Beyond the Binary: The Gender Galaxy
Gender isn’t a binary; it’s a galaxy!
🪐 This post is my invitation to everyone—both those in the LGBTQIA2S+ community and our allies—to celebrate and make space for all the beautiful constellations of gender.
💫When queer and trans communities are facing unprecedented attacks, it can feel like people who want to harm, eradicate, and exclude us are setting the terms of the debate, forcing us to sideline the more liberatory aspects of our work.
🌏 No matter who is in the White House or what happens in our state legislatures and communities, the new expansiveness around gender and sexuality is not going away. WE are not going away. Continuing to raise awareness while centering the most at-risk groups in the gender galaxy--especially Black trans & nonbinary youth and trans women of color-- matters more than ever.
Gender freedom is for everyone. I identify as femme, not as a form of gender expression but as a lesbian gender. I think that even those of us who are cisgender have moments when we discover a new sense of self or embodiment separate from assigned gender roles.
➡ The gender galaxy captures the openness and fluidity at the heart of gender—something colonial regimes of binaristic gender suppress and control. New gendered worlds don’t threaten or diminish anyone’s gender, nor do they culminate in the end of gender as many seem to fear.
➡ The gender galaxy decenters the binary, and that’s liberatory for all humans…including you!
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I didn’t invent the concept of the gender galaxy. I first came across the idea of a fluid or non-linear view of gender as a galaxy in Dylan Vade’s 2005 article "Expanding Gender and Expanding the Law: Toward a Social and Legal Conceptualization of Gender that is More Inclusive of Transgender People."
Much gratitude to the folx at Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights for creating this wonderful graphic! Learn more about Action Canada SHR's work at https://www.actioncanadashr.org/ Alt text below.
Image description & credit: Infographic of Gender galaxy depicting infinite possibilities of gender identity and expression. It focuses on two solar systems--assigned sex and gender identity. The assigned sex solar system includes Male, Female, and Intersex planets. The gender identity solar system includes the following planets: Transgender, Androgynous, Trans, Nonbinary, Neutrois, Genderfluid, Cisgender, Third Gender, Genderqueer, and Agender. The graphic also depicts the Two Spirit galaxy and Sexuality galaxy. Text reads: "add you own planet (comet or moon)! Make your own solar system or galaxy!" Graphic by Action Canada for Sexual Health & Rights.
