They can proclaim all they want— there’s a lot wrong with Trump’s executive order about there being “two sexes” and/or two genders only. A sampling of some of the most basic issues within this misguided and not-legal action:
False Claim: All individuals are born either biologically male or female.
Fact: Some babies are born intersex.
False Claim: Gender as a term is not useful.
Fact: Gender is different from biological sex. It’s how one thinks about oneself.
False Claim: Trump’s new executive order protects women’s rights.
Fact: It oppresses many whose biological sex does not match their gender identity.
According to this administration it’s either/or, black/white: the binary model. And although I get that many of us were raised this way, knowledge evolves over time. It’s our obligation to keep up with it.
One particular post’s ongoing popularity on this blog, though, reminds me daily how hard it can be to shake binary thinking. My Google statistics tell me there are always an astounding number of either/or questions about singer Jordan Smith’s sex or gender that lead readers to this 2016 post, which provides Smith’s answer. He identifies as male, not female. (Nor transgender.)
What if his answer were different, though?
There’s nothing wrong with being identity-curious. It’s how we handle the differences of others that matters most.
So, someone comes along and happens to pique your own curiosity. Maybe you get clued in to that person’s preferred pronouns. That’s a start. It means they want to be seen.
On the other hand, maybe you’re given no specific verbal cues and/or you miss them. If you have no relationship with a specific person, it’s none of your business. If you do or are forming one, that person probably will be open to your questions—if posed sensitively and with acceptance.
Back in the day, decades ago, I was the object of mistaken binary labeling myself. Random people sometimes called me “sir,” for example. I didn’t like it, but I knew it was the carpenter jeans, the haircut, the low voice. I was—and still consider myself to be—androgynous.
In today’s world, androgynous can fall under the nonbinary umbrella, not that it’s the same thing as a nonbinary identity. It’s actually a specific presentation of traits versus an identity. If I had been born into a younger generation, I wonder if I’d have chosen from our newer language a different term. Perhaps genderfluid or genderqueer or no specific gender?
Maybe? Probably not. It’s just hard to imagine given my actual lived experience. I also happen to like the female box assigned to me at birth that I’ve been in all my life. Which in today’s worldview makes me cisgender female. If nothing else, accepting this makes me a product of my upbringing and times. Just as those around me, younger and older, who identify as nonbinary in whatever way also draw on factors unique to their own experiences.
It’s everyone’s right to figure themselves out and to name their own identity. It is not yours. It is not the government’s.
