What Is The ‘Gender Binary’?
Question: What is the gender binary and how can people work around it in dating and relationships?
What is the gender binary?
The gender binary refers to thinking of gender as strictly male/female. It is a dyadic, socially constructed way of viewing gender that uses genitals as a way of determining behavior, sexuality, way of dressing, and basically just about everything that makes you a person, honestly.
We have very strict ideas about what makes someone a "man" or a "woman." And all of them are 100% made up, fake things we created as a society that have no real meaning beyond that. Someone's sex is something you're born with, gender is a different thing. The binary is, in a word, bullshit.
Examples of heteronormativity:
PIV sex is the only "real" sex and everything else is foreplay.
Straight or cis-het relationships are the only real relationships and so everything else is not real, sinful, and shameful.
Sex is PIV only and is for making babies, not pleasure. Female or cis-female pleasure is not needed for making babies and therefore, it is not something we need to consider.
Challenge your thinking.
The best way is through awareness and self-reflection. Ask yourself: Is this something I actually believe or something I've been told? Is this a real belief I have about myself or was this something I was conditioned to believe? Are these beliefs serving me now, in my present life?
Question your own beliefs and be courageous enough to interrogate yourself, even if it's uncomfortable. Be an ally, even if you're cis-het. Be willing to call out people's bullshit and don't allow yourself to fall into a gender role to make another person feel "comfortable."
What do you do if someone is acting on the binary? Can you change their minds?
If you want an answer: Don't date people who behave this way. If you stand up for yourself and they are, for instance, being a complete fuckboy or think you should be a baby making machine who stays home with the kids, ditch them. The easiest way to do this is to realize you're not going to change anyone's mind and walk the hell away. There are lots of woke, cool people out there. You don't have to settle for a dickhead.
XOXO Gigi
This article originally appeared as an interview with InStyle.
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