I grew up in a conservative home as part of a highly conservative faith tradition, but there was one thing that I have never been able to square: gender roles. In fact, before I could read, before I went to any kind of school, I had an innate drive to intentionally subvert any prescribed gender roles imposed upon me. I caused a great deal of pain to my mother as we attempted to shop for clothes together. Eventually I had worn her down so much that she gave up and let me make the decisions for how to dress (I went immediately to the boy's section to dig through shorts and t-shirts).
This abhorrence of mine for the outward presentation of "femininity" came with a burden of my own: fear and hyper-vigilance. The boy's section of the store was where I felt most comfortable and most uncomfortable at the same time. I often watched and waited for moments of light traffic where I could dash in, grab an armful of random clothes, and hurry into the changing room before someone might tell me I don't belong there. No one ever did say that I didn't belong, but the side-eyed glances or raised eyebrows were enough to put me on edge.
There was also this unspoken feeling that what I was doing was wrong, socially. It was like something that was intentionally ignored, but it still seemed like everyone knew and disapproved of someone entering the zone that didn't match their expectations.
I don't know how I felt so emboldened to just do whatever I felt like, especially given my faith tradition's rather outspoken disdain for people stepping outside the bounds of "appropriate" dress (like wearing flip-flops instead of dress shoes to church), let alone someone daring to don the apparel that didn't match their assumed gender. There is generally less policing of gender for females than for males, so I do recognize that that gave me considerable "wiggle room" for my gender nonconformity. I did, however, relent on many things like keeping my hair long and wearing dresses to church, so I still kept it reigned in for an exceptionally long and arduous time.
The experience I had growing up is why I think we can consider gender expression to be more of a technology than it may initially appear. A person's sex assigned at birth (assuming no ambiguity) is the realm of biology and categorization, while a person's gender is extremely personal and may or may not match their sex assigned at birth. For being something so personal, gender has a profound impact on your life, your opportunities, your privileges, your rights, your perceived skills and value, and your access to power. Gender expression is the way you present your concept of your gender to others. Often, this is shown through your clothing, but it can be as subtle as how you move your wrists.
When I'm talking about technology, I'm talking about its most broad form: "applied knowledge." Much like how I see systems as ultimately composed of decisions, society and culture seem to be made of the same material: decisions over time. Cultures across the world can vary greatly in their expectations of behavior from men and women (i.e. gender roles), and this diversity, to me, indicates what a society values. Therefore, we can treat gender expression as a technology, because it is the actual application of your knowledge of your society's gender roles and can be wielded as a tool within the overall system of society, as well as contribute to the development of a society.
Gender Blender
My favorite Disney movie as a kid was Mulan. She was the perfect hero for me: daring to disguise herself as a man to fight alongside other warriors, proving that she was just as capable as any other. She's the Man was another favorite because again, a female character dresses and presents as a teenaged boy to accomplish her goals and prove herself as an equal. Thanks to the many stories from Greek myths to Shakespeare plays (including Twelfth Night which She's the Man is derived from), we have a lot of examples of how gender expression can be used as means to do something.
These are probably mostly fictional ideas and examples, but I think it's instructive even outside of LGBTQ+ talking points. Primarily, watching or reading these stories can help men understand their privilege as considerably greater than women when it's clear that a female character is only taken seriously or is able to make progress toward her goals when she is presumed to be male by other characters. It gets a little tricky with representations of men dressing as women, since these stories or shows usually default to being comedic (I'm thinking Mrs. Doubtfire or Some Like It Hot). However, when we look to actual transgender stories, we can start to see the other side of policed masculinity. Movies like, The Danish Girl or even Brokeback Mountain (not about transgender characters, but similar stigmas about gay men still apply), provide insight to the unprovoked violence that threatens trans women or even "less manly" men.
All of this to say that gender, gender roles, and gender expression have deep connections to our experiences and how society generally treats and values some people differently than others. I think that being able to play with gender roles and expressions by encountering stories like these help us explore the normally invisible system that we all operate within.
Schuyler Bailar is my favorite trans creator on Instagram and he has helped me work through some of the most difficult questions that many of us get stuck on when we start to encounter gender roles, expression, and transgender identities. One of the biggest concerns seems to come from really good intentions: fairness and protection of women. For example, in the U.S. there has been a huge uproar about trans athletes competing in sports, specifically trans women competing in womens' sports.
Sure, there are differences between males and females, but as I've watched myself grow, as I've watched others defy expectations, as I've taken the time to consider the invisible system, I'm starting to wonder if the obsession of delineating those differences is a massive distraction. Bailar makes some very compelling points throughout many of his videos dealing with trans people in sports that ultimately all of the policing of gender is really about controlling women as a whole category, not about what's fair. Consider how the men's category is never policed—we never say to a male that it's not fair for them to compete because they are physically more advantaged. Who would argue that Michael Phelps (to use Bailar's example) shouldn't be allowed to compete in swimming because he has twice the lung capacity of the average person? Why then should we argue that a female who "looks manly" (not even a trans woman) must not be allowed to participate in her sport?
The women's boxing controversy of the 2024 Olympics is a great example of how pretending to protect women is actually about policing women as a whole. The fact that two cisgender women (not trans women) were questioned and intensely attacked through news and online comments shows that our society (even on a global scale) is being influenced to devalue women's abilities. If a woman is too good she must not be a real woman.
That's a huge problem. That's what we must start to detangle from our concepts of gender, roles, and expression.
Brotherly Love
A video started popping up in my YouTube feed from a creator I often watch, Nathaniel Drew. The thumbnail was subtle, almost easy to pass over, and simply shows Drew and another man facing each other on a balcony or street corner. The title is what grabbed my attention: I told him that I love him. I have been watching this channel for a while and I was pretty sure that Drew was straight, but this made me wonder if he was coming out as gay or bi. That assumption is what made the video even more stunning. I had caught myself over-sexualizing relationships, just like others have done to queer people.
Drew is still straight, and his video almost made me cry because it was so wildly out of place that I hadn't even assumed this kind of relationship or human to human engagement was possible. Drew loved Lucas. Drew wrote a letter to him, which he read aloud to Lucas, face to face. It was emotional—it was far from the avoidant "I love you, dude bro man" phrases that I tend to hear from men talking to male friends. It actually spoke to deep emotional connections, turmoil, and growth.
It's sad to me that this video was an extraordinary example of males expressing and embracing their relationship. I almost never see this—certainly not in public—except in gay romantic relationships or female relationships.
This courageous and vulnerable video shatters the gender norms of the West, where men only have one intense emotion that is deemed appropriate: anger. Instead Drew helped take a step toward forging a new path, modeling how relationships don't have to be sexual to be intimate, profound, and emotionally expansive.
Cyborg
We've explored a lot. We can see that both masculine and feminine expressions of gender can be policed, whether it's women competing in sports at the highest levels, or men being emotionally deep and openly expressing and engaging with those emotions.
The burden of gender expression is great. We may not even realize how much energy we expend for it. I've spent years of collective time worrying about the shape of my wrists: can't be too bent in some situations, can't move this way or that way, or it will be too feminine. I know I'm not unique in this because even people who are gender conforming have to deal with the way others judge their gender expression. Little boys are told not to cry, not to play with "girl" toys. Teenagers make fun of each other when they do something that falls close to the line of behavior, dress, speech, or anything else that is associated with the opposite gender. We even see it in grown adults at the highest positions of authority as they describe themselves or critique others ("you have to be an alpha," "there's no room for weakness," "be aggressive").
Gender is important to humans, but I hope that someday we can move away from gender as a categorization technique for value. I look forward to a day where humans are valued equally, because gender, sex, race, and any number of other traits and identities have no bearing on whether you're "enough" of a human to matter, to belong, or to deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I look forward to a day when people can self-select the roles they take on—not because of their sex or gender, but because of desire, skill, or fitness to the task at hand.
When we let go of the prescription of society's concept of gender and take it up for ourselves, we'll find there's a lot more room for all of us; transgender, cisgender, intersex, two-spirit, and anyone else. Men can be emotional (they must be allowed to be for a safe and healthy society), women can be skillful. Trans people can exist. We can build a better society by applying our new knowledge about gender, and it can be even better than what it is now.