9781422275214

Introduction All of us are assigned a gender at birth. You are either male or female, according to traditional thinking, based on your genitalia. But what about those of us that don’t fit such a simplistic either/or model? What if we see ourselves as neither male nor female, but something different? Despite what we’re taught, gender isn’t always determined by genitalia alone. It’s entirely possible that a person can be born with female genitalia and yet not identify as female, or be born with male genitalia and not identify as male. It’s also possible that a person can be born with either male or female genitalia and choose not to self-identify as any gender at all. Gender is as much a societal creation as it is a biological one. Gender is fluid—not fixed—and each of us should be able to choose our gender identity without fear of judgment from family, friends, or neighbors. It’s easy to confuse gender and sexuality because so often the two are discussed as if they were the same thing. But there is an important difference. Namely, sexuality is an expression of gender. In other words, whom we are attracted to is informed by how we perceive our own gender. Someone born biologically male might not necessarily be sexually attracted to someone born biologically female, or vice versa. Our gender, then, however we might choose to name it, informs our sexuality. From birth, children are assigned gender roles based on genitalia. For example, boys traditionally are dressed in blue and encouraged to be aggressive, while girls are dressed in pink and taught to be passive. Some cultures have more than the two primary genders and have recognized a third gender since the beginning of their civilization. In truth, gender is only a word. As humans, we require language to communicate, but it is how you feel inside that matters. The author Kate Bornstein writes about how a new approach to words may lead to a better understanding of the spectrum of gender expression:

8 Beyond Male and Female • The Gender Identity Spectrum