[Dale Kuehne writes]:<\/p>\n
While today\u2019s conversations push the boundaries of how we understand gender, they don\u2019t understand that this brave new world of identity is about more than gender.<\/p>\n
The students with whom I associate\u201d\u201dfrom middle school to college students\u201d\u201dhave understood for several years that we now reside in a world beyond gender<\/b>. The youngest of them probably don\u2019t realize that TIME\u2019s article announced anything \u201cnew.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
For many of them, gender discussions, even of the transgender variation, are just so yesterday. When we talk about personal identity, we don\u2019t include the mundane questions about being male and\/or female. A person can certainly identify as male or female if they wish, but there is little expectation that one would do so.<\/p>\n
After all, today Facebook gives us over 50 \u201cgender\u201d\u009d identities to choose from. (Conversations about this can involve questions about why there are so few options.) And rather than looking to gender or variations on a gender, more and more young people are seeking to discover their identity by widening the options to include \u201cotherkins\u201d\u009d (people who consider themselves to have a non-human identity, such as various animals, spirits, mediums, and so on).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n