A Personal Perspective on Gender

In my last youth work job before joining Steps, I was working on a drama project with a small group of 8 teenagers in a mainstream school. One person in that group was a trans student and one was non-binary. The other students weren’t at all fazed by this and took it in their stride. It was me who had to get my head around they/them pronouns and remind myself that there are more than two genders. It’s not always easy; in our UK culture, we’ve been socialised and conditioned to see gender as binary from the minute we were born, yet there are and always have been people outside of that. In many indigenous cultures these people are celebrated, meanwhile in the UK currently, their very right to exist is debated.

How easily I move through the world as someone who is a cis-gendered female who presents as feminine! I don’t have to explain, perform, or hide, as many people of other genders do. In seeking to keep the binary myth intact, institutions and individuals are policing ‘what it is to be male and female’ based on outward appearance. This threatens not only trans people, and non-binary people, but cis-gendered people too, who can all find themselves on the receiving end of homophobia and transphobia for not appearing ‘female or male enough’ – hair ‘too short’, clothes ‘too butch’, body ‘too unlike Barbie’s’ etc….Cis-gendered men can encounter microaggressions and inappropriate behaviours related to being too slim, or too ‘pretty’.

Gender expression (appearance, dress, behaviour, voice) is not necessarily an indication of gender or sexuality. I live with someone who is gender fluid, and from day to day, they respond to how they feel and play with how they want to be perceived by the world. I have a non-binary friend who is mostly read as male, (assumed to be male) so they introduce themselves with they/them pronouns, not always, but to people they perceive as ‘safe’. I wish we could normalise this practice of matter-of-factly saying our pronouns when we meet new people. When I run drama workshops, I ask everyone to check in by saying their names and pronouns to the group. We add our pronouns to our name badge to help each other remember. Pronouns are hugely important to people outside the binary, and it’s such a simple way for us to show respect to them by asking what they are and using them.

It takes work to re-educate ourselves, to unlearn and to resist our conditioning about gender. A few years ago, when looking to employ a freelance youth worker, I messaged a colleague to ask if they knew anyone I could approach and added ‘they can be male or female’ (sometimes having a worker the same gender as the group can be important, so I would sometimes specify, but in this case it was irrelevant). My colleague came straight back to me, ‘Can they be non-binary?’… Yes! Of course, why hadn’t I put that?! I was so grateful to have been picked up on my error. I returned the favour when a friend posted on Linkedin about women having periods. I messaged her privately to gently remind her that trans men have periods too, and her post was changed to ‘people who have periods’. Let’s catch each other without blaming when we resort to the binary, for we have been trained to think that way.

I’m still learning and still working at it meanwhile the signs are positive that the younger generations have got their heads around it more quickly, which gives me hope for the future. Studies show that our Gen Z colleagues are choosing their workplaces based on whether it aligns with their values of social justice and equity of which gender diversity is a part. Gen Alpha, our colleagues of tomorrow, are already showing that they are looking beyond stereotypes and labels, and seeing individuals for who they are.

What can we do in our workplaces, to make them inclusive to colleagues of all genders? It starts with mindset and continues with language, but of course this is just the beginning. We can educate ourselves by listening to people, learning from good practice and being open to correction when we fall short.