Legacies of Identity: Queer Histories of Third Genders
The following letter was written by writer and journalist Mojdeh Feili, on the occasion of the exhibition “Legacies of Identity: Queer Histories of Third Genders,” a collaborative exhibition between Pride Photo and Melkweg EXPO
Dear visitor,
We welcome your curiosity and hope you lean into it.
It is easier to understand the world if there are neat categories, expectations and rules to follow, but reality does not work in that way. Maybe you identify with the gender you were assigned at birth, and maybe you don’t. However you may feel, we want to invite you to think about the following. How would you define a woman? Or a man? Which words would you use to describe what does and doesn’t belong to that gender? Is a woman someone who takes care of children? Is she gentle and caring? What about a man, is that a person who leads and provides? What if that woman can’t or won’t have children? Is she then no longer a woman?
Some of these questions may have an easy answer for you, for example the latter. But when we keep going, the unanswerable questions will start to pile up. If you find it difficult to pinpoint a definition without using stereotypes or even falling back on a simplified definition of biological sex (if you’re unfamiliar with the diversity and marginalization of intersex it’s worth looking that up) you have arrived at the right place. In this space, we want to invite you to look beyond what you know and what feels comfortable.
Did you know that long before the Earth and its people were acquainted with the violence of colonialism, all kinds of genders existed beyond the binary that we know today. Some of these you will get to know better in this exhibition, but the list is endless and so are the possibilities. These people were appreciated for their roles in society instead of pushed to the margins of it. They were notable healers, had sacred ceremonial roles and played an important part in their communities in their own ways.
What these diverse gender identities and expressions have in common is that they refuse constricting gender roles and sometimes even clear definitions. In our current society, gender is put into boxes that can serve as a kind of prison. Regardless of your own identity, the binary system is a form of oppression and even violence. How do you know that what you like, even as simple as the colour pink, is truly yours when there is so much outside noise telling you what belongs to your encased gender box? Violence towards behaviours outside of the norms isn’t limited to those that stick out like gender non-conforming people. It can be small, like occupying the mind with whether to shave your legs or wax your moustache to fit in. But also think about the expectations around emotional expression among cisgender men. This patriarchal society has created an unnatural opposition between genders and forgotten to celebrate individual differences.
We once decided together that we aren’t limited to women who wear skirts and dresses for example. This was thinking outside of the binary already, and there are many more instances in which we have done this as a society. So why stop here with breaking the chains? When we look to the cultures that once (and maybe even still) lived with more than two genders, we can see that this acceptance was beneficial to everyone.
You may be scared of not understanding or even being forced upon a new set of expectations. But opening your eyes to other ways of doing things doesn’t mean less freedom for yourself; it means more freedom to do whatever suits you best. For fear is at the heart of exclusion and love at the centre of empathy. Are you afraid of breaking the binary?
Kind regards,
Mojdeh Feili
