Third Gender
Reflective Tag:
The view of gender being “binary” is trying to put a label on how people follow certain roles. There can be trouble with having gender be “binary,” people fell as though there is no crossing of the two genders and how they act and feel. There is no perfect male or perfect female out there, and the term “gender binary” it threatens the way people act and think. The other view of just getting rid of gender all together and be gender neutral is not practical either.
Article:
When we think of gender many people have a view of their only being two specific genders, “binary.” If you go outside the “gender binary” then you choose to forego the specific gender roles of being either masculine or feminine. In doing so, you mix the characteristics of the two and this is viewed as out of the ordinary. Changing the gender “binary” to something different causes people to have false expectations of what males are “supposed” to be like and act like, and what females are “supposed” to be like and act like. Not every male is going to be able to hold all of the characteristics of the “binary” expectations and might in fact hold some feminine characteristics. This creates false hope in people because if someone doesn’t hold true to gender “binary” then is something wrong with them?
I don’t think it’s possible to be “gender neutral.” It isn’t like a choice in political affiliation; you can’t just stay neutral in gender. The way you act is different, if you are a male but dress or act like a woman, that’s different. At some point you have to choose to be a female or a male because of how the world works. It is hard to imagine a neutral gender being possible. Restrooms, locker rooms, occupations, etc. all these things would be more than complicated to fix to match a neutral gender. Even after reading “Boys Won’t Be Boys,” I just can’t see it working. The kids in Sweden are being raised to not adhere to the “binary” system not making them choose is not good because this disrupts the biology of humans altogether. When they get older and want to reproduce just as any other human, will they even know what to do?