Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Blow Up Binaries and Wear a Dress (Theoretically)

00:00:00.000 class is in session and welcome to unlearn 16 class is in session guys somebody's asked me to

00:00:10.940 do this particular podcast and i realized i'd never done it before i don't understand how i

00:00:16.940 haven't stepped into this world so today we're gonna talk about gender and sex not the dodgy

00:00:26.260 kind so get your minds out of the gutter it's not a how-to video we are going to talk about gender

00:00:32.420 and sex and the differences between them and the way in which gender as a social construction

00:00:39.860 has embedded itself in our world and the problems that it's causing and and the pushback we are now

00:00:46.500 getting based on trying to blow up those dichotomies or trying to blow up those sort of foundational

00:00:54.820 ideals of society that a lot of people cling to with such, let's say, well, insane desperation.

00:01:06.620 So let's start at the beginning. Gender, sex. Sex are the parts in which you are born with.

00:01:15.300 That's it. That's all. That's all. Some people say it's your chromosome. Some people say it's 0.99

00:01:21.240 your parts. And I'm going to say something really quickly about sex. Just so we're all aware,

00:01:27.580 there's not even two sexes. There's not only two sexes. In fact, I believe there are eight,

00:01:34.780 eight scientific classifications for different chromosomal configurations that make up

00:01:43.980 technically eight delineated sexes. So I'm going to put that over there. I'm not going to,

00:01:50.760 This isn't a science podcast. I can't possibly exist in that world. I am not smart enough for

00:01:56.840 that. So I'm going to go step over into the social sciences with gender. So if there are 0.96

00:02:02.480 generally speaking, let's sort of put this into play, two predominant sexes, male, female,

00:02:14.420 right you're born what parts are you born with and that transfers into something we call gender

00:02:21.380 and gender are the socio characteristics sociological and physical characteristics

00:02:29.200 we choose to express as a reflection of our sex and what society has done is they've over time

00:02:38.680 and this changes this is how we know it's a social construction not a not a genetic finality

00:02:46.200 as society progresses they decide what it is to be to to to be born with you know as a man

00:02:55.000 or a woman and then what roles we are to fill for example how do we dress how do we speak

00:03:04.120 how do we cut our hair what colors are common what jobs and roles we fulfill and all of that

00:03:12.040 has a sort of a list that goes along with it that then describes our gender our feminine

00:03:20.680 or masculine qualities and since predominantly we have two sexes we've come up with two genders

00:03:26.280 Now, on the front end, it seems fine. It doesn't even seem, if we can say for a minute that we

00:03:33.640 don't prioritize one set of gender characteristics over the other, which we do, and I'm going to get

00:03:38.120 to that in a second because that is the basis of sexism. Let's assume we don't. The mere

00:03:44.680 classification, the mere list, limits for the most part what men and women are allowed to express as

00:03:54.040 a part of that gender identity that we see walking around the world because at the end of the day

00:03:59.960 people aren't walking around with their clothes off so we don't necessarily immediately are able 0.94

00:04:06.360 to tell what sex they are the way we want to decide that is by the markers and by their clothes

00:04:14.680 and their style and all of that stuff that goes along with how i can quickly identify them

00:04:20.280 we also in a society where identifying people and putting them into a box

00:04:25.500 makes us all comfortable why well because if i know what somebody is a man or a woman

00:04:33.000 i will then know how to interact that's pure and simple there's i love it when people and people

00:04:42.180 often and a lot of my listeners know that this happens to me often when people ask me are you

00:04:48.600 boy or girl because i get that often if you're not watching me right now you've never seen me

00:04:52.360 and you're just listening you know go take a look at a picture and people ask me if i'm a boy or

00:04:56.680 girl all the time and my instinct my my response is why do you want to know i don't really care

00:05:03.320 that you want to know i'm curious like it doesn't bother me i don't get offended by it but i'm

00:05:08.200 curious on the why because all i can think about especially when i'm just interacting with you

00:05:15.560 virtually all i can think about is either you want to figure out if you can date me

00:05:22.200 which is funny because a i'm not available but b um you're only going to decide if i'm if you're

00:05:28.920 attracted to me based on the sex i tell you i am or you're trying to put me in a category so you

00:05:36.520 know how to speak to me either one i don't care about so let's go back at the beginning of gender

00:05:42.920 because a lot of people say join it's not a social construction let's let's give a list

00:05:46.920 shall we let's let's make a list of feminine qualities typical typical all of this is typical

00:05:55.480 guys typical feminine characteristics and masculine feminine here we go long hair curvy 0.97

00:06:02.600 body type, hips, chest, smooth skin, delicate features, higher voice. And I don't mean higher

00:06:13.780 voice by pitch. I mean higher voice in the way that we actually speak purposefully. Clothes we

00:06:21.280 wear. We are supposed to be more maternal. We are supposed to be better caretakers, women,

00:06:26.420 right the feminine or nurturing or emotional we're supposed to be better at cooperating

00:06:34.140 team building all of that those are feminine i know that's not a complete list and here's

00:06:41.540 some masculine masculine strong independent rational short hair what baggy pants as opposed

00:06:51.500 to a woman wearing a dress, sweatshirts, suit and a tie, muscles, all of those things are

00:07:01.060 relatively, typically, masculine qualities. So, giving these two lists is problematic in and of

00:07:12.320 themselves. And giving these two lists is automatically limiting both sexes to how they 0.95

00:07:20.580 can express themselves, how they wish to be seen, how they wish, how they feel most comfortable. 0.65

00:07:29.180 And we create something called a dichotomy or a binary. And this is a term you'll hear thrown

00:07:37.020 around a lot. A lot of people don't even understand what it means. But this idea of a binary is you're

00:07:41.700 either this or that. It's either yes or no, man or woman, masculine or feminine, right? Republican

00:07:49.760 or Democrat, liberal or conservative. Pick something. Pick something and stand in it.

00:07:58.560 The problem with gender and the problem with these constructions, nobody fits either category 0.64

00:08:05.240 fully, completely. And if they do fit it to a significant proportionality, the question is,

00:08:14.240 Were they born that way or were they conditioned to be that way? And that's where we get into

00:08:21.380 social construction or gender as a social construction rather than gender being 0.66

00:08:27.400 a genetic expression of your biology. Because there's nothing saying the parts that I'm born

00:08:33.080 with all of a sudden make me want to put on lipstick. That's ridiculous. The parts that I'm 0.97

00:08:39.060 born with doesn't make me throw a dress on. The parts I'm born with has nothing to do with how

00:08:43.600 long my hair is. But what it has to do with is what is the cultural and societal expectation

00:08:50.620 of the day when it comes to my sex as it relates to my gender. And man, we're really pushing

00:08:57.980 envelopes now, right? Kids are pushing envelopes. Kids don't like the binary. So you're hearing

00:09:03.940 more and more kids saying, I'm non-binary. I don't fall into one of those camps. Because

00:09:09.080 at the end of the day, they're right. They're right. That binary existence has never existed.

00:09:18.040 And we are just consistently trying to perpetuate it for lots of reasons. I'm going to get to them 1.00

00:09:23.880 in a second. So let me get to how do we condition this? Well, it happens right when you're born.

00:09:31.240 Right when you're born, a lot of the time, and again, remember I'm being typical here,

00:09:36.580 a lot of the time a name is chosen a name is chosen to indicate your sex why well because

00:09:45.920 we want to know right from the get-go what sex you are because what sex you are positions you 0.95

00:09:51.680 in this world well why and as soon as we hold that baby now maybe brand new spanking new we 1.00

00:10:00.780 hold them very similarly but relatively quickly when that baby can hold up their own head or that

00:10:06.160 baby gets strong enough to sort of have a little bit of control over their own bodies. We treat

00:10:12.020 them very differently. We put pink on the girls and blue on the boys. Again, typically. Why?

00:10:18.880 What does a color have to do with our sex? What are we denoting? Well, one, we're denoting some

00:10:25.900 fragility. The other one, we're denoting strength. And as soon as they're born and they're able to

00:10:33.040 hold their head up and, you know, control their own body. We start using different words to

00:10:39.720 describe both children. You couldn't tell them apart at all, unless you were changing a diaper.

00:10:46.300 But all of a sudden, the little girls, we hold closer. This has been clinically proven. We hold

00:10:52.340 closer. We talk to her softly. We tell her that she's beautiful. She's going to break a lot of

00:10:59.280 hearts that I'm going to protect you and I am going to love you. And I am, that's the way we

00:11:05.120 talk to our little girls with our boys. We hold them further from our bodies. We jostle them

00:11:09.960 around a little bit more. We tell them how strong they look, how powerful they are. They're going to

00:11:15.180 be a great football player, right? What a man you are going to be. That starts before cognition

00:11:25.440 starts. It begins immediately. So when people say, oh, well, listen, I treat my kids the

00:11:35.820 same. Well, I promise you, you don't. I promise you, you don't on a basic level. Do I think

00:11:43.180 you want to treat them the same? Sure. Absolutely. But almost from the hop, the clothes we buy

00:11:52.360 different right little girls get dresses boys get jeans and track pants why have 0.96

00:12:02.080 you ever watched a little girl try to learn how to crawl when she's wearing a 1.00

00:12:04.960 dress it's a freaking nightmare why that on a little girl and then say go ahead 0.98

00:12:10.600 try to crawl we dress up little girls constantly you ever seen like especially 1.00

00:12:17.980 the little girls don't grow hair real quick we put those headbands around them 1.00

00:12:21.760 with the bow. You might as well just put a sticker on her forehead that says, I'm a girl. Please 1.00

00:12:27.700 don't confuse me with a boy because that's the worst thing you could possibly do. How ridiculous. 0.99

00:12:34.340 Why do we need the delineation so much? And guys, I'm not saying I'm outside of this construction. 0.84

00:12:40.840 I still do the same thing. Our friends and our family have kids. What's the first thing we ask

00:12:45.380 them? I would love it to be, are they healthy? That's not the first thing. Oh my God, was it a

00:12:48.840 or a girl we have gender reveal parties as though you can reveal gender before the baby's even born

00:12:54.680 because people don't understand the difference between the terminology or they're just using

00:12:58.040 them interchangeably which they're not technically what you're having at your at your reveal parties

00:13:04.040 is a chromosome reveal party you should just throw double x chromosomes at the couple or an x and a y

00:13:11.640 see if they can dodge them that would be a funny sex reveal party and then we start giving them 0.55

00:13:17.800 toys. And again, typically, right? I know some of you are like, I gave my little girl G.I. Joe's. 1.00

00:13:24.540 Okay. I'm going to talk about that in a second. Little girls get dolls, some more dolls,

00:13:31.880 some baking stuff, some kitchen stuff, play with like some clothing stuff,

00:13:40.120 maybe even fake makeup stuff and what do boys get boys get trucks they get cars

00:13:48.080 um they get building blocks statistically way more lego tends to go to the way of the boy

00:13:56.460 you can see these divisions and they used to be crystal clear in toy stores well and a lot of

00:14:01.580 them still are i mean the barbie aisle is a fluorescent pink to the point where you really

00:14:07.880 should wear sunglasses while walking down the aisle. And all of these images that we've tried

00:14:15.540 desperately to sort of change over the years, and recently we've done some good jobs, we've tried to

00:14:21.060 redesign the packaging and redesign the advertising campaign so it's not just to boys and not just to

00:14:26.900 girls. I would love it, I would love it if it was because they thought they were being more

00:14:31.920 gender neutral and they were being more accessible and inclusive, but let's be honest,

00:14:36.360 they're trying to double their market under the lure of right that's that's their goal but

00:14:41.920 nonetheless so boys tend to get more spatial intelligence games for the most part more

00:14:49.520 mechanical games for the most part whereas girls get more interpersonal games and social games

00:14:58.720 dolls and clothing and things like that and as they grow up therein lies their foundation

00:15:06.160 right and so in that foundation we we start teaching young girls how to be caretakers

00:15:17.540 so as they get older we wonder we think that women are just more maternal they're more maternal

00:15:24.740 because historically 3 000 years ago they had to be because otherwise the baby would die and 0.68

00:15:29.540 if they weren't maternal the guys out hunting somewhere i love how people always revert to

00:15:34.060 that as though we couldn't have evolved past it but what we've done is we've

00:15:39.160 taught them we have taught them and we I will hear parents say oh my god are you

00:15:46.000 taking care of your baby feed the baby hold the baby rock the baby right and

00:15:52.000 then you have boys oh that's a huge truck that's a great building castle

00:16:01.060 whatever and we watch these kids go in different roads having said that are

00:16:07.780 there are are there kids that play with all toys of course there are of course

00:16:11.860 there are but we've still implanted such expectation in such learned behavior

00:16:19.780 from such a young age and a lot of psychologists that still will say that

00:16:25.000 70% of who we are has been formed by the age of five

00:16:31.060 five for most of us that's before we even go to daycare so our influence have been our parents

00:16:39.300 or our families which again i'm not condemning i'm saying it is limiting it is limiting in exposure

00:16:50.740 and so we get older and kids go to school and girls are act a certain way and we think that

00:16:57.220 the way that girls act is somehow indicative of what the estrogen they don't have yet

00:17:04.500 and the way the boys act is indicative what of the testosterone they don't have yet

00:17:10.980 you know when you see little boys fighting on the playground and you'll hear terminology like

00:17:16.340 boys will be boys and they're rowdy like boys and boy all of it all of it has been proven time and

00:17:25.620 and time again to be psychologically learned behavior subconsciously learned behavior there's

00:17:32.740 no parent sitting around saying my kid will only do this for the most part i don't think parents

00:17:37.880 are sitting around trying to limit their kids they're doing what they know and in order to

00:17:43.820 unlearn that in order to unlearn that it takes so much uncovering and acknowledging and dispelling

00:17:54.560 And it makes us uncomfortable. And it makes us feel unsure. Because if the most primary way

00:18:04.000 I see somebody, and I do believe this, a lot of people believe the first thing you see is race,

00:18:11.800 or the first thing, you know, the first thing you see is race. I truly believe the first thing you

00:18:16.140 see is sex. And the first thing you need to see is sex, psychologically, because you need that 0.91

00:18:20.180 first you need i need you in that box first and it is it is the most universal box that we put

00:18:28.020 people in right and i think it's common through and through now a lot of people will say things

00:18:35.380 like well my daughter can do whatever she wants she can wear a dress or she can wear pants i want

00:18:42.260 you to think that through for a second because it's true we give young girls and women for the

00:18:50.260 most part a much greater array there's limits of gender expression for example girls can play with

00:19:00.740 gi joes they can play hockey they can play baseball they can fight in the play all girls can do all

00:19:06.820 these things right girls can grow up and become doctors lawyers i want you to think very clearly 0.99

00:19:16.260 on that and understand that right tomboys are cute endearing even now what if

00:19:27.300 your five-year-old boy wants to wear a dress

00:19:30.660 what if your seven-year-old boy wants to wear makeup

00:19:36.540 what if your 12-year-old wants to put on nail polish

00:19:41.980 and says he wants to be a nurse or he wants to be an elementary school teacher or he wants to be 1.00

00:19:52.700 a stay-at-home parent or he all of these roles that have been typically reserved for women 0.53

00:19:58.800 i know a lot of you are sitting home saying i don't care it's whatever he wants

00:20:03.840 societally let's all admit he's gonna have a rougher go now here's my big question why

00:20:10.680 i i really want to pause i wish this was live because i want to pause i really want to ask you

00:20:18.020 why is it okay for the most part for girls to have incredibly feminine and more masculine and

00:20:26.740 express more masculine specific characteristics either with the way they dress or the games they

00:20:32.300 play or the toys they play with or the careers they advance themselves into but it is less

00:20:38.100 substantially less okay for men to shift toward the feminine and this is where we step into the

00:20:46.680 land of sexism and i it's not even sexism it is because it feeds into the same type of problem

00:20:55.180 and genderism isn't a word, but I'm going to use it anyways. This notion that we haven't just

00:21:01.920 divided masculine and feminine characteristics. We haven't just created a feminine list and a

00:21:07.540 masculine list. Here's the danger or a bigger danger because the lists in themselves are

00:21:13.560 garbage. We've prioritized. We've prioritized time and time again, the list of masculine 0.72

00:21:20.980 characteristics as being superior as being better this is what leaders are built with

00:21:28.260 this rationality physically and intellectually competitive individualistic all of these qualities

00:21:37.540 are more and i'm speaking about my culture okay guys like i'm speaking about north american

00:21:41.860 culture i can't speak to another culture it's not in which i live it's not in which i've studied

00:21:46.020 but then we prioritize it so when girls act more masculine to a point because we will have a cut

00:21:53.640 off and the cutoff is apparently when you get a fade that looks like mine to a point we say they're 0.99

00:21:59.580 moving up the ladder well they're getting better right they're progressing well because these are

00:22:08.580 the qualities we admire and these are the qualities we've attributed to men and masculinity that's why

00:22:14.580 this dichotomy in this binary is so incredibly divisive and destructive and when guys start

00:22:21.300 exhibiting maybe more emotional characteristics or start physically showing that maybe according

00:22:29.520 to these gender rules they want more aesthetics from the feminine side 0.56

00:22:35.320 they're a horrifically discouraged b usually bullied and harassed c their sexuality is 0.61

00:22:45.660 immediately caused called into question and by the way gender and sexuality are completely

00:22:50.700 separate things they're moving down the ladder so as they move down the ladder

00:22:57.680 people get upset especially the men predominantly men that watch that transgression because what

00:23:08.600 they're doing is they're causing a disempowering if masculinity is the power place or the power

00:23:15.240 gender you're disempowering now some people are going to say no you know the list of feminine is

00:23:20.900 just as strong as masculine and yada yada um maybe to them i don't need to discount how they

00:23:28.880 internally feel and do i think they should be equitable sure but i still say a the hierarchy

00:23:35.980 exists and b the division is built to subordinate and oppress the division is built to put people

00:23:47.700 in a box and create, I'm going to use this term, a very functionalist society. Functionalism makes

00:23:54.520 everybody super, super comfortable. I don't know if anybody's ever read A Brave New World, but in

00:24:00.260 Brave New World, Adolf Huxley, he sort of creates this dystopian future in which you are born into

00:24:08.360 a role. They condition you to be in that role. And then that's what you do, right? That's what

00:24:14.640 you do you know from the day you're born what you're supposed to do in that society and society

00:24:19.920 knows and so society runs like this machine right you were born to be work in the fields great that's

00:24:29.000 where you go you were born to be a scientist that's where you go and right from the get-go we

00:24:32.620 map your genetic makeup because it's a scientific i mean a sci-fi future we map it and we know

00:24:40.880 exactly genetically what you're predisposed to be good at. We roll you off. Well, functionalism

00:24:48.320 is a much lesser version of that. And in a functionalist society, who you are, where you're

00:24:55.720 stationed, how I can assess who you are and what you should be doing puts you in a particular role

00:25:04.300 of society. And that's what you fill. And if you fill it, the whole society works better.

00:25:08.300 now that's true for all walks of life but when it comes to men and women it's look guys it's

00:25:15.000 pretty crystal clear right historically and now women have babies great for the most part

00:25:24.160 women that have a uterus or an individual that has a uterus and i'm going to change that a little

00:25:29.780 bit because obviously we have a new sort of element that is worked in here including trans

00:25:35.040 women and trans men but an individual has a uterus has the capacity to to form a baby and give birth

00:25:43.440 to that baby well it makes sense that historically women give birth to the baby they actually

00:25:50.540 produce food for the baby well they stay home with the baby of course guys go off and do whatever

00:25:57.740 guys did back in the day it was hunting um and then and then you merge into a society in which

00:26:04.240 we have today. So you have this biological reality of women giving birth, of women bearing

00:26:15.340 a child. And because of this biological reality, we divide everything else you're ever going to do 0.92

00:26:25.480 into a feminine and a masculine. So the presumption that moms make better parents, 1.00

00:26:32.040 more maternal, more nurturing, more caretaking. But we forget. We've trained them from birth to

00:26:38.220 be that. And we wonder why men aren't fulfilling the same roles. Well, because we haven't trained

00:26:45.280 them that way. We haven't put that expectation on them. That's why so many dads say things like,

00:26:49.460 I'm babysitting my kids this weekend. What? They're not babysitting, dude. They're your kids.

00:26:55.140 so when we do this though we create this binary this either or here or there yes or no and that's

00:27:06.540 not where anybody actually lives so a it is limiting b it doesn't even exist the hindu said

00:27:16.500 it a very long time ago that gender is a delusion of course it is it's a delusion we create in order

00:27:22.840 put people in categories to make a functionalist society to make it run smoother not to make it run

00:27:28.520 better not to make it not to make the individual better but to make the society better i have a

00:27:35.560 huge problem with functionalism so we have this kind of gender dichotomy that people have wanted

00:27:43.320 blow up for a very long time and they push boundaries on different ways and over the

00:27:47.400 generations you've seen it right god we women used to i think like katherine hepburn was one of the

00:27:55.400 first significant movie stars to step on stage in pants people are having a night are you joking 1.00

00:28:03.960 what are you wearing pants for and you see all of this progression of what women can do and how they

00:28:11.560 can do it and some of the first challenges to gender weren't by choice they were by force and

00:28:18.760 they came in the shape of world war one and world war two world war one world war one rolls around

00:28:27.720 men go off to war and women fill all of their jobs can you imagine what kind of an awakening that 0.73

00:28:33.560 would be remember before world war one before 1919 1920 women couldn't vote they weren't people

00:28:43.560 they weren't considered people under law but all of a sudden when they were needed 1.00

00:28:49.480 they stepped up and they worked as bankers as clerks as shop owners as factory workers

00:28:58.520 running farms bankers everything they did everything i often wonder what it would have

00:29:05.880 been like to step into those roles in those days because five minutes ago you're just told those

00:29:10.360 aren't your spaces you can't do that your job is to be at home with the kids unless we need you

00:29:15.880 to do more after world war one for the most part they gave up those roles the men came back they

00:29:24.600 said here's my punch card here's my apron here's my whatever i'm gonna go back home and take care

00:29:30.280 of the kids you got this here amazing we'll go right back to the way it all was but something

00:29:34.520 changed something shifted and it wasn't because there was this genuine you know all of a sudden

00:29:42.120 women wanted to do different things no no no no all of a sudden women realized they could

00:29:47.560 and then you have the depression and then you have world war ii and in world war ii came 0.98

00:29:54.900 and women stepped into the roles roles when the war was over they weren't so ready willing 1.00

00:30:01.060 to step back out so that kind of feminist movement even though feminism started way 1.00

00:30:09.940 before then but that kind of feminist movement had had now mass support right all of these women 1.00

00:30:17.160 you know you have images like rosie the riveter i don't know if you've ever seen that but rosie 0.51

00:30:22.460 the riveter became this image of a woman of a welder and a machinist something incredibly masculine

00:30:30.080 and they didn't so much want to step out of those roles anymore but we came back from that war and

00:30:37.160 they stepped out to some degree and you saw this huge push of movies this huge push of movies you

00:30:44.600 saw it after World War II, trying to show women back in the home, right? But you saw elements

00:30:52.940 of how everything has changed, which all led into the 50s, right into the 60s. And then as you guys

00:31:00.620 know, in the 60s and 70s, all hell broke loose. Women wanted jobs. They wanted childcare. They 1.00

00:31:08.960 wanted maternity leave they wanted support from the government they wanted equal pay for equal work 1.00

00:31:15.360 they didn't want and and this was a time where women walked worked in or stepped into their 0.81

00:31:20.760 jobs and got paid half of what men did why well because there was an assumption that she went home

00:31:25.920 to a husband who made the real wage and you were just saving up some hat money or they call it pin 0.99

00:31:32.080 money whatever they would call it that a woman doing the same job as a man was just because she 0.93

00:31:39.680 wanted extras you know those frilly things women want that are insignificant that men shouldn't 0.87

00:31:44.320 have to pay for these are the roles we lived with and then you saw this huge push 0.84

00:31:53.520 and in this time i mean we're pushing into the 80s you saw some of the most

00:31:57.120 uh vitriol filled rage conversations go on on daytime talk shows oprah phil donahue for those

00:32:09.840 who are my age between two groups of people not men stay-at-home moms and working moms

00:32:18.400 and they both had seemingly so much animosity and hate to one another

00:32:27.680 right they both had reasons why what they were doing is best and why the other what the other

00:32:35.020 was doing was less than in in any capacity and you saw women are pitted one against another well

00:32:42.720 that's because the entire system has been set up for women to be pit against one against the other

00:32:48.400 They should have realized they should have been supporting both, but we don't. 0.71

00:32:54.080 And all of this was created with dichotomies and binaries in mind.

00:33:00.460 Stay-at-home mom, working mom, two very different people.

00:33:03.780 You can be one or the other.

00:33:05.300 Which side are you on?

00:33:06.660 Who do you support?

00:33:07.820 How do you support them?

00:33:09.400 And then amassing this kind of anger and animosity between the two.

00:33:16.140 all the while still trying to fill some sort of expectation of what feminine was

00:33:23.480 and the more they try to push on the feminine the more it got pushed back 0.70

00:33:28.000 right then as women would push a little too hard i.e my fade then our sexuality would be

00:33:37.100 called into question our womanhood would be called into question now is it fair to say that i'm gay

00:33:43.400 Sure. Sure. There's lots of parts of the Midwest I can go to in the United States of America and

00:33:50.980 look around and I'm astounded all those women aren't gay. Because aesthetically, they're not 0.99

00:33:55.520 filling that same gender stereotype. Why? Well, they're working on farms or they're working in 0.96

00:34:00.460 factories. Very, very different mentality. But as we pit one against the other, we divide it.

00:34:09.160 And so now we're having this huge shift. So we have, obviously, I would say in the last 5 to 10 years, we've had this huge shift in accepting and becoming very culturally aware, even though people who are trans have been around for as long as people, but we are becoming very culturally and politically aware of the trans community.

00:34:31.520 They are starting to gain power and notoriety and political clout, right?

00:34:37.860 They are pushing for their rights.

00:34:39.560 And as they push, and it's been a big push, we start to see this giant pushback.

00:34:47.420 And I often think, how much of different people from all walks of life, there's all different

00:34:58.780 ways to be a trans person.

00:35:00.500 i want to put that on the table first of all if we didn't have these defined binaries

00:35:07.940 either or i wonder how much or how the perceived trans community would change

00:35:19.220 and all of this anger and animosity towards the trans community you know where it's coming from

00:35:24.900 outside of obviously incredibly right-wing fanatical religious movements that have no

00:35:31.140 business in politics anyways it comes from fear that somebody has the audacity to not just jump

00:35:39.940 the gender box that we're still upset about but to actually jump the box they were put in at birth

00:35:48.020 as their sex how dare they how dare they because now that primary box that i put you in has been

00:35:58.000 shattered has been blown so now concepts of womanhood and manhood are just blown to smithereens

00:36:06.180 and you have all of these older for the most part conservatives but not just that

00:36:12.720 you have this older generation reeling from it right so you have ridiculous bills getting passed

00:36:22.000 all across the united states trying to stop it saying it's corrupting kids saying it's abuse 0.98

00:36:27.080 not allowing them to say gay when you go into florida or whatever the heck they're all doing

00:36:31.840 down there and they're doing it because they're trying to stop a fundamental shift a catastrophic

00:36:40.460 event from blowing up the most significant binary and box that they've lived with their whole lives

00:36:48.160 and they hold on so tightly with both hands because that is their structural norm. That

00:36:53.280 is their functionalist baseline. Don't change that for me because then you're going to shift

00:36:58.760 everything. But nobody's asking the actual question because nobody wants to and nobody

00:37:05.680 likes the answer because nobody is taking a minute to be introspective. And the question

00:37:11.880 is very simple. Why do we care? Why is my first question, whether you're a guy or a

00:37:18.840 girl, why does my tone change when I hold babies? Why do colors on people matter? Why

00:37:25.320 does the bagginess of your jean or the hat you put on your head indicative of what sex

00:37:32.780 you are and why does that matter? Why does that need to be identified? Those are all big questions.

00:37:38.920 Most people aren't willing to have those discussions. So instead, they attack the

00:37:42.680 community. They repress, they criminalize, they legislate in order to, what, slow the process?

00:37:49.980 Here's what you're not going to slow. Kids are smarter. So in Texas, kids are banging on the

00:37:56.560 desk calling the Republican governor and his party tyrants. Supreme Court is striking down

00:38:04.040 Abbott's law. You have kids walking out in all sorts of schools, especially in Florida right

00:38:10.500 now with that bill. All of this is happening. Want to know why? Because kids are done for the

00:38:17.000 most part with the binary. They don't get it. They don't get it. And what they sure as heck 0.78

00:38:23.100 don't get unless we really drill it into them and that's what unfortunately adults love to do

00:38:28.220 is why the hate why the boxes in the first place one who doesn't care about gender my grade sevens

00:38:36.380 they don't care they don't care and they get it but they don't care want to know who doesn't care

00:38:44.400 about if a kid is trans or if a kid is gay or if a kid uses they them pronouns kids they don't care

00:38:52.920 because they see it for what it is blowing up something that was useless that is ancient and

00:38:59.340 that was only created to make us fit a box and limit who we get to be and how we get to be that

00:39:06.000 person and that is useless and that is the antithesis of progress because progress means

00:39:11.980 whatever I am good at whatever my soul is good at and what I am powerful at doing I do

00:39:17.920 and if i don't have the space to do that this world becomes worse tomorrow

00:39:24.280 and kids see it it's clear as day for them it's just not clear for you know some politicians

00:39:33.320 and some parents i think some parents are filled with hate and resentment and anger and animosity

00:39:41.020 towards all that i think other parents are just scared and when you shake foundational roots

00:39:47.680 such as gender and sexuality and identity when you shake those roots when you shake that box

00:39:56.320 that they are premising everything else upon it scares people and that's why when people ask me my

00:40:04.880 sex are you a boy or a girl i don't get angry even if they do it rudely i don't

00:40:11.440 because i'm taking the only opportunity i have usually with complete strangers to ask them one 0.58

00:40:16.960 simple question. Why do you want to know? And that question is the foundational shift. For a minute,

00:40:27.200 whether they like it or not, they're going to have to think about that. Why does it matter?

00:40:32.160 And for a minute, they're going to question it. And more often than not, we're going to start to

00:40:37.520 see a shift across the whole line. So I go softly with people. I have to come at me with hate. Maybe

00:40:44.000 i go a little bit harder but for the most part i go softly for the most part i go softly because

00:40:49.260 what i understand is it's a foundational shift and it's terrifying and they're holding so tightly

00:40:54.980 to old ideals that maybe mean nothing and prove nothing and we're actually destructive to the

00:41:03.180 individual soul which is so funny because when republicans are against this really what you're

00:41:08.020 engaged is individuality heads up just so you know because i don't think the sex you were born

00:41:16.180 has anything to do with the person you're going to be it doesn't have to with the job you're going

00:41:20.100 to do with the passion you're going to bring to this world with the empathy and care you get to

00:41:25.460 exude it has nothing to do with your sex we might try to fashion it so but genetically

00:41:32.580 genetically you're born with gifts all this dichotomous action and binary is just

00:41:43.240 limiting those gifts to a gender that we have assigned to your sex

00:41:49.140 and if we want to progress and we want something better just like we don't want to limit somebody's

00:41:56.540 skin color to the job they do, or somebody's religion to the career and the relationships

00:42:03.080 we have. We don't want to do that to sex because we're just limiting society as a whole.

00:42:10.920 So next time you bring it up, when you're sitting at the dinner table or you're

00:42:15.480 sitting around with your colleagues at work, bring it up. Just talk about it.

00:42:21.700 Do the binaries make sense? Does this dichotomy make sense? What purpose is it serving? How much

00:42:29.260 of list A do I fulfill if I'm a woman or B if I'm a man? And what happens when I do a truly great

00:42:38.240 thing, which is draw on all of those lists, all of those amazing qualities, because they're all

00:42:43.960 amazing qualities, when I need them and how I need them and use them in order to better the world

00:42:50.640 around me. Well, thank you guys very much for hanging out with me another Tuesday. I really

00:42:58.160 appreciate it. Go check my website out at unlearn16.ca. My merch is all 20% off right now

00:43:04.780 if you use unlearn16 as the code, all caps. Thank you so much for hanging out and I will see you

00:43:11.020 next Tuesday. Same bat time, same bat station. Have a good night, folks. Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - March 15, 2022

The One Where I Blow Up Binaries and Wear a Dress (Theoretically)

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