Columnist Sara Weinberger: Punishing nonbinary nonconformance

Alok Vaid Menon is an American writer, performance artist, and media personality who is gender nonconforming, transfeminine, and uses the pronoun they. In Alok’s podcast, “The Urgent Need for Compassion,” they describe a world “beyond the gender binary,” in which men and women are free to create “the infinite possibilities that exist” for self-expression.

In a culture of compulsory binary gender, socialization forces men to mask their vulnerability and women to achieve impossible standards of beauty in order to be desired by men. To perpetuate patriarchal domination, society has defined the limits of gender expression, in a rigid binary system, with no room for anything in between. Alok’s podcast helped me realize how difficult it is to stop seeing the world through this gender binary lens.

As a social work intern, I did a stint in a gender identity clinic, which included attending a group meeting for people in various stages of gender transition. Four-plus decades later, I still viscerally recall the discomfort of walking into a room and not being sure who was biologically male or female, a consequence of being rigidly socialized in a binary world. Today gender-reveal parties celebrate the primacy of gender with everything from pink and blue balloons to fireworks, and who among us, upon hearing that someone has given birth, doesn’t automatically ask first, “Is it a boy or a girl?”

It’s no accident that patriarchal power is maintained through simultaneous definitions of binary gender and racial superiority that perpetuate white male supremacy. The settler colonizers made the rules 400-plus years ago and are working overtime to keep those rules in check.

Twenty states have passed laws or policies banning gender-affirming care to the age of 18 and seven other states are considering similar bans. Republican politicians, who have no relevant political platforms, are scapegoating trans and non-binary people, while blocking legislation to address the problems threatening all of us, including gun violence and climate change.

Not surprisingly, transgender and nonbinary youth worry about accessing gender-affirming health care, inclusive bathrooms and sports. Books about their experiences and history are being removed from libraries, while teachers are instructed to deadname and misgender their gender nonconforming students.

The Tevor Project’s 2021 survey of 34,000 youths found that 85% of transgender and nonbinary youths follow the news and it scares them. That fear translates to increased mental health risks for a group with frighteningly high rates of attempted suicide, depression, and anxiety. Being transgender or non-binary does not cause mental illness. Mental illness is a consequence of stripping away the human rights of transgender and nonbinary people.

I cringe when the news media refers to the erasure of gender nonconforming people as another front in the “culture wars.” This is a war against people that carries deadly consequences.

My daughter’s spouse is nonbinary. I struggle to remember to refer to her as “they.” “It’s bad grammar!” I complain to my friends, without questioning what gave me the right to make the rules for gender nonbinary people. My obsession with grammar caused me to ignore an important part of their identity. Pronouns restore visibility in a patriarchal world that tries to erase humans who are gender non-conforming.

While it’s heartening that many trans and nonbinary people are not settling for invisibility, the backlash against them depends on the same dynamics used to suppress racial, religious, and ethnic identities that don’t conform to conservative ideologies. Just as eugenics labels targeted groups inferior under the guise of “science,” trans and nonbinary people are socially construed as physically and mentally inferior, as “other.”

It’s not surprising that the Trevor Project’s study in 2021 revealed that a one-fourth of Black trans and nonbinary youths had attempted suicide. Those who are targeted by virtue of race and gender face double jeopardy.

Alok said in his podcast that “Category culture kills us.” Allowing ourselves to see only differences keeps us blind to our interdependence. My daughter uses the pronouns “she” and “they,” and identifies as queer. As a couple, they have to factor in the impact of their gender status when making decisions. The ability to access gender-affirming health care, being able to be authentic when they move into a neighborhood, go on vacation, start a new job, all contribute to a sense of unease. It’s unfair that those I love struggle with archaic gender-based thinking in a country that treats them as “other.”

Alok speaks of prioritizing “compassion over comprehension. No matter how we feel religiously or morally … we need to change things so others don’t have to live in fear.” Providing support and acceptance (especially from family members), as well as access to gender-affirming care, have reduced depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among transgender and nonbinary youth, as well as adults.

How might we all fare in a world where gender was not a fixed construct, where everyone could feel comfortable in their own skin? What if we emulated societies on all five continents that revere those who embody both male and female?

My daughter and her spouse continue to forgive me when I apologize for referring to them with the wrong pronoun. How do I respectfully refer to my relationship with my daughter’s nonbinary spouse, within the limits of binary language? For now, I refer to them as my “human-in-law.” The humanity of nonbinary and transgender people is under attack, but we need to realize that it’s an attack on all of us.

Sara Weinberger of Easthampton is a professor emerita of social work and writes a monthly column. She can be reached at [email protected].