Gender Let them eat biscuits! rolEs

Let’s talk about one of the most important things in America right now: the simple biscuit.

In a conversation with my mother the other day we came to a conclusion: everyone is born as an agender individual, and then adopted a gender that society had decided for them. We had come up with a presentation to explain this, through the art of biscuit baking.

Every human is assigned a biscuit, the frosting representing their gender. A biscuit is originally baked without frosting, and the frosting is only added later when the biscuit has cooled. But what if the biscuit eater dislikes that color or frosting altogether? What if they want multiple colors of frosting?

When researching this topic I came across the article “Stereotypes and Gender Roles” by LD Worthy, T Lavigne, and F Romero, talking about schema theory, the theory that kids will notice certain traits by active learning and sort genders this way. This will later affect what things they pay attention to so as to reinforce these roles, meaning that a child who notices many men around them with large muscles will associate being a man with having said muscles and only notice the muscular men later in life.

The article also goes over the social learning theory, which says that people are taught gender through reinforcement. When growing up we are rewarded and punished depending on which traits we exhibit in comparison to our gender. Feminine boys and masculine girls are picked on, harassed and alienated from their peers.

This torture is often continued at home where unaccepting adults and family members punish the child for their seemingly unusual traits. They eventually either conform to what society wants or they find a way to handle the alienation, often in tragic ways as shown by the fact that 82 percent of trans youth have considered suicide and 40 percent of trans youth have attempted according to the National Library of Medicine.

Imagine thousands and thousands of broken biscuits on the floor. Except that they’re not biscuits; they’re people.

I believe both gender-learning theories in the article are true, but that each one only plays a certain amount in each person. It is also notable that these theories can be applied to those who are not children as well.

The way one learns gender can also change with the community. One of the mornings I was writing this I had a friend tell me that though their mother was alright with homosexual people, they were transphobic. This particular friend came from a background of punks and metalheads, so I was pretty surprised at this, due to the massive impact gender has on the goth, punk and metal communities.

I’ve always seen goth and punk outfits as a sort of androgynous style. Even when wearing dresses or having short hair, the style had never seemed feminine or masculine-it is just a lot of black and red and plaid and batshaped biscuits.When looking at popular punk and emo artists like The Cure, Misfits, Green Day, and My Chemical Romance, you see a trend of men wearing makeup and strangely styled hair. The stereotype for metal heads is to have long hair regardless of their gender. Even popular 90’s grunge band Nirvana had multiple photoshoots of the members wearing dresses, all of the members being men. Bands like Flyleaf and Destroy Boys have female vocalists, and in Flyleafs case vocalists who can do crazy metal growls and shred their voices.

Another great example of a different perspective on gender roles is autism-gender: when a autistic person views their gender and autism to be connected. A great source to use would be the article “Demystifying Autistic Gender” by Bernard Grant, located on the Autism Spectrum News website. In this article Grant discussed how autistic people often do not experience a connection to gender personally, rather it is a masking tool used around others.

I also want to note that when you look up this article they use a photo of a person holding a sign saying “not he not she just me”. This is a great way of showing how many people feel about gender; they don’t care for gender- they are just who they are.

This may be the modern way of perceiving gender, as it doesn’t really affect most people until the subject is specifically on gender.

Spectrum also made a similar article, “Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity” by Laura Datarro, where they talk about how transgender individuals are more likely to shows signs of autism than neurotypicals, and the same goes for autistic people being more likely to experience gender dysphoria.

I’ve heard many people try to use the argument that gender bending and being trans is a modern invention, that it just wasn’t a thing back then.

It’s well known that many cultures had respected third genders and genderless individuals, even if they were seen as outcasts or abnormal. When cultures who didn’t have these views took over through colonization and imperialism they removed these genders. An article I found useful for this is “Third Gender: A Short History” by Jack Scobey-Thal, in which he gives you a timeline of events dealing with third genders dating back to 385 B.C.

Many of these events are forgotten, leading many to think that trans culture and other genders are a modern day thing, a passing trend, but these concepts predate even the biscuit which dates back to ancient Sumeria.

To add a final example, different mythology and religions will often have important figures with nonbinary traits. Psychology Today made an article on this topic, “Gender Fluidity in the Gods” by Neel Burton, in which he talks about well-known examples like Thor, Zues and, a modern-day example, Shiva, along with some lesser known examples like Hapi, the prophet Teiresias and Ishtar. These are all from different time periods and regions, meaning that it wasn’t just a local or modern quirk.

Multiple societies spanning the globe each found ways to recognize gender diversity.

Growing up, my mother would let my brothers wear dresses, makeup and heels. She let me wear the pants version of a school uniform instead of the dress at an old school. We’ve always had equal chores and were allowed to play with whatever toys we wanted to. We never had themed birthdays, and when we were still going to Sunday school I never had to wear dresses. My parents let their kids do what makes us happy, acknowledging our gender but never making it a big deal.

I have been privileged to be able to decorate my biscuit. And research shows that if we let all trans people do the same with gender-affirming care and respect, their risk for suicide decreases. And that’s the simplest part of all this.

Gender has never been a cut and dry definition, never a simple way to classify someone. Everyone will have their own definition and rules for gender, and everyone’s relationship with their gender is different. Noone should expect anyone else to abide by their expectations, just as no one should be forced to obey others’ rules.

It’s time we let everyone decorate their own biscuit.

Column by: Roe

Art by: Roe