Gender Fluidity

Written By: Amanda Swisher, LPC

First things first: What does it mean to be gender fluid? For many, “gender fluid” is a new term and raises a lot of questions amid the already multitudinous questions surrounding gender identity. For a very long time, the only term that was really presented and deemed “normal” was what we call cisgender: when a person’s gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Gender fluidity refers to a change in how an individual chooses to express their gender, or how they identify their gender, or both. 

The Age of Sexual Fluidity 

In the past, research regarding sexual orientation and gender identity has been woefully limited. For the general public, these things were seen as a fixed part of identity, and what research there was utilized mostly white, cisgendered individuals, making those studies less generalizable for the population as a whole. 

The reality is, the more we study sexual orientation and gender identity, the more we’re realizing that these things are, in fact, not a fixed part of identity and actually have the capacity to change over time. This information has the potential to make a lot of people uncomfortable or even angry. It has already created dissent regarding sexual, reproductive, and clinical healthcare, with policies having been enacted to restrict those who are seen as being a part of the sexual minority. Regardless of this, the research on the subject continues to move forward, and its findings show that changes in sexual and gender orientation across the lifespan are a lot more common than we think. 

Gender Fluidity and Youth

There has been a significant rise in the number of youths who are referred for gender identity concerns within the last five years, and it has left a lot of people with a lot of questions. Why are so many young people identifying as gender fluid? And why now? 

Honestly? This rise in young people who are beginning to question their identity and orientation openly is because it has become much more socially acceptable to talk about it. Just because we’re seeing a spike at the moment doesn’t mean that the phenomenon didn’t exist previously. They just weren’t talking about or calling attention to it. 

Gender identity typically begins early in childhood, around the age of two or three. At this time, toddlers are looking to their environment and their social/familial circle for what is appropriate for them to be doing, saying, or acting. Evolutionarily speaking, this is a protective mechanism to ensure that they will continue to be cared for. But this means that their personality and traits are going to be heavily influenced by what is being portrayed as the norm at that time. 

For example, let’s say you are a child living in a home that firmly believes that gender is nothing but binary, and any deviation from heteronormative culture is unacceptable. What about the people who live in your town? They believe that boys should look “like boys” and girls should “look like girls”. Let’s also say that you are living in a time and in a society that agrees with these statements. Are you really going to be willing to go against that belief at a young age? Even in your teenage years, would you be willing to disagree and face ostracization when everyone is telling you that it’s wrong? 

Spoiler alert: the answer is probably not. In looking at our society now, we have begun to cultivate the idea that it is actually okay to go against these “norms.” In effect, with the majority beginning to have more of an open mind to these variances, we are starting to shift what is considered the norm for our society. As a result, we have created many more safe spaces for our youth to feel like they can come forward and ask questions and explore their identity for themselves. With more spaces to be able to accomplish these things, the fear of being cast out from society diminishes. 

Gender Fluidity Then and Now 

Often, the statement can be heard, “Why is this suddenly happening? This didn’t exist 30 years ago!” A number of the population truly believes that gender and sexual identity concerns didn’t exist until this new generation showed up with all their new ideas! But we know that isn’t the case. Individuals identifying as anything other than cisgender have existed throughout history, with multiple sources validating this consistency. So what’s changed that so many can feel that this is so new? 

The difference lies in the sociocultural environment in which we live in our country. The majority decides what is normal and acceptable within our world. In the 50s, this meant that you could be denied a job, or actually thrown in jail for criminal behavior, if you admitted that you were homosexual, transgender, literally anything other than a heterosexual who firmly KNEW that they were the same gender that they were born with. These “behaviors” were deviant and needed to be corrected to reflect normal society. They were even listed as mental health disorders within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of that time and had to be treated as such. 

As more research emerged regarding the ever-changing nature of gender and sexual identity across species and across cultures, the American Psychiatric Association finally removed homosexuality as a mental health diagnosis. Attempting to treat by changing an individual’s sexual orientation was deemed unethical, not that there weren’t those who tried,. From the 70s to the 90s this opened up a whole new conversation regarding what it meant to be a LGBTQIA individual. 

Unfortunately, the damage of labeling these individuals as deviant and in need of psychiatric care was done. Sociocultural dynamics still demanded that these individuals be criminalized, ostracized, marginalized, and corrected. Those who identified themselves as part of the LGBTQIA community felt that they needed to hide who they were because there were very real consequences if they were to admit it. It wasn’t that they didn’t exist. They didn’t feel safe to emerge from hiding. 

The great thing is, the conversation started between the 70s and the 90s, and continued. Research upon research persisted, and more and more studies emerged concluding the same thing: This is not a choice, and more importantly, it is natural. As the conversation continued, more safe spaces opened for individuals to come forward. As more spaces emerged, more individuals felt it was safe to simply exist as they are in this world, and that has carried forward to today. 

We are living in a time in our country where it has never been this acceptable to discuss gender and sexual identity, although that doesn’t mean these individuals are still not marginalized and discriminated against. We have a very long way to go before it is perfectly natural and acceptable to discuss our own gender and sexual identity within a sociocultural lens. Until then, we will continue to make safe spaces.