Gender like a collage – scraps and traces, bits and pieces, hints and fragments of the obvious and discernable, arranged imaginatively and intentionally to craft a whole new picture.
Gender like a constellation – a particular manifestation of the infinite possibilities for stringing together a life, a story, a set of traits and characteristics, longings and loves that offer somewhat of an outline, a suggestion, an insinuation of one way of being.
Gender like a beloved family recipe – passed down with love and respect, but altered, slightly or significantly, to suit a time, a place, a person.
Gender like soil – formed by millions of tiny granules, ancient and evolving still, compost of pasts, enabling life to bloom.
Gender like water – taking different shapes and forms depending on its surroundings, more flow than final.
There are so many ways to tell the stories of who we are. There are so many ways to break open the rigid containers of a colonial making. The binary – the creation of a two-gender system with harsh and polarizing boundaries is not made for life but for domination – in gender and race. Refuse the tired and violent making of ‘opposites’ and let gender unfurl freely. Blessed are the nonbinary beloveds who remind us of the multitudes of possibilities for how a soul unfolds. Not new at all. A truth as old as life.
m jade kaiser