Queer, cisgender, transgender, nonbinary, androgynous, maverique, intergender, genderfluid. Louie and their cat (a.k.a. “Cat”) take you on a journey through the world of gender — without claiming to have it all figured out or knowing the perfect definition for this widely complex subject. Gender is tricky to understand because it’s a social construct intersecting with many other parts of our identity, including class, race, age, religion. For a long time, people thought of gender as binary: male/female, pirate/princess, sports/shopping. Now, we’re starting to understand it’s not that simple. That’s what this book is about: figuring out what gender means, one human being at a time, and giving us new ways to let the world know who we are.
Boy, girl, either/or, neither/nor, everything in between: gender is a spectrum, and it’s hard to know where you fit, especially when your position isn’t necessarily fixed — and the spectrum keeps expanding. That’s where Rethinking Gender can help: it gives you a toolbox for empathy, understanding, and self-exploration. Louie’s journey includes a deep dive into the historical context of LGBTQIA+ rights activism and the evolution of gender discourse, politics, and laws — but it also explores these ideas through the diversity of expressions and experiences of people today.
In Rethinking Gender Louie offers a real-world take on what it means to be yourself, see yourself, and see someone else for who they are, too.
Questions explored in Rethinking Gender include:
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- What is cisgender? Dysphoria? Non-binary? Intersex? Intersectionality? •
- Are sex and gender biological? Cultural? Social? Personal? •
- What do race, religion, age, and education have to do with it? •
- How do we recognize stereotypes, and what can we do about them? •
- Do physical characteristics determine sex, and, if not, what does? •
- How common is it not to fit in the box checked M or F? •
- When is surgery or medical intervention called for, and who gets to decide? •
- How have ideas about gender changed over time? •
- What is gender identity, how do we know ours, and how do we talk to someone whose gender is different from our own?
