My grandma was born in 1945. Back then, the average home cost $4,600, gas was less than 20 cents, and both the microwave and the atomic bomb were used for the first time. Only 5,000 homes owned television sets, and little girls always, always, always wore pink. That’s just the way things were.
Today, however, things are a little bit more complicated. The average Starbucks caramel macchiato costs $4,600 now, and it turns out that maybe we shouldn’t be telling little girls what they should and should not wear. The world isn’t so black and white anymore; we can’t always speak in binaries.
But, my grandmother comes from a much simpler time, where you were either a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ and there was no questioning it. Regardless, I had, what I will call, the pleasure of attempting to teach her — a 70-year-old grandma of six — the difference between the gender binary and the gender spectrum. Let me set the scene:
It was my second day home on Thanksgiving break. My brother and I were sitting on the couch, discussing politics (Let me just add: it’s a strange thing to realize that your younger sibling is nearly old enough to have opinions). My grandma was across the room, listening. Soon, she interrupted, asking about something she had seen on Facebook:
“So, Lauren. I saw that picture you and your friend posted online from the play. Who is he?”
The month before, I was, in fact, in a play. One of my co-stars and friends had snapped a pic of the two of us cheesin’ in our smoking hot red lipstick pre-curtain call.
I answered: “That’s my friend So-And-So. They’re great.” She was obviously confused, most likely in remembering that So-And-So has a beard. In the 1940s, that would be a tell-tale signifier that we are, in fact, discussing a man. If that’s the case, why did I call them…. they?
This, my friends, is where the fun began. My grandmother was obviously puzzled. My little brother, a proud ally in his school’s gay-straight alliance, was snickering. What exactly is the right way to explain the gender spectrum to a woman raised in an entirely different societal movement than the one her grandchildren are currently experiencing? When so many people of this day and age don’t seem to grasp the new gender-pronoun-identity situation, how could I eloquently explain it to the woman who refers to me as ‘princess?’
For those who may be unaware, let me briefly (I emphasize this word) explain what exactly the difference is between ‘binary’ and ‘spectrum.’ Since the dawn of forever, humans have tended to divide themselves and their offspring into two categories: male and female, boy and girl, man and woman. That’s the binary way of looking at things. In this way, you either are or you aren’t. Two kinds of wee-wees mean two kinds of people. Thus, according to the gender binary system, we have girl babies and we have boy babies, but there is no in-between.
In contrast to this mode of thought is the gender spectrum. Think of it like the color spectrum: we’ve got red on one end and violet on the other, but in between is a whole array of colors that all blend from one to the next. A certain color can fall anywhere along this beautiful rainbow. On our gender spectrum, we have male at one end and female at the other; an individual’s gender can fall anywhere from 100% at either end, 50-50, or any place in between.
Sometimes, the gender assigned to an individual at birth (according to the time-tested Wee-Wee Method) ends up not matching 100% correctly with the identity of that person. This is where we get the term ‘transgender,’ but you probably know that by now, thanks to increasing visibility, awareness, and, let’s face it, acceptance.
Beyond this, there are other terms you might want to know and that I feel terrible leaving out, but like I said before: this is a very brief explanation. For all intents and purposes, please keep in mind three key things:
1. The gender binary system tells us that you are either a boy or a girl, with no in between.
2. The gender spectrum system tells us that you can be 100% boy or 100% girl, but that’s not true for everyone. Some people fall in the in-between zones, and that’s awesome.
3. Sometimes, the gender we’re assigned at birth doesn’t match what we identify as throughout our lives. That’s when we take shelter under the transgender umbrella, where we’re free to identify how we like, be it genderqueer, androgyne, bigender, or what have you.
With the expansion of the concept of gender, our methods of personal identification have needed to expand as well. I, for example, like to be called she. My grandfather goes by him. And my friend So-And-So, who does not subscribe to the traditional binary system, prefers to be known as they. Some people may choose to go by other terms. With new genders come new pronouns.
Gender is obviously a tricky thing, at least in modern day, and that November morning my grandmother found herself double-dutching over a tangled web of identities and identifiers.
“He was wearing lipstick,” she laughed.
“No, they were wearing lipstick. They go by they.”
Really, I wish I could properly convey to you the face of a woman who was 24 at the time of the moon landing try to relearn something that had, literally, been born into her. My brother sat watching, giggling, and knowing how hard I must have been trying to say exactly the right thing. As a cis-gender girl who never had to struggle with my identity or sexuality or just about anything of real importance, you can imagine I was a little hesitant in being all like, “Yeah, I know exactly what’s up.”
“They don’t identify as either male or female. So they go by they. And it’s nice to call people what they want to be called.”
“Well, I just don’t understand it. Back when I was your age, people weren’t going by all these things.”
Suddenly my brother chimed in with a very quirky: “Yeah, they couldn’t. Everyone would have gone insane. Things are different now. You’re just from a different time.”
We kindly explained that, no, she was never going to understand. Hell, I still sometimes don’t understand; how could I, having never had to go through the same experiences? Everyone’s life is a little different than everyone else’s, and it’s important that we all respect each other as individuals even if we sometimes don’t “get it.”
You might not completely understand where he, she, they are coming from, but remember that he, she, they are all people, and all he, she, they want is to be treated like it.
So, grandma, just try and be nice. If someone asks you to call them ‘him,’ call him that. If someone asks you to call them ‘they,’ call them that. As long as they aren’t hurting anyone else, just be nice, be respectful, and most of all — be accepting. You don’t know their history or where they’re coming from. It doesn’t take a lot of energy to be kind and caring in the smallest ways, no matter what decade you’re from.