Beyond the Gender Binary

by Alok Vaid-Menon

The thing about being visibly gender non-conforming is that we are rarely, if ever, defended by other people in public. Everyone thinks that since we “made a choice” to “look like that,” we are bringing it upon ourselves.

We are reduced to a spectacle. And when you are a spectacle, the harassment you experience becomes part of the show.

A lot more airtime is given to other peoples’ views of us rather than our own experiences.

The thing about shame is that it eats at you until it fully consumes you. Then you cannot tell the difference between their shame and your own— between a body and an apology. It’s not just that you internalize the shame; rather, it becomes you. You no longer need the people at school telling you not to dress like that; you already do it to yourself.

We thought fitting in would give us security—but is it security when someone else living their life differently unsettles us to our very core?

We emphasize and exaggerate the differences between these categories and minimize the differences that exist within them.

We mistake hurting other people with healing ourselves.

This is how shame works: It recruits you into doing its work for you.

There is absolutely no biological basis for why boys should not paint their nails or be sensitive and girls should not play football or be taken seriously for their ideas. This is not about science, it’s about power.