It’s about time we kicked heteronormativity to the curb. Never heard of the term before? It’s the idea that binary gender identity and heterosexual orientation (meaning, there are only two sexual orientations and genders) are the norm. Gender identity is where you see yourself on the continuum of gender (if you identify with the sex you were born with at birth, you are considered cisgender). Meanwhile, sexual orientation is who you are attracted to, and can range from being straight/heterosexual, to being gay or anything on the spectrum between.

Certainly, there are a lot of labels. For many people, they’re a way of identifying themselves and discovering their identities; others, on the other hand, choose to avoid labels altogether. But no matter which camp you fall into, there are many reasons why heteronormativity is an idea that should be rejected.

If you’re not heteronormative, you’re forced to explain yourself, while cisgender and heterosexual people don’t have to.

When your identity does not cohere with heteronormativity, you are often asked to explain yourself — why you don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend, how sex for you “works,” and other insensitive, inappropriate questions. But here’s the thing: You don’t owe an explanation to anyone! It’s no one’s business but your own who you are attracted to, how you identify (as a woman, as a man, as a woman sometimes and a man other times, or whether you don’t identify as any gender), and how you express your gender or non-conforming gender identity.

Assuming that people only identify as either male or female is incorrect

In our world, we commonly think of gender as just male and female, especially when we’re categorized by things like color and clothing. It seems like we can’t even look at anything without seeing it divided into boys and girls — this is heteronormativity. But the thing is, not everyone identifies as one or the other, or expresses themselves that way. Even if someone “looks” like a guy (also evidence of heteronormativity), they may prefer to use the pronouns “she/her” — and we need to respect that by not misgendering people. Some people identify as genderfluid, which means that your identify (like male or female), can move from one side of the spectrum to the other, and some people are genderless, or identify with neither of the genders that are imposed on people. The most important thing to remember is that everyone’s gender can be unique and everyone’s gender identity, gender orientation, and gender expression is important to respect.

Further, "female" and "male" even as solely biological designations still exclude some people, who are often classified as "intersex." Intersex means that one's anatomy or genetics does not line up with typical expectations for either male or female people. Heteronormativity would have society believe that to be intersex is to not be normal — which is simply untrue. For intersex people, doctors and parents have often decided their gender at birth and genital reconstructive surgery is performed to turn what is seen as atypical genitalia into something that is recognizably either male or female. Intersex identity also has its own spectrum, which means that anatomy for an intersex person can be entirely different for another intersex person.

According to the Intersex Society of North America, it is difficult to offer concrete statistics on how many people are born intersex, because the spectrum of what counts as intersex gets complicated. Experts at medical centers in the U.S. say that one out of 1,500 to 2,000 births have atypical genitalia. Research from the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism shows that a significant number of intersex people who had genital surgery during their infancy or childhood are unhappy with it later in life — something that would be completely avoidable if not for the pressure to make people to conform to either female or male.