Nonbinary lOL

By Rebecca Peterson,
Assistant Editor

Here's a tired phrase you ve likely
heard a thousand or more times, ‘
with varying levels of sincerity:

“Gender is a social
construct.”

It's a common talking point in feminist
circles. Feminist philosopher Judith Butler was
the one to coin the term ‘gender performativity’,
the idea that traits that we attribute to the
traditional gender dichotomy (quiet, submissive,
emotional women, and strong, stoic, hypersexual
men] are not the result of biological forces, but rather
social pressures. We are taught how to be men and women
respectively as we grow up, and if we do not fit into these
roles and molds, we are punished and ostracized by society
until we do in sometimes overt, but more often subtle, ways.

Is this all sounding a bit esoteric? It's boiled-down feminist
academia and philosophy, so it probably does. The main takeaway point
is this: Gender is a game where the rules are made up and the points
don't matter. It's also a game that many can't or simply do not want to play.

Transgender identities on the whole have become more visible in
mainstream culture over the past decades, but the conversation, it seems,
is still being conducted in a binary way. We're starting to wrap our heads
around trans women and trans men—though not well, and with torturously
slow forward motion, with setbacks from both within and without feminist social
movements [TERFs, I’m looking directly at you). However, if understanding and empathy
for “binary” trans experiences is limited, understanding and empathy for nonbinary
identities is borderline nonexistent. While Google is hardly a good metric for judging global
trends and moods, it’s telling that the first options to come up when Searching the phrase
“nonbinary people are” are ‘nonbinary people are stupid” and “nonbinary people aren't real

On the left, nonbinary people are often seen as co-opting the experiences of
“real” trans people. On the right, we're seen as attention-seeking special snowflakes’
with made-up identities and pronouns; a result of teenagers and young adults
spending too much time on Tumblr running with the dreaded “SJW” crowd.

It's a degrading misrepresentation of people who span a broad range of ages and
experiences, many of whom aren't looking to cause a controversy by asking to be referred to
with they/them pronouns. Nonbinary people have existed under different forms and labels
for centuries; they can be young or old, assigned female, male, or intersex at birth. So,
in the interest of education, here are some common confusions and misconceptions
about nonbinary people. All | ask is that you keep an open mind and an open heart
and keep all tired jokes about identifying as an attack helicopter to yourself.

“There are only two sexes; ergo, there are only two genders”

Nope. For one thing, there are, biologically, more than two sexes—though less
common, intersex people exist in many different forms. For another, sex, gender,

and sexuality are three separate concepts. Sex refers to anatomy and biological
makeup; sexuality covers attraction; and gender is a form of expression. This has
been accepted as fact in academic and medical circles for decades, so If you're just
hearing this now, it’s not because it’s a hot new concept—it’s because it takes time
for these sorts of ideas to become mainstream. They're still teaching the Bohr model
in high school, after all, and that’s been considered outdated for a good while now.

“Nonbinary people are a recent phenomenon”

Nonbinary and gender-variant people have existed all over the world, all throughout
history. It would be disingenuous to apply the nonbinary label to established identities

in other cultures as they have their own traditions and terminology, such as the Ayjras in
South Asia and the Two-Spirited people of Indigenous and Native American people, but it
proves that the current binary is not a universal constant. One of my favourite stories of
nonbinary people comes from Ancient Sumer and Akkad, from the myth of Ishtar’s descent
into the Underworld. After Ishtar is imprisoned by the queen of the Underworld, Erishkigal,
the god Ea [or Enki] creates a genderless being, Asu-shu-namir, to go to the Underworld and
rescue her. Erishkigal curses Asu-shu-namir and all people like them to endure ostracism
from society to punish them for helping Ishtar; Ishtar, to mitigate the curse, blesses Asu-
shu-namir and all people like them with magical abilities such as foresight and healing.