There are only two types of people in this world...

So when people think of gender, they usually think of he / she. He : ***, she : ***. Done! What if I told you that, like most things in life, actually, little... more complicated. Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. You were born, I assume, and when you came out, the doctor looked between your legs and they were like : "Oh my god! It's a boy!" And at that moment, as soon as your parents knew what was between your legs, they grabbed their "boy" suitcase packed with ideas of how you would then be raised because you had a ***! The suitcase had lots of blue, had sports, trucks, actions figures, had short hair and abs, hairy legs, pants and ties, but also had toughness, dominance, courage and leadership. And if indeed your truest self, the self before you came out and were given a suitcase, aligned with everything that was in there, then you would come up and live happily ever after as a strapping young lad. But what would happen if all these things you have learnt about what you were supposed to be felt wrong, like, incomplete, somehow? You might sort of feel broken like there was no room for who you really were in that stripling suitcase and you might decide to look at the other suitcase. In this suitcase, you'd find soft curves and graceful movements, you'd find dresses, jewelry and makeup, you'd find perseverance, patience and nurturing. You might think to yourself : holy crap! My parents grabbed the wrong suitcase and I've been paying the consequences for my entire life! Why does this suitcase have a *** on it? That is so dumb. This is my suitcase! Or you might think to yourself : wow, I identify with a lot of this stuff and I also kind of identify with some of this stuff. Or maybe you don't really identify with either. Suitcase is gender. Gender is made up of behaviours, traits, performances, presentations that categorize people but these categories embody aspects of people's intrinseque identities. First scenario that I gave was a cisgender person, this means that their identity matches the gender that they were assigned at birth. The 2nd and 3rd scenarios that I gave were of gender-*** or transgender people because the gender that they were assigned at birth does not match their identity. Transgender, gender-*** and other non-binary groups don't always fit into a two-gender framework. Let's bust some myths, shall we? Myth #1: there are 2 rigid genders While we strictly enforce only two gender suitcases, in reality, there's much more that that. Throughout time and history, our ideas about what gender is has changed. For instance, 140 years ago, it was acceptable for boys to wear dresses. Some parts of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Polynesia have 3 or 4 genders and in Indonesia, they have 5! Reality is there are probably millions of gender possibilities even though our society likes to sort people into 2 very rigid boxes. Myth #2: sex=gender It's really strange how we force people to use suitcases that aren't really theirs. While I may have been born with a ***, that doesn't mean that I'll identify as a woman. It doesn't mean that I won't identify as a woman either. The reality is that my sex doesn't tell you anything about my gender. You can't just look at me and know what my gender identity is. Myth #3: others can define YOUR gender People ignorantly believe that they have a right to tell you what your gender is because they believe the myth that gender is determined by how you look. When someone breaks out of their assigned gender too much, there is hell to pay. Reality is only you can know and feel what your gender is. Being in one body or another does not make you more or less of any gender. You don't have to change your body or your appearance in order to be you gender for other people. You already are your gender, regardless of what body you have. That said, some non-binaries do choose to modify their bodies because they want to, or because they start to feel trapped in a body that doesn't feel like their own probably in part because of the isolation, harsh judgement and closed-minded world that we live in. So there's a lot more to be said about this topic but I'm out of time for today. So I'll have to save for another time. Have a nice week everyone! Love you all, I will see you next Saturday.