gender binary

[jen-der bahy-nuh-ree, ‐ner-ee]

noun

1. a classification system consisting of two genders, male and female.

2. a concept or belief that there are only two genders and that one's sex or gender assigned at birth will align with traditional social constructs of masculine and feminine identity, expression, and sexuality. ​

Word History and Origins

Origin of gender binary¹

First recorded in 1980–90

Example Sentences

Now, here’s the thing: Anyone who’s actually read Banks and the Culture books knows well that the late Scottish author was an avowed leftist who loathed oligarchs and repeatedly described the setting of his best-known series as a “socialist” or “communist” utopia whose citizens transcend the gender binary.

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Do you think of voices in terms of a traditional gender binary?

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“It’s something that’s been literally stamped out over the course of the Western gender binary that emerged from the Victorian era.”

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It’s quite a stretch to describe a candidate as relentlessly upbeat as Mamdani, who has virtually never been photographed without a smile on his face, as the de facto leader of a hate movement that wants to lower living standards, destroy the “gender binary that has structured social relations between the sexes for the whole of Western civilization” and sow “anarchy in middle-class white neighborhoods.”

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Worse, he projects his fears of emasculation outward, lashing out regularly at trans people, who destabilize the gender binary he’s so invested in, and women, mocking the very notion that they are the equal of men.

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