Binary Gender Norms Harm Everyone

“Real” men and women do not exist. We’re all gorgeous failures when it comes to gender, although cis folks are not policed and punished for our “failures” as our trans siblings are.

That's not something I could have said or even understood when this photo was taken almost 40 years ago (!!) when I was a student at Smith College. The photo captures me at my butchest; in the mid-80s in Northampton, MA, only butch or androgynous lesbians were respected, so I embraced a more masculine-presenting gender identity and expression when I first came out.

Because femininity is so devalued in our culture, it took me many years to express my gender authentically. It wasn't easy, since I was disowned by my family for being gay and increasingly rejected by the lesbian community for being too femme. In lesbian feminist bookstores back then, I was refused service for presenting as a femme lesbian, which is how I now identify.

I am deeply grateful to my trans friends and colleagues who have supported me in my personal gender journey, and all the trans activists and artists who have expanded definitions of gender and helped to make our communities more inclusive, often at great personal cost. Looking back at my life, these are the people who have made me feel seen for the multidimensional gendered human that I am.

The violence, exclusion, and discrimination suffered by trans, nonbinary and intersex people demonstrate how social imperatives to be a “real” man or woman have devastatingly oppressive consequences in our world. Please join me in doing the vital work of challenging naturalizing discourses of binary gender that harm everyone--including, perhaps, you.

Commit to these solidarity steps:

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 Respect other people's gender identities and pronouns. Trans, non-binary, and gender expansive people are the experts on their own lives. Don't deny, disregard or challenge them when they share their experiences.

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 Remember that the complexity of someone else's gender identity may not be visible to you. Don't ascribe gender to others based on their visual appearance. Doing so may create a feeling of dissonance for them that decreases their safety and sense of belonging.

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 Call out transphobic "jokes," misinformation, and harm. Demonstrate visible and consistent allyship to trans and gender nonconforming people in your workplace and communities!

ID: Elisa on stone steps on the Smith College campus in 1985. She is sitting in a relaxed pose. She has short dark brown hair and is wearing black pants and boots and a grey suit jacket.