I'm Not Sure Where to Put This So I'll Say It Here
As someone that spends copious amounts of time imbibing content from online sharing platforms, I come across a lot of trends people gleefully force themselves into. One such trend is the “If I had a ____ for each gender” meme where the premise is followed by a picture of any two items. As many jokes on the internet go, this one also attempts to get a cheap laugh at the expense of some marginalized group. In this case, it would be non-binary gender identities and those that defend them.
While I have long ago come to the conclusion that gender identity is made up, I never really bothered to defend or support it all that passionately. I couldn’t fully explain the influence of hormones and neurology or any of the other biological subtleties that made men masculine and women feminine. I didn’t quite understand the need for biological males to be categorized men and biological females to be categorized women. It just felt like a redundant labeling system.
But the concept of men and women are intrinsically linked to social roles and norms regarding gender identity. Since there were two dominant sexes, it made sense in our primitive brains to place all people into two categories. You’re either designated a man or a woman, and as such will assume the duties and expectations that societies placed on each group. The division of these roles gave rise to the notions that men are naturally better at certain things and women naturally better at others, and it’s an axiom we have accepted ever since.
Now this isn’t to say that there aren’t any natural differences between males and females. There are absolutely physiological and chemical differences between the two sexes. And this is the part of the argument I wanted to get to. Below are two pictures of rainbows. One is a man-made rainbow design while the other is a photo of a rainbow taken in nature.
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We were taught in school that there are 7 primary colors in the visible light spectrum, and the acronym ROYGBIV was coined to reinforce this belief. But this is simply false. Look at the naturally-occurring rainbow and try to find where indigo begins and ends. A nearly impossible task for many. In fact, when Isaac Newton first began his experiments with light and prisms, he started out with only 5 colors. He introduced orange and indigo later because he believed in the significance of the number 7 to natural phenomenon. He was one of the most brilliant minds humanity has ever known, but undoubtedly crazy according to all accounts of him. We’ve accepted the 7 colors of the rainbow not out of scientific principle, but out of one man’s zealous convictions.
But the way we perceive light and color is specific to our species. The visible light spectrum only applies to humans. And even then, there is variability from person to person just how many colors they can perceive from that spectrum. It is believed that the average human eye is capable of distinguishing colors in the visible light spectrum as small as 1 nanometer apart. Since the entire visible light spectrum is between roughly 390 and 700 nanometers, on average we can classify as many as 310 colors in a rainbow. However, the effects of tints and lenses can introduce different shades of light and dark into our perception of the rainbow, which can alter the colors enough to create an entirely new gradient of classifications.
This analogy has helped me reconsider the way I think of gender. I don’t see 2 or 3 or even 100 categories to fit people into. Where exactly does red end and orange begin on the spectrum? There are no clear distinctions for each of the virtually infinite number of wavelengths in a rainbow to fall neatly into. The categories we create are an arbitrary approximation. Just as the artistic rendition of a rainbow highlights our brain’s inability to perceive the full continuum of colors, so too does designating two genders for the whole of humanity show our inability to see people as individuals. We designate ourselves and others according to simplistic criteria. It’s all based on how closely people are aligned with our ideas of masculinity or femininity.
I believe that the construct of the two-gender binary is purely made-up. There are countless labels people can place on themselves or others to categorize them. Categorization is how human heuristics work, and it’s what enables us to learn about ourselves, about the world, and about our place in it. But as we age and learn, to believe that you can limit people to one of two classifications is myopic. People are capable of feeling and dressing and behaving in an infinite combination of ways. The designation of simply masculine or feminine to that entire spectrum of compositions can only serve to limit our own ability to grow. It prevents us from moving beyond our expectations, forces us to perform the same roles over and over again, and keeps us from getting to experience life outside the boxes we’ve been placed in.
If being a man or being a woman, whatever your ideas of that may mean, works for you, then I’m not going to rain on your parade. People should feel free to express themselves in whatever ways allow them to be at peace. Just know that there are others that don’t fit cleanly into those categories. And I, for one, refuse to continue being restrained by such a dichotomy.
While I have long ago come to the conclusion that gender identity is made up, I never really bothered to defend or support it all that passionately. I couldn’t fully explain the influence of hormones and neurology or any of the other biological subtleties that made men masculine and women feminine. I didn’t quite understand the need for biological males to be categorized men and biological females to be categorized women. It just felt like a redundant labeling system.
But the concept of men and women are intrinsically linked to social roles and norms regarding gender identity. Since there were two dominant sexes, it made sense in our primitive brains to place all people into two categories. You’re either designated a man or a woman, and as such will assume the duties and expectations that societies placed on each group. The division of these roles gave rise to the notions that men are naturally better at certain things and women naturally better at others, and it’s an axiom we have accepted ever since.
Now this isn’t to say that there aren’t any natural differences between males and females. There are absolutely physiological and chemical differences between the two sexes. And this is the part of the argument I wanted to get to. Below are two pictures of rainbows. One is a man-made rainbow design while the other is a photo of a rainbow taken in nature.
We were taught in school that there are 7 primary colors in the visible light spectrum, and the acronym ROYGBIV was coined to reinforce this belief. But this is simply false. Look at the naturally-occurring rainbow and try to find where indigo begins and ends. A nearly impossible task for many. In fact, when Isaac Newton first began his experiments with light and prisms, he started out with only 5 colors. He introduced orange and indigo later because he believed in the significance of the number 7 to natural phenomenon. He was one of the most brilliant minds humanity has ever known, but undoubtedly crazy according to all accounts of him. We’ve accepted the 7 colors of the rainbow not out of scientific principle, but out of one man’s zealous convictions.
But the way we perceive light and color is specific to our species. The visible light spectrum only applies to humans. And even then, there is variability from person to person just how many colors they can perceive from that spectrum. It is believed that the average human eye is capable of distinguishing colors in the visible light spectrum as small as 1 nanometer apart. Since the entire visible light spectrum is between roughly 390 and 700 nanometers, on average we can classify as many as 310 colors in a rainbow. However, the effects of tints and lenses can introduce different shades of light and dark into our perception of the rainbow, which can alter the colors enough to create an entirely new gradient of classifications.
This analogy has helped me reconsider the way I think of gender. I don’t see 2 or 3 or even 100 categories to fit people into. Where exactly does red end and orange begin on the spectrum? There are no clear distinctions for each of the virtually infinite number of wavelengths in a rainbow to fall neatly into. The categories we create are an arbitrary approximation. Just as the artistic rendition of a rainbow highlights our brain’s inability to perceive the full continuum of colors, so too does designating two genders for the whole of humanity show our inability to see people as individuals. We designate ourselves and others according to simplistic criteria. It’s all based on how closely people are aligned with our ideas of masculinity or femininity.
I believe that the construct of the two-gender binary is purely made-up. There are countless labels people can place on themselves or others to categorize them. Categorization is how human heuristics work, and it’s what enables us to learn about ourselves, about the world, and about our place in it. But as we age and learn, to believe that you can limit people to one of two classifications is myopic. People are capable of feeling and dressing and behaving in an infinite combination of ways. The designation of simply masculine or feminine to that entire spectrum of compositions can only serve to limit our own ability to grow. It prevents us from moving beyond our expectations, forces us to perform the same roles over and over again, and keeps us from getting to experience life outside the boxes we’ve been placed in.
If being a man or being a woman, whatever your ideas of that may mean, works for you, then I’m not going to rain on your parade. People should feel free to express themselves in whatever ways allow them to be at peace. Just know that there are others that don’t fit cleanly into those categories. And I, for one, refuse to continue being restrained by such a dichotomy.
