‘The Gender Binary is a Big Lie’

In honor of International Non-Binary People’s Day, observed each year on July 14, I recommend The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie by Lee Wind. The title offers an excellent summation that immediately positions it as an alternative to the narrative that everyone must fit into one of only two socially-imposed gender identities. This narrative is vital and compellingly attractive to a reader like me, someone who has always known myself to fit outside the gender binary.

From the publisher’s description:
“Author Lee Wind takes the reader on a journey around the world and through history to debunk the idea of a gender binary―including 4,500-year-old third-gender burial sites in the Czech Republic; the Bugis people of southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, who recognize three physical sexes and five genders; and people who identify as gender queer and gender fluid today. Using primary source materials including images of featured historical figures, Wind presents a multi-gender reality that is deeply rooted in history.”

One of the quotes from this book that especially resonated with me was an observation by Wind that “a rainbow in the sky doesn’t have its colors separated by coloring-book lines.” Wind cites science writer Ethan Siegel stating that “The gradation of color in a rainbow is continuous — there are no stripes. Humans, however, like to organize things, including colors, to make sense of them.”

Just as humans organize subtle gradations of hues into distinct bands of color when looking at a rainbow, so too our society tries to reinforce the attitude that there are only two possible options for a person’s gender identity and that a person’s internal sense of self must match that person’s assigned sex at birth.

Reading this book was validating for me, because when I was a teenager, traditionally-minded older relatives tried to push gender expectations onto me. And because they saw a “girl” when they looked at me and because they were traditionally minded, they demanded I adhere to a very limited, domestically-oriented slate of expectations. I often felt like a failure because I could not live up to my relatives’ expectations.

I didn’t feel like a “girl” but I didn’t feel like a boy either. Instead, I felt myself to be androgynous. When identities like “nonbinary,” “genderqueer,” etc., entered our cultural vocabulary, I felt so grateful to finally have words with which to express this aspect of who I am.