Saturday, June 13, 2015

Out of the box

So as many of you are aware of the recent news that has broken the Internet about the very controversial reality TV series family called the Kardashians. Love them, hate them, don't care about, they've always got the media going into a frenzy with their bold family values and tactics. But you must have heard of Bruce Jenner who underwent hormone replacement therapy and has come out as  a trans woman; Caityn Jenner.
Who's Bruce jenner? He is a former American field track and field athlete whose has won a gold  medal in the men decathlon event at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
Who's Caityln Jenner? The former named Bruce Jenner who has finally come out to the world after struggling for most of her life with her sexuality. Nothing has changed, Bruce and Caityln are the same person with just different names.

As we are born, we are recognised clinically as a boy or a girl by doctors. There's no grey area with your gender. You're born as a certain sex, boom. No questions asked you're either a male or a female. There's no blurred lines, no stepping over boundaries. But what if you aren't fitting in these two boxes of labels? You don't identify as a male or female? Does that mean you don't have any box to tick and now you're an out caste?
NO.



Here's a few words that dictionary.com has added as binary gender words

1. AGENDER
(adj) nothing or relating to a person who doesn't have any specific gender identity or recognisable gender expression.
 (noun) a person who is agender.

2. BIGENDER
(adj) Also bigendered. Nothing or relating to a person who has two gender identities or a combination  of both.
(noun) a person who is bigender

3. GENDER FLUID
(adj)nothing or relating to a person whose gender identity or gender expression is not fixed and shifts over time or depending on the situation.
Also genderfluid, gender fluid, gender-flexible
Now, lets be clear, people who identify themselves under any of these three words have their private parts intact. They're not transgender. NO, they've NOT got their private leached or any such absurd theory running down the rumour hill.

There are some bold people who've identified themselves under these binary terms and are changing our views about these unique people who just don't fit in the gender box ideals of society's realms. There's the stunning Ruby Rose who has come out as gender fluid through her critically acclaimed video- Break Free.  Or the Crocker jeans company's ad starring the stunning Erica Linder with the apt tag line of ''Come as you are. Whatever you are." (If you've got time, I implore you to check these videos on YouTube)

These agender people are changing the deep rooted dynamics of the industry and society. There's a modelling agency called Unique Models that let girls model for men's wear or binary gender clothes. Or boys for girls wear. Now when I say girls/boys wear I strictly mean it in the literal sense of the societies ideas of gender clothes which we all have accepted.
Also let me tell you, these androgynous models are slaying in their respective fields and do it with a finesse of glamour that is shocking and unparalleled beautiful.

Now you may not accept these uniquely out of the box people as normal; Or mix up some homophobic medical or religious issues as shunning these people as "abnormal." That's a choice that's completely and solely yours and I can have no say in it and nor am I interested. All I do want to say is that - One does not have to fit our archaic societal rules set in the 80's to not live the way they want. Respect someones decisions to not identify as your idea of gender but to live as whichever whatever gender they want to.
ALSO
If you're confused about a stranger's gender in public?
Here's a tip
DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT.

And as Crocker jeans aptly said it- Come as you are. WHATEVER you are. 



Untill next time readers
xxx

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