I found this week’s reading to be very interesting because it discusses in-depth length how Gender Binary is so important in our society than any other Gender people claim to be. It also explains how people of different Gender other than man/woman or male/female are being treated in our society. A member of our class Raquel Hernandez explains this through their snapshots. In their post, we see a written instruction that shows where people who identify as HE/HIM or SHE/HER are meant to enter or use but those who identify as THEY/THEM are restricted or have no place to enter all because such gender is not accepted in our society, also because the only gender known and valued is MALE/FEMALE, so any other gender people claim to be is against the culture and not recognized. The reading also provides us with an accessible understanding of gender fluidity showing us how a world Beyond the Gender Binary of man and woman creates more freedom for everyone.  

Alok Vaid-Menon writes about how the enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life. She said “Babies are born and divided into one of two categories. These categories of boy or girl affect how we treat the baby when they cry, what clothes we dress the baby, what toys we allow the baby to play with, and so on” (pp.29). She also talked about how before a baby is born, well-wishes and family often ask, “is it a boy or a girl” (pp.29) because babies become more important when their gender is known and knowing if the baby is a boy/girl is also part of the culture. 

Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themselves. They teach that boys are strong, aggressive, rational and girls are weak, nice, and emotional. This has always been done constantly and with so much authority that people do not recognize that they’re doing it or what harm it will cause. Sometimes we take this message lightly but later it becomes more serious depending on any of the genders we assign to them, boy or girl. We tend to harm children when people try to impose gender and responsibility on them. Beyond the Gender Binary also breaks down some arguments that are often leveled against people who lived beyond the gender binary. Some of these arguments were divided into four categories: Dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope. 

Also, the author states that “Gender is not what people look like to other people; it is what we know ourselves to be. No one else should be able to tell you who you are, that’s for you to decide” (pp.45). That said,” if people of gender non-conforming weren’t taken for granted and dismissed as a conspiracy, a lot of people would spend less time panicking about the future of the legal system and more time being concerned with the injustices we face today” (pp.57).