AFAB and Non-Binary

Here’s What That Means

First it’s important to realize one key point that underlies all these complicated terms you might find us “special snowflake” millennials using: Biological Sex =/= Gender. Biological sex, as implied by the term, is tied to a person’s biology, and is thought about in two basic ways: on the chromosomal level of XX vs XY and on the anatomical level where a determination is made based on a person’s genitals. The distinction between chromosomes and anatomy is important because as science has progressed, we’ve come to realize that having two X chromosomes does not necessarily mean that a baby will be born with a vagina, and having XY chromosomes does not necessarily mean that a baby will be born with a penis. As the World Health Organization phrases it, “there is a range of chromosome complements, hormone balances, and phenotypic variations that determine sex”. Determination vs. Differentiation.

Instead of speaking of biological sex, many trans and nonbinary people (myself included) feel that it is more accurate to speak of assigned sex. In terms of gender, I’m neither a man nor a woman, but if it’s necessary to discuss biology, the appropriate term for me is AFAB, which stands for Assigned Female At Birth. The binary opposite to this is of course AMAB, meaning Assigned Male At Birth.

The assignment at birth is of course tied to genitalia, but this does not result in the clear binary divisions that people seem to crave so much. It’s estimated that as many as 1 in 100 Americans are Intersex. This happens when either the chromosomes arrange themselves someway other than XX vs XY, when a newborn’s genitalia are ambiguous, when genitalia appear nonambiguous but don’t match the hormones released during puberty, when both male and female biology appear in some way, etc.

What is Non-Binary?

Lol, what is gender?

If your answer is any form of male/female, man/woman, girl/boy etc, I can’t answer the original question without taking a step further back to discuss what gender is at all.

I’ve employed the help of every millenial’s favorite science teacher: Bill Nye the Science Guy. If you haven’t yet, I suggest you take a moment to watch his new Netflix Show Bill Nye Saves the World. The show in general is interesting and informative, but please watch Season one episode nine in particular. As somebody who identifies as a nonbinary dyke, this show was incredibly validating for me, and can help explain what I’m talking about here as I deconstruct everything you were ever taught about Gender.

In Bill Nye Saves the World 1.9, Bill Nye uses his “smoking hot abacus of sex” to break down these complex and interrelated aspects of identity into four categories: Sex, Gender, Attraction, and Expression. To understand what I say when I call myself a nonbinary dyke, I find it convenient to use this abacus of sex as a starting point.

The short version is this: sex and gender are different. Sex itself is less binary than we like to think due to the realities of Intersex people, and gender is so much more complex because it’s about the sociological relationships between people and the world around them. The gender binary is what we call the assumption that there are only two options, but those of us who identify as non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, etc, reject this binary that society has tried to trap us in.

I am The Gracetopher, my preferred pronouns are they/them, and when it comes to the topic of gender, you can your boots you haven’t heard the last from me yet.

 

Pacific Crest Trail

Backpacking

It’s just what my family did. My parents went backpacking on their honeymoon, and when I came along they weren’t about to do something as silly as wait for me to be able to walk by myself before getting on the trail again. I was three the first time I hiked a substantial portion on my own – 7 miles up Mt. Hood to Paradise Park, carrying my own little backpack (which contained nothing more than my sleeping bag).

Dreams

I’ve wanted to hike the PCT for as long as I can remember. I met a couple of through hikers the summer between high school and college, and they were instantly my heroes. That was going to be me, once I was done with college and had the freedom to take five months out of my life for this. I almost did a portion of the trail the summer of ’14, but I got a job at the Portland Japanese Garden instead. In some ways I was relieved because I wanted to do the whole thing all at once anyways.

Quarter of a Century

I learned that the PCT had been officially completed in 1993, the same year that I was born. From this came the idea that I’d hike the trail in 2018 to celebrate both mine and the trail’s 25th birthday at the same time. I lived frugally (as I always have), and I saved up every penny I could for the coming adventure. I biked and I ran and I hiked; I would be prepared for this trail.

Plans

Nothing goes according to plan. Ever.

The Roof

January 1, 2017. Being me at 23 wasn’t easy; I’d already nearly died in September after spending all summer dizzy because of weird ear issues. Then less than 24 hours into 2017 I fell off of a roof and broke my back. In case you wondered, those medical bills are not cheap. All of the money I’d worked so hard and so long to save…. I’m glad I had it to sustain me in 2017, but now here we are. It’s 2018, I still want to hike the PCT, but I can’t afford any of the fancy gear I’d hoped to buy on top of a plane ticket down to the border with Mexico and the cost of mailing myself the food and other supplies I’ll need along the way.

Not to mention, I broke my back. It healed remarkably fast and remarkably well, but L1 and L2 are weird shaped and missing 25% and 30% of their original height forever. A year ago today I wasn’t allowed to lift more than 10 pounds, and while that restriction has lifted, I do still have to be much more careful about carrying heavy things than I ever had to in the past.

Solution

DIY, minimalist backpacking, and upping the intensity of my Physical Therapy exercises. I’m borrowing a friend’s copy of Ray Jardine’s Beyond Backpacking, and I’m going to make this work some way some how. Because my feet are itching, so it’s time to scratch that itch on a 2,650 mile long trek.

After all, what better way to celebrate the fact that I beat the odds so spectacularly? I broke my back at 23, but I envision beginning year 25 of life stronger than ever. Picture the Gracetopher: April 15, 2018, officially a quarter of a century old, standing on the border with Mexico, broke-back kid with a backpack anyways. Hiking northward towards Canada.

Comedy Reviews: Emily Heller

She pokes fun of herself for being predictable, but in fact she’s anything but. She’ll take you in a direction you think you understand, but then take a hard left turn into impaling an orca on an 800-mile-an-hour runaway train car directed by a ghost-toilet, and that’s where the comedic genius comes from.

In case you couldn’t tell from the reference to dead whales and haunted toilet train cars, she begins with a bang by addressing the current political situation. Pundits galore have remarked on how great it must be to be a comic right now, but while there is of course plenty of material to fuel the Trevor Noahs and Samantha Bee’s of the world, that material is in fact nightmare fuel for the rest of us. Jokes are great for lightening the mood when you’re momentarily stuck underground on public transit, but the political landscape we find ourselves in is far more terrifying than that. Heller’s tactful sidestep into instead describing exactly how terrifying things are through a New York City subway metaphor was both the highlight of the night and the best articulation of my own terror I’ve heard since the election. I watched her set twice in a row and laughed just as hard the second time as the first.

Having cleansed the audience’s palates in such a spectacular way, Heller abruptly announces that that’s why she will not be doing any more political jokes and moves on to talk about how predictable she is. She’d made it clear from the beginning that the entire point of that first narrative was to demonstrate why she’s not telling political jokes, but it was so engrossing that I couldn’t have predicted that we’d ever leave it.

This is the mastery of Emily Heller: she presents us with topics we might expect from a comedian in general like politics and therapy as well as topics we might expect from someone like her in particular such as boyfriends, online dating, body image, and vegetarianism, but she masterfully subverts our expectations at every turn. We’re used to hearing people go on about the noble reasons they choose vegetarianism, but from Emily Heller we get possibly the least dignified answer possible. We’re used to a society that tells us that women can only talk about their struggles with shame and attempts to lose weight when the subject of body image comes up, but Heller completely subverts that expectation. As a woman-perceived person who has myself struggled with body shame in the past, Heller’s assertion that she has no body shame at all (because her profession requires her to have no shame period) felt like a breath of fresh air.

If you ever have a chance to see Emily Heller live, I urge you to take it. Her comedy is a gift in and of itself, but she also has a physical gift to give her audiences. If she doesn’t happen to be touring through your city however, don’t worry, last night’s performance was recorded. Stay tuned because her new album will be out soon. In the meantime, her 2015 album “Good For Her,” is already available on Kill Rock Stars.