The Gender (and Sex) Binary Still Holds

Many in the nonbinary circles would have you think that gender exists on a spectrum. They espouse the belief that because people can identify as trans, or that intersex people exist, gender must be on a spectrum. I will refute this idea and prove that a binary still exists even if trans people and intersex people exist.

Within the gender nonbinary sphere, there exists the belief that because people can identify as nonbinary, trans, gender-queer, etc., that means that gender is on a spectrum and anybody can identify as he or she wishes. After all, gender is merely the expression of sex. Anyone can be assigned male at birth (AMAB), but they can express that "maleness" however they want. This is furthered by sociologists who claim that gender is merely the social conditioning of society that places certain roles on what we consider "men" and "women." If a woman does not do her "womanly" role in society, she ceases to be a woman, and vice versa. This is done to oppress women and advantage men in society. So, if gender is merely social conditioning, anyone can express their sex in a myriad of ways (gender) that do not fit within the gender binary.

The issue with this is that even if trans and intersex people exist, the gender binary still exists. This is because there exist two types of people: those that produce sperm and eggs. Therefore, if there are only two options of primary sex characteristics that people can have, then there must be a sex binary. Even though intersex people exist, the word itself is proof of the gender binary still. "Inter" is a Latin prefix for between, and "sex" is obvious. This is not another sex or gender category, but rather a case in which abnormal development of sex characteristics happened that resulted in an intersex individual. This is not the same as trans people identifying as another gender. In closing, these arguments are highly misleading in that they claim that intersex and trans people prove the gender spectrum when, in fact, they prove otherwise.