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“I often think about how much time and work it takes to sustain the gender binary. How much we have to repress—all the feelings and dreams we have to sacrifice on account of proving that we are real. To prove that we are real, we have to dismiss everything different about ourselves and develop so many big words and justifications to disguise our insecurity. We sacrifice what they call feminine so that we can be masculine, and we sacrifice what they call masculine so that we become feminine. We spend so much time trying to make other people comfortable that oftentimes we don’t even know what makes us happy. It’s exhausting. Our movement is restricted (don’t walk like that, you look ___________________), our voices stifled (don’t speak like that, you sound ___________________), our creativity repressed (don’t dress like that, you look ___________________), our romance dismissed (don’t love like that, you feel ___________________), our behavior belittled (don’t act like that, you seem ___________________).”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“It’s not just that you internalize the shame; rather, it becomes you. You no longer need the people at school telling you not to dress like that; you already do it to yourself.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“Conformity requires us to minimize our differences for the greater good. We fear that if we don't conform, we will be abandoned, but there is no loneliness like having people only see you after you've erased yourself.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“We want a world where boys can feel, girls can lead, and the rest of us can not only exist but thrive. This is not about erasing men and women but rather acknowledging that man and woman are two of many—stars in a constellation that do not compete but amplify one another’s shine.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary