Reviewer Allison Janicki Interviews Lee Wind, Author of The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie
“Discovering that my own Jewish culture recognized and honored six genders across more than 1,600 years was the most shocking.’’ —Lee Wind
You already know today’s topic, and probably realize that Lee Wind’s book title will ruffle the feathers of those who believe that gender is determined by sex at the time of birth. He wants it that way—all he’s hoping is that readers take a look at the reams of evidence he’s compiled to support his “big lie” provocation. If humanity only comes in two flavors, male and female, Lee asks, how do you explain the fact that 2 percent of the people on this planet have intersex traits? That’s more than seven million people in this country alone.
Allison Janicki reviewed The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie in Foreword’s September/October issue, which set in motion the following conversation. Setting aside your politics, we’re certain Lee’s good humor will leave you with a lighter heart. (Here’s a link to the other YA reviews in that issue, as well as a link to your free digital subscription.)
The Gender Binary is a Big Lie uses historical research and primary sources to show multiple examples of gender nonconformity around the world and throughout history. What was the research process like for this book? How long did it take to finally complete?
Doing the research for this book took more than four years, but I didn’t set out to write an encyclopedia. The book is written for ages eleven and up, and I like to approach nonfiction more like chocolate and less like medicine. Empowering chocolate. Because history, when you include the real diverse legacy we queer people have, is pretty fascinating!
Throughout, I thought of The Gender Binary is a Big Lie as a party I’m hosting of gender diverse voices from around the world and throughout time, and I wanted to be the best host I could be: curating some of the most amazing stories I could find, with an eye to showing how gender diversity is the norm, with Western culture’s idea of only two ways to be a human as the outlier.
The real challenge was how skewed the historical record is. Even when we’re looking at gender diversity, primary sources of people with male bodies are so much more prevalent, as are stories of Caucasian, wealthy, and able-bodied people from Europe and the US. But there’s so much history beyond that—it just took a lot more digging. And sometimes, we have to look at hostile primary sources to discover just how diverse gender has always been.
During your research, was there any cultural group or historical figure that was surprising or stood out to you?
So many, but discovering that my own Jewish culture recognized and honored six genders across more than 1,600 years was the most shocking. In addition to people with male bodies identifying as men and people with female bodies identifying as women, there are Androgynos (today we’d call these folks intersex), Tumtum (today we’d call these folks nonbinary), Aylonit (today we’d call these folks trans or gender nonconforming), and Saris (today we’d call these folks trans or gender nonconforming and eunuchs).
I’m the child of immigrants (my parents moved to the US from Israel before I was born), and nothing I ever heard or saw from my childhood—through Sunday school, getting a Bar Mitzvah, being confirmed, becoming an adult, and getting married twenty-two years ago to my husband in a Queer-affirming temple—nothing even hinted at the real history of gender diversity in my own cultural tradition!
One of the most beautiful primary sources I found was a poem/prayer by Qualonymos ben Qualonymos from 1322 France where Qualonymos wishes to have been created as “a fair woman” rather than their body’s male form.
It all demanded I completely re-think my mental models about gender!
This book aims to educate teenagers on the vast tapestry that is LGBTQ+ history. What drew you to write for this audience? What do you think is the most effective way to encourage young readers to engage in these types of conversations?
The damage the gender binary does is ongoing and intense.
A 2021 study found that one out of eleven young people today identify outside the gender binary. (Lisa Selin Davis, “High Schoolers May Be More Gender-diverse than Previously Thought, New Study Says,” CNN, May 18, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/18/health/gender-diverse-high-school-study-wellness/index.html.)
The pushback these young people are getting is fueled in large part by the lie that everyone has always been only a man or a woman, and the kiddos identifying as trans, nonbinary, or another diverse gender are following some new fad or making up new ideas about gender.
That’s not even mentioning intersex folks, who are as common as people with red hair. (One estimate from the Cleveland Clinic is that 2 percent of people worldwide have intersex traits. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/16324-intersex )
The injustice of unnecessary operations on the bodies of intersex babies to make them look only either male or female is terrible, and telling the story of their efforts at advocacy and self-determination became an important element of the book as well.
Primary sources can help us push back with the reality that human bodies and the social categories we call gender have always been diverse! And that kind of empowerment is what drives me to write books like this for young people.
As to the most effective way to have these conversations? I think a lot about a metaphor Anne Lamott brought up in her book Bird By Bird. That lighthouses don’t run all over an island looking for boats to save. They just stand there and shine. Similarly, I don’t set out to change people’s minds about gender diversity. I just want to shine a light on all this cool stuff I’ve uncovered, and if readers don’t want to come to the light, that’s okay. Not every book (or every truth) is of interest to everyone.
But for those who are interested, I invite them to come to the light—it’s one empowering party!
This is the second book in the Queer History Project. Can you tell us a little about what that is and how this book plays a part?
I’m looking to debunk the idea that we queer people don’t have a history—we do!
The first book in the Queer History Project series, No Way, They Were Gay? Hidden Lives and Secret Loves, was all about tearing down the false façade of history (that I was taught in school) that the only important people in history were straight, cis, white, wealthy, able-bodied men from Europe. It focused on men who loved men, women who loved women, people who loved without regard to gender, and people who lived outside the boundaries of gender.
Some of the most surprising and famous people in history turn out to be queer, and surprise became a big part of curating whose stories I would share. The book includes chapters on Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Sappho, Eleanor Roosevelt, We’wha, and Christine Jorgensen.
This second book in the series, as we touched on above, looks at dismantling the gender binary lie. And that’s not to say that the categories of men and women don’t exist. They do, and if that works for you, great. But that is not all there is, or all there ever has been. And that truth about gender diversity is found in communities all around the world and from the beginning of recorded time through today.
We’ll see if I can convince my editor and the team at Lerner about my idea for book three in the series—because for each of us, queer history can also be really personal. And there’s incredible power in that.
The author’s note at the end of the book reveals some personal anecdotes about your experience growing up as a cisgender gay man in the 1980s. Did the experience of writing and publishing this book affect how you personally examine gender and sexuality today?
Completely. As a young person I totally misunderstood gender, and in the struggle with my internalized homophobia (from my being closeted at age eleven through my coming out at age twenty five), I didn’t embrace gender nonconforming people in my own community.
It took a long time but I now understand that being the “G” of the LGBTQIA2+ community means I get to be (and have to be) an ally to all the other groups in our queer community, as well as to women, and people of color, and Indigenous people, and disabled people—to everyone under-resourced, under-represented, and under-respected in our society.
Because of writing this book, I think a lot about how we constantly gender things in the US that make absolutely no sense—soap? Do we really need to assign soaps by gender? What about kids’ toys? Long hair? Nail polish? Jewelry?
And colors! We’re so sure we “know” that pink is for girls and blue is for boys, but go back just 106 years and pink was the color for boys! In the US, a 1918 catalog for baby clothes explained, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” (Jeanne Maglaty, “Ask Smithsonian: When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?,” Smithsonian, April 7, 2011, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/ )
Writing The Gender Binary is a Big Lie and having it published has spurred me to re-examine so many of the personal choices I make every day—and ask myself how I can be a better ally to intersex, trans, genderqueer, gender questioning, gender fluid, nonbinary, and other gender-diverse people.
What other resources would you encourage young readers to seek out if they are looking to further their education in queer history?
There are a bunch of really great books—from surveys by Sarah Prager (the middle grade A Child’s Introduction to Pride and the young adult Queer, There, and Everywhere: 27 People Who Changed the World) to picture books by Rob Sanders (A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington and The Fighting Infantryman: The Story of Albert D.J. Cashier, Transgender Civil War Soldier) to Maya Gonzalez’s picture books on gender (The Gender and Infinity Book for Kids and The Gender Wheel: A Story About Bodies and Gender for Every Body) and even middle grade and young adult fiction with amazing endnotes about real queer history (including middle grade titles like Michael Leali’s The Civil War of Amos Abernathy and Alex Gino’s Alice Austen Lived Here and Malinda Lo’s young adult Last Night at the Telegraph Club).
As for online resources, LGBT History Month has a pretty cool listing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender icons—there are over 550 so far, and they add more every year to celebrate October being Queer History Month! And on Instagram, Schuyler Bailar @pinkmantaray and Alok @alokvmenon are essentials.
Are you currently working on any other projects?
I’m excited about my new picture book coming out this September 2024 from Reycraft, Love of the Half-Eaten Peach. Sumptuously illustrated by Jieting Chen, it’s an epic retelling of a true story from 2,500 years ago in pre-unified China.
Yuan, Duke Ling of Wei, and his beloved, Mi Zi Xia, shared a peach circa 500 BCE, inspiring generations of people to use the expression “Love of the Half-Eaten Peach” in Chinese to describe romantic love between men.
In the picture book, as a child, Yuan is told if he wants to be a good future ruler (he will be the next Duke Ling of Wei), he must understand perfection. But how can he understand perfection if nothing is perfect? The riddle weighs on him all through his teen years. Zi Xia vows to find Yuan something perfect, and sets out on an epic quest that brings him back a year later with a single peach. It looks perfect. It feels perfect. It smells perfect … but what if it tastes terrible?
You can find out how Yuan and Zi Xia solve the riddle in Love of the Half-Eaten Peach, and discover the legacy of their timeless love story.
Allison Janicki
