I think it's time to retire "gender is a spectrum" arguments in favor of more autonomy-focused and contextually-aware rhetoric. Hear me out.
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"Gender is a spectrum" is not really a very advanced take, nor does it actually do anything to deconstruct the binary. A spectrum, as is conventionally presented in these matters, is simply an axis.
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Presenting gender as a spectrum still generates a binary, but rather than a fixed state we have a direction: more male, more female.
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And while this model does help contextualize gender for those first encountering something beyond the rigidity of the western binary, it can be accepted and still ignored by binary prescriptivists. They'll just focus on the dense ends of the spectrum.
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This is the actual pattern manifest in our society. A doctor can support nonbinary pronouns, but at the end of the day they still have to mark M or F on your billing. It's unhelpful to retcon M/F to mean "towards Male, towards Female," which is what the spectrum model does.
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The "spectrum" model has also been corrupted by trans-exclusionists and is central to intra-trans discourse. In short, it has allowed for the codification of exclusionary principles for a very, very modest gain in understanding.
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A more useful model to me is to recognize gender as an individualizable model, unique to the person, and to *separately* recognize that societies construct patterns amenable to a large number of people's self-description.
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These patterns are changeable--and in fact corruptible--and their dynamism doesn't per se mean that everyone who self-describes suddenly has a shift in their gender.
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At the end of the day, gender terms and labels don't exist for me, but for other people to understand me to whatever contextual purpose it serves, for better or worse. So the spectrum model is really no more effective at that than the rigid binary model.
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We don't need to say "gender is a spectrum" to say "gender binaries are inadequate." Simply say gender binaries are inaccurate.
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*inadequate.
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