Reading “Beyond the Gender Binary” was a good read. More than anything for me it made me sad. Sad because society or the majority of just refuses to except people doing and expressing themselves without boundaries. We talk about progression in the world and it is clearly a selective progression. Alok recounts his childhood experiences and how many of them affected his conscious when making choices that would not coincide with the gender norms society expects from a boy/man. He points out how society refuses to let the gender non-conforming individuals just be. It is almost as if society is harassing those who don’t live up to what is expected in “normal society”, but who are we to say what is normal, honestly. It’s like people encourage you to be yourself but NOT if it does not conform with what the majority says. Truth be told there were likely many people who just did not know how to label themselves or identify the feelings they were experiencing when not identifying with their given genders at birth- well before all the LGBTQ language and community was around. They sat in secret wishing to be someone else. The difference now is people are speaking up and saying this is me, this is how I identify and society cannot handle it. Acceptance and normality go hand in hand, maybe if the world were more accepting of the individuals living beyond the gender binary a lot would not seem so out of the ordinary it would be a part of the ordinary!!