…gender is not sane. It's not sane to call a rainbow black and white.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that gender is a complex spectrum rather than a binary classification.
Kate Bornstein's quote emphasizes the idea that gender cannot be simplistically categorized into just two types, akin to the way a rainbow embodies a variety of colors. By comparing gender to a rainbow, the quote illustrates that the complexity and diversity of gender expressions deviate from traditional black-and-white classifications, inviting a broader understanding of identity beyond societal norms.
In practice
During a panel discussion on gender identity, this quote could be used to challenge rigid categorizations.
I know I'm not a man-about that much I'm very clear, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman either, at least not according to a lot of people's rules on this sort of thing. The trouble is, we're living in a world that insists we be one or the other-a world that doesn't bother to tell us exactly what one or the other is.
Let's stop 'tolerating' or 'accepting' difference, as if we're so much better for not being different in the first place. Instead, let's celebrate difference, because in this world it takes a lot of guts to be different.
There's a simple way to look at gender: Once upon a time, someone drew a line in the sans of culture and proclaimed with great self-importance, 'On this site, you are a man; on the other side, you are a woman.' It's time for the winds of change to blow that line away. Simple.
The trauma of the Sixties persuaded me that my generation's egalitarianism was a sentimental error. I now see the hierarchical as both beautiful and necessary. Efficiency liberates; egalitarianism tangles, delays, blocks, deadens.
The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.
Second to the right, and straight on till morning.' That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head.
Time is our element, not a mistaken invader.
Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown.
Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy.
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