How Useless Binary Gender Distinction Is
For a long time, I felt a bit confused, trying to understand people who said “there are more then two genders”. Because, biologically speaking, there is, to my knowledge, only two genders. These two are necessary to produce a new human being. There is the sterilized, genderless, transgender, etc…. The simple thought behind gender is to make our species able to reproduce. Whoever now argues that this is a incredibly closed perspective on gender… I am only talking about the very basic form, created by nature, not considering the character of people (to which I will get in a second). Because, you see, nature didn’t think this quite through. I don’t know how it happened, but basically the intelligence of the animal (homo sapiens) created by nature (cells merging etc.) is much greater then what the nature planned it to be (or at least that’s my only explanation. that’s also why humans destroy nature, it’s creator…). But in this special aspect, the humans created by nature to populate our planet (yes, I am breaking it down in a very simplified way), who should reproduce to keep the species alive, have often such strong character traits, that this need of dividing between two simple genders, and this need to reproduce our species, is simply obsolete. Because Nature doesn’t give the X chromosome long hairs and boobs and periods, and the Y chromosome a penis and hair on his back (again, very simplified) to put a human in a category. Now, you might argue that, even thought nature doesn’t do that, society automatically does… Which is unfortunately right, but the current trend, of breaking up these norms is becoming very powerful, and I believe the trademark of our decade.
Now, lets try to look at this in another way. Lets say what’s given to you by natures is given to keep your species alive. But you are nothing more then a empty canvas. You are basically a new phone. Sure, it comes with the charging hole to plug your charger in, but its completely empty. You can put a cover on it, you can put apps on it, you can do stuff with it, @you can even seal the charging hole, or break the screen, its your own thing, and you can do with it whatever you want.
Some guy in Marketing came up with personalizing products to a gender, or advertising a role for it, but as I said, thats the job of our collective society to change it (and that job is being done!).
I guess what I am trying to say is, initially you get shipped with a charging hole, or, you know, (I can’t find the right analogy but I think you get it), boobs, long hairs etc... and maybe until today, your parents are pushed towards buying your clothes in the masculine color or the feminine one, but the next generation will very likely not have to deal with this binary cage anymore. Later, as soon as you are starting to think about this yourself, I propose you undress, and you put yourself in front of the mirror. This is your empty canvas. The long hair don’t fit to the person you are inside? cut them! the color is wrong? change it! your skin should carry a relevant message for the world to see? print it! Your favorite color is neon orange? wear it!
Nature will probably not understand some of that. But who cares? And people? they don’t understand that? Then its their fault, and you should move to an environment which let's you be you. Many big cities are becoming such environments. And many other's will follow. Likeminded people will understand.
To conclude… I still don’t have a fitting way to categorize every character. Its not done by male/female and its not explained with homesexual/metrosexual etc... Because who you are is much bigger then that. It’s all of that combined, and at the same time, its completely unique. It’s like a huge huge file, filled with every single character trait, and only that, put together is you. So what’s the name of you? A name that describes everything, but at the same time you and only you? Maybe we can create a huge portfolio for every individual, which has a sample of every character trade saved in it... (I am still brainstorming for better Ideas).
In any case, asking for a gender doesn’t make sense. It’s like if somebody is asking “What music do you listen?” and as a response you hand him your empty iPod. It is a ridiculous simplification, that misses out on 99.9% of you. And yes, you may say “but I am normal”. I am a man, I like football and girls… well, you may also have kinks and phantasies, crazy ideas or weird dreams. They are part of you too, right ? If we create a picture where not gender, but every “complete file” of a person is considered, we overcome the need to hide our kinks just because we want to be considered as „normal“ people.
Well, you aren’t normal.
— Thought just getting started on Medium and usually working as an visual artist, I plan to publish a few thoughts and stories every Week, so if you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow me —
Inspiration & Stills — https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/223503242 with permission of Jake Dypka
