Queering the Binary
Can you describe your identity without talking about your gender expression? Without explaining what you look like, what you wear, and how you present to other people? For most people this is a fairly difficult task and made even harder when your gender identity might not be something easily assumed.
Consider going into work to not find grey cubicles but long meeting tables, spaces designed to share your computer work, and resources for every diverse person you have patronize your business. This might seem like a dream but in reality, this is a small model of a different type of working structure, one built on queering community and work to not hold such rigid boundaries. This is a space where gender expression can be open without the need for any explanation.
Work does not need to be a place of uncomfortability, and I mean that for everyone not just gender diverse staff. The way to create an inclusive environment for individuals who are already queering the binary is working hard to breakdown hierarchical powers to better support everyone including gender diverse staff, who according to the 2015 US Trans Survey face harsher conditions than their cisgender peers. One of the most troubling statistics from this survey was that despite having 50 percent of respondents having a Bachelor’s or Graduate level degree, we see that the respondents are more likely to be earning less than the US poverty line. This level of instability in employment was evident in the survey and we see that for many transgender and nonbinary people, their gender expression plays a role in whether they get to have a job that is open and welcoming or a job that pays the bills.
In addition to the hardships transgender and nonbinary people face in obtaining jobs that support them, as well as a living wage, it should be made clear transgender and nonbinary folks are not the only people who experiment with gender expression. Many people make changes to their appearance in an effort to feel better in their bodies and are met with less trepidation. Dying one’s hair to cover up greys, trimming facial hair, waxing eyebrows, applying make-up, and wearing shapewear clothing are all small ways people alter their appearances to feel more comfortable in their bodies. In addition, there are many surgical procedures that people do like breast reduction, Botox, facial feminization, or permanent hair removal that can be ways that cisgender individuals might alter their bodies more permanently. Transgender and nonbinary people do a lot of these things too with some notable additions like in some cases taking hormones or pursuing gender affirming surgeries, but in no way does pursuing gender affirming care mean you are or are not transgender and nonbinary.
Let’s Talk Terms
Understanding the term queer is complex and according to Meg-John Baker and Julia Scheele, it "has had many different meanings in different times and places".[1] The word itself started in the 16th century as strange or illegitimate. The meaning shifted in the 19th century meaning something closer to the idea of odd. Again, the term can mean something different based on the situation and the earliest recorded use of queer as a homophobic slur was in 1894.[2]
Times change and as such the negative connotation associated with this word has been in the process of reclamation, so much so that queer has been recently used as an umbrella term for people in the LGBTQIA+ community.[3] To complicate things further many queer theorists "take issue with 'queer' being used as an identity term".[4] This may seem unusual but especially queer theorists are all about breaking down binaries and utilizing queer as an identity model can perpetuate the insider outsider dichotomy creating a new binary.[5]Since queer breaks down binaries around defining something as one thing or another, I will focus on queer as a turning, twisting, or otherwise shifting from something that dominant culture might call the standard.
Queer is a turning, twisting, or otherwise shifting from something that dominant culture might call the standard.
Queer is a turning, twisting, or otherwise shifting from something that dominant culture might call the standard.
A Study in Equitable Workspaces
I worked at the Oregon State University Pride Center for two years. During this time, I was astounded to watch my preconceived assumptions about what a workplace should look like shift to a more thoroughly considered reimagining of a workplace outside of binaries. I was a recently out and proud transgender and nonbinary person walking into a LGBTQIA+ pride center hoping to find community in my workplace. I was met with what I can only describe as a space of contradictions.
Free contraceptives, clean needle spaces, anatomical models of different body types, children’s books about acceptance, drag wigs, a TV either playing a children’s movie or a LGBTQIA+ icon’s music video. I was surrounded by a space intended to accept people exactly where they were regardless of their identity. This was a place of community for everyone. People of all different ages, sexualities, genders, socioeconomic statuses, and races came together to create a community within their workplace. Work was more than just a place to come and do programing and plan events. The Pride Center was a place of deep exploration of the self, it was a place of questions, and queering minds to no longer accept binaries that kept people feeling unsafe in their own skin.
This space was one of learning from everyone. When I started working at the Pride Center, I was struggling financially, and I will never forget a young student who worked as a team leader at the center coming to me and teaching me how to make low cost and high protein dishes. Here was a student almost five years younger than me sharing their unique skills to show care for someone they work with instead of holding a false value of professional distance.
When I consider binaries in the workplace, I am thinking less about gender binaries and more about binaries between people with power and people without. I’m thinking about the ways that care for one another can break down these binaries. Especially the ways in which a workplace resources its space to show care for their employees. The Pride Center I worked at had a kitchen, a space to do your laundry, even a small outside space that was used for gardening. These elements show what constitutes a workplace where we allow for our staff and patrons to thrive.
A Workplace for Everyone
The question of how we create spaces for nonbinary and transgender people to thrive at work, is the question of how we can queer our spaces to support all types of people.
“Sure, seeing a transgender flag hanging in my workplace gives me a small piece of comfort, but until my basic needs are being met through breaking down toxic binaries between power and people, that flag means less than actually feeling at ease in my gender expression at work.”
There are many ways to help build this familiarity with each other and one of the easiest pieces is getting to know the people you work with through team building spaces or equity trainings.
I want to return to our mission of queering the workplace. In a workplace that makes space for one another with differing identities; new ideas and any complicating problems can also be met with twisting and turning to help find more supportive solutions. The embracing of queering the workplace allows for transgender and nonbinary people to be more at ease, but it also allows for any cisgender person to feel at ease as well. In some ways, articles like this might seem too simple, but in actuality many of life’s responses to uncertainty, discomfort, or hatred can be easily combated by some empathy. I want to leave you with a few questions about yourself and your own interactions with your identity.
Have you ever felt unsafe in a situation regarding your gender?
Has the general dynamics of your social situations supported or hindered your experiences of gender?
How would you have wished someone might intervene in that situation?
How can caring for your colleagues prevent situations like that in the future?
A simple queering of spaces to support all the people that might inhabit them is the best holistic response to how to support people who might be different from yourself. Queering the workplace breaks down toxic binaries and hierarchies and allows for your workplace to become a place of shared opinions and ideas. I hope you will spend some time brainstorming the unique ways your workspace can create a space of inclusion a bit more effectively.
About Sho
Sho McClarence (they/them) is a PhD candidate at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology in the Joint Doctoral Program for Religious Studies. Sho’s focus is on mystical experiences and in particular mystical space as it is concerned with queer studies, visual arts, and environmental humanities. Sho teaches currently for several colleges in Colorado, USA and guest lectures at universities across the country in Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Art History. In addition to their scholarship, Sho is an activist focusing on queer and transgender rights and sees their scholarship to better understand marginalized experiences in our current cultural moment.
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References
Barker, Meg-John, and Jules Scheele. Queer. London: Icon Books Ltd, 2016, 25.
[1] Ibid, 31.
[1]Ibid, 34, 37.
[1]Ibid, 39.
[1]Ibid, 43.