-pubescent voice immediately being described as "girly" here rather than "pre-pubescent", it should be clear why the way this chapter is written is entirely inappropriate for the closeted transwoman who may have ended up here. A young transwoman would be likely to have a completely different reaction to developing late-- it would maybe be a huge relief! I found all of the puberty chapters to be written in a similarly distasteful and reductive manner.

5. In the chapter on queer identity, Ryle spends some time detailing the history of use of the term "queer" as a slur. While not inaccurate or inherently bad, I do find it a bit suspicious that queer is the only term in the book to receive this treatment. "Gay," "lesbian," and even "fag" are not addressed as slurs, and with the recent uptick in TERFs crying "q slur," in regard to "queer," I found this problematic.

6. In the end, the reader chooses whether they would prefer to leave gender the way it currently is, abolish gender altogether, keep gender but address gender inequality, or some nebulous un-defined fourth option ('maybe the future has androids!', etc.). The "keep gender but address gender inequality" choice is written in a very binary manner, without taking into account keeping gender but expanding it to include more than two options, which is a massive oversight imo. Ryle writes: "Gender is a category that we made up[...] Gender was constructed in order to distribute power in an uneven way. So if we want to truly get rid of inequality, gender itself will have to go." This statement ignores any possibility of changing, rather than abolishing, gender categories. Yes, we "made up" gender, but that means that we are capable of changing what that means-- it's not set in stone.

One of the most disappointing aspects of the book is the bait-and-switch of the cover compared to the content. The cover seems to indicate that non-binary genders are prioritized within the content. In reality, though inclusive, the book's contents spend a lot more time of cisgender experiences than gender-expansive ones. While the choose-your-own-adventure format is unique, the content remains fairly typical of an introduction to gender theory-- including investigations of history, anthropology, language, and sociology-- rather than looking toward the future of what gender could be or is becoming. While this is certainly a book that encourages interrogation of gender as a concept, it doesn't actually feature much in the way of what a world without gender or with expanded categories of gender might/can actually be, which is a letdown for readers who were looking for something more along those lines. Here's a review by a nobinary person about their experience with this book's limitations in this area.

Overall, I still think this is a very valuable resource for exploring gender theory in a new, fun way that could be very useful for readers new to the topic. The format encourages exploration and outside-the-box thinking, and has a generally decent amount of intersectionality and inclusivity. However, it does fall short in several areas, and especially in addressing non-binary gender avenues, which is exacerbatedly disappointing in conjunction with the beautifully non-binary cover artwork. 3.5 stars.

[Liz Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm 95% sure I read the whole thing. It's a bit difficult to keep track.

A good book for parents who "just don't get all these new categories"