Standard sex ed doesn’t give us the tools to discuss or describe experiences outside the binary. Like, what would you say if someone walked up to you and just said, “My body doesn’t feel like my own…”? Unless you’re trans, a mental health counselor, or you have had some really tough conversations, chances are you’d be shocked, stunned, or at a loss for words! Standard sex ed doesn’t give us the language or tools to discover ourselves authentically. Historically, sex education has ostracized, omitted, and failed queer and trans folks by using absolutes, triggering language, or incorrect “biological” information.

News flash: sex AND gender are constructs, but that’s not something we learn in K-12!

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s break this down a bit more. Sex is taught as the “biological” predisposition of chromosomes that define whether someone is biologically female or male. What biology doesn’t often cover is that there are about 1.7% of folks who fall outside of that binary and are intersex. Intersex is a wide range of natural variations in chromosomes, hormones, or genitals, but some folks are unaware intersex people exist—sometimes that includes the intersex folks themselves. This alone challenges the binary of male and female, and demonstrates to us that sex is also a spectrum. The thing is, we have assigned it the meaning of an inherent biological disposition rather than acknowledging it has variation, too. I think we can all agree that erasing people, their experiences, and their existence is never helpful, nor does it provide inclusive, accurate, and helpful information for everyone.

To compensate for the lack of accurate information being taught, what we are often told is that gender is the moldable category, and that it is the one dependent on folks and how they choose to identify. While yes, this is true, gender does not problematize the erasure of folks’ biological experiences; it just creates a new category for folks who do not feel, choose, or identify with what was assigned to them at birth.

Sometimes our biology is contradictory to how we feel and identify, sometimes our gender is, and sometimes both are. If we keep using the wrong language and continue to narrowly describe sex and gender, we normalize using the wrong words, having limited accurate information, and further pushing the cis-het standard as nuclear. On top of it all, when we stifle folks into categories that don’t feel right or fit, we normalize a disconnection to our needs, experiences, and pleasure. It’s important for me to clarify here that I don’t only mean sexual pleasure; I mean pleasure that comes in all forms, including a connection to self that feels liberatory and aligned with you (therefore creating a content pleasure in being).

Many folks may call this pleasure gender euphoria, AND that may feel right for them. If you have read Pleasure Activismby adrienne maree brown, you may have learned about the “Politics of Pleasure” and learned a bit from Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” In their writings, Lorde describes the erotic as a “lifeforce” that encompasses joy, creativity, and the ability to feel deeply, and brown takes it one step further by positioning the erotic as a social movement that can bring power and restorative pleasure back to the oppressed. This is the definition of pleasure I utilize in my writings.

The important piece to acknowledge in existence is FLUIDITY. We as humans do not, will not, and have never fit into nice, “neat” little boxes of identification. What feels good one day may feel terrible the next. What we define as our gender may change days or years from now. We are not static in our identities or experiences.

What we can focus on is that movement towards pleasure and liberation. Breaking out of these dichotomous definitions and revoking them can open us up to a new world, new life experiences, and new understandings of self and others.

And who better to learn to do this from than gender-nonconforming trans baddies? The very community that revoked the strict binary and created beauty in every part of their existence! Trans people have provided us with the opportunity for many lessons. All we have to do is listen.

The first lesson trans folks have graciously provided us is that we can define our own experience.

YOU are the ultimate authority in YOUR body. By renaming your experience, you are taking the power back from a system that tried to categorize you.

Have you allowed yourself the opportunity to liberate your body? Have you pleasure mapped?

If not, what would you name your body parts had someone not told you how to name them? What would you want them to feel, say, and do?