A world without gender

For approximately the first seven years of my life, I didn’t realize the significance or limitations of gender. I knew that I was a girl because I was told that I was a girl. I even thought that being a girl was better than being a boy because we were allowed to wear both dresses and pants, and could pick pink or any other color as our favorite color without being teased.

Despite this, I didn’t think of myself as possessing certain characteristics or having certain interests specifically because of my gender.

I remember my understanding of gender changing in third grade, when a boy had a crush on me for the first time. He bragged about liking three different girls in our class, and that I was his second favorite. I didn’t like him, or any boy at this age; I thought he smelled weird and was a know-it-all.

He started to tease me, often using gendered insults; he mocked my high-pitched voice and the “girly” drawings I drew of half-naked mermaids (I had an obsession at that time with drawing scantily-clad women). I remember one occasion when he and his friend both teased me until I started to cry. I even told my dad about the teasing -- I must have been really desperate if I went to him for advice.

Shortly after this experience, I remember wishing I were a boy -- or at least not a girl. Perhaps this experience, as well as others that followed, made me realize that feminine qualities could be used as insults, and that my gender made it impossible for me to deny these “insulting” feminine characteristics, like my voice, my physical strength and capabilities and, as I got older, my developing body.

Today, though I identify as a woman within the existing gender spectrum, I wonder what really influences this decision. I am privileged to have never felt “different” from other girls because of my sexual orientation, and so this probably made it easier for me to accept the gender to which I was assigned (though sexual orientation and gender identity do not always influence one another). I’ve also always presented myself as a woman and dressed as a woman, because I’ve been conditioned to believe that this type of presentation will make me attractive. My gender identity is also influenced by the experiences I’ve had because of the gender that was imposed on me since birth; I talk and write about being a woman because I’m treated like one. Finally, I’ve never seriously explored the idea of identifying as a gender different from the one assigned to me because it always felt simpler and safer to live as a cisgender person.

But does this mean I really “know” that I’m a woman, and that I wouldn’t be happier or more complete as a different gender? My understanding of my gender comes from external sources; I believe that I’m a woman because others see me as one, and I’ve been taught that presenting myself as a woman is my only option.

But imagine if we lived in a world where certain personality and physical traits were not gendered. Imagine if sex did not distinguish us as it does, but was simply another physical trait, like hair color. Imagine if boys and girls alike weren’t teased for having “feminine” traits, like high voices or enjoying drawing “girly” pictures.

Without gender, could there be gender inequality, gendered insults and gendered power structures? I’m not saying I know how to get to a world without gender, nor that we necessarily should get there. But just consider it. Would I be a different person without gender expectations having been imposed on me as a child, and still today?