Atrina is a NYC-based, sex-positive author, lecturer and researcher; find more of her work on her website.

Gender is messy.

Society assigns us genders based on observable, physical characteristics (penis? boy! vulva? girl! etc.), and that assignment determines our societal expectations of that person and how we treat them.

However, not all aspects of our biology fit together the way we expect them to, and many people feel that they do not fit into gender roles that are expected of them. Placing people and things into categories — for example ‘man’ and ‘woman’ — helps us to understand our world quickly, but it also costs us the ability to recognize and acknowledge the inherent complexity of people.

Dividing people has been used to control and disempower entire populations for centuries, and can have disastrous consequences. People have been rebelling against the social pressure to squeeze into gender categories — however uncomfortable the fit — by creating new categories beyond ‘man’ and ‘woman.’

Gender warriors and genderqueer nonconformists have developed new language to talk about different gender experiences, and are beginning to demand recognition of their multivariate, divergent gender identities.

Western societies (like the United States) have shaped our ideas about what it means to be a man or woman, and these ideas are reinforced by social expectations and peer pressure through in-person relationships, social dynamics, and the media. Ideal men are seen as strong, assertive, competitive, action-oriented leaders. Ideal women are expected beautiful, accommodating, compassionate, family-oriented, nurturers. These gender ideals spring from what we expect should be natural according to our biology. Women bear children, so we expect them be good at things like affection and caretaking and men are physically stronger than women so we expect them to be better at fighting and building things. However, to understand why these expectations are flawed, we have to look at society’s role in shaping our expectations:

Gender ideals come from what we expect should be natural according to our biology.

There are very few hormonal differences between boys and girls before puberty, so we can’t attribute greater aggression in boys to higher levels of testosterone when we see them fighting each other in elementary school. What we can do is recognize that we, as a society, tend to give boys guns for toys, give them action games, along with coded, quiet messages about what it means to ‘be a man,’ and how important it is to do (very). Playing is learning for young children. By the time that kids reach adolescence, they’ve already learned what is expected of them based on gender roles through socialization, toys, media and social pressure.

Many cultures across history have recognized genders beyond ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ but our society has only allowed for two, mapped to what we call ‘sex.’ Sex is our biological makeup: We expect that women will have XX chromosomes, a uterus and more estrogen than testosterone, for example. However, many people are born intersex, meaning that their chromosomes may not ‘match’ their genitalia, or perhaps their genitals are ambiguous, underscoring the inadvisability of using genitals as a labeling/grouping mechanism. Many non-Western cultures have acknowledged this and recognize that gender acts in a similar way. Western society has largely tried to simplify gender into neat and distinct categories, which is about as useful as separating all colors into red, yellow, or blue.

Categorizing things helps us understand things in our world efficiently. For example, we can determine that something is a chair based on the things we associate with chairs and the information we receive about an object. These categories help us make assumptions about things like the fact that we could probably sit in this “chair” and it should be able to hold our weight. However, humans are not objects, and they are decidedly not simple. Categorization forces us to make assumptions, affecting how we interact. With no other information than gender, you might choose to pass a crying baby to a nearby woman, while asking the man close by for help changing a flat tire.

Categorization forces us to make assumptions about things and affect how we interact with them.

We assume that we know what kind of person someone is based on the information we have about them, and the way we treat them based on this assumption has measurable effects. If some is wearing a business suit and standing tall, we infer that they are a leader. By treating them as though they are one because we perceive them to be, they will act like one and will be encouraged to build these skills so they do not disappoint. If they failed at this, they would feel bad about themselves and their ability to lead. Not to mention, deviating from norms can lead to a lot of backlash.

We assume that we know what kind of person someone is based on the information we have about them, and the way we treat them based on this assumption has measurable effects.

When we say boys don’t cry, not only are we teaching boys that expressing emotion means that they are not good at ‘being a man,’ but also teaching them to suppress those emotions. This kind of social pressure can cause a lot of harm, not only psychological damage from bullying, but this social pressure can influence how people act. When we tell boys that they have to ‘man up,’ for example, this leads them to bury their emotions which can cause a violent explosion later on, especially if they can’t effectively do this well.

When we tell boys that they have to “man up,” this leads them to bury their emotions which can cause a violent explosion later on.

We pressure people to fit into boxes that we can understand, because not understanding things makes us uncomfortable. When something doesn’t fit into our ideas of how things should be, one way that we try to make sense of it is by trying to re-categorize things. A man who shows emotion, for example, might be placed into a different category like “gay” or “sissy.” This kind of name-calling disqualifies them from “manhood” and places them into a category that is considered less powerful: “feminine.” Nobody wants to feel like their power is being taken away, so this kind of bullying is pretty effective in getting people to conform.

This kind of labeling and pressure to conform has been used to control people throughout history. Someone born with a vagina in a Judeo-Christian society was expected to aspire to raising as many children as possible and to be completely dependent on men for financial support. Prior to 1972, women did not have access to reliable birth control without her husband’s consent, so if he wanted to keep her barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen? That’s what her life was. Let’s not forget that husbands were legally allowed to beat and rape their wives, as well. Money is power in this society and men we able to control women this way because without men, women could not survive. Luckily, this is shifting with an increase in women in the workplace and equal pay initiatives.

Labeling and pressure to conform has been used to control people.

We can learn a lot from the women’s liberation movement. Women began to demand ethical treatment, equal pay and the ability to choose what their life would become, as opposed to having it decided for them based on their sex. Many women felt that they would prefer careers over being homemakers, despite the fact that they were being socially pressured into sex-assigned roles. In general, people don’t like being forced into categories and treated according to assumptions made about them. Just like someone with tattoos would not want you to treat them like a criminal, many people do not want people to treat them like they would a stereotypical man or woman. As such, many people have been addressing this by actively fighting against this.

People don’t like being forced into categories and treated according to assumptions made about them.

Gender is a combination of roles (e.g. caretaker vs leader), expression (e.g. suit vs dress, expressive vs stoic; as well as interests such as dolls vs guns) and identity (e.g. woman vs man), among other things. If a man is not “manly” enough or a woman is not “womanly” enough, they’re left feeling “not good enough” and this can have tremendous consequences on their self-image and self-esteem. People vary tremendously in their attributes, and there is more variation within gender than between them. Someone may have been assigned female at birth, be a natural leader, prefer to wear suits, but still identify as a woman. Another person assigned female at birth may love babysitting, speak softly and sweetly, but not identify with the label of “woman” nor the label of “man” for various reasons. This person may identify with a “non-binary” gender label.

Someone with a “binary” gender will usually have a gender identity that you could easily guess by their gender expression (e.g. a woman who wears makeup or has long hair), will typically have associated interests (e.g. interest in fashion) and will usually feel comfortable with those associated roles (e.g. feeling more maternal than paternal). Somebody who identifies as transgender has a binary gender if they were assigned one sex at birth and recognizes that they really feel like they should be assigned a different sex, and thus may begin living as the gender associated with the sex that they identify with. Often they will do this with the help of hormones and sometimes surgery, but not always. These people generally use the pronouns that match their gender identity. For example, someone who was assigned male at birth but lives as a woman, will usually use she/her pronouns.

However, not everybody who feels uncomfortable with the gender labels assigned to them will necessarily want to “switch” to the “opposite” gender. Some people recognize that they identify with certain gender attributes and not others, or prefer to be treated differently than someone would treat a man or a woman, and actively reject the notion of being either of these genders.

Not everybody who feels uncomfortable with the gender labels assigned to them will necessarily want to “switch” to the “opposite” gender.

It’s impossible to define every gender differentiation because the meanings behind these categories are so personal and are ever-evolving, not to mention there are dozens of them. Explaining the general concept behind a few common ones is a good place to start though.

Some people feel that they have enough components of both masculine and feminine gender categories that they should be categorized as “both,” if they have to be categorized at all. These people often identify as genderqueer or bi-gender, and may prefer to use they/them pronouns instead of he/she in order to feel that others validate and recognize their dual-gender experience. Some people like to reject the idea of gender altogether and do not feel that they identify with any traditional classifications. They may identify as genderqueer or agender and may prefer the pronouns they/them because these are the pronouns that we colloquially use when we do not know the gender of a person and/or it is not relevant. For example, “Does anyone know whose phone this is? I’d like to give it back to them.”

It’s impossible to define every gender differentiation because the meanings behind these categories are so personal and are ever evolving.

The pronouns “they/them” have been used to refer to individual people in colloquial speech for hundreds of years. While the argument is often made that using they/them in the singular is incorrect grammar, we still use it this way without realizing it. Also, language is fluid and evolves over time and they/them as a singular pronoun can be found in the dictionary. Some people have advocated for the creation and use of new pronouns, ones that specifically denote a deviation from the male-female-unknown/multiple options of he-she-they. One of the more popular being ze/hir (Ze went to college to get hir diploma). Language evolution take time, however, and these have only recently entered public discourse.

With a better understanding of why some people prefer non-binary gender labels and gender-neutral pronouns, I hope it is clear why they are necessary. Affirming peoples’ identities instead of forcing them into unsuitable boxes is one way for us to truly appreciate the diversity of human identity experience. These categories are still limiting and are not a complete picture, but they at least offer cues to society for how these people want to be recognized and treated. Gender, like art, is an experience that can often be complicated to explain, and doing so adequately is an art in and of itself. However, it’s beautiful and diverse, and deserves recognition and respect for the impact that it can have.

Gender, like art, is an experience.

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• My first taste of Fifty Shades
• Valentine’s Day: A Sex-Positive Advocate’s Worst Nightmare?

Gender is messy was originally published in The Sex-Positive Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.