The Diversity of Gender

Growing up, I viewed gender as a two-sided coin: male or female. My coin was flipped while I was still developing as an embryo inside my mother's womb, landing on male. To this day, I still identify myself as such and others around me appear to do the same. However, our minds do not always agree with our bodies. Nature may have dictated our gender, but we do not have to adhere to that predetermined decision. We also do not have to follow the gender norms that society has established. For instance, tomorrow I can wake up and start strutting around in high heels and a leopard minidress because I strongly feel like I am a woman trapped in a man’s body.

My perception of gender got a bit dicey once I was introduced to the concepts of third gender, transgender, androgyny, and then the catch-all phrase “genderqueer”. And then there are people who don’t identify themselves as masculine or feminine. Therefore, it is not definitive for us to say that there are only two gender choices: male and female. Gender as well as sex is whatever one wants to make of it. I am a heterosexual young man, but my friend could be a homosexual woman in a man's body. And how would an androgyne be defined? Said person possesses both male and female genitalia, and may identify as neither gender.

In the end, gender is a life choice like going vegan or getting baptized. Ultimately, we decide who we are and nobody should be able to influence our decision. Instead of a two-faced coin, gender could be seen instead as a palette, with the colors indicating various choices. It’s similar to the LGBT rainbow flag. The only difference is that the colors symbolize gender diversity as a whole.