No Gender November №15: Unclassy Comfortable

Gender expanded classifications are complicated. Alis isn’t. She’s comfortably unclassified.

Note: This is part of the November 2018 “No Gender November” portrait series on my 6yo’s lunch notes. Follow along and learn non-binary with me!
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According to Alis “People get all up in arms about LGBTQI+, if this kept going everyone would end up with their own letter.” This isn’t the first time I’ve run across this sentiment. A few weeks in to talking with and drawing the gender expanse I’ve observed a lot of discomfort around the need to classify everyone. I have felt some sharp anxiety unintentionally misgendering folks featured in this project. Queer folks classify themselves and get uncomfortable being misclassified (read “judged”) by others. Even within the queer community people can be just as judgmental.

“The queer community has just as much judgement as anyone else.” Alis has seen this particularly for bisexuals. They “get the worst shit.” Bisexuals around lesbians tend to change their classification to “lesbian” because there’s so much shaming of the straight sex. Another friend of mine is referred to as “femme” around gay couples, when that’s not them at all. This need to classify is so problematic that Google just blocked gender pronouns from their AI due to fear of its bias. They would lose customers.

Alis is uncomfortable in plenty of spaces so she tends to hover around her comfort zone. She know’s she’s gay. She’s more masculine — wears mens clothing and hats — but also wears makeup and has no plan to cut her long hair. Friends have classified her as “futch.” Alis doesn’t classify much at all. She’d describe herself as “comfortable.”

Gender classifications are more like the ‘ol Facebook relationship status “it’s complicated.” We are trying to classify all the worlds gender/sexuality/anatomy relationships, just like Google is trying to classify all the worlds information and it’s just causing grief. For why? At best we know what a thing is, at worst we assign what a person is that drives them to misery. Maybe we can be reductive, declassify the world’s information and open up possibilities. I think Alis would be comfortable with that.