Does society need the gender binaries?

This is really the binary in a nutshell, and why it's a problem. It's all the connotations (stereotypes) that have been added onto "man" and "women" as part of the implicit definition. And it's not even really valid connotations, just stereotypes and expectations that we make. We police each other, we police ourselves, and then we get people who will go through great lengths to prove their identity to others as if it is under attack (because, it kinda is).

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I'll answer your question, but in response, I have a question for those like you who are saying there isn't much good in eliminating the binary, or there's a good reason to keep it: What, in detail, is that benefit? Why is it necessary? What good comes from "providing order" in this case? What is left if you stop policing expression, and why does it matter? Details please, you are being graded. :icon_wink

But now for my answer: In a world where I cannot assume anything based on how someone presents, or behaves superficially, I am forced to treat them as human first. Not as "a man" or "a woman" or "potential roll in the hay", but a person. And if that means I have to communicate with them, to figure out if our junk is compatible, and a roll in the hay is actually possible, great. We already should be doing that now, rather than assuming heterosexuality is the default, so nothing really changes from that standpoint. And in such a world, we'd likely get over some of our hangups around making the mistake of "being attracted to the wrong person" out of sheer necessity and start being adults about it who are willing to make the mistake, be respectful about it and move on. And if I literally can't operate on stereotypes for a person? That's great too. Research has demonstrated that while you can build statistical models based on a large group of people of the same gender, you can't reverse the process and expect it to actually give you any meaningful insight into the individual.

Honestly, I am not sure we can get to an egalitarian society without deconstructing the gender binary. Much in the same way we need to unpack and deconstruct race. We need to be able to get past this idea that being "a man" or "a woman" makes you fundamentally different from each other. A lot of the human experience is shared, but we keep focusing on what amounts to differences changing maybe 5% of it. And then magnifying them to the point where we shove a wedge and construct an environment that does fundamentally change the experience for men and women. Again much like with race. The vast, vast majority of the differences between life experiences of men, women, white, black, latino, asian, heterosexual, homosexual, cis, trans, etc are arbitrary differences we've created by stating it is so and creating inequalities. If we can't deconstruct it, analyze it, and realize how little it matters, we'll never truly be able to achieve the goal of civil rights. We'll fix symptoms, but never the root cause.