It comes as no surprise to anyone that there are many who are deeply conflicted about encountering people who are “ambiguous” in appearance or, to use the correct term, who have a dissident gender expression. The reality is that these are not specific acts of rejection, but a whole existence of binarism and labels. Gender is one of the pillars of our socio-economic system.
Even before we are born, depending on our sexual characteristics, there are expectations of how we will be or how we will behave. Thus, in every context and interaction, children identify with certain behaviours and values that they understand to be appropriate to their gender. Little by little, and without us realising it, we limit ourselves and, at the same time, these limitations build our personality.
We are talking about the man-woman binarism where we are forced to enter and punished if we try to escape. The main characteristic of this system is that, in it, there are only two options: to be a man or to be a woman. As we mentioned in the previous post, not on a biological level, but on a social one. This goes so far that even intersex people are mutilated to fit one of the two body types that the system admits. Following this non-sense, there are thousands of ARBITRARY rules and roles that we have to fulfil depending on whether we are one or the other. From the colours we should like (pink/blue) to the emotional abilities we have as adults: we are designed.
In sum, anything that is in between or in the surroundings of the accepted genders (strong man with short hair and kind woman that only wears skirts), is rejected, set aside, made invisible and even denied. Therefore, from a very young age, we are forced to be EITHER ONE OR THE OTHER, with all that this implies.
