“If you're treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they're real for you whether they're real or not.”
-James Baldwin
A few days ago, I saw a social media post made by a straight, white, male would-be life coach. It read “the sky is blue, the earth is round, and there are two genders,” as though anyone who believes differently is out of their mind.
As with many other topics in our society, we dumb down the conversation about gender. We treat it, we treat each other, as though it is a binary matter.
The conversation no one seems to be having about gender goes as follows. There exists a spectrum. At one end is the most masculine male one could ever imagine, at the other the most feminine female. All of us fall somewhere on the spectrum.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F49d2f624-cd92-481a-a1d0-60fe1e2880c9_4272x2848.jpeg)
But, we pretend if you’re not at one or the other extreme end of this spectrum, you should be. We act as though a man can be “too feminine,” and a woman can be “too masculine.” A person should be free to live wherever they fall on the spectrum, wherever they feel they belong on the spectrum, and be left alone.
As much as we might prefer there not be a spectrum, that instead there should be a male bucket and a female bucket and everyone should take their rightful place in one or the other, and stay there, it’s not that simple. If I fall smack in the middle of the spectrum, and I want to wear a sundress to go bass fishing with my buddies, then come home and make love to my wife, who is a trucker, it’s nobody’s business.
People act like it’s crazy for a teen to identify as non-binary. They see this, shake their heads, and ask what the world is coming to. But, imagine being a kid who feels like they don’t belong in one bucket or the other.
You’re coming of age in a world full of ignorant and hypocritical men who treat women poorly and deny their own privilege. Who would want to be that asshole? Any woman you see who enjoys any measure of power either obtained it by agreeing with all the assholes and proclaiming the virtue of outdated, patriarchal norms, or else everyone associated with the status quo acts like she’s a crazy bitch. Neither of those options sound great. Men are destroying the world and women are relegated to standing in line behind them.
When you think of it that way, it seems pretty reasonable for a kid to say “to hell with all this. I don’t want to be a man or a woman.”
It makes sense to me, considering the world we’re leaving them. They see us, and they want something better.
And, good for them. They know they deserve it.
Glossary of Feelings entry XIX
Nervous (adjective)
TIMID, APPREHENSIVE
easily excited or irritated : JUMPY
This Week in History
May 12, 1626 –Louis Hennepin, Flemish missionary who explored the interior of North America, was born.
May 13, 1846 –United States Congress voted in favor of President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico over border disputes.
May 14, 1925 –Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs. Dalloway" was published.
May 15, 1618 – German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovered the third of his three planetary laws, the "harmonic law."
May 16, 1792 – Denmark abolished slave trade.
May 17, 1620 – The first known merry-go-round was seen at a fair in Philippopolis, Turkey.
May 18, 1973 – Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the United States Congress (R-Montana), women's rights advocate, and pacifist, died at 92.
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What I’m Reading
Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, by Robert Gordon
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
What I’m Watching
The NBA Playoffs
Major League Baseball
What I’m Listening To
Is This IT, The Strokes
Soup, Blind Melon
Journaling Prompt for Week #19 of 2024
Write about how you have been conditioned to see yourself.
Thanks for reading. Have a great week.
Thanks for this, Tom. I’ve long felt this to be true and I appreciate how you’ve shared it here. Everything in life is so much more fluid than we think it is. There are very few “this or that”