When I’m running Sex Ed workshops people often ask me ‘how many genders are there?’ I usually say something like, ‘well on one level there’s like three genders, but on another there’s more like a thousand’. Here I’ll explain why that’s my answer. I think it’s a really useful way for us all to think about gender.
Gender Zoomed Out
Imagine that ‘gender’ is under a microscope and you have zoomed out as far as you can. You’ll see that there are three genders: man, woman, and non-binary gender. (Non-binary gender is still a contested gender identity (sadly). But throughout global history there has always been a gender that is not ‘man or woman’: non-binary gender. There’s much more on this in my sex and gender resource.)
‘Zoomed out gender’ is where we find gender categories which we sometimes have to find a way to fit into. For example: school uniforms, toilets (more on this below), passports, birth certificates, census details, etc. It’s about how we navigate life at a ‘tick box’ level and how people are sorted. This. That. Other.
This ‘tick box / zoomed out gender’ might be something we have to use to help us to navigate life at a structural or bureaucratic level, but that’s about it. It doesn’t help us to tell interesting stories about ourselves. Nor does it help us learn about and understand other people. Zoomed out gender doesn’t even help us to ‘do’ our genders very much (and actually can often make it harder).
Try it now if you like. If you were asked to tick a box about your gender, what might you say? Would that be difficult? Does it tell an interesting story about you? Does it actually help you to do your gender?
Zoomed In Gender
Okay so let’s now zoom in on the microscope and see what ‘gender’ looks like really close up. Instead of a tick box gender, what you can see now are molecules moving around and into each other. What you’re seeing now is our everyday gender, how we do our genders each and every day. It’s about how we are feeling in our bodies, our emotional responses, our thoughts, imaginations, and memories, and what we do and what affect that has on our bodies.
Even the mostly ‘manly man’ or the most ‘womanly woman’ experience a thousand different genders throughout their day. Just thinking about me as an example: I’m big beardy and hairy, I call myself a ‘bloke’, I paint my nails, I patiently and carefully help people as part of my job, I listen very closely and I’m very sympathetic, I like football and beer, I’m kind and considerate to the people around me, I like films about blokes, I like to talk about feelings with my mates, etc. Some of these things are ‘coded’ as masculine, and some are ‘coded’ as feminine. I’m doing one, or the other. Or switching between them, or doing none of these.
You might find it useful to think about this yourself.
It’s at this ‘zoomed in’ level where our actual lived genders are happening: our everyday genderings. The ways that we do gender are constantly emerging. It’s about the clothes we’re wearing: what they do in the world around us, how we respond, and what that does for us. Our voices and accents, how high, low, quiet, loud, posh, or common they are, are a part of our everyday genderings. How we might (or might not) adorn our bodies with nail varnish, tattoos, piercings, eye liner, haircuts, lipstick, facial hair. It’s even how we move our bodies in ways that feel good for us: how we stand, walk, dance, greet each other.
We do all of these things to help us to ‘become even more us’. It also is a way of reacting to the ‘zoomed out’ rules of what we ‘should’ be doing with our gendered bodies. How we ‘should’ look and behave. We can play with the rules, or subtly subvert them. Or we can ignore them, or do them in ways that feel better for us. ‘Zoomed in’ molecular genderings help us to do this. They also help us to help each other.
We’re all involved in each other’s genderings
We don’t ‘do us’ by ourselves, we are all implicated in each other’s ‘selves’. Out genders constantly emerge in this ‘zoomed in’ and ‘molecular’ way in relation to each other. You might have experienced this for yourself, for example as I write about in my resource about how to get a girlfriend, boyfriend or themfriend, it could be a hair cut.
“A former colleague of mine once asked for my advice about her son. Apparently he was really shy, couldn’t talk to anyone, and although he fancied girls he never really felt like he could get into relationships. I said ‘get him a nice haircut’. So she booked him a haircut at a local fancy hairdressers. Everyone fussed over him, made him feel great, and gave him a very trendy haircut. His mam thought this experience totally changed his life.
It wasn’t the change to his body that caused him to be more confident, it was the process. They made a fuss of him, said he looked great. He saw them looking at him in the mirror and he responded back. When he emerged that little bit more, the staff responded positively and he emerged a little bit more. He was being more welcomed into the world. I imagine when he went to school he was being noticed a little more. Perhaps he was being cute when he responded back. Maybe he stood up a bit taller and smiled. His new look was inviting people to look at him. When they did he responded and they responded back. He was in his body being seen.
Getting a good haircut isn’t going to work for everybody. A lot of people hate having their haircut. For example it’s hard for people who have a difficult time sitting in front of a mirror (trans inclusive places often give people the option). My point here is that small things like a haircut, a nail polish, new specs, even just making a tiny bit more effort to put a look together, can make an absolutely huge difference. If you do this with someone, or point this out to a supportive person, it can help even more.
It’s the process of how you emerge in the world. The key is noticing what’s better. If you try something new, pay attention to what’s better. What emerges? How do you respond? What about other people? What’s better? What else?”
Whatever it is you do, it’s that feeling that it’s not quite ‘you’, but in doing it, and with the responses you get from the external world, you find out that they might have been ‘you’ all along and maybe you’re now ‘even more you’. This is called ‘a becoming’. A tiny new molecular gendering. A microgender.
How we all rub along with each other
These molecules moving around, rubbing along with each other, is how we all do our gender all the time. It’s a thousand tiny micro genderings we do for ourselves and each other all the time. Voices. Gestures. Unspoken rules. Volume levels. Little conspiracies. Nods. Winks. Greetings. Glances. Smiles. Lookings/unlookings. Queue étiquettes. Doors held open. Little accommodations. Smoothings. ‘We’re just trying to do what’s best’. Using the right name, nickname, pronunciation and pronoun. Quiet words. Useful hesitations. Letting someone through, by, in, and past. Being beside. A thousand tiny kindnesses and politenesses.
Of course, not everyone is kind all the time. Even one unkindness can be very harmful, particularly in an increasingly toxic gendered environment we are living in (which is how bullying happens). For some people, even leaving the house altogether can be (and can feel like) an incredibly fraught and dangerous thing to do.
But the vast majority of us want to just rub along together, molecules moving around, because it feels good for us too. It’s in our interests for everyone to be able to just be themselves because we can take joy in that. Being implicated in each other’s ‘selves’ means that we can feel a part of other people’s joy too. We can fall in love with it for a moment, as I talk about in this article about how to make friends, a micro-moment of joy.
How the external world can make our daily genderings easier and harder
The places we go to (like clubs, pubs, cafes, restaurants, organisations, schools, universities, etc) and the society that we live in (involving the law, public services, and being kept safe) can make it easier and harder for us to rub along with each other in this way. Places can do a lot to help with this by setting the right vibe. This might involve thinking carefully about the facilities they offer, the signs they put up and making sure they feel secure and safe.
Society more broadly can help with this too, perhaps offering clear legal rights to (for instance) trans people. Or gender affirming healthcare for everyone. Clear guidelines on how organisations can treat people with more consent, more dignity, and more respect. This would help us all to rub along with each other even more, because everyone would feel more welcomed and that would give us all clarity on the kind of behaviour that is expected, and what behaviour should never be tolerated.
Sad news
Hopefully I’ll be able to go back and delete this paragraph in the next few months, but here is some sad and worrying news.
At the moment, the UK government, the legal system, and most of the mainstream media, are really not supportive of trans rights. The ability for trans folk to be out in the world, to rub alongside everyone else, to have a life in public, is under threat because of a recent (bad, and misinformed) court ruling. There’s an excellent article about this from my friend Juliet Jacques over at Novara Media. Trans rights organisations such as Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, and the Good Law Project continue to do excellent work in this area and we can all support them. Of course all of my resources here will continue to be trans inclusive (even though the right wing hate this, have attacked me for it, and I’ve lost funding as a result).
What we need to keep doing
This ruling has got a lot of people very worried, and we don’t really know how this is going to end up yet. Whilst we fight the fight for trans comrades, we also need to remember that in our actual everyday lives, most people just want to rub along with each other. Helping each other to become even more ourselves with the thousand molecular kindnesses that we see and don’t see everyday. If we can pay attention to this, and also how places we go to can make this easier, it will be a huge help.
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About BISH
BISH is a guide to sex, love and you for everyone over 14. It’s for people who are (or are thinking about) having sex / relationships. It's for all genders and sexualities, people with disabilities, backgrounds, beliefs and values. It’s got a UK vibe so we say ‘snog’, ‘fancy’ and ‘shag’ a lot.
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