In the reading “Beyond the Gender Binary” by Alok V. Manon it mentions the situations of a non-conforming and non-binary people in how they are treated by society. Non-conforming people are “people who visibly defy society’s understanding of what a man or woman should look like” and non-binary people are “people who are neither exclusively men nor women.” Alok V. Manon explains different situations in how people in society have reacted to how a man or woman should look like. One of the situations he mentions is when a waiter came up to him and asked him if what he was wearing was his Halloween costume and he was wearing a skirt. This shows how people in society criticize what people wear when it’s something that anybody could wear regardless of their gender. For example, one of my favorite Youtubers Louie Castro sometimes wears skirts in his photographs or in his vlogs and it’s something that should me normalized. Another example is when Harry Styles wore a dress for his Vogue photoshoot, he received many negative comments about it and in one of the comments it mentioned that it didn’t make him look manly. This ties back to what Alok V. Manon mentioned about girls and boys when they’re young. Girls are taught to be nice, weak, and emotional while a boy is supposed to be aggressive, strong, and rational. It’s like a child is already labeled as what is expected from them and how to be. Another situation Alok V. Manon mentions is when he was in High School, he was bullied by a guy who was jealous of his freedom of expression and bullied him because he wanted to be seen as “normal” but years later wrote him that he turned out to be bisexual. This is a problem in society because sometimes people are afraid to come out of their sexual orientation and they feel like they’re going to be made fun of for it. 

            I like the image my classmate Isabella Celentano used because it quotes “My gender does not define what I can wear” which is true people can wear whatever they want it doesn’t matter about their gender. A girl can be comfortable with wearing clothes for men and as for men too they can be comfortable with women clothing. One time on of my younger cousins asked me if it was okay for her to wear a suit and I told her it was okay for her to wear a suit because if she was comfortable with wearing a suit then a dress or a skirt then it was okay. She had also mentioned to me that she wanted to dress up as her favorite anime character who is a boy and I also told her she can wear whatever she wanted it doesn’t matter what she wore if she was happy with it. I feel like sometimes parents label their children as girls should be wearing dresses or skirts at a young age and boys should be doing manly things but whatever people choose to do or wear it should be supported by others in society.