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Gender And Gender : A Man 's Sport

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Be pretty, handsome, but nothing in between. For a man, play a man’s sport like football or basketball. Then for the ladies, most people would prefer that they don’t play those sports, but what can be expected when they grew up with all males? In the collaborative book Gender Failure by Ivan Cayote and Rae Spoon, who have lived as woman but feel as if they are meant to be males, they talk about how they failed their roles as both females and males. In the course of history people have failed the gender binary, failed to see how transgender people live, and even today what the transgender community still faces today.
What is a gender binary? Gender binary is where a person is classified by their sex and gender into two very distinct, opposite and disconnected forms of feminine and masculine. The gender binary is what most people feel that they need to fit into. For example, for a female is expected to act a certain way and “be a lady”, and males are expected to be tough and not show any emotion. In the book Gender Failure Rae Spoon talks about how he did not fit the gender binary of being a female and used the example of how his mother would ensure that he sat like a lady. Rae says “The sermon starts and we sit up straight with our hands in our laps, trying to concentrate on staring straight ahead. After fifteen minutes I’m like a cowboy straddling a fence.” (page 45) Rae had stated before that he was always told about chores were to be done by the girls in the family. Rae

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