How to Break Away From the Gender Binary

Let’s stop assuming everyone’s pronouns based on their gender performance.
illustrated people with gender symbols.
Lydia Ortiz

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In this op-ed, Samantha Riedel explains how everyday actions and words can enforce an archaic gender binary, and how you can stop doing that today.

Last weekend, we learned that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reportedly intends to pursue the narrowest definition of “sex” and “gender.” According to the Trump administration's memo, “male” and “female” would be the only categories for gender designated at birth, and any disputes would be handled via genetic testing. Not only is this a disturbing expansion of government into the deepest recesses of our personal lives, it’s also flat-out wrong. Science tells us that both gender and sex exist on a spectrum, and that the male-female binaries we’ve grown up taking for granted are far more socially constructed than medical. Here are six ways you can help start dismantling the binaries that hold us back from fully understanding each other — and ourselves.

Help end intersex genital mutilation

Although much of the current discussion about sex and gender binaries is focused on transgender people, to truly understand why the binary is harmful, you don’t need to look any further than the way intersex people are treated every day. “Intersex” is an umbrella term for people who, for many reasons, do not have a biological sex that conforms to the traditional understanding of “male” or “female” anatomy. Various conditions appear in newborns with differing frequencies, but the Intersex Society of North America has estimated that one in every 100 babies have “bodies [that] differ from standard male or female.”

However, when doctors notice genital “abnormalities” arising from these conditions, their response is often to perform surgery to “correct” intersex bodies and force them into the artificially-constructed sex binary: male or female. Although the stated goal is usually to make life more “normal” for the child, according to Human Rights Watch, “[t]he results are often catastrophic, the supposed benefits are largely unproven, and there are generally no urgent health considerations at stake.” While it may sometimes be necessary to perform surgery on infants whose lives are at risk after birth, these surgeries are too often unnecessary and violate children’s basic consent. Instead, we should listen to advocacy organizations calling for an end to this practice and let intersex children grow up as themselves.

Stop labeling gender at birth

I know this seems like a big ask, but hear me out. After a doctor inspects a baby’s genitals to determine if they need to be “normalized,” they note what they believe the baby’s sex is: male or female. This not only harms intersex kids whose conditions are genetic and/or internal (and thus escaped the knife), but begins the societal process of assuming gender based on genitals.

Think about it: if sex characteristics don’t have anything to do with gender expression (they don’t), why do we use the same two words — male or female — to describe them? Even if you consciously understand that the rainbow of sex characteristics doesn’t impact gender, the two are irreversibly linked in most of our minds because we use the same language to describe them. This is the root of all the “but what are you REALLY” questions trans people get from nosy cis people: trying to figure out what genitals we had when we were born. Frankly, that’s creepy, and something only my doctor needs to know. Time for a new system.

Cancel the gender reveal parties

Speaking of things that many people don’t realize are super creepy, gender reveal parties are the actual worst. Who came up with these things, anyway? Cis folks, I get that you want to celebrate the births of your children, but I thought that was what baby showers were for. You really need to invite everyone you know over to drop confetti and talk avidly about your unborn child’s maybe-vagina? (I assume that’s what happens at these shindigs.)

Kidding aside, gender reveal parties, especially as they exist today, are a relatively new phenomenon, but they illustrate how deeply most people in our society link gender with sex characteristics — and how deeply rooted gender stereotypes still are. Gender reveal parties and their “tiaras or trucks” cakes are the bastion of pink-and-blue binarism: given only the tiniest shred of information about a fetus’s nascent body, parents rush to impose a lifetime’s worth of judgment and expectations on them. Give your kids a break, they’re not even born yet!

Normalize pronoun-sharing for everyone

A few years ago, I held a housewarming (well, apartmentwarming) party and invited a pretty diverse cross-section of my cis and trans friends. Before everyone arrived, I set out name tag stickers and told guests to include their pronouns to make things easier for everyone. But to my dismay, only the trans people displayed their pronouns — my cis friends just assumed their were a given.

This isn’t a swipe at those friends, but rather an illustration of how sharing pronouns is currently imposed on trans people. When a trans person is the only one in the room letting people know they use a specific pronoun set, that instantly outs and “others” them to their peers. Let’s stop assuming everyone’s pronouns based on their gender performance. Putting your pronouns in your email signature is a great, small way to normalize this kind of sharing, and you can make it part of your everyday introductions, too. (Keep in mind, though, that not everyone will be comfortable sharing their pronouns; whatever the reason, don’t interrogate them as to why if they decline to share with you. They might be closeted and feel unsafe doing so.)

Use the singular “they”

I can already hear some of my fellow English majors balking, but if using the singular they is grammatically correct enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for us.

Using “they” for strangers and people whose pronouns you don’t know is a great way to give others space to self-define. (For an advanced degree, try avoiding “sir” or “ma’am,” although we don’t have very good neutral replacements for those yet.) It’s important to start with ourselves when trying to change the way our culture operates; I will gladly confess even I have trouble not assuming people’s pronouns when I first meet them. We can stop imposing our own ideas of gender on strangers together.

Take body-shaming out of your vocabulary

Since before Trump was elected, media personalities (especially comedians) have made much sport of using innuendo to mock his genitals. The whole “tiny hands” gag is supposed to be funny because it suggests he has a small penis, infamously rendered in the nude sculptures of Trump which depicted him with a micropenis.

Consider the ramifications of your words. Micropenises can be considered an intersex anatomy just as real and normal as any other, yet people who have them are routinely singled out for mockery and disgust in popular culture. When you participate in that, you’re telling everyone within earshot that you’re not a safe person to talk to about their bodies, and that you won’t be an advocate for marginalized people you think are weird or gross. Change your behavior, and when you hear others making these kinds of hurtful jokes, shut them down.

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