(un)gendered

Gender is created through a process of communication. Our conceptions of ourselves and our understanding of what it means to be who we are is developed over years of interactions with other people, with media and with social institutions. A constant that infiltrates every stage of development is the binary system of gender and everything in our society works to restrict us within one of two boxes.

For transgender individuals, and anyone else who doesn't fit into these boxes, this rigid enforcement of the gender binary can result in social dysphoria, which is discomfort and distress caused by social assumptions related to gender such as pronouns, social roles and/or body language. The often violent cultural climate leads over 41% of transgender individuals to attempt suicide, compared to the average suicide rate of 4.6%.

However, the naming of bodies as one thing or another is only made meaningful by the cultural context. Communication processes create culture; therefore, changing our communication processes can change our society. Digital communication has become the norm and the most meaningful intervention to restructure the gender binary comes in mediating those digital communication practices.

The (Un)Gendered browser extension removes gendered language from your browsing experience and explores what a post-gender English could look like. Post-gender English looks different than a genderless language because the fundamental structure of English is colonial, binary and patriarchal and these elements cannot be removed, only worked around. The goal of this project is to start a conversation about the gender binary and the ways in which it is constantly reproduced.

We all have the choice to actively combat the structural violence enacted by the gender binary.