Perpetual Fear

How Society Makes Queerphobia Acceptable and Everlasting

Where's the "T" in LGB: The gender binary explained

By Jesse

About a year ago a young man approached me at a conference for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) youth and their allies. While he wasn’t much younger than me he freely admitted he was new to queer activism and had a lot to learn. As an experienced activist I had over time raised my consciousness and tried to develop a full understanding of the issues, so I was surprised at the assumptions and bias that went into his question to me. But I understood his confusion at first encountering these complex issues.

His question was simple enough: Why do people consider transgender folks to be a part of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community? Once I recovered from shock (after all, I just considered us all to be queer or allies and really had no interest in a philosophical discussion that early in the morning), I realized the depth of his question and all of the ways in which an immediate "just because" wouldn't suffice. But I knew I had to answer reasonably and quickly in order to keep his interest. The short answer to his question was "it's theoretically all the same." That is, homophobia and transphobia stem from the same source: the gender binary.

But how do you explain the connection without talking in circles?

I considered my possible responses:

1. Ask someone else, I’m tight for time. That would clearly be a cop-out.

2. Because we’re all queer. Not enough.

3. I don’t know. While easiest, it wasn’t true. So now what?

4. Bear with me. This could take some time.

The foundation of my answer begins with an examination of the gender binary; the social system of separating gender based upon biological sex, while restricting people to “gender-specific” behaviors and activities. It sort of goes like this: men should play football, watch TV, drink beer and open doors for women. Women should keep house, cook, take care of children, and shop. Pants are for men and long hair for women. Women should paint their faces and facial hair is a sign of masculinity. Parents should buy toy trucks for their sons and dolls for their daughters, and while John is learning to play baseball, Susan is playing with a hula-hoop or jump rope. For many people, variation from these roles is unacceptable.

The gender binary creates for people the proverbial bubble; it substitutes reality for a stereotypical world where all is in order and, well, people act just "as they should." The issue, then, is the attitudes that the binary gender system perpetuates in society in regards to queer phobias. If someone is born female but identifies and presents as male, they are clearly not acting as they should. A binary society does not understand transgendered people, and because we are inherently afraid of the unknown, we are left only with transphobia and no understanding.

So where is the connection between queerphobia and transphobia?

The gender binary system perpetuates not only transphobia, but homophobia as well. LGB people are breaking the mold and stepping out of their strict gender role in all sorts of forms, from gender expression (not looking like “typical” men and women) to not subscribing to the traditional notions of dating. A woman is breaking the gender binary by dating another woman—because dating women is for men alone.

Without the concept of the gender binary, society would maintain no gender-related expectations of men, women, or the people in between. In turn, society would not expect men to date women and women to date men and they would not pursue rituals of biological gender, eliminating both homophobia and transphobia.