Just one of the many problems underlying the opposition to marriage equality, and more broadly the theology of sexuality, is a simplistic assumption that humans divide neatly into two biological sexes, and two genders to coincide with them. It just ain’t so.

I’ve written before about the profound challenges to traditional theology raised by just the existence of intersex people. For an insight into the experience of non - binary gender, read these searingly frank posts from personal experience, by mx punk, at rainbowgenderpunk

my gender has always been non-binary (i think)

 

read an extract, after the fold:

i did not take stock of my attributes, hobbies, feelings etc., classify each of them as “female” or “male”, and tally them up.  i am incapable of such tallying because i don’t believe that such traits etc. belong to specific genders.  i didn’t say to myself, “well, i have these “unwomanly” traits– so i must not be a woman!”  that would be ludicrous because women can be anything and there are no such things as “unwomanly” traits (the same is true for all genders).  i know that i’m neither female nor male– and it feels very simple, very natural to me.

“…when [they are] raped, [they] will still be raped as a woman.”  yes, their rapist will no doubt consider them a woman.  i’m not going to argue with that.  however, i don’t think misperception changes reality.  real life story: one time, while raping me, the guy told me i wasn’t human.  that i was “garbage”.  so, really, he raped me “as inhuman garbage.”  allow me to assure you that i am, in fact, a valuable human being; my rapist’s opinion of me has no bearing whatsoever on who/what i actually am.  perception can be very powerful, but the truth is still valuable.

and this follow- up post, in response to a reader question: how do you know your gender is non-binary?:

extract:

i can only speak for myself, so i’ll tell you a bit of my own history.  i knew my gender as a toddler in the same way that most toddlers know their gender.  at first, i didn’t get that everyone around me was male or female.  i didn’t know words like “transgender” and “cisgender”.  i didn’t know about the gender binary.  but i knew i wasn’t a girl or a boy.

i slowly realized that the other kids were all girls or boys, but i was still completely open about my non-binary gender.  i still thought i wasn’t allowed in gendered bathrooms.  i still thought i wasn’t allowed to wear/do/play with “girl things” or “boy things”.  i didn’t even realize that the world considered my gender invalid until i was 8-ish years old.

my mom, my teachers, my grandparents told me to stop being silly– everyone had to be a girl or a boy.  my dad took it upon himself to teach me that women can be/do ANYTHING they want.  my elementary school teachers started making sure that i didn’t sneak off to piss outside and they escorted me into the girls’ bathroom on many occasions.

i shut up about my gender for a few years.  i tried to be a girl– not by wearing dresses and behaving in a stereotypically feminine way, but by allowing people to call me a girl, a daughter, a sister.  then i tried to be a boy.  then a girl. then a boy.

Related articles

• Quickie: On Gender binary and throwing a fit over it (jennaisme.wordpress.com)
• Beyond the Binary: Question Seven (cnlester.wordpress.com)
• Beyond the Binary: Question Three (cnlester.wordpress.com)
• Beyond the Binary: Question One (cnlester.wordpress.com)
• This particular article “rewrites the gender binary” (monicahlewis.wordpress.com)
• Queer vocabulary (thehindu.com)
• I Don’t Have a Letter: Understanding Pansexuality (wineandseaweed.wordpress.com)
• Language Based on Gender Binary (glbtliterature.wordpress.com)
• QUILTBAG. Queer, Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Transgender, Bisexual, Asexual, Ally, Gay, Genderqueer. (slacktivist.typepad.com)
• Afternoon Yak: Week 2 - Non-Binary Gender in YA (birthofanewwitch.wordpress.com)