Walking Practice

by Dolki Min

You grow anxious when, wherever you may be, you encounter someone who you cannot immediately classify as male or female—or, to put it another way, when the “evidence” for your gender judgment is conflicted. This is because, according to your narrow system of understanding, it is difficult to decide how to interact—for example, what honorific should you use—with someone whose body you simply cannot decipher. You, dear reader, are an old hand at the gender-matching game. No doubt about it! From a tender age you have guessed the gender of countless humans whose bodies are covered by clothes, coming to conclusions based on the gender you believe corresponds to the shape of genitals you believe match up with the remaining exposed parts of their bodies, and you have lived your lives in certainty, believing the result of your deductions to be true. The problem is, however, that you do not acknowledge the mistakes you have made and will continue to make. No one knows that the game itself is a mistake.