Gender Binary

The gender binary, sometimes called gender binarism, is the system that sorts everyone into just two categories, man or woman, and assumes those are the only possibilities. It usually ties gender tightly to sex assigned at birth and to fixed expectations about roles, bodies, and expression. Many scholars describe gender as a social construct and point out that this two-box model does not reflect the full range of human experience. The binary tends to leave out nonbinary, genderqueer, two-spirit, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people, whose identities do not fit either box. Questioning or moving beyond the gender binary is a central theme in a lot of contemporary gender and LGBTQ+ conversation.