Queering the Gender Binary
Graphic from the Burnett Foundation Aotearoa
From the Future of Masculinity weekly newsletter for people particularly passionate about engaging, educating, and empowering boys and men around gender and masculinity with news-you-can-use, tools, and events.
This is part two of blog series of the gender binary. Read part one first: Why Men Should Care About the Gender Binary
The gender binary isn’t part of every culture.
For those that it is a part of, while it’s a powerful part of the culture, it’s not a stable part.
Many people have challenged and subverted, resisted, and deconstructed the gender binary in various ways across time and contexts.
In particular, there are queer folks, queer theorists, and feminists who have raised many important questions about the gender binary—giving us new ways to understand this concept.
First, queer theorists exposed gender as socially constructed, not as biological destiny.
Whereas people might have thought (and some may still!) that the rigid rules of the gender binary were just the inevitable outcome of sex differences (e.g. genetics, biological differences between male and female brains and bodies), queer theorists like Judith Butler disagreed.
“Judith Butler argued that gender…is not something a person is born with; rather, gender is constructed according to social rules and practices that assign rigid masculine and feminine roles to men and women.”
Gender can look innate because the process of gendering a child starts so early—in many cases, before a child is even born—and often, parents are not aware they’re doing it! When we’re on autopilot, things just start to look natural or inevitable.
For instance, if we provide a baby boy with only ‘masculine’ toys, clothes, and activities, then we’ll never know if he would have liked any of the ‘feminine’ options. Then later, we might think ‘masculine stuff is just what he likes,’ ignoring that we actively shaped that by presenting him only with certain choices.
Of course, there are other ways we’ve realized gender is socially constructed (i.e. rules we’ve made up) and not biological destiny (i.e. things we are hardwired to do).
Largely this is because queer theorists and feminists have exposed how the expectations placed on people based on their perceived sex have varied over time, across cultures, and are always subject to change, challenge, and choice.
Butler was also known for their work to explain gender as a performance.
I remember bringing up the idea of gender as a performance at a Circle event once, and a man in the audience responded: “But I don’t think I’m performing. I genuinely like sports, barbecuing, and sports cars. I don’t think I’m performing masculinity, I just am masculine.”
In this case, performing doesn’t necessarily mean pretending. Gender isn’t something we just have, like a body part, attached to us. No, remember that gender is a set of expectations imposed by individuals and institutions, and when we act in line with those expectations, we’re performing gender in the ways that people expect us to.
In other words, we ‘successfully perform’ gender when we follow the rules and stick to the expectations laid out in the gender binary.
This isn’t to say that we’re all just pretending to do things — or enjoy things — because we’ve been told we should (though that can be true).
It’s more to say that we convey gender through our everyday actions. The way we talk, walk, dress, and express emotions – these are all things that we do, and the way in which we do them signals to others something about our sex or gender identity.
An example Jake often thinks about is when he met a wonderful trans man named Mason in 2016. Mason shared that he had to unlearn and relearn how to do so many things in order to be perceived as male or masculine. For instance, checking his nails. Men, he said, often check their nails by having their palms facing them and curling their fingers toward themselves. Women, on the other hand (haha, love a good pun), will often check their nails by having their palms facing away and their fingers straight.
Men and women aren’t just born ‘biologically hardwired’ to check their nails differently. They learn to perform gender the ‘right’ way from observing those around them, from what they see in the media, or when they’re scorned for ‘doing it the wrong way’.
The punishments for performing gender the ‘wrong’ way can range in severity. Perhaps he is humiliated by his peers or yelled at and told to ‘man up’ by his coach. Or perhaps he is physically attacked. It’s worth noting that many hate crimes are carried out by men against queer men, trans women, or men who are suspected of being queer—in other words, by people who may not be ‘performing’ gender ‘correctly’, especially if they’ve dared to perform femininity.
Often, fear of rejection and violence keeps us following the rules of the gender binary.
Second, queer theorists problematize and question fixed and binary identity categories.
You don’t need to be a theorist to expose that gender is a set of expectations that we have made up as a society, not a stable, biologically determined category.
Many queer people have shown us this, simply by being themselves. By playing with gender expression, as Drag performers do, by expressing themselves regardless of binary gender expectations, as nonbinary people do, and by transitioning to feel more authentically themselves, as many trans folks do. They have shown that gender identity is personal, gender expression can be subversive, and binary gender expectations only have power if we follow them.
“It is clear through this work that when people disturb such binding practices around (gender) identity, they then open up political possibilities that break from the constraints of social regulation”
How does challenging the gender binary benefit us?
In many ways, queer activists who fought for queer liberation have helped liberate us all.
Many queer people didn’t want to be activists. They just wanted to live their lives.
Yet living authentically in a heteropatriarchy means that many queer people have been put on the defensive—forced to defend their rights to live freely as they are—and as a result, have (and continue to) unjustly face violence.
This needs to change.
Queer folks living authentically, queer theorists shaking things up in academia, queer activists in the streets— they’ve moved the needle on conversations around gender, sexuality, and free self-expression. They’ve broken boundaries. Changed laws. Shifted culture.
Queer people challenging the rules of the gender binary, and challenging heteronormativity (the expectation that everyone should be heterosexual), have made the world safer for any of us to step outside of those rules, though at a high cost to themselves.
All of us should have the same courage and strength to stand up for queer people.
“And yet, here I am. And yet, here we are. Everyday miracles. In our survival is a viable alternative to a world structured by coercion and conformity. Another way to love, another way to live. Nonbinary life is sacred. Fight for it.”
When all of us challenge the gender binary, and challenge heteronormativity, we can make the world safer for queer people.
When we stop bullying and harassment in its tracks, when we don’t bat an eye at someone else’s gender expression, when we challenge transphobia and homophobia that we hear from our peers, when we advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ inclusive sexual health education, when we fight against laws like ‘don’t say gay’ or anti-trans legislation, we can do our part to protect queer people and liberate everyone.
What exists beyond the gender binary?
What if you woke up tomorrow and no one knew what you meant when you said: ‘be a man?’
What would happen if gender no longer mattered—if we weren’t held to any expectations about how we were supposed to behave based on our perceived sex—what becomes possible?
The possibilities are endless—if we’re brave enough to fight for them.
We can build a world where we can choose who we truly want to be. What values we want to live up to, what qualities we cherish in ourselves, which interests we actually want to pursue—free from the weight of other people’s expectations based on our perceived sex.
So, this is a call to men, especially straight, cisgender men:
Will you work to tear down the limiting possibilities of the gender binary? Will you free yourself and others from the weight of these expectations?
If so, join us.
Want to do even more? Learn about (and support!) the advocacy work happening across Canada to improve and protect the lives & rights of queer and trans people: check out Egale Canada.
Veronika Ilich is the Community Manager for Next Gen Men. Find her at NGM events, on the Modern Manhood Podcast, or on our online Inner Circle forum! She is passionate about social justice, and in particular, gender-based violence prevention and eliminating poverty.