Dismantling The CIS-TEM:
Androgyny is not owed to nobody.
Growing up, the media I consumed mainly featured heteronormative scenarios and aesthetics, and suggestive acts of queerness were only represented through female figures — this being the early 2000’s, a time that stands in contrast to the late 80’s/90’s when male figures were acting suggestively queer more frequently. These accumulating pop-culture references — becoming more and more queer as a slow influx of trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse visibility occurred in the media sphere — awakened a question within myself: is adhering to the confines of binary gender the only way to navigate societal recognition and validation? The importance of such a question transcends just me and my experience, it is a relatable and lived-through experience that everyone identifying under the trans umbrella experiences at different stages, with different intensities, throughout their individual and unique gender journeys, and the exploration of it would not only free us of the heavy weight of societal expectations but from one’s need to seek social validation. For instance, growing up queer and being in spaces that do not welcome or accept the expression of queerness, a common strategy would be to hide behind the armour of binary gender to ensure one’s safety and also to be validated accordingly by society in return.
For me, after moving to Amsterdam from Cairo, Egypt, and being initially preoccupied with university, fitting in, adapting a new way of life, and gaining independence, all while trying to hold on to my sense of self and culture. Aspects of said sense of self and culture were indoctrinated norms that I have never doubted or criticised growing up, and if I had I wouldn’t feel safe expressing or acting on it. With the pandemic occurring almost 2 years after me moving to Amsterdam, it signalled a ‘break’ from ‘the norm’ and it confronted a lot of people, myself included, with the existence and artificiality of said indoctrinated norms. It made me revisit a lot of things that I had pushed back or avoided addressing growing up when it came to how I want to present myself, how I want to be perceived, how I identify as, and if I’m even worthy enough of identifying as such in both my eyes and others’.
Trans as defined by Oxford is “denoting or relating to a person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth”; and within such realm of context, non-binary, gender-queer, gender fluid, agender, and gender diverse people all classify under the trans umbrella alongside trans women and trans men. This topic is also a subject that I believe is extremely misunderstood by the general public, the confusion between sex and gender and their intertwinement is still so apparent and taking centre stage in many conversations with people and societies that do not know better. To clearly distinguish between both: sex is biologically ascribed, through anatomy and physiology, and gender can be explained as a status that is achieved through one’s culture, social surroundings, knowledge and psychology (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Further complications arise when we start to question this influence of ‘culture’ upon ‘nature’ or whether ‘both’ are able to exist outside the influence of one another. I will delve deeper into topics such as the making of gender, performativity, social expectations, internal queer pressure by taking androgyny as a focus point to dismantling what it is to be and look gender-diverse throughout the article.
Androgyny & Internalised Pressure:
Androgyny, as both a political and social term, refers to the blurring, challenging, or transcending of traditional gender roles and expectations that were imbedded into society throughout history as mentioned prior; it encompasses a spectrum of gender expressions that are not strictly limited to the binary categorizations of male and female but instead it recognizes that gender is a complex and diverse aspect of human identity (Neal, 2021). Androgyny as a social concept emphasises the importance of breaking down rigid gender stereotypes and allowing one the freedom of authentic self-expression, regardless of societal expectations (Robinson, 1989). It challenges the idea that certain characteristics or behaviours are inherently masculine or feminine according to social institutions by recognizing that individuals do not necessarily have to possess a unique blend of both traits- to the extent one sees themselves. Moreover, from a political perspective, androgyny advocates for equal rights, opportunities, and protections for individuals who do not conform to societal norms regarding gender, where it seeks to dismantle gender-based discrimination and violence, and promotes notions of inclusivity and the flourishment and visibility of all gender diverse identities (Howell, et al. 2002). It encourages dialogue, education, and advocacy to create a world where all individuals can express their gender identity freely and without being subject to prejudice.
I couldn’t help but think when defining androgyny but think of gender envy, and how gender-queer people are conditioned by mainstream society and also mainstream queer culture growing up to find this perfect blend and mix between masculinity and femininity in order to be recognised as worthy of being gender-queer. For example, this can be translated and seen through internalised pressures by some queer people on other queer people in event/nightlife spaces; and the underlying self-questioning that comes as a result of such internalised pressures, such as: Am I non-binary enough? Am I androgynous enough? Am I trans enough? This can be further seen in trends of gender-diverse females wanting to be less curvy and more neutral bodies, and gender diverse males wanting to be less neutral bodied and more curvy, trans women and men aiming for absolute passability, etc… all with the aim of reaching that point of androgyny or passing that society pushes us towards if we want to feel recognized by them (Xiao, 2022).
This outdated sense of androgyny was rooted in the lack of gender-diverse people in media consumed by us growing up, the under-saturation of gender-diverse people in media limited our minds to think there is a certain type of way one needs to look like to be worthy of being considered as such. For example, the proud gender-queer visibility of celebrities such as Cara Delevigne, Olly Alexander, Janelle Monae, Halsey, Ruby Rose, India Moore, Nico Tortorella, Elliot Page, and many many more has resulted in the breaking down of this narrow-minded lens when looking at gender-queer people and popularised what is widely known as ‘gender-fuck’; and how one can be gender-diverse without having to present as androgynous as we owe androgyny to nobody- the obsession over performativity within androgynous structures is being dismantled and not limited to short hair, makeup, tattoos etc…(Reynolds, 2021).
In light of this dismantlement of what it is to be and look gender diverse, I wanted to zoom in on a misconception by society regarding non-binary people. Non-binary, as an identity, is a three-dimensional identity where there is more to the two-dimensional structure of male and female, with that third dimension being a broad immeasurable spectrum with no defined boundary (Xiao, 2022). Non-binary people are not people who perfectly identify in the middle of the male and female continuum, but rather non-binary peoples’ essence of how they identify can vary and sway between different levels and amounts of male and female or even no affiliated gender at all, one’s journey stands unique to themselves. It is also important to acknowledge and emphasise that not all non-binary people are unsatisfied with the bodies they possess, not all of them pursue hormone therapy or get gender-affirming procedures. This widely believed myth of non-binary people being souls stuck in the wrong body should be dismantled; their bodies are their own, made non-binary by their identities (ibid.). Society’s cis-gendered lens towards performativity is not only unrealistic at times but also unachievable, not everyone’s body is able to change and fit that cis-gender mould or the ‘other’ mould, that being androgynous. As Christina M. Xiao, a Harvard Crimson journalist who contributed many queer history pieces, explains by saying:
“A thin, white, childlike body is unachievable by much of the non-binary population due to genetics alone. For many non-binary people, striving towards an androgynous body is a hopeless act towards an unreachable fantasy. The fantasy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either. Even if you fit the model of androgyny to a tee, you are not guaranteed an other-imposed non-binary identity. People still perceive you without your clarification all the time, while passing you on the street or participating beside you in section.” (Xiao, 2022).
This takes me to a different presumption about genderqueer and generally trans people: that having gender dysphoria is a necessary element in being recognized as trans. The idea that a person must be uncomfortable with their body and want or need to undergo a medical procedure or transition in order to be considered trans; transmedicalism is what is meant by this, where it is used to restrict who is able to self-identify as trans on a legal basis (Brooks, 2022). To change one’s legal gender in places like the Netherlands and United Kingdom, a medical diagnosis is necessary despite the fact that many trans persons do not experience dysphoria and that over two-thirds of Britons in the United Kingdom think that medical diagnoses should not be included in the list of legal requirements, this policy is still in place (ibid.). Transmedicalism is one of the topics I have further discussed in my Bachelor thesis “Empty Promises: The Dutch Healthcare System Failing the Trans Community” alongside the inefficiencies of the Dutch policy system and institutional deficiencies, which I’m in the process of trying to get published at the moment. Connecting this back to gender-queerness and societal expectations, de-medicalizing the process of gender recognition enables people to define themselves independently rather than being bound by social norms or institutional structural boundaries; as the modifications this would make to the existing status quo pose a threat to those who are opposed to it and are adamant in enforcing the binary.
Performativity & Social Expectation:
The concept of gender performativity was introduced by Judith Butler, an American philosopher and gender studies scholar who through their work greatly influenced fields of political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. Butler (1993) states that gender is not a specifically fixed or inherent trait to one’s self, but instead a social construction that is continuously generated and performed through a series of actions. These acts are governed and corrected within the social sphere and ultimately grow out into behavioural patterns, societal expectations, and what comes to be seen as ‘natural. In other words, she believes that it is not something one simply possesses but something one does. By ‘doing gender’, Butler reiterates that we perform acts, and this performativity cements within ourselves an idea of what we are.
When it comes to the paradox of performativity and public perception, things tend to complicate a bit. The performativity of gender occurs through one’s interpretation and application of what is already prescribed by society and what it deems acceptable in terms of actions, behaviour and visual aesthetic (ibid.). Many actions we perform are not attributed to how we essentially feel on the inside, for example: the way one dresses, the way one talks, the way one walks, the way one laughs, the way one works, what one does for work, what one wants to study… All these are things that people are required to abide by within the societal mould we are put in and ascribed to by society, whether consciously or subconsciously- and not everyone has the space or ability to actually perform according to how they feel internally.
Gender performativity discusses how individuals’ gender is not necessarily as predetermined at birth like sex is, however, it is still determined by how an individual starts learning and internalising those projected societal norms and expectations of how they are expected to perform on the daily basis — in accordance with their assigned gender corresponding to their assigned sex. With such internalisation and embeddedness occurring at extremely young ages, individuals end up establishing and preserving those gender identities within the realm of what is considered accepted. This reinforces the social institution, the repetitive performance and subordination to such narrow-minded contexts of society further exacerbates the cultural ideas and expectations of what is deemed masculine and what is deemed feminine (Butler, 1993). Everyone walks through life being evaluated according to the predetermined visual expectation of what it is to be a man or a woman through a very binary lens, society has taken it upon themselves to know and decide who should look like what and how. The history of how gender is constructed goes back way before white western imperialism and colonisation, all civilisations have had at least two recorded genders — if not more — and this look of who should look like what and the binary of performativity can be seen as something that has developed through history such as men being muscular, hairy, structured faces and women being soft, hairless and curvy (Xiao, 2022). One cannot help but describe and address others with the perceptions they have been conditioned to perceive others with until otherwise is expressed or said by the person being perceived in order for the other to change their perception of them, or as Xiao said in her article:
“Human beings are duck testable: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck — and to call a duck anything other than a duck is ridiculous.” (Xiao, 2022).
This duck testable theory can be applied to non-binary and gender non-conforming people, where people expect you to present and look like a single comprehendible and simplified look to the public that translates to the subconscious checklist they have of ‘who should look like what’, however there is no such standardised look of how non-binary or gender non-conforming people should look like that’s recorded and constructed through history such as male or female. This lack of definitive mould is what the gender spectrum is, where one feels the freedom to go up, down, left, and right when it comes to whichever way they want to present themselves and be perceived (ibid.). This then brings me to the critics of gender performativity, who argue that it oversimplifies the complexities of gender and overlooks the ways in which individuals can challenge and subvert traditional gender norms. Nevertheless, the concept of gender performativity has been influential in feminist and gender studies, highlighting the social and constructed nature of gender identities and inviting critical examination of societal expectations surrounding gender.
Conclusion:
The notion of gender performativity positions gender not as an inherent trait but as a social construction performed through actions and behaviours. Society prescribes norms and expectations for how individuals should perform their assigned gender, which can limit their ability to express themselves authentically. Gender performativity within the heteronormative matrix reinforces narrow ideas of masculinity and femininity, challenging these norms and expectations is a crucial element for addressing individuals’ gender identities. Androgyny challenges traditional gender roles and expectations by blurring the boundaries between masculinity and femininity, it recognizes that gender is diverse and complex, as well as the necessity for freedom of expression outside of the confines of what’s ‘masculine’ and what’s ‘feminine’. Furthermore, androgyny advocates for equal rights and opportunities for all gender-diverse individuals and seeks to dismantle gender-based discrimination.
The answer to the question presented in the beginning ‘is adhering to the confines of binary gender the only way to navigate societal recognition and validation? would have been a yes if I was writing this paper in my teenage years or even pre-pandemic, but now I believe that people do not have to act or perform within the visual binary of what is deemed acceptable in order to gain recognition by mainstream society. The increased media saturation has dismantled this construct and trickled it down to one seeing the endless possibilities that come alongside gender diversity and the freedom that comes with it, and choosing to act and look the way they want to because they prefer to act and look like that for themselves and only themselves. Androgynous individuals do not necessarily identify in the middle of the male-female continuum; their identity varies and can include different amounts of masculinity, femininity, or no gender at all. Androgyny is not owed to nobody, let’s dismantle the CIS-tem!!
‘Dismantling The CIS-TEM: Androgyny is not owed to nobody.’ an article by Youssef Mahmoud regarding the journey androgynous individuals go through from a first hand and personal lens.
Special thanks to my chosen family for their unconditional support and love through my journey.
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