To “Move Beyond the Gender Binary,” for Alok means challenging the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color. Imagining better futures and being binary needs not to be universal but valid. Alok deconstructs reality in order to lay the groundwork for reconstructing a reality that would be better for everyone. Although society plays a crucial role, I have never felt conformed to anything, my identity is who I am “a female” and Alok has given me the tools to understand that I don’t have to be what society wants me to be and to understand how people feel. It does make me wonder though why put labels on people based on their traumas. If I were to answer the question, I would say my identity doesn’t go against the binary or nonbinary norm because I believe in letting people live their lives how they want no matter what society says. I could remember my grandmother hating us wearing jeans, she just had something against jeans and sneakers. She brought me and my sister’s corduroy pants and dress pants and made us wear dresses. In school on dress down days while everyone wore regular clothes, I had to wear my uniform because she hated pants, so I would sneak clothes out the house and change when I got to school because I wanted to be a part of my class on dress down days.

Although I suffered consequences it was worth it because I was a child that just wanted to participate with the other children, my grandmother was very old fashioned, so she raised me and my siblings the way she was raised. We hated it because we got bullied a lot, so I could understand where Alok was coming from. The video has made me realize what I experienced growing up and not being allowed to be myself because of my upbringing and my grandmother not realizing that her ways only made me want to rebel more against her.