This is written by a cis-gender old white guy in support of all the marginalized communities around our embattled country.
A few years ago, I stumbled upon an internet meme called the Genderbread Person — an obvious allusion to the gingerbread man cookies our grandparents baked for us all those years ago. The Genderbread Person is the best explanation of human sexuality I have ever encountered, and should really be required reading for every junior high school sex ed class across America.
In fact, you can imagine my surprise when I was donating blood at my local Red Cross a few months ago, and I noticed a large poster featuring the Genderbread Person hanging on the wall across from my chair while I waited. Clearly, the meme has gone mainstream.
The Genderbread Person illustrates the aspects of human sexuality and explains how they interact in each of us. There are basically 4 factors that comprise our sexuality:
- genitalia
- gender identity
- who you are attracted to
- how you display your gender-related characteristics (dress, hair, mannerisms, speech, etc.)
If we assume each factor has 2 options (male/female, gay/straight, etc.), then there are clearly 16 possible mathematical combinations of these 4 factors. In the simplistic world where MAGA lives, there are 2 legitimate combinations, all the rest are corrupt and therefore illegitimate. In the real world, of course, we find quite a few actual humans that fall into every combination and category. These are all scientific, medically supported variations across the human population.
But it gets even more complicated when we consider that each factor can have more than 2 options. Neither or both for some factors, for example. Or never, sometimes, often, always for others. Clearly, not only are there more than 16 combinations, there may be an uncountably infinite number.
Small-minded people in America and elsewhere want to delegitimize the non-cis-gender members of our society. That makes their lives easier and more secure, but imposes a hell-on-earth for many of our fellow travelers. I wish I knew how to make things different - we actually seemed to be on a path toward enlightenment until January 20. All I can say is, tell your family and friends to visit the Genderbread Person and learn something about the complexity of sexuality within our species.
