Men and women, enben and neutren, oumen and xenen.

I am bigendered; I am both a man and an oumin. To many, this splits me down the middle. My doctors and others I know in real life see me solely as a man because I am dysphoric and transitioning. I know the gaze that would fall upon me if I spoke openly of my oumel nature.

In the future, I may have to insist on having my nipples removed during top surgery, because that is not what binary cis men look like. I will get phalloplasty, but it will be a binary phallus, because the world has not yet conceived of the phallus I truly want, and those who have asked for such a thing have been denied.

On the other side, my bigenderedness seems to exclude me from being seen as a binary man. To the binary world, my wholeness, my simultaneous and complete reality as male and oumel, is an impossibility. I am vaguely gestured out of the category of ‘man’ and into the catch-all ‘non-binary’.

I hate the gender binary. The binary restricted me to being a woman; hell, its still trying to restrict me to being a woman. Even when it opens a window, it closes a door; the binary restricts me to one gender only. I hate the sex binary. My intersex siblings are having their lives ruined in its name. My transgender siblings are told by “allies” that changing their sex can never really change their sex because of what a doctor said once. I hate the cis-trans binary. It doesn’t matter how we’re being gendered; we’re always somehow “other”. I even hate the binary-nonbinary binary. I have a foot in both doors.

So, I want to offer myself as a bridge of some sort between the ironic binary made up of binary and non-binary. The legal, medical, and societal system is dominated and controlled by cisgender and endosex people, and yet we fight each other over it. Why? We must clear our heads and focus on the true enemy that seeps into every crevice of society.

To achieve transgender liberation, we must rid ourselves of both the gender and the sex binary, and familiarize ourselves with binary abolition. The binary is not a natural law, it is a man-made tool of oppression. Its supposed “naturalness” is its most transparent lie.

As of the time I am writing this, many laws are being written in the United States attempting to enforce this so-called “biological reality”. Apparently, the binary is so “natural” that it must be aggressively enforced by the state. This is of course because binarism is a ridiculous ideology. It asks us to believe that a male human is closer to a male lion than a female human. Without the constant, violent reinforcement by those in power, this fragile idea would collapse under the weight of its own absurdity.

But don’t be fooled into thinking the ridiculousness of the binary makes it any less dangerous. Intersex advocates, for example, have long protested against how healthy babies with ambiguous genitalia are mutilated to fit into ‘male’ or ‘female’, their normal bodies treated as a “medical emergency” in desperate need of “fixing”, regardless of potential future issues these mutilations may cause.

Enben who dare attempt to present themselves outside of enforced binarism, whether legally, medically, or even socially, have to fight systemic exorsexism in the form of judges, doctors, and law-enforcement.

To cover the extent to which binarism has irreversibly harmed women and, to a lesser but still important extent, men, would require summarizing years of global feminist movements and history into one paragraph. Although modern Western societies like to believe they’ve evolved past most of their sexism, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Sexism is built into the system because binarism is built into the system.

The truth is that binarism is inherently oppressive. Even if the world was only male or female, binarism is a form of social control. Its a quack doctor that tells you you’re inherently stronger for having testicles, or inherently more delicate for having a uterus. It tells you how to act and dress and behave, and after forcing all of this on you, it tells you this is natural.

I will break down the goals of binary abolition and a nonbinarist society here. While I use these terms in close association, it should be noted that they are seperate words. Binary abolition refers to the total abolition of binarism from all sectors of life. While it may be considered a subset of postgenderism, binary abolition itself does not call for the abolition of gender, only for the abolition of any kind of binary between genders or sexes of any kind.

Nonbinarism, in simple terms, refers to the advocation of rights for non-binary individuals. In practice, however, it refers to the total integration of non-binary individuals and genders within society, affectively abolishing binarism. In this way, binary abolition is a product of nonbinarism.

The four pillars of nonbinarism and binary abolition, as I present them, are legal reform, medical autonomy, social transformation, and economic justice.

First and foremost is the desperately needed legal reform. Sex markers must be completely removed from birth certificates and IDs. As previously mentioned, these markers attempt to condense an entire complex identity into one symbol on a piece of paper.

The integration of the binary into the legal system has been a catastrophic failure. One’s internet sense of self, their body, and their lived experience is all condensed into a single, reductive letter on an ID. If you do not “look” like how the letter on your ID apparently says you “should”, a traffic stop could become a death sentence. Should you reject either letter or wish to legally represent yourself as neither male nor female on an ID (typically with an ‘X’ marker), you’ll be subject to increased police harassment and legal discrimination. And this all goes doubly for people of color.

Some may argue that the removal of legal sex of any kind will make it harder to decide punishment for those who have committed a crime. I disagree. In fact, I think sex being a factor in legal punishment is a problem in of itself. If a murderer kills an innocent person, or a crook robs a house, their verdict from the judge should be the same regardless of what genitals they have.

Currently, the way sex is factored into sentencing is fundamentally flawed in ways that ruin lives. Historically, laws that solely target women have provided ways for the state to punish women for not obeying the binarist expectations forced on them. Coverture was a legal doctrine that made women extensions of their husband for centuries. On the other side, FTP is not legally rape in many parts of the world; many male rape survivors are not even legally seen as such.

Another argument against this may be prisons. If we don’t have legal sex, how will we decide who goes to the men’s or women’s prisons? The issue with prisons is a much bigger problem than sex segregation, not least of which because prisons do not prevent crime. In fact, they increase it. The solution is not any kind of integrated prison, but the total abolition of prisons as a whole.

To abolish the binary, we must also abolish prisons. The brain is an incredible organ. The idea that criminals will always be criminals is outdated and unscientific. I recommend everyone reading this familiarize yourselves with Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists, or at least the Nine Perspectives. Prisons only serve to generate money for the rich by locking up the poor and marginalized; there is no care nor consideration for anyone involved in any actual crimes. Anything but money is an afterthought.

The demand to abolish sex markers and sex assigned at birth is not superficial, but a step towards a better criminal legal system for all.

Like the legal system, the medical system is in desperate need of reform. As previously mentioned, it is entirely legal for doctors to mutilate healthy intersex babies to fit into “male” or “female” in all of North America and Asia, and in the majority of Europe, Oceania, Africa, and South America. These mutilations are entirely cosmetic and only seek to enforce binarism, as the lasting effects are overwhelmingly negative. Loss of sexual sensation, sterilization, chronic pain, incontinence, dysphoria, and depression are only some of the direct products of intersex genital mutilation. Furthermore, because intersex individuals are so pathologized for not fitting into the binary, it is not uncommon for intersex children to be subject to sexual violence disguised as medicine. The NNID describes in detail the ways medical professionals sexually stimulate children without consent, construct vaginas on children that require the insertion of phallus objects to “maintain”, examine genitals beyond what is medically necessary, and producing and spreading photographs of intersex children’s genitalia. An exerpt on the former reads

To check whether the surgically altered clitoris retains some sensitivity clitoral sensory tests and vibratory sensory tests were developed[10]. The results of these tests are not compared to results prior to surgical interventions. Tests were performed by applying pressure to the clitoris, by stimulating the inner thigh and genitalia…with a cotton tip applicator, and by a device that provided vibratory stimulation to access arousal. The tests in this study were performed on 51 intersex people ranging between 4 months to 24 years old; most (37) were under the age of five years old.

Healthcare is almost entirely dependent on that little letter on your ID. If a transgender man, for example, changes his sex marker from an F to an M, he is often now restricted from necessary healthcare from OB/GYNs. Transgender individuals are often rejected by doctors who “don’t know how to treat a transgender” — even when the thing to be treated is a broken arm or sprained ankle. All of this often leads to fear and avoidance of medical treatment as a whole. The current binarist medical system is traumatizing and life-ruining. And yet the solution is so simple: stop sorting people by what is assumed they have, and start sorting based on what they actually have. If someone has a uterus, they go to the gynecologist; if someone has testicles, they go to the urologist. This is non-negotiable. Education on transgender and intersex individuals should also be essential to practice medicine. Additionally, transgender puberty should no longer be treated as abnormal or different from cisgender puberty. Puberty blockers were a compromise forced upon us, and now even that right is being stripped away. Transgender youth should be allowed to mature alongside their cisgender peers. It is a known fact that dysphoric teens who are allowed hormone-replacement therapy have better mental health, less thoughts of suicide, and fewer problems with substance abuse. Many cry that transgender puberty is irreversible, completely blinded by stupidity to the fact that cisgender puberty is as well. In fact, most transgender adults were once kids who went through cis puberty; should we then too put cisgender kids on puberty blockers until they are old enough to decide for themselves? Finally, transgender surgeries, both binary and non-binary, should be free. Well, all medical procedures that improve quality of life should be free of cost. Surgeries for dysphoric individuals are life-saving and medically necessary. Doctors who preform these surgeries must also cease pressuring transgender individuals into strictly binary surgeries. If a trans man wants to keep his vagina after phalloplasty, a trans woman her penis after vaginoplasty, or an enban wants to rid themselves of it all, this must be respected, and attempts to disuade them seen as coercion.

We can never be truly free, regardless of any laws, if society itself is still ingrained in binarism. Anyone who has ever presented outside of male or female, on purpose or not, has eventually been asked if they were a boy or a girl, and everyone asked that question has either fidgeted and picked one or rejected both, only to be met with more questions. The first step is to liberate our language. If a manwoman wants to be called both he and she, then change it up a bit when talking about him while she’s not there. If a xenan wishes to use revox pronouns, then respect thyr decision. If all this jargon is confusing to you, that’s okay. You also didn’t learn the words “male” and “female” the first time you saw them. I have purposefully chosen not to code-switch while writing this article, and instead leave a link to the definition of terms someone may not know. This learning is political. I want to give you the opportunity to learn these words for yourself. The language we use is just as important to abolish the binary as anything else. The more you respect your friend’s choice to be called a neutran and use their neopronouns, the more comfortable others will be with adopting terms outside of man or woman or binary pronouns for themselves, the weaker the binary gets. But what of safety? If we don’t divide people based on male or female, how can we ensure women’s safety from men? The answer is simple and yet radical, we must raise better men. Rape and violence are not inherent to maleness, it is our binarist society that teaches them such things. Boys and girls are not taught about the opposite sex, despite being simple biology, because that is seen as taboo. Boys are instead raised to see girls as weak; their bodies as something to fear. Rape is almost expected by the patriarchy. From bell hooks’ The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love:

No matter how many men in our nation are celibate or have only occasional sexual experiences, people still believe that sex is something men have to have. Underlying this assumption is the belief that if men are not sexually active, they will act out or go crazy…The assumption that “he’s gotta have it” underlies much of our culture’s acceptance of male sexual violence.

The idea that a man and a woman in the same bathroom will lead to rape enforces the idea that rape is something innate to masculinity rather, than a learned product of the patriarchy. Some also argue and what of sports?, saying that men have a natural advantage over women. But this ignores that some men also have a natural advantage over men, and some women over women. This is perhaps the simpliest fix; divide sports based on skill, weight, or strength rather than sex. Most of these objections are not truly a matter of safey or fairness, but a matter of laziness. It is far easier to segregate the sexes than to help men unlearn patriarchal ideas, or to create more nuanced systems for athletics. Binary abolition demands we choose the harder, better path.

We must recognize that the workplace is a key site of binarism, and therefore, a key site for its abolition. Even if we do all I have mentioned before, we cannot achieve liberation by begging the capitalist class for inclusion. Our freedom is through collective power. Equal pay for all genders is the baseline, but we must go further. Capitalism and binarism are intertwined like two snakes reproducing oppression. It relies on having a secondary workforce (cis women and transgender people) that can be paid less than the primary workforce (cis men) that can themselves be threatened with replacement. The categories of “men’s work” and “women’s work” must be destroyed by any means necessary, whether through syndicates or sabotage. Binarism is the justification used for this division. Women are told that they are biologically inclined to domestic work, and therefore that is what they must do; men are told they are biologically inclined to to be providers, and therefore that is what they must do. Enben are forced into one or the other and then paid significantly less as punishment for their refusal to fit neatly. Capital binarism also relies on the nuclear family. It depends on reproductive labor done by women, which is undervalued and unpaid, to reproduce the workforce. It then procedes to render these women invisible as they support the capitalist system. From the Industrial Workers of the World, an injury to one is an injury to all. The solidarity found in syndicalism must be extended across gender lines. Binarism is fostered by the ruling class to keep workers divided. A transgender worker’s right to feel safe at work is as much of a union issue as the fight for fair wages. A cis man fighting an trans woman for a job is a worker fighting the wrong enemy; the boss is who has created the scarcity. Fighting for nonbinarism means walking off the job when your non-binary colleage is harassed. It means demanding free childcare and paternity leave for all parents. It means defending a transgender laborer with the same fierceness one would defend a laborer facing wage theft. Our liberation will not be found in a boss’ diversity statement or a politician’s empty promise. In the words of Elizabeth Flynn,

If you believe that between the workers on the one side and their employers on the other there is peace, there is harmony such as exists between brothers, and that consequently whatever strikes and lockouts occur are simply family squabbles…then there is no justification and no explanation of sabotage intelligible to you. …Labor realizes, as it becomes more intelligent, that it must have power in order to accomplish anything; that neither appeals for sympathy nor abstract rights will make for better conditions.

Our sabotage is the disruption of the binary and the capitalist system it sustains. Our goal is not a seat at their table, but the creation of our own.

They will tell you this vision is impossible. They will call it a fantasy. But what is truly impossible is to continue living in a world that pathologizes our bodies, cages us, and puts a price on our dignity. The work of binary abolition is not a single revolution, but a daily practice. It is the practice of using a new pronoun. It is the practice of walking out for a harassed colleague. It is the practice of demanding healthcare as a right, not a privilege. It is the practice of seeing the prison and the binary as two heads of the same beast, and knowing we must slay both. Let us stop asking for a larger cage. Let us stop fighting over the scraps of recognition the system throws us. Our power does not lie in their institutions. It lies in our collective refusal. Our solidarity is our weapon. Our existence is our argument. They are afraid of this future because it is one they cannot control. They are right to be afraid. Do not wait for permission. Do not wait for a law. Abolish the binary in your speech, in your solidarity, in your workplace, in your heart.