Life Isn't Binary

June 3, 2019
Therapists Barker and Iantaffi (How to Understand Your Gender), who both identify as nonbinary, zoom out from the realm of sex and gender to binaries like “normal/abnormal,” “nature/nurture,” “able/disabled,” “mind/body,” and so on, to consider how “they frequently limit our understanding and our ways of relating to ourselves and each other.” Their discussion of sexuality covers bisexuality, pansexuality, and asexuality, and breaks down the differences between sexual identity, behavior, and attraction. Discussing relationships, they introduce the idea of replacing binary thinking with “spectrums,” pointing out that the “us/them divide” is “essentially at the heart of every conflict and war.” In their musings on physical bodies, each author delves into their personal experience, touching on intersectionality, a social model that focuses on how “interlocking systems of power impact us through patterns of privilege and oppression.” In writing about emotions, the authors explore the madness/sanity and positive/negative feelings binaries and the impact of trauma. The authors go to great lengths to make their language and framing inclusive; each chapter features “slow down pages” that invite the reader to “pause and tune in to yourself.” Barker and Iantaffi’s feel-good approach will reassure readers questioning their gender identities and expand any reader’s philosophical horizons.