My parents didn’t find out my gender until birth because they wanted to be surprised. When I was born female, they were overjoyed. I had a Winnie the Pooh nursery, with tones of yellow white and green. They dressed me in lots of overalls and hand-me-down “boys” clothes from my older cousin. I wore dresses sometimes, but as I got older, my parents dressed me for utility and comfort, not decoration.

I was a “tomboy” growing up. I insisted on shopping in the boys section of clothing stores, which my parents allowed. Never once did I question whether not I was ACTUALLY a girl because of this. As a matter of fact, my mother was/is a nurse practitioner, and I knew from a young age what being female is and what that means for my body and my development. It meant I would grow breasts and menstruate and possibly gestate a fetus one day. But that’s it. Everything else was up to me, and NOT my biology.

I was raised to know that my sex Is immutable. I can’t change it. But it doesn’t predestine me for a life of looking pretty and being of service to men.

I was shown by my parents how to do tasks and chores that were traditionally done by “men,” such as mowing the lawn, doing plumbing work and pressure washing the back of the house. I was raised to know that I don’t need men around me to be self sufficient and complete.

This helped me to figure out that I was homosexual as a teenager. Because my parents had created a place where I could grow and become anything I wanted without societal restrictions, I was able to know myself and come out without feeling any shame or worry.

I’m now married to my wife of three years and when we have children, they will be raised to believe they can do and be anything they want. That their sex is immutable and unchangeable, but their lives and personalities are all their own.

Once someone committed these crimes, they‘ve forsaken their humanity and dignity. There‘s no going back.

Are you male or female?

If you’re male, you were socialized to be masculine.

If you’re female, you were socialized to be feminine.

You’re forced into a pretty narrow box based on your sex, not just by your parents, but by society at large. You can’t escape it. None of us can. It’s in books, television, movies, magazines, radio, and theater. It’s enforced at school and work, in medicine and science, in psychology, and just about every field you can think of. You see it your neighborhood, in the city, the suburbs, and out in the country. It’s everywhere, engrained into our culture, laws, attitudes, forming the very foundations of our society.

It’s a social construct because it was socially constructed, enforced, and refined over time by society and everyone in it. It can differ by culture, country, and time period, but the end result is always the same, without fail.

Now that you have some basic awareness of gender, you get to choose what you do next.

Do you:

A) Acknowledge that gender is fake and harmful, an oppressive construct created by men for men to benefit men and oppress women. Embrace that being a man or woman means nothing but the state of being male or female, and that gender roles/stereotypes are artificial. They’re not found in nature. Society is wrong. Gender isn’t real. It’s enforced. Women are not weaker, nor inferior to men. We are not innately feminine. We are not born with a preference for high heels, makeup, or a desire to be dominated by men. That’s a man-made lie. Men are not superior. They are not born hallow shells unable to express emotions with a preference for cars and the color blue. That’s another man-made lie. Sex and gender are not the same. They only seem connected because we as a society keep pretending they are. Remove humans from society, and you’ll see the only differences between men and women are biological, and that’s only for reproductive purposes, which we as human beings don’t even have to do any more if we don’t want to. Realize all this, and work together and talk with other members of your sex to overcome the oppressive concept of gender, share your experiences, realize you’re not alone, normalize gender non-conformity, start the long process of changing society for the better, and help everyone heal. That’s revolutionary. That’s “fucking the gender binary”.

Or

B) Acknowledge that gender is fake and harmful, but delude yourself into thinking you can get out of it by creating your own gender and identifying as something you’re not, all in a futile attempt to save your own skin while throwing everyone else under the bus and keeping them firmly in these harmful boxes so you can feel better and superior for a while. Uphold gender roles by pretending you’re some special exception to the rule. That you aren’t a man or woman because you don’t like blue or pink, you like green. Do nothing but try on genders you found on the internet like trendy accessories. Force everyone to cater to your new niche identity on the threat of punishment. Refuse to speak to other members of your sex. Silence them when they talk about socialization and male privilege/female oppression. Doxx them when they don’t agree with you. Post long rants on Twitter about how disgusting and fetishy gay people are. Start calling anyone you don’t like a “terf” so you can justify threatening them with violence. Don’t change a damn thing. Exist in your bubble pretending society is evolving while it remains the way it always has. Put yourself and only yourself first. Treat family, friends, and strangers alike as validation machines, making it their job to prop up this gender identity you’ve created. The world must change everything for you, or else. Keep the gender binary firmly in place. Uphold traditional valued.

1. realize that there’s nothing to “figure out”

2. feel a little ashamed at the time you wasted

I need it for science