Quote of the Day

"You are not normal.  You have a disorder that needs to be fixed."

It's important to understand the difference between being "normal" and being "normative."  Being normal means that a numerically significant amount of something is found in a group.  For example, if you select a random group of students, chances are a large percentage will be wearing sneakers.  This is normal.  Being normative is about what gets elevated by society to a position of power.  Normativity looks like a specific sneaker brand being upheld as the best.  Normativity, then, is about value judgment and shouldn't be used interchangeably with normal.  It's not that gender non-conforming people aren't normal, it's that we aren't considered normative.  Gender diversity is a natural attribute of human expression, not an illness that needs to be fixed.  Gender non-conforming people face considerable distress not because we have a disorder, but because of stigma and discrimination.  There is nothing wrong with us, what is wrong is a world that punishes us for not being normatively masculine or feminine.  Increasing acknowledgement of this reality is why groups like the World Health Organization, the World Medical Association, and the American Psychological Association have formally depathologized gender-diverse identities.

-- Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary, p. 40-41