Thinking About Gender

Source: Alex Stitt

With so much contention in the world today, it can be difficult to have a clear conversation about gender diversity. The fact is gender diverse people exist, in the millions.¹ We are recorded throughout history, we exist in cultures around the world, and we have been studied extensively in medical and psychological journals.^2,3,4 Yet the conversation is muddled because people think about gender in different ways. Some of these ontological views are inclusive, others are clumsy, and some try to erase trans and nonbinary people altogether.

Instead of constantly forcing trans and nonbinary people to defend our validity, it’s time to focus on this breakdown in perspective, as it’s here that we encounter the real problem of dehumanization. Psychological flexibility allows us to adapt to situational demands, shift mindsets that no longer serve us, and maintain an open awareness in new experiences, all of which have been shown to increase mental health, life satisfaction, and emotional well-being.^5,6,7 But if a flexible thinker adapts or expands their perspective when they encounter people who are different from themselves, a rigid thinker, who is psychologically inflexible, will hold onto their established views, rejecting what they don't understand or agree with—in this case, gender diversity. Of course, the issue isn't so black and white, and in the discourse around this topic you will often find four cognitive frameworks contributing to a Binary, Trinary, Taxonomical, or Integrated view of gender.

Binary View of Gender: Having evolved with two eyes, two ears, two arms, and two legs, it’s easy to see why humans think in pairs. A Binary view of gender tries to be concrete by treating sex and gender synonymously to uphold clearly defined gender roles, gender norms, and gender expectations. These are often framed as archetypal opposites; for example, men are tough and stoic, and women are gentle and emotional.⁴

To maintain itself, this Binary relies on “normative thinking,” or the assumption of normality, a cognitive distortion that assumes the social majority looks, thinks, and acts like one’s in-group. Doing so makes it easier to dismiss statistical outliers, legitimizing “the norm” by delegitimizing “the abnormal.” Intersex people are deemed medical anomalies, and gender diverse people are deemed psychologically disordered.

Trinary View of Gender: A trinary view of gender attempts to be inclusive in a clumsy way. Sex (anatomy) and gender (identity) are distinct, yet people use visual cues like a person's sex phenotypes to know when to engage social protocols for gender identity.⁴ Consider how children are taught to identify gender by visual stereotypes; for example, boys have short hair and girls have long hair. This kind of symbolic, hierarchical thinking is reductive, and quickly falls apart as we get older. So the simplest solution is to make room for a third, catch-all category for everyone that doesn’t fit. This Trinary view of gender is often called “othering,” as it makes room from Men, Women, and Other.⁸

By grouping all non-cisgender people together, the Trinary fails to differentiate among the broad array of trans and nonbinary people, including those whose gender is not identifiable on sight. Furthermore, while those with a Binary view are often aware of their perspective, those with a Trinary view may not be, especially if they believe they’re being open-minded. In short, the Trinary accepts gender diversity, but does not put in the effort to comprehend what that actually means on a global scale.

Taxonomical View of Gender: If a Binary sees pink and blue, and a Trinary sees pink, blue and purple, then a Taxonomical view sees a whole spectrum of colors. Yet how broad or inclusive this spectrum is depends on the purpose of the taxonomy. Medical taxonomies rely on essentialist criteria, often contributing to a gatekeeping “treat-or-not-to-treat” model. Anthropological taxonomies explore gender paradigms in ethnic cultures, indigenous cultures, mainstream cultures, subcultures, and countercultures. And too many psychological taxonomies have fixated on the difference between transvestic cross-dressing behavior and transgender identity.

The most common Western taxonomy of gender differentiates between Cisgender, Transgender, Nonbinary, and Agender people. Those who recognize these labels as umbrella terms may even create complex flow charts with many subcategories and micro-labels. This can be helpful when we're trying to figure out who we are. However, taxonomies are limited by their parameters, as human beings rarely fit into neat categories. Even a broad view of gender identity, with hundreds of clearly defined genders, would still narrow the scope if they’re maintained as rigid constructs that do not blend, overlap, or change. A rigid taxonomy will quibble over definitions. A flexible taxonomy understands that language is polysemic, and labels are used differently by different people.

Integrated View of Gender: If a Taxonomical view sees a whole palette of colors, then an Integrated view sees a full painting. Instead of framing gender as a single facet of our identity, this perspective sees gender as intersecting with every part of who we are. That means aspects of gender are socially performative, connecting to our multifaceted culture; aspects of gender are cognitive, connecting to our internal thought process; and aspects of gender are somatic, connecting to our mind-body relationship.⁸

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This holistic perspective recognizes how people not only have different gender identities, they also experience gender differently within their being. This is evident in the cultures around the world that do not fit the contemporary Western paradigm. This is evident in the neurodiverse community, whose internal experience of self can be very dynamic. And this is also evident the more you talk with trans and nonbinary people, as there are multiple ways we experience gender within ourselves. For some of us it's highly performative, or cerebral, or a felt experience we can’t put into words, or a combination thereof.⁸ For some, gender is highly static, or it changes over time, or it oscillates, or it's multidimensional, or it's vibrant and loud, or muted and quiet—and for some gender seems completely absent.^4,8 An Integrated view makes room for all of these experiences, as well as the ever-growing variety of labels used to describe them.

Summary

Accepting diversity requires us to expand our view of the world and our understanding of how it works, as well as our view of people and how we experience ourselves. When we encounter those who are foreign or strange to us, we can either expand our framework or double down on our perspective. Yet a reductive view of gender is not only sexist and cissexist, it’s also ethnocentric, excluding indigenous cultures in the world that are not binary. Consider the diversity of Takatāpui in New Zealand, including the Māori Whakawahine and Wakatan. Consider the Māhū in Hawai’i, or the Fa’afafine and Fa’afatama in Samoa. Consider the Hijra in India, or the five genders of the Bugis in Indonesia, or the dynamic genders found amongst the Cree, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Navajo tribes, just to name a few. These cultures are very much alive, but they’re often ignored in the “trans debate.”

Gender diversity is not new, nor is it erasable, despite an extensive history of oppressors trying to do so, or the current political climate. There is hope, as researchers have found that prejudice-reduction interventions are not only effective but endure over time.⁹ In fact, one study targeting anti-trans sentiment in Florida deployed 56 canvassers door-to-door and found that a 10-minute perspective-taking exercise markedly reduced prejudice for three months.¹⁰ Likewise, psychological flexibility as a trainable set of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills has been shown to increase empathy and caring, reduce prejudice, and promote positive intergroup behavior.^11,12,13,14 And it all starts by changing the conversation, as the real issue at hand is not gender, but the dehumanization stemming from rigid thinking and a deficit in compassion.