Gender Isn’t a Problem to Solve

The political arena in America has more in common with the failed spectacle of the Arena Football League than with the serious business of running government. So trust me when I say - I’m not here to contend with your belief system around who should and should not be in power. That’s for a political science geek, I’m a psychology geek.

But I am writing about power. 

Power thrives in the otherwise sick soil of grandiosity and narcissism.

Narcissism feeds on rigidity. It leaves no room for nuance, for contradiction, for anyone else's experience. That’s how we arrive at the grotesque notion that Transwomen are just men in dresses, or that Transmen are failed dykes… or whatever the hate-speech catch of the day is.

Narcissists have no room for anything other than their own impressions, senses of themselves - they are rigid, and they are terrified, and they certainly make interesting patients.

Let’s touch some grass, and sink into our human roots for a moment:

Banana Slugs: No hierarchy, no gods, no masters

Banana slugs are hermaphroditic. Each slug possesses both male and female reproductive organs. When two slugs mate, both can fertilize and be fertilized, often simultaneously.

Willow Trees: Gender is seasonal

Some willow species can switch between producing male and female flowers from year to year. They're known as labile in sex expression - meaning gendered traits aren’t fixed, even within the same organism. For willow trees gender is not a core identity, but a fluid role.

Ancient Human Cultures: Gender non-conforming gods

The goddess Inanna was worshipped in ancient Mesopotamia with priests who were assigned male at birth but lived as women - early examples of institutionalized gender fluidity within religious systems. Divinity made space for complexity. Gender was mystical, not medical.

How can you argue with nature? Human nature? The nature of the gods? 

You could try to of course. Millions do. An army of narcissists shaking their terrified fists from their porches saying, “There’s only two genders!”, isn’t just pathetic, it’s inaccurate. 

There are not only two genders. 

There is only one reality - and that reality contains multitudes.