Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness (2022) s01e03 Episode Script
Can We Say Bye-Bye to the Binary?
Oh, my God,
it's a gender reveal party!
It's time for us
to reveal the gender of our spawn.
Are we having a glib-glorp or a blorg?
The entire universe will want to know.
We're having a glib-glorp!
Can we please say bye-bye to the binary?
Hi, I'm Jonathan Van Ness,
and I am non-binary.
I have never fit
into the gender binary my whole life.
I always felt like I was in this space
that was neither here nor there,
but maybe outside
of that space altogether.
I used to purposely stifle and hide
the feminine side of my gender expression
for fear of rejection.
I didn't want to be written off,
and I didn't want to be ridiculed
for how I present in the world.
We are inundated with messages
about gender from the time we're born
until the time we die.
Pink for girls, blue for boys.
Boys are tough,
girls are soft and flowery.
I learned from a very young age that
my gender expression was not normal.
But when I learned
about the term "non-binary"
and "gender non-conforming,"
for the first time in my life,
I thought
"That's me!"
And I'm wondering
why is it that I was 30 years old
before I even heard the term non-binary?
Has there ever been any culture that
celebrated gender non-conforming people?
When was it that our modern understanding
of the gender binary became so rigid?
I'm on a journey of learning more,
of opening my mind,
learning new perspectives.
I wanna know
about other people's experience
of their gender expression in their lives.
So strap in, honeys.
We're going for a ride.
I need to know,
can we say bye-bye to the binary?
What do you feel
when you're here in this place?
I feel a remarkable sense
of pride and resilience,
because a lot of people don't understand
that it was, like, gender non-conforming
people that made this happen,
and then a lot of sadness
because people don't understand
it was gender non-conforming
people made this happen.
Alok is a speaker, performer,
writer, activist, non-binary bad bitch.
I wouldn't be the person
that I am without Alok's friendship,
and to be able to share
this space on these streets
where so much history has taken place
is something that is not lost on me.
To the Marsha P. Johnsons and the
Sylvia Riveras who have come before us,
we wouldn't be here without you.
What most frustrates you about the way
that the gender binary manifests itself?
I think it would start that us existing
in public gets made into a problem.
-Mmm.
-That people think that this is not just
a normal Friday afternoon.
They're like, "Why do you look like that?"
That we live in a world where
it's still so unsafe and so scrutinized
and made such a spectacular incident
-to do something as simple as exist.
-Ah.
In New York City, from 1845 on,
it used to be illegal to do
-exactly what we're doing right now.
-Mmm.
There was a
masquerade law that was put into place
that made it a criminal offense
to wear the clothes of the opposite sex.
-Mmm.
-So, people used to
literally build
relationships with different bars
where they would hide their heels.
People used to have
rags in their back pocket
that they would wipe off
their makeup before the police came in.
And so the reason that people
still have so much scrutiny of us
is just because for so long
they've tried their best to disappear us.
So when we say "they,"
"how they try to disappear us,"
is that government? Like
city government, state government?
Yes, I'm saying
there's been an orchestrated attempt
to literally eradicate us.
They make it about
specific policies, about minutia,
but the organizing frame is always,
"We don't want trans
and non-binary people to exist, period."
And so what happens right now
is people will exceptionalize us
and say, "Well, you're so brave,
you're so resilient."
But why should it have
to require bravery to do something
-as simple as walking down the street?
-Right.
Why should it require bravery
to actually live life on your own terms?
We exist,
and that's not political, it's factual.
We exist, and that's natural.
-Ah.
-What is political is
making people fit into boxes
that were predetermined
hundreds of years ago.
Yes.
We have existed
for thousands of years prior
-in all different cultures
-Right.
and the politicization
and criminalization of gender expression
-is really what is new.
-Right.
What is it about non-binary
and trans people that is so threatening
to these systems of power?
We represent possibility.
We represent choice,
being able to create a life,
a way of living,
a way of loving, a way of looking
that's outside of what
we've been told that you should be.
Honey, arriving at Stonewall
on that note, I love you so much.
Thank you.
Do you ever find yourself
having conversations with or about people?
Try pronouns!
We've got every type of pronoun
you could ever need.
He, she, they, zir, xe, whatever you want.
You can buy one, buy none,
or buy as many as you want.
Do not attempt
to assume someone's pronouns.
Ask now!
Or say yours when you introduce yourself.
And with your order
of using someone's correct pronouns,
we'll throw in a side
of affirming someone's identity.
Yay!
Pronouns, so easy and simple,
it's almost like you've been using them
your whole life.
One of the biggest misconceptions
that people who are transphobic have
is that transgender people
and non-binary people are new.
What I want to know is, are there cultures
that have celebrated gender nonconformity?
What are we doing?
Tell me everything.
We are going to be weaving
some little flowers.
That's why I want to
spend time with Geo Neptune,
the first two-spirit
elected official in the State of Maine,
to find out about how their culture
celebrates gender nonconformity.
So, this is
kind of a traditional apprenticeship,
specifically among the women of my family.
Was it always
something that more women did?
So typically, the men within the families
would be the ones who
went out to harvest the materials,
but more and more in recent years,
more men have been doing it.
And now I hope that there are going
to be a lot more two-spirit basket makers.
I think a lot of people know what gender
non-conforming is, they know what, um,
non-binary is, but being two-spirit
is specific to being Native American.
Yes.
In the Wabanaki creation story,
we have, I guess,
what is called our culture hero.
His name was Gluskabe.
So when he created us,
he took an arrow from his quiver
and he fired it at the brown ash tree.
And when the brown ash tree split in half,
um, the spirit of
the brown ash tree got split too.
So he asked that
one spirit that was now two
if they wanted to be turned
into people, and they agreed.
So Gluskabe
breathed onto the tree,
and out from that brown ash tree
stepped the first Wabanaki woman
-and Wabanaki man, side-by-side.
-Oh.
And after that, there was just
a little bit of each essence left over,
so Gluskabe recombined them and sent
the first two-spirit out of the tree.
So in our tradition, we haven't
been separated from ourselves.
I love that creation story.
Everybody has a balance
of those two energies,
no matter who you are,
and so everybody needs to work
to bring those energies into
the most perfect balance for yourself.
I love this so much.
Specifically remember you saying that you
were gonna make this look a lot easier
You have to remember I've been
doing this for 27 years now.
Gosh. And the skin, she's gorge.
Thank you. It's the bear grease.
In our creation story,
we are made from this material,
so each of our baskets
is an extension of the basket maker.
So in order for me to make these flowers,
I have to take a piece
of my own little spirit
and put it in there so that it can live,
and so that's what you've done with yours.
-Oh, my gosh, Geo!
The existence of two-spirit people
within the Native American culture
is a beautiful example of people existing
outside of a rigid gender binary.
Welcome, Jonathan.
Please make your selection.
That does not compute!
Why not?
You cannot mix femme bottoms
with masculine tops.
You need a programming update.
My wearing
a dress or my wearing heels
is not what qualifies me as non-binary.
What makes me non-binary is the fact
that I have never felt aligned
with a male or female gender.
Our ideas of what is masculine
and what is feminine
has flip-flopped wildly
over the centuries.
In the 1500s, men wore high heels.
Up until the 19th century,
European children wore skirts
regardless of their gender.
Dressing boys in blue
and girls in pink didn't become mainstream
until the 1940s.
Not only is the fashion
industry powerful in terms of reinforcing
or deconstructing gender,
it's also equally as powerful
in reinforcing or deconstructing
our understandings of beauty.
Who are these clothes made for?
I need to learn more
about how fashion intersects
with our understanding
of the gender binary.
You look divine.
-Come on, spin.
This is what you do.
You just pose naked with it.
Here you go. Have a moment.
-Can we be human mannequins?
-Yeah.
I'll do it for free.
In fact, I'll pay you to let me do it.
I love it. Isn't that gorgeous?
It's this unexpected color.
Fuchsia lining, yeah.
'Cause then I think
it makes a very kind of, like,
what would "typically" be considered
a masculine fabric fun and playful.
-This is like a masculine fabric.
-Yeah.
And then this gives it like a
Something sexy for anybody that wants
to feel great when they put on a coat.
-Ready, hit it, hit it, hit it! Spinning!
-Come on, let's go! Hit it!
Focus!
Why is fashion so gendered
-in the first place?
-Yeah.
For such a long time,
I really think it started
with how people used to buy clothes,
which was mostly in a department store.
While John is
in town for his meeting,
Freda Walker and her daughter-in-law often
go on a typical feminine shopping tour.
And department
stores are very segregated
because men and
women were very segregated.
Think about all the haute couture houses.
They've been around
since the '30s and '40s,
and that-- they never change,
they never developed
a new type of retail experience.
So then that trickled into everything.
Such a strange thing.
Even around gender, right?
Women couldn't even wear pants.
There's always been a policing of how
identities are supposed
to show up in the world, right,
based on what makes other,
the masses feel comfortable.
You don't have to dress any sort
of way when you're any type of person.
I'm non-binary. I don't
owe anyone femininity, masculinity.
I'm thinking what makes me feel good?
Being a trans person,
like growing up, exploring gender
wasn't something that I was given
access to or permission at a young age.
And so I had to dress
like the boy, you know?
I remember the
first dress to myself was an
oversized t-shirt that I had,
and posing like this.
It was the kiddie carnival.
I got my face painted, and I was like
And that was the first--
I look at that picture every time,
like I could see myself.
That's when I felt most authentic
because I had makeup on for me.
I think about one of
the first times in my hometown.
I couldn't wear the dress
that I wanted to wear in public,
so we drove to this little town in the
next town over, Hannibal, Missouri,
so I could, like, just try to wear this
little mini dress and this strong wedge.
But I didn't have a wig and I couldn't
find one so I tied a scarf around my hair.
-I was giving you scarf, mini dress.
-Edith Beale.
Yes. And then I had
hose on to cover my leg hair.
-I literally got chased off the street.
I was 16 years old,
being chased by four adult men
screaming all sorts of
transphobic and homophobic epithets
to the point where I was eminently
concerned for my physical safety.
What I see now is the world saying,
"Hey, what does this mean
about me as an-- as a human,
if I'm okay with someone else being
murdered, just because they had the
audacity and the vulnerability
to be free in their gender expression?"
The violence that
non-binary, gender non-conforming,
and transgender people,
especially people of color,
face for simply
being themselves is pervasive.
Cisgender people,
I think, take so much for granted.
Being able to go into a store,
buy something that they feel good in.
And I think one thing about you,
Christian, that just inspires me so much
and I love you so much,
is that in your industry,
you have chosen to be a trailblazer.
You have chosen to be
someone who is inclusive.
I have had several experiences
where people were like,
"No, I don't wanna dress you."
Like-- It's like, "But I'll buy it."
"Can you not wear it?"
-There is rampant transphobia
-Ouch.
-in the fashion world.
-Ouch.
It just shouldn't have to be
so groundbreaking and so revolutionary
to just do your job really well
and wanna work with everyone.
I don't even know where people
wear things when they buy them.
Like I have no idea. Like where--
If you buy this, where are you
wearing it? I don't know or care.
A ball, honey!
Great, fabulous! And if you're just
wearing it to the grocery store,
even better.
I envision a world
where transmen, transwomen,
non-binary girls from
young age, boys from young age,
can look at someone
and say, "I see myself."
Yeah.
No matter their gender,
no matter their expression.
"I see myself through this person."
There's something,
because they exude liberation.
Can we exude liberation
us into like a gorgeous,
stunning, like, movie montage look?
-Yeah! Absolutely.
-Oh my God!
Get away, I'm changing!
-So stunning!
-You like?
Oh, my God, it's divine.
Fashion can invite
someone to really love themselves.
My mama would always say, you know,
"When you feel good, you look good,"
but, "No, when you look good,
you feel good."
Imagine as a trans person
who is navigating the world,
and everyone is beating down,
but they find themself in fashion,
and they like, "I know who I am."
It's like a word of affirmation.
It's a time, a moment where
they can say, "I said yes to myself."
"Eff the world. I got this."
-Mmm.
-That's the tool of fashion.
Oh, my God. I love you so much! Ahh
Gender is so much more than fashion.
I wanna know, what do other
trans and gender non-conforming
and non-binary people
experience in their lives?
Initiate Non-Binary
Power Brigade Summit 2022!
-Hi.
-How are you?
How are you?
-So nice to see you.
-Nice to see you.
-Hey babes.
-Hi, honey. So nice to see you.
-Thank you.
-Take a seat. Take a seat.
Like, don't you feel like
there's just major energy in this room.
We are all four people
who are gender non-conforming,
non-binary, two-spirit,
but I'm curious about what your
experience was like when you realized,
"Maybe the gender
binary isn't for me," or,
"I don't think I fit into this in
a way that other people fit into this"?
Uh, just hearing what you just said
right then is precisely how I feel,
just having never felt like you fit in,
and then finally,
when you have the language,
which comes from
seeing people who are like you,
it was kind of how it came about with me.
And honestly
it's still coming about every day.
Like, I'm still kind of learning myself
as gender non-conforming and non-binary
and trying to understand that I don't
need to feel any pressure to be or perform
as anything other than myself.
A lot of people don't know
the history of the term "coming out."
Actually, that we used to have
debutante balls that were queer.
This is from the 18th century on,
and it would be coming out
to meet the underground queer community.
It was linked to
being witnessed by other people,
and it was about
actually joining a collective.
-Now it's become hyper-individuated
-Mmm.
and I think when it
comes to non-binary people,
of course the only way
we're gonna find out about ourselves
is by meeting one another.
And so that's why we can begin to think
that they've designed every institution
specifically to
make us not meet each other.
And so that makes me actually
feel so much hope and possibility,
'cause we're not
supposed to be here, and we are.
But, like, speaking
from my own experience,
I made the very conscious
decision to move back home
to the reservation
in Maine before I came out,
because I just had this feeling,
it might be
a lot easier for me in the city,
I might feel less alone,
I might feel
more connected to other people,
but I knew I would be leaving
behind all of those little two-spirits
that were still growing up.
To have these youths
see a two-spirit person,
receive my spirit name,
I didn't get that until after I came out,
and the elders say it was like,
"Because the ancestors knew
you weren't ready to carry your name yet,
so you had to go through those things."
So, Niskapisuwin literally means
"Two-spirit person
stands with medicine power."
My grandmother held my hands
and looked me in the eyes and said,
"Now your name is Niskapisuwin."
And when your community
calls you by your name,
it's your community, um,
recognizing you
and embracing you for who you are.
So that was my, my queer debutante ball.
Wow.
When we don't share
our experiences with each other,
we don't know how we can be stronger,
because when we share
our experiences, we can share strength
and we can share community,
and we are stronger
together than we are apart.
And nothing
makes me feel stronger
than seeing
other non-binary people thriving.
Mauree Turner became the first openly
non-binary state lawmaker in the US
when they got elected to the
Oklahoma State Legislature in 2020.
Layshia Clarendon is the first WNBA player
that openly identifies
as trans and non-binary.
And Owen Hurcum became
the UK's first openly non-binary mayor
after being elected by the
Bangor North West Wales City Council.
The future is bright and non-binary.
I would like to hear
all three of your understandings
about how non-binary
and trans people's existence
threatens the wider people's
understanding of gender
and how gender fits into history.
One of the things that people
don't realize is that 19th century
European and US American scientists
were explicit in believing that only
white people could have the gender binary.
They would argue that the reason
that Black people, Indigenous people,
and other racialized people
across the world were "less human"
was because they were,
quote-unquote, their words, not mine,
"sexually ambiguous."
And so they would say,
as you evolve as a civilization,
you move into these
binary categories of male and female.
So homophobia and transphobia,
it's part of this larger racial project
of white supremacy,
which is trying to make white people
the ultimate civilization on Earth.
It's very apparent, specifically
in the history of colonization
of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island,
in order to take this society
that didn't have a gender binary,
it had more of a gender circle,
and get it to conform.
And the way they did that was by
removing all of the people who didn't fall
-into either of those categories.
-Mm.
So that erasure of two-spirit traditions
was very intentional.
I've been organizing in the Movement
for Black Lives since I was 17 years old.
I think that a big part of
the issue was that our humanity
as Black people in general is not
recognized by a white supremacist system,
but trans and non-binary people
are "intersectionally" impacted
by that lack of humanity.
And not to compare them, because
it's no way to compare the, the violence
of someone losing their life, you know,
but when you hear stories about
someone being shot to death
in a car in broad daylight
and no one even going to
attempt to find out who the person is,
there's a different economy
of, um, of care or-- and of attention
that Black trans
and non-binary people receive
versus Black cis men and Black cis women.
That was something that we saw very
plainly with the
national and global uprisings
for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor,
but so many of the other names were never
lifted up and never came to the fore.
So for me, I think
it's extremely important
that when we have these conversations,
we really have to bring into
the center trans and non-binary people.
But we've got to
think about it a little bit further.
Who were the people
who were most impacted?
It's people who are
poor and working-class.
It's people who were darker-skinned,
it's people who come from rural areas.
We have to think about
how can we center those
who are most
marginalized in our community.
And when we bring them-- those
who exist on the margins to the center,
I believe, all of us have the opportunity
to become a little bit more free.
There are
so many different ways that
gender expression
has been taken away from us.
I wanna protect little JVNs.
Like little JVN, like, didn't know,
and actually little JVN, like,
got hopelessly addicted to drugs,
and then all sorts of things happened
to me because of the gender binary,
because of the misogyny,
because of all these systems.
Like, it really tormented me,
and that's someone who is white,
and who had privilege,
and who had resources.
So, what about the people
who don't have white privilege?
What about the people who don't have
fuckin' resources? What about people who
are still suffering
the horrific effects, that are kids
that maybe have families
that don't support them?
Like, how can we create
a safer world for other kids
that are coming to their own realization
of their own gorgeous uniqueness
and wanna express that?
Oftentimes, I think that we need
to stop doing the work of education
and we need to start
doing the work of activation.
Giving young people the tools,
resources, skills, connections
they need to go out and soar.
My version of liberation
looks like us being happy.
When I walk down that street,
I'm Naomi Campbell, I know it, okay?
I'm-I'm strutting down the street.
I love to dress up.
I love to go to luxurious places.
I believe that
we deserve full lives of abundance.
We contribute so much value
and brilliance to the world around us,
and we deserve to revel in that luxury
and that happiness and joy
that we bring into the world.
I think the only
thing that I'll add, is at one point,
non-binary people were so integral
to the cultures of indigenous people, um,
because it was our responsibility
to learn all of the gender norms
and all of the gender roles
and help the next generation
of children learn them as well.
While there were the hunters out hunting,
and while gatherers were gathering,
and while caretakers were caretaking,
it was the two-spirits teaching
all of the children how to do that.
Hmm.
I mean, I really dream of a world
where not only do non-binary people
and, and, and two-spirit people
not have to hide ourselves,
but we are that much
an integral part of our societies again.
You know, we've been
having this conversation about how
these gender norms are recent,
and what that actually fills me with
is so much hope and possibility.
So a lot of times people say,
"Alok, how do we get
the world to move beyond a binary?"
And I say, "My world
is already beyond the binary,
and every day I'm living it."
It's about community. It's about
interdependence. It's about poetry.
-Hmm.
-And I think that we're living poems.
-Literally can't talk.
Visibility is important,
but what visibility does not do
is extinguish transphobia everywhere.
This toxic masculinity,
this misogynistic culture
that we're in that says
men do this and women do that
does not honor
the complexity of being a human
who has experienced
a multitude of situations
and could never water all of that down
to exactly one of two things,
male and female.
My dream for
the future is that no one's gender
identity or gender expression
prevents them from achieving
what they wanna achieve in their lives.
Take this out
and then I'll just take this off.
We can
all have a unique experience
of the gender spectrum,
and we all have the right and the ability
to inhabit that spectrum
in a way that feels authentic
and natural to us.
All right, I think we're done.
Let's press reboot.
We can now
say bye-bye to the binary.
It's the gender spectrum we celebrate.
Honey, yes!
My job here is done,
and your non-binary code is fixed.
Night-night.
That is sensational.
it's a gender reveal party!
It's time for us
to reveal the gender of our spawn.
Are we having a glib-glorp or a blorg?
The entire universe will want to know.
We're having a glib-glorp!
Can we please say bye-bye to the binary?
Hi, I'm Jonathan Van Ness,
and I am non-binary.
I have never fit
into the gender binary my whole life.
I always felt like I was in this space
that was neither here nor there,
but maybe outside
of that space altogether.
I used to purposely stifle and hide
the feminine side of my gender expression
for fear of rejection.
I didn't want to be written off,
and I didn't want to be ridiculed
for how I present in the world.
We are inundated with messages
about gender from the time we're born
until the time we die.
Pink for girls, blue for boys.
Boys are tough,
girls are soft and flowery.
I learned from a very young age that
my gender expression was not normal.
But when I learned
about the term "non-binary"
and "gender non-conforming,"
for the first time in my life,
I thought
"That's me!"
And I'm wondering
why is it that I was 30 years old
before I even heard the term non-binary?
Has there ever been any culture that
celebrated gender non-conforming people?
When was it that our modern understanding
of the gender binary became so rigid?
I'm on a journey of learning more,
of opening my mind,
learning new perspectives.
I wanna know
about other people's experience
of their gender expression in their lives.
So strap in, honeys.
We're going for a ride.
I need to know,
can we say bye-bye to the binary?
What do you feel
when you're here in this place?
I feel a remarkable sense
of pride and resilience,
because a lot of people don't understand
that it was, like, gender non-conforming
people that made this happen,
and then a lot of sadness
because people don't understand
it was gender non-conforming
people made this happen.
Alok is a speaker, performer,
writer, activist, non-binary bad bitch.
I wouldn't be the person
that I am without Alok's friendship,
and to be able to share
this space on these streets
where so much history has taken place
is something that is not lost on me.
To the Marsha P. Johnsons and the
Sylvia Riveras who have come before us,
we wouldn't be here without you.
What most frustrates you about the way
that the gender binary manifests itself?
I think it would start that us existing
in public gets made into a problem.
-Mmm.
-That people think that this is not just
a normal Friday afternoon.
They're like, "Why do you look like that?"
That we live in a world where
it's still so unsafe and so scrutinized
and made such a spectacular incident
-to do something as simple as exist.
-Ah.
In New York City, from 1845 on,
it used to be illegal to do
-exactly what we're doing right now.
-Mmm.
There was a
masquerade law that was put into place
that made it a criminal offense
to wear the clothes of the opposite sex.
-Mmm.
-So, people used to
literally build
relationships with different bars
where they would hide their heels.
People used to have
rags in their back pocket
that they would wipe off
their makeup before the police came in.
And so the reason that people
still have so much scrutiny of us
is just because for so long
they've tried their best to disappear us.
So when we say "they,"
"how they try to disappear us,"
is that government? Like
city government, state government?
Yes, I'm saying
there's been an orchestrated attempt
to literally eradicate us.
They make it about
specific policies, about minutia,
but the organizing frame is always,
"We don't want trans
and non-binary people to exist, period."
And so what happens right now
is people will exceptionalize us
and say, "Well, you're so brave,
you're so resilient."
But why should it have
to require bravery to do something
-as simple as walking down the street?
-Right.
Why should it require bravery
to actually live life on your own terms?
We exist,
and that's not political, it's factual.
We exist, and that's natural.
-Ah.
-What is political is
making people fit into boxes
that were predetermined
hundreds of years ago.
Yes.
We have existed
for thousands of years prior
-in all different cultures
-Right.
and the politicization
and criminalization of gender expression
-is really what is new.
-Right.
What is it about non-binary
and trans people that is so threatening
to these systems of power?
We represent possibility.
We represent choice,
being able to create a life,
a way of living,
a way of loving, a way of looking
that's outside of what
we've been told that you should be.
Honey, arriving at Stonewall
on that note, I love you so much.
Thank you.
Do you ever find yourself
having conversations with or about people?
Try pronouns!
We've got every type of pronoun
you could ever need.
He, she, they, zir, xe, whatever you want.
You can buy one, buy none,
or buy as many as you want.
Do not attempt
to assume someone's pronouns.
Ask now!
Or say yours when you introduce yourself.
And with your order
of using someone's correct pronouns,
we'll throw in a side
of affirming someone's identity.
Yay!
Pronouns, so easy and simple,
it's almost like you've been using them
your whole life.
One of the biggest misconceptions
that people who are transphobic have
is that transgender people
and non-binary people are new.
What I want to know is, are there cultures
that have celebrated gender nonconformity?
What are we doing?
Tell me everything.
We are going to be weaving
some little flowers.
That's why I want to
spend time with Geo Neptune,
the first two-spirit
elected official in the State of Maine,
to find out about how their culture
celebrates gender nonconformity.
So, this is
kind of a traditional apprenticeship,
specifically among the women of my family.
Was it always
something that more women did?
So typically, the men within the families
would be the ones who
went out to harvest the materials,
but more and more in recent years,
more men have been doing it.
And now I hope that there are going
to be a lot more two-spirit basket makers.
I think a lot of people know what gender
non-conforming is, they know what, um,
non-binary is, but being two-spirit
is specific to being Native American.
Yes.
In the Wabanaki creation story,
we have, I guess,
what is called our culture hero.
His name was Gluskabe.
So when he created us,
he took an arrow from his quiver
and he fired it at the brown ash tree.
And when the brown ash tree split in half,
um, the spirit of
the brown ash tree got split too.
So he asked that
one spirit that was now two
if they wanted to be turned
into people, and they agreed.
So Gluskabe
breathed onto the tree,
and out from that brown ash tree
stepped the first Wabanaki woman
-and Wabanaki man, side-by-side.
-Oh.
And after that, there was just
a little bit of each essence left over,
so Gluskabe recombined them and sent
the first two-spirit out of the tree.
So in our tradition, we haven't
been separated from ourselves.
I love that creation story.
Everybody has a balance
of those two energies,
no matter who you are,
and so everybody needs to work
to bring those energies into
the most perfect balance for yourself.
I love this so much.
Specifically remember you saying that you
were gonna make this look a lot easier
You have to remember I've been
doing this for 27 years now.
Gosh. And the skin, she's gorge.
Thank you. It's the bear grease.
In our creation story,
we are made from this material,
so each of our baskets
is an extension of the basket maker.
So in order for me to make these flowers,
I have to take a piece
of my own little spirit
and put it in there so that it can live,
and so that's what you've done with yours.
-Oh, my gosh, Geo!
The existence of two-spirit people
within the Native American culture
is a beautiful example of people existing
outside of a rigid gender binary.
Welcome, Jonathan.
Please make your selection.
That does not compute!
Why not?
You cannot mix femme bottoms
with masculine tops.
You need a programming update.
My wearing
a dress or my wearing heels
is not what qualifies me as non-binary.
What makes me non-binary is the fact
that I have never felt aligned
with a male or female gender.
Our ideas of what is masculine
and what is feminine
has flip-flopped wildly
over the centuries.
In the 1500s, men wore high heels.
Up until the 19th century,
European children wore skirts
regardless of their gender.
Dressing boys in blue
and girls in pink didn't become mainstream
until the 1940s.
Not only is the fashion
industry powerful in terms of reinforcing
or deconstructing gender,
it's also equally as powerful
in reinforcing or deconstructing
our understandings of beauty.
Who are these clothes made for?
I need to learn more
about how fashion intersects
with our understanding
of the gender binary.
You look divine.
-Come on, spin.
This is what you do.
You just pose naked with it.
Here you go. Have a moment.
-Can we be human mannequins?
-Yeah.
I'll do it for free.
In fact, I'll pay you to let me do it.
I love it. Isn't that gorgeous?
It's this unexpected color.
Fuchsia lining, yeah.
'Cause then I think
it makes a very kind of, like,
what would "typically" be considered
a masculine fabric fun and playful.
-This is like a masculine fabric.
-Yeah.
And then this gives it like a
Something sexy for anybody that wants
to feel great when they put on a coat.
-Ready, hit it, hit it, hit it! Spinning!
-Come on, let's go! Hit it!
Focus!
Why is fashion so gendered
-in the first place?
-Yeah.
For such a long time,
I really think it started
with how people used to buy clothes,
which was mostly in a department store.
While John is
in town for his meeting,
Freda Walker and her daughter-in-law often
go on a typical feminine shopping tour.
And department
stores are very segregated
because men and
women were very segregated.
Think about all the haute couture houses.
They've been around
since the '30s and '40s,
and that-- they never change,
they never developed
a new type of retail experience.
So then that trickled into everything.
Such a strange thing.
Even around gender, right?
Women couldn't even wear pants.
There's always been a policing of how
identities are supposed
to show up in the world, right,
based on what makes other,
the masses feel comfortable.
You don't have to dress any sort
of way when you're any type of person.
I'm non-binary. I don't
owe anyone femininity, masculinity.
I'm thinking what makes me feel good?
Being a trans person,
like growing up, exploring gender
wasn't something that I was given
access to or permission at a young age.
And so I had to dress
like the boy, you know?
I remember the
first dress to myself was an
oversized t-shirt that I had,
and posing like this.
It was the kiddie carnival.
I got my face painted, and I was like
And that was the first--
I look at that picture every time,
like I could see myself.
That's when I felt most authentic
because I had makeup on for me.
I think about one of
the first times in my hometown.
I couldn't wear the dress
that I wanted to wear in public,
so we drove to this little town in the
next town over, Hannibal, Missouri,
so I could, like, just try to wear this
little mini dress and this strong wedge.
But I didn't have a wig and I couldn't
find one so I tied a scarf around my hair.
-I was giving you scarf, mini dress.
-Edith Beale.
Yes. And then I had
hose on to cover my leg hair.
-I literally got chased off the street.
I was 16 years old,
being chased by four adult men
screaming all sorts of
transphobic and homophobic epithets
to the point where I was eminently
concerned for my physical safety.
What I see now is the world saying,
"Hey, what does this mean
about me as an-- as a human,
if I'm okay with someone else being
murdered, just because they had the
audacity and the vulnerability
to be free in their gender expression?"
The violence that
non-binary, gender non-conforming,
and transgender people,
especially people of color,
face for simply
being themselves is pervasive.
Cisgender people,
I think, take so much for granted.
Being able to go into a store,
buy something that they feel good in.
And I think one thing about you,
Christian, that just inspires me so much
and I love you so much,
is that in your industry,
you have chosen to be a trailblazer.
You have chosen to be
someone who is inclusive.
I have had several experiences
where people were like,
"No, I don't wanna dress you."
Like-- It's like, "But I'll buy it."
"Can you not wear it?"
-There is rampant transphobia
-Ouch.
-in the fashion world.
-Ouch.
It just shouldn't have to be
so groundbreaking and so revolutionary
to just do your job really well
and wanna work with everyone.
I don't even know where people
wear things when they buy them.
Like I have no idea. Like where--
If you buy this, where are you
wearing it? I don't know or care.
A ball, honey!
Great, fabulous! And if you're just
wearing it to the grocery store,
even better.
I envision a world
where transmen, transwomen,
non-binary girls from
young age, boys from young age,
can look at someone
and say, "I see myself."
Yeah.
No matter their gender,
no matter their expression.
"I see myself through this person."
There's something,
because they exude liberation.
Can we exude liberation
us into like a gorgeous,
stunning, like, movie montage look?
-Yeah! Absolutely.
-Oh my God!
Get away, I'm changing!
-So stunning!
-You like?
Oh, my God, it's divine.
Fashion can invite
someone to really love themselves.
My mama would always say, you know,
"When you feel good, you look good,"
but, "No, when you look good,
you feel good."
Imagine as a trans person
who is navigating the world,
and everyone is beating down,
but they find themself in fashion,
and they like, "I know who I am."
It's like a word of affirmation.
It's a time, a moment where
they can say, "I said yes to myself."
"Eff the world. I got this."
-Mmm.
-That's the tool of fashion.
Oh, my God. I love you so much! Ahh
Gender is so much more than fashion.
I wanna know, what do other
trans and gender non-conforming
and non-binary people
experience in their lives?
Initiate Non-Binary
Power Brigade Summit 2022!
-Hi.
-How are you?
How are you?
-So nice to see you.
-Nice to see you.
-Hey babes.
-Hi, honey. So nice to see you.
-Thank you.
-Take a seat. Take a seat.
Like, don't you feel like
there's just major energy in this room.
We are all four people
who are gender non-conforming,
non-binary, two-spirit,
but I'm curious about what your
experience was like when you realized,
"Maybe the gender
binary isn't for me," or,
"I don't think I fit into this in
a way that other people fit into this"?
Uh, just hearing what you just said
right then is precisely how I feel,
just having never felt like you fit in,
and then finally,
when you have the language,
which comes from
seeing people who are like you,
it was kind of how it came about with me.
And honestly
it's still coming about every day.
Like, I'm still kind of learning myself
as gender non-conforming and non-binary
and trying to understand that I don't
need to feel any pressure to be or perform
as anything other than myself.
A lot of people don't know
the history of the term "coming out."
Actually, that we used to have
debutante balls that were queer.
This is from the 18th century on,
and it would be coming out
to meet the underground queer community.
It was linked to
being witnessed by other people,
and it was about
actually joining a collective.
-Now it's become hyper-individuated
-Mmm.
and I think when it
comes to non-binary people,
of course the only way
we're gonna find out about ourselves
is by meeting one another.
And so that's why we can begin to think
that they've designed every institution
specifically to
make us not meet each other.
And so that makes me actually
feel so much hope and possibility,
'cause we're not
supposed to be here, and we are.
But, like, speaking
from my own experience,
I made the very conscious
decision to move back home
to the reservation
in Maine before I came out,
because I just had this feeling,
it might be
a lot easier for me in the city,
I might feel less alone,
I might feel
more connected to other people,
but I knew I would be leaving
behind all of those little two-spirits
that were still growing up.
To have these youths
see a two-spirit person,
receive my spirit name,
I didn't get that until after I came out,
and the elders say it was like,
"Because the ancestors knew
you weren't ready to carry your name yet,
so you had to go through those things."
So, Niskapisuwin literally means
"Two-spirit person
stands with medicine power."
My grandmother held my hands
and looked me in the eyes and said,
"Now your name is Niskapisuwin."
And when your community
calls you by your name,
it's your community, um,
recognizing you
and embracing you for who you are.
So that was my, my queer debutante ball.
Wow.
When we don't share
our experiences with each other,
we don't know how we can be stronger,
because when we share
our experiences, we can share strength
and we can share community,
and we are stronger
together than we are apart.
And nothing
makes me feel stronger
than seeing
other non-binary people thriving.
Mauree Turner became the first openly
non-binary state lawmaker in the US
when they got elected to the
Oklahoma State Legislature in 2020.
Layshia Clarendon is the first WNBA player
that openly identifies
as trans and non-binary.
And Owen Hurcum became
the UK's first openly non-binary mayor
after being elected by the
Bangor North West Wales City Council.
The future is bright and non-binary.
I would like to hear
all three of your understandings
about how non-binary
and trans people's existence
threatens the wider people's
understanding of gender
and how gender fits into history.
One of the things that people
don't realize is that 19th century
European and US American scientists
were explicit in believing that only
white people could have the gender binary.
They would argue that the reason
that Black people, Indigenous people,
and other racialized people
across the world were "less human"
was because they were,
quote-unquote, their words, not mine,
"sexually ambiguous."
And so they would say,
as you evolve as a civilization,
you move into these
binary categories of male and female.
So homophobia and transphobia,
it's part of this larger racial project
of white supremacy,
which is trying to make white people
the ultimate civilization on Earth.
It's very apparent, specifically
in the history of colonization
of Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island,
in order to take this society
that didn't have a gender binary,
it had more of a gender circle,
and get it to conform.
And the way they did that was by
removing all of the people who didn't fall
-into either of those categories.
-Mm.
So that erasure of two-spirit traditions
was very intentional.
I've been organizing in the Movement
for Black Lives since I was 17 years old.
I think that a big part of
the issue was that our humanity
as Black people in general is not
recognized by a white supremacist system,
but trans and non-binary people
are "intersectionally" impacted
by that lack of humanity.
And not to compare them, because
it's no way to compare the, the violence
of someone losing their life, you know,
but when you hear stories about
someone being shot to death
in a car in broad daylight
and no one even going to
attempt to find out who the person is,
there's a different economy
of, um, of care or-- and of attention
that Black trans
and non-binary people receive
versus Black cis men and Black cis women.
That was something that we saw very
plainly with the
national and global uprisings
for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor,
but so many of the other names were never
lifted up and never came to the fore.
So for me, I think
it's extremely important
that when we have these conversations,
we really have to bring into
the center trans and non-binary people.
But we've got to
think about it a little bit further.
Who were the people
who were most impacted?
It's people who are
poor and working-class.
It's people who were darker-skinned,
it's people who come from rural areas.
We have to think about
how can we center those
who are most
marginalized in our community.
And when we bring them-- those
who exist on the margins to the center,
I believe, all of us have the opportunity
to become a little bit more free.
There are
so many different ways that
gender expression
has been taken away from us.
I wanna protect little JVNs.
Like little JVN, like, didn't know,
and actually little JVN, like,
got hopelessly addicted to drugs,
and then all sorts of things happened
to me because of the gender binary,
because of the misogyny,
because of all these systems.
Like, it really tormented me,
and that's someone who is white,
and who had privilege,
and who had resources.
So, what about the people
who don't have white privilege?
What about the people who don't have
fuckin' resources? What about people who
are still suffering
the horrific effects, that are kids
that maybe have families
that don't support them?
Like, how can we create
a safer world for other kids
that are coming to their own realization
of their own gorgeous uniqueness
and wanna express that?
Oftentimes, I think that we need
to stop doing the work of education
and we need to start
doing the work of activation.
Giving young people the tools,
resources, skills, connections
they need to go out and soar.
My version of liberation
looks like us being happy.
When I walk down that street,
I'm Naomi Campbell, I know it, okay?
I'm-I'm strutting down the street.
I love to dress up.
I love to go to luxurious places.
I believe that
we deserve full lives of abundance.
We contribute so much value
and brilliance to the world around us,
and we deserve to revel in that luxury
and that happiness and joy
that we bring into the world.
I think the only
thing that I'll add, is at one point,
non-binary people were so integral
to the cultures of indigenous people, um,
because it was our responsibility
to learn all of the gender norms
and all of the gender roles
and help the next generation
of children learn them as well.
While there were the hunters out hunting,
and while gatherers were gathering,
and while caretakers were caretaking,
it was the two-spirits teaching
all of the children how to do that.
Hmm.
I mean, I really dream of a world
where not only do non-binary people
and, and, and two-spirit people
not have to hide ourselves,
but we are that much
an integral part of our societies again.
You know, we've been
having this conversation about how
these gender norms are recent,
and what that actually fills me with
is so much hope and possibility.
So a lot of times people say,
"Alok, how do we get
the world to move beyond a binary?"
And I say, "My world
is already beyond the binary,
and every day I'm living it."
It's about community. It's about
interdependence. It's about poetry.
-Hmm.
-And I think that we're living poems.
-Literally can't talk.
Visibility is important,
but what visibility does not do
is extinguish transphobia everywhere.
This toxic masculinity,
this misogynistic culture
that we're in that says
men do this and women do that
does not honor
the complexity of being a human
who has experienced
a multitude of situations
and could never water all of that down
to exactly one of two things,
male and female.
My dream for
the future is that no one's gender
identity or gender expression
prevents them from achieving
what they wanna achieve in their lives.
Take this out
and then I'll just take this off.
We can
all have a unique experience
of the gender spectrum,
and we all have the right and the ability
to inhabit that spectrum
in a way that feels authentic
and natural to us.
All right, I think we're done.
Let's press reboot.
We can now
say bye-bye to the binary.
It's the gender spectrum we celebrate.
Honey, yes!
My job here is done,
and your non-binary code is fixed.
Night-night.
That is sensational.