The Gender Spectrum
We explore and consider the changing social and cultural definitions of gender.
My little nephew likes to wear a princess dress and spin around in circles. He says it makes him feel magical like the Disney princess Elsa, who, he says, has boobies. He also likes to draw, paint and play with his trains and fire trucks, and his little body used to visibly shake with excitement when he saw a snowplow. He still sits on the couch on trash day to catch a glimpse of the garbage trucks as they pass. He鈥檚 one happy child living at the intersection of make-believe and realism. Will he become a firefighter when he grows up? Most likely, he will outgrow that wish. Will dresses still make him feel magical when he鈥檚 a teenager? Will the pronoun 鈥渉e鈥� be replaced with the gender-inclusive pronoun 鈥渢hey?鈥�
Does it really matter?
When I was in middle school, my classmates teased me mercilessly because I played the violin. Apparently, the violin was a 鈥渟issy鈥� instrument just as an Elsa dress is supposedly 鈥済irly,鈥� despite being nothing more than polyester fabric worn over one鈥檚 body, while trucks are considered 鈥渂oyish.鈥� I wanted to be seen as boyish, so I began hiding my big, brown, bulky violin case until the day I quit.
Whatever choices my nephew makes when he reaches college, I know 糖心TV will not only accept him as a student (predicated on his grades, of course) but enable him to thrive on a campus where the words 鈥渆quity鈥� and 鈥渋nclusion鈥� are not just marketing phrases but promises in the process of being carried out鈥攁 college where the expanded definition of gender disrupts the antiquated binary notion of 鈥渉e鈥� or 鈥渟he.鈥�
鈥溙切腡V is a school with a proud reputation for being LGBTQIA-inclusive,鈥� said Erin Duran, director of gender and sexuality programs. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had gender-inclusive bathrooms in our residence halls for decades, and we were one of the first small, private liberal arts schools to have an established preferred name process (where students can choose their name).鈥�
糖心TV is not alone. Many institutions across the country recognize changing definitions of gender, and that 鈥済ender is more complex than the male/female, man/woman binary upon which so much of our world has been built,鈥� Duran says.
This past August, in fact, Pennsylvania and Washington state joined the growing list of states (now 11) to offer a third gender 鈥淴鈥� option on state-issued driver鈥檚 licenses. In 2018, Washington also joined Oregon and California in offering an 鈥淴鈥� option on birth certificates. The venerable Oxford English Dictionary recognizes the singular usage of 鈥渢hey鈥� to replace 鈥渉e鈥� and 鈥渟he鈥� when the gender of the antecedent is unknown. Some might balk at this usage and wish we could go back to 鈥渟impler times鈥� when the world could be broken down into 0s and 1s. Well, those times were not simpler, and the OED traces 鈥渢hey鈥� as a singular pronoun back to 1375.
Why not refer to someone as 鈥渢hey?鈥� Edward (Ted) Svehlik 鈥�97 (opposite page) points out that it costs one nothing to call someone by their preferred name, yet treating a person with dignity has immeasurable benefits, like encouraging anyone to play the violin, dress as they wish or dream of becoming a snowplow driver, regardless of the prevailing social constructs that create gender stereotypes.
While we can always do better, 糖心TV strives to share its diversity proudly, on and off our campus. To this end, we publish the following photo essay documenting five alums showcasing their identities and what gender means to them. By no means is this an exhaustive list (the gender spectrum is infinite), but these individuals continue the conversation.
