Tag Archives: Non-Binary

What Is It Like To Grow Up Without The Rigid Gender Roles (Video)

In Vice’s newest documentary Raised Without Gender, host Amelia Abraham goes to Sweden – the world’s most forward thinking country when it comes to questioning gender – to find out what it’s like to grow up without the gender binary.

The documentary comes at a time when transgender issues are at the forefront of liberation debate across the world and more young people than ever before are defining as something other than simply “male” or “female.”

In Sweden, the gender neutral pronoun “hen” has been in the national dictionary since 2015 and is now commonly used by most Swedes, the Swedish government’s school plan has since 1998 forbidden enforcing gender stereotypes, and government funded gender neutral kindergartens with gender aware teachers has made it possible for families to raise their children without a set gender identity, something that often sparks controversy in the foreign press.

In the film, Abraham spends time with one of these gender non-conforming families, mapa (mom and dad) Del LaGrace Volcano who was born intersex (both male and female), the children Mika (5) and Nico (3) and their grandma Margareta.

She visits Mika and Nico’s gender aware kindergarten to find out what the teachers and the other kids make of Mika’s gender expression.

She also meets the founder of Sweden’s gender-neutral kindergartens, Lotta Rajalin, to learn how they go about deleting gender norms from education, as well as psychiatrist Dr Eberhard who is against Sweden’s attitude to gender in kindergartens.

Lauren Lubin and ‘We Exist’: A Documentary on the Life of Non-Binary People

Existing is a sum of many things: of being recognized, represented, talked about but also in an affirming way and not simply being referred at in psychiatric textbooks. Existing means being part of a language and incorporated into its habits, having your specific needs identified and catered to, your problems and demands heard and the differences that make you into the unique individual that you are accepted and validated. Existing is not just about living and breathing and going to work.

If you have faced several forms of sexism, racism, ableism, homo-bi-ace/phobia, transphobia or intersex-phobia before, you may already have the experience of what it is like to be a living human being but to have your identity denied, erased, concealed, abused or stripped of its individual existence.

In activism there is no point in making competitions out of people’s suffering and oppression. Someone will always have it better than you, and someone will always have it worse than you because of endless mingling webs of intersecting paths and reasons. That doesn’t mean that we can’t – or that we’re not supposed to – focus on the specific characteristics that distinguish the different forms of oppression each complex identity is facing.

When it comes to people whose gender does not fall strictly into the man-woman binary system that society is imposing on us, one of the main forms of oppression they are faced with, is the denying of their existence. Worst of all (as happens with other LGBTQ+ identities as well), the erasure non-binary people might have to deal with, doesn’t only come from outside the queer community, but also stems vastly from within it.

Non-binary experiences are still being stubbornly ignored even within the LGBTQ+ community, not only from non-straight, but also from binary trans people, resulting to a harmful lack of safe spaces for non-binary individuals.

Society insists on being disrespectful towards non-binary people, starting from the distant, seemingly theoretical debates on grammar and on whether we should accept people’s pronouns, to the insistence on segregating everything by gender, sports, restrooms, hair salons, and practically almost everything else we deal with, participate into or are part of in our everyday lives.

This can only be extremely harmful for both the physical and mental health of non-binary individuals, who rarely ever have their voices properly heard and their needs taken into consideration.

Lauren Lubin is the creator and executive producer of the upcoming documentary We Exist, which explores the lives of people who experience their gender in a way different than those who identify as either men or women. The production of this documentary started four years ago and it is one of the biggest initiatives worldwide that have to do with the specific experiences of non-binary people, narrated by them as they interact with all aspects of flawed, binary societies.

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The documentary is an intimate work that reaches up to the most personal issues that a gender-non-conforming trans person might face and can function as a crucial point of reference, relation and inclusion for non-binary people from all over the world.

Lauren Lubin says, in their After Ellen interview with Kim Hoffman, concerning their hopes about the release of We Exist:

I have always seen this film as the first step toward tackling and changing the many oppressing social issues people like myself face. And already, I’ve seen how We Exist has begun to make such changes, particularly among my followers in the We Exist community. My hope for this undertaking has always been to create a film that people like myself can share with their loved ones and say, “Hey, this is me. This is how I feel. I’m not the only one.”

And indeed, We Exist has already grown into a worldwide movement, a phenomenon with visible positive effects when it comes to the representation that non-binary people are deprived of. The platform already extends to 67 different countries and it represents experiences of individuals from around the globe, crossing boundaries set by age, race and culture and offering a multi-dimensional picture of non-binary experience.  People are finally seeing themselves reflected on a project, amongst thousands of other projects that insisted on focusing specifically on either men or women:

I discovered Lauren earlier this week and it’s an incredibly important discovery for me because I now know that I exist. I am gender neutral and hopefully I am at just the beginning… to finally live as me.” –S.

 

I am so happy to see this that this brought tears to my eyes… After 26 years I am happy ro finally have a place in this world. I am happy that gender identity is becoming more talked about and educated on… I want to thank everyone involved for the work you are doing. This will save lives and encourage people. THANK YOU!!!” –E. (from the We Exist Media Kit found on the We Exist Official Website).

Lubin believes that

it is absolutely within society’s reach, to expand upon the current gender binary system. It’s clear now, and the science backs it up: Gender—like sexuality—does exist on a spectrum. There are pockets of change already occurring all over the world: from Nepal recognizing a third gender, to individual establishments and schools implementing gender neutral bathrooms, to Facebook enabling their users to define their gender on their own terms. But in order to institutionalize and integrate a broader gender system across all of society—academia, medicine, legislation, government identification, and so forth—it’s imperative for change and accountability to occur at the top. Until then, it’s up to us individuals to educate, advocate and lobby against the status quo until that happens.”

They also refer to the discrimination and the erasure a non-binary person has to deal with in most parts of their everyday life:

My current reality as a non-binary person living in a binary world is that once I leave my home, there are very few public spaces where I can fully exist. What’s more, legally I do not fully exist as my true self, which not only dehumanizes my person but also make my life extremely difficult and unsafe. The ideal, perfect day for me would be just like anyone else’s: to step out into the world without question or fear, knowing that I do and can exist as I am, wherever I am, and to be recognized, respected and protected exactly as I am.”

Non-binary identities are often shut down as “Tumblr SJW made-up identities”, downright refusing to respect people’s existence as well as their rightful, valid experiences. In all honesty, no one should demand proof for the way a person experiences their gender and sexuality, given that people’s identities don’t harm other people or their respectful identities in any way.

However, even science backs up the idea that sexuality and gender fall onto a spectrum. One recent research led by the Medical University of Vienna and presented in Huffington Post last year, shows that the human brain holds a wide range of gender differences varying from person to person, independently by their biological sex characteristics. In a society where trans experiences are more often than not pathologized, and their identities objectified, sexualized and heavily misrepresented.

According to the We Exist Media Kit, the documentary circles around Lauren’s life, showing  everyday reality for a person identifying as gender neutral and leaving a positive, empowering note. The trailer looks amazing, both sentimentally and aesthetically, and gives us glimpses of Lauren’s childhood, athletic dedication and transition, promising us a multi-dimensional depiction that can raise awareness about people whose gender doesn’t fall within the binary. Lauren Lubin is actually a multi-talented person, having earned a full scholarship for basketball at the University of Colorado, today spreading awareness about gender issues through their documentary. They have published two books: The Rainforest Awakenings and The Thoughtless Revolution.

Their voice has been heard on ABC Good Morning, Curve Magazine, Out Magazine, TIME, The Huffington Post, on the Everyone Is Gay Tumblr Blog with Kristin Russo (co-founder of The Parents Project, a digital resource for parents of LGBTQ+ children) where they explained what the gender binary means and how gender is a spectrum and spoke about their journey of discovery. They have given an interview with Rebecca Ruiz on Mashable, where they addressed the issue of assuming people’s gender in everyday life without giving much thought into it. Lauren Lubin have also given speeches at several schools, universities and youth organizations such as the Columbia University, the Trinity College, the University of Colorado, Lurie’s Children Hospital Safe Space Day, SpeakingOUT Organization, and many more.

The documentary is directed and edited by Andrew Seger, a Brooklyn-based editor and producer who has worked together with Starbucks, VOGUE and other projects.

There might be a rise in the conversation about LGBTQ+ issues, but equality has not been achieved, especially for the least represented, understood and discussed identities. This is why initiatives such as We Exist are deemed absolutely vital to raise awareness for non-binary and gender-non-conforming issues.

 

 

From She To They – The Pronoun Change That Distorted My Perceived Sexuality

Ever since I learnt about building schemas during my university career, I have literally felt and seen myself adapt my schemas around new information in regards to Dylan’s transition to gender neutral.

As I’ve found out about each new change, I have sat with the discomfort of the Unknown before then adapting my schema to reflect the new information and fit it into my reality. A part of me has marveled at my ability to adapt as I’ve watched my brain ‘come around’ to the new ideas and accept them as the new normal, whilst another part has actively pulled away and resisted these changes due to fear of losing myself in the process. For me one of the hardest transitions to come to terms with has been the pronoun change – which is actually still very new as I write this, and as yet not put into practice by anyone except me.

Dylan told me recently that they planned to change their pronoun from she to they, something that I suspected was coming but if I’m honest really hoped wouldn’t. For Dylan this change was something that made them feel more like themselves, and better reflected the way the gender binary did not suit them-she and he simply did not reflect Dylan’s identity. For me, however, it is through this one word change, from she to they, that I feel the public loss of my identity most keenly.

In using they when referencing my partner a large part of my identity, the lesbian part, is no longer readily obvious. Where previously I could gently ‘out’ myself through a comment such as ‘my partner is a brilliant social worker, she works for…’, I am now faced with the comment ‘my partner is a brilliant social worker, they work for…’ Which I fear will be read as me trying to hide the gender of my partner, rather than as my partner being gender neutral since this gender is not yet part of mainstream consciousness. This then implies that I am uncomfortable in my sexuality and greatly saddens me because I am actually very confident and happy in my sexuality, so to come across as uncomfortable makes me, well, uncomfortable! I mentioned this to an Austrian friend this morning and she actually said that as an ESL

(English as second language) person she would read this as me having multiple partners, something else I hadn’t considered but also inaccurate in my case. In order to avoid this confusion I need to preface every conversation with an explanation of my partner’s gender, something that is at times a little daunting considering that they are part of a considerably small minority group (and we all know that discrimination comes readily when society lacks understanding), as well as a direct explanation of my sexuality if I want to share that part of my identity. No more subtle, gentle outings for me- blunt explanations only.

In this way I have come to realise that the hardest part of this particular change is that this is not going to be a transition from one thing to another and then it is completed. Unlike Dylan’s name change, which was a transition for our current community but is irrelevant in all new social situations, this pronoun change is going to be a lifelong process, and one that requires me to regularly explain. Any person that I ever talk to about my partner will need a direct explanation of both of us if I want them to understand my identity. In terms of my sexuality this is quite different from the simplistic and subtle outing that I have become used to over the last 10 years.

Through this I’ve really realised just how much sexuality is a key part of identity and is often seen as reflected in choice of partner. The problem that I’m now having though is that my sexuality is seemingly at odds with Dylan’s gender- if I am she and Dylan is they then what sexuality am I, and what type of relationship are we in? The use of pronouns, something seemingly so simple, distorts my sexuality and makes it unrecognisable. My place in society is no longer easily readable through conversation, but shrouded in mystery- am I uncomfortable with my sexuality? Dating many people? Don’t know that ‘they’ is (traditionally) a plural?

Whilst this has been a big change for me, I can feel my schema adapting to our new reality and building new pathways to reconcile the new ways that my identity will need to be expressed. I am still daunted and worried but I can also feel a small yet distinct flutter of excitement at the prospect of pioneering social change through sharing mine and Dylan’s confidence in our genders and sexualities. I am learning how to make my language reflect our identities and new ways to feel comfortable ‘outing’ us.

I am learning to truly own my identity, both as an individual entity and as a reflection of Dylan. Yes, I am the partner of a gender neutral person, but I am also my own person with my own identity words. I am a lesbian, who happens to be in love with a human that lives slightly out of the box, and has ‘character’ rather than ‘gendered traits’. I am the ‘she’ in she+they- and that means whatever I want it to mean, not what society stipulates.

My Dating App Success Story

Our story began with Brenda, a lesbian dating app that was all the rage in Sydney in 2013. Although this app was rather sparse in terms of the details you input about yourself, Dylan’s cute picture and short description was quick to spark my interest and I sent them a message.

Thankfully they wrote back. Whilst Chatting like this wasn’t unusual for me, what I didn’t know was that it was Dylan’s first time on a dating site and despite enjoying our conversation they were totally weirded out at the thought of chatting so in depth with someone they didn’t know. So much so that they almost didn’t meet me.

Almost. Obviously we did meet and we had a long first date that neither of us wanted to end, then an extremely romantic second date (night time beach picnic with candles- well done Dylan!) and many many more dates to come. We were a lesbian dating app success story!

Fast forward 3.5 years and we are still a success story, only not the lesbian type anymore, and I guess if we’re being pedantic we never were.

In 2015, Dylan came out as gender neutral, a gender that sits outside the constraints of the male/female binary, and has only just started to be legally recognised in Australia in the last couple of years. Although this revelation didn’t change the way we felt about each other, or the way we related to each other, it did change both of our identities and so caused a lot of confusion for me, especially because the journey was in no way linear.

The revelations started coming for Dylan after I jokingly asked them one day if maybe they might be transgender and be a man. Dylan laughed it off, but unbeknownst to me stayed up late for days on end feverishly googling all things trans and noticing many similarities, as well as differences. This eventually culminated in Dylan telling me that they were a man, and us both crying at the enormity of the situation for a whole weekend. And then suddenly, not to long after this, Dylan changed their mind.

To be fair, it wasn’t sudden for Dylan because they already knew that there were some parts that didn’t add up and that ‘male’ didn’t really fit, but to me, sitting outside of the process and hearing only the end results, it was sudden.

So life went on as usual in our female, lesbian world and then it was happening again. Obviously Dylan had been thinking about this constantly and taking time to consider all possibilities, but again, to me it was a sudden revelation. ‘I am not a man, but one day I want to have a flat male-like chest and then I will feel comfortable.’ It quickly moved from one day on to in a few years and then next year.
I wasn’t shocked that this was something Dylan wanted but I was confused about what this all meant and where it was going. Was it going to be a slow transformation into ‘male’ or just a cosmetic change that made Dylan feel more comfortable in their body?

I didn’t know, but I wanted to know desperately. I realise now that these types of self discovery take time and can be very emotionally draining, but for me, watching from the outside and never knowing what was happening and what to expect also had its challenges. I loved Dylan but I was unsure how I felt about the possibility of being ‘straight’ and dating a man, and basically just wanted to know where the end point of this journey would be so that I could get my own thoughts straight.

After more soul searching Dylan realised that neither male nor female fit for them, and found the right label- gender neutral, or non-binary or genderqueer. We happily interchange these words, although some people probably have a preference for which is right for them. Even after this discovery there were still more revelations to come with Dylan making the decision to change their name and their pronoun (their old name is generally considered a ‘female only’ name so didn’t quite fit).

Writing it all down it sounds fairly condensed, but from the moment I mentioned the possibility of Dylan being transgender, to the point where the first changes were actually made was 18 months, and we are still waiting on Dylan’s chest surgery due to the availability of the surgeon, so it will end up being about a 2 year process in the end. The first 18 months were definitely the hardest part though. Hard for Dylan as they analysed every innermost thought to find their authentic self, and hard for me as I waited on (and at times tried to provoke) these decisions, anxiously wondering what my relationship would look like, and how my own identity would change in Dylan’s reflection.

I’m not going to lie, it was a difficult and challenging time for both of us, and whilst I know for a fact that neither of us ever thought specifically about leaving each other, we both thought the other one might leave. Dylan thought I would jump ship because I wanted a woman and I thought Dylan would run from me because I wasn’t laughing and smiling my way through the situation. Thankfully this didn’t happen.

Finding my voice and starting to write about our relationship and my experiences on my blog She+They was a major turning point for both of us. It gave me the confidence to confront the situation head on and really own my feelings and experiences – both the negative and the positive – and it explained to Dylan exactly why I had found this change hard. It gave me a platform from which to discuss identity, change, relationships, and all things gender neutral and also gave me a new ‘hobby’ with a purpose. I wanted to provide myself with an emotional outlet, educate my community and reach out to other partners of transgender people. I’d like to think that the blog is quietly achieving this.

I know it sounds a bit corny to say this but we are stronger and happier than we have ever been now, and it’s undeniably related to Dylan’s transition. Obviously Dylan is a happier human so this has helped, but the transition also taught us a lot about each other and the different ways we both like to communicate. We learnt that I express my love through tasks whilst Dylan expresses theirs through words, that I like to talk everything through and be a part of ‘the process’ where Dylan prefers to do this alone and then divulge answers and that I like to move quickly, investigate all angles and make decisions where Dylan prefers to ruminate. Neither of us are ‘right’ but understanding the inner workings of each other, and what we both need in times of stress has brought us closer together. We also now know each other’s trigger points, as well as solutions to appease each other, so that basically any argument we may have now dissolves in a matter of minutes.

Obviously Dylan’s journey was not easy for them, and caused great amounts of confusion and fear about what the future may hold, but that said often the journey of a partner is seemingly overlooked completely. Perhaps this is because it is considered easier or insignificant by comparison.

Whatever the reason, it is something that shouldn’t be overlooked or devalued. As the partner of someone transitioning my sense of self and identity was challenged in a way that I never thought was possible.

I mean, I’m a lesbian in a relationship with someone that isn’t a woman, and in a world where everything has labels our relationship doesn’t even fit into a box. I always considered myself open minded so I guess it’s pretty great to be able to back myself up and say that I am quite literally living outside the box. And it’s a pretty damn good space to be in!

Amandla Stenberg Opens Up About Her Gender Identity

The 17-year-old, Hunger Games actor Amandla Stenberg has come out as non-binary.

Stenberg – who plays Rue in the adventure film franchise – says she feels like she’s not a ‘woman’ all the time, and non-binary is a term that she feels comfortable using to describe herself. (She is using female pronouns).

Writing on Tumblr, she said she is organizing a workshop on feminism, specifically how ‘mainstream feminist movements have continuously excluded women who are not white, thin, cisgender, able-bodied and neurotypical’.

Something we are struggling with is understanding the intersection of feminism and gender identity…

We’re both people who don’t feel like “women” all the time – but we claim feminism as our movement.

Basically, we’re trying to understand the duality of being a non-binary person and a feminist. How do you claim a movement for women when you don’t always feel like one?”

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She heard from a variety of experiences, with one who said they feel the oppression of a gendered society even if they do not necessarily identify as a woman.

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Even if you don’t feel 100% “female”, even if you never did feel 100% “female”, the world begins treating you as “female” from a very young age and that is always, no matter how you end up defining yourself, going to have shaped your life experience,’ one fan said.

Earlier this year, Stenberg came out as bisexual.

As someone who identifies as a black, bisexual woman I’ve been through it, and it hurts, and it’s awkward and it’s uncomfortable…but then I realized because of Solange and Ava DuVernay and Willow and all the black girls watching this right now, that there’s absolutely nothing to change.”

New Documentary “We Exist” Shows What It’s Like to Live Outside the Gender Binary

When you use a public bathroom, when you’re shopping for clothes or even when you choose the place that you go and have your hair done, you are constantly forced to choose between male and female. But what if you’re neither? What if you don’t identify as male or female or what if you feel as though you’re somewhere in between? Society doesn’t always accommodate that identity and for non-binary and gender queer individuals, it can be a headache as they are forced to apply a gender to themselves that just doesn’t fit.

A new documentary called We Exist aims to tackle the gender binary head on, by both raising awareness about the non-binary identity (and what it is, for those who are unaware) and to also explain the challenges faced by non-binary individuals who live in an inherently gendered world.

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Creator and executive producer of We Exist, Lauren Lubin explains that:

This film is unique because it is the first of its kind to intimately document the everyday life—as well as the emotional, physical, and mental changes—that non-binary individuals go through while living in a binary world. Up until now, gender has been depicted within society and the media as exclusively as either male or female. This is one of the first films to really break that mold entirely.”

Lubin also says that with shows like Transparent and Orange is the New Black discussing trans* identities, it shows that society as a whole is ready to talk about gender and understand that just like sexuality, gender exists on a spectrum – a spectrum that doesn’t just have ‘male’ and ‘female’ at either end, with nothing in the middle.

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But in order for society to accommodate non-binary identities, a lot of change will be made, explains Lubin.

In order to institutionalize and integrate a broader gender system across all of society—academia, medicine, legislation, government identification, and so forth—it’s imperative for change and accountability to occur at the top. Until then, it’s up to us individuals to educate, advocate and lobby against the status quo until that happens.”

That change may be some time away, but with documentaries like We Exist, that change will happen sooner rather than later.

‘GenderFlux’ Fashion Label Caters to a Diverse Genderfluid and Non-Binary Audience

When you go into most clothing stores these days, their clothes will be separated into ‘male’ and ‘female’ sections based on how feminine or masculine the designs are. Not only is this a pointless move on the retailer’s part (clothes are just clothes and should not be inherently gendered) but it’s also discriminatory to those who don’t identify as male or female (or identify as both) and are just out to buy some new threads – without misgendering themselves in the process.

Furthermore, because of the way that clothes are gendered in stores it means that genderfluid or non-binary folks often fail to find clothes that fit them, as they are designed to fit cisgendered bodies. Even when clothes do cater to non-cis people, those sizes tend to be on the small size.

This dilemma is exactly why Elliott Alexzander’s style blog – House of Alexzander – has been such a huge success. Alexzander explains:

“This came from my personal struggles. I had a hard time finding clothes that fit my body and still allowed me to express who I am. When I started my fashion blog, I quickly realized I wasn’t the only one.”

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And following on from the blog’s success, Alexzander has ventured into the world of fashion retail, having launched the GenderFlux fashion label. The idea behind behind GenderFlux, Alexzander says, is that:

“We want to create fashion that is marketed in a way that doesn’t make the customer feel bad about their body or their gender expression. And to create a space where non-binary people can shop for clothes without feeling uncomfortable.”

One way that Alexzander is keeping to that is by using models of colour, as well as models with varying body types to promote the clothes on the GenderFlux site (GenderFlux.com). As it stands, GenderFlux’s products include a bracelet and several t-shirts emblazoned with the gender variant logo and the phrases ‘GenderVariant’, ‘Non-Binary’ and ‘GenderQueer’.

The obvious issue with these clothes is that although they are inclusive, there aren’t really any options for genderfluid or non-binary folks who have not yet told people about their gender identity and so wearing a piece of GenderFlux clothing could out themselves. Alexzander says that there are plans for a full GenderFlux clothing line which will be designed to fit all sorts of body types, so perhaps this issue will be addressed then.

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