In the spring of 2013, I took a class called “Sex and Love in Modern US Society.” It was my junior year, and I was excited to be enrolled in something that felt radical simply because of its title. I couldn’t wait to dive into the readings and discussions with my peers, who were mostly seniors. Now that more than ten years have passed, I don’t particularly remember what we read in that class. And no offense to the lecturer, I don’t really remember what she told us. The experience that remains crystal clear in my memory, however, was being in the presence of one of the most powerful individuals I have ever met.
Alok Vaid-Menon, my fellow classmate.
I thought Alok was incredible, always dressed in such a chic way and possessing a balance of elegance and force each and every time they opened their mouth to speak. When Alok added to the discussion, I paid close attention, ready to hear whatever wisdom they were about to share. I could tell I was in the presence of greatness, of someone who would change the world. For me, Alok expanded my thinking, which was previously committed to gender and race equity. I didn’t realize, up until that point, that I was still operating in the confines of American patriarchy. American patriarchy exists because it relies on the colonial invention of the gender binary that replaced fluid and indigenous understandings of gender with a strict man/woman dichotomy.
Alok has now become a famous poet, comedian, speaker, and author, spreading the insight they shared in class all those years ago with the world. The insight is both plain and profound because it flies in the face of so much of what we have been taught is true and is based on Alok’s own experience and their human desire to live freely. Why might this basic desire that we all share become something world-changing? Well, as I show in my latest book, Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us, only some people are allowed the right to live freely according to the social order the founding fathers implemented. American patriarchy doesn’t just rely on power; it depends on categories. For it to function, it must reduce the vastness of human identity into two rigid roles, assigning power to one and subjugation to the other while excluding whole groups of people if they cannot conform. Furthermore, this exclusion relies on erasing people who do not fit the categories to maintain the illusion that the binary is the only option we have available to us.
Therefore, as a person who is a gender-nonconforming South Asian American who identifies as transfeminine, Alok is seen as a foil to the foundation upon which the United States is built.
American patriarchy tells us that Alok and others, as fantastic as they are, are not supposed to exist. And if they somehow do, they will certainly not be treated as human beings but instead will be judged and punished. Even worse, those making the judgment and doing the punishing will often be applauded and avoid any consequences.
Many fear that they will lose something if gender-expansive people are treated with dignity and are allowed to live without fear of persecution or harassment. In following Alok’s epic journey, it is distressing to witness how many people try to tear Alok down. Comments on social media are one thing, but Alok faces even more danger as they walk down the street and people yell slurs and statements like “You are disgusting!” and might try to get physical.
It is in the face of such violence, where the need for Alok’s world-changing work becomes obvious, that you realize that their fight to live freely as themselves is a fight on behalf of all of us; a fight we must be willing to join if we aim to dismantle American patriarchy once and for all.
Alok made me realize how much of our feminist scholarship and politics has relied on living comfortably within the two categories of the gender binary. One of patriarchy’s most cunning moves has been co-opting feminism to protect cis womanhood as the only legitimate womanhood. However, this isn’t liberation; it’s just another form of gatekeeping. A feminist revolution will never succeed if it doesn’t also consider femmes who challenge the binary. If it excludes women who were not identified as women at birth, and disregards people who are feminist but who do not identify as men or women. And if it furthers the exclusion of many women of color who have historically been villainized and objectified when they were represented as not feminine enough.
The intricacies of American patriarchy trap even those of us who think we are radical: we can easily fall back into reproducing the system because it can feel more comfortable to do so.
We must push ourselves to ask just how far our belief in equity extends and where we still need to grow, because it became evident to me over 10 years ago that until people who see themselves in Alok V. Menon can walk down the street safely, unafraid of what others might do to hurt them, the work would not be complete. Until I could let go of my own attachments to the meaning of clothing, hair, and pronouns, I was no better than what I wanted to change.
While we may be against American patriarchy, we are often afraid of what it means to leave it behind, and we cling to the things that allow it to persist. Yet the bravest among us are those who do not fit it at all and who have concluded that they will choose to live freely in a country that tells them they cannot.
Anna Malaika Tubbs is a scholar, advocate, and bestselling author of Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us, a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.
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This article originally appeared on Out: The day I realized Alok would change the world