When it comes to gender, a lot of people don’t think much beyond whether they’re male or female. You’re a dude, and I’m a chick — or something like that. But, like sexuality, gender is more than the two choices you’re used to.

While the majority of people might fit into a neat male or female box, not everyone does. Which is what makes life interesting and colorful.

So what don’t you know about gender? A lot.

Gender is a Social Construct

Society decided years ago what it means to be a woman and what it means to be man. No one is born feeling masculine or feminine. These are things we’re taught. Sure, some boys gravitate towards trucks and cars and some girls want dolls. But that’s not true all of the time, and much of those desires are created by the expectations people place on us from the moment we’re born.

Today, the color pink is associated with girls and boys get blue. Did you know in the early 1900s, it was the opposite? Pink was the masculine option and blue the feminine? It sounds weird now, but it shows that what we think we know about gender isn’t inherent. It’s a decision we make as a society — and sometimes it’s a marketing decision made for us.

Not Everyone Fits One or the Other

If you realize that what it means to be a man or a woman isn’t purely biological, that a lot of what we believe, want, or need comes from society, then it’s harder to define a single gender. What does it mean to be a man or a woman? Your genitals — penis or vulva — aren’t the same as your gender.

Your gender is about your identity and how you see yourself in the world. But even the most hyper “masculine” person who happens to have a penis will likely find traits within themselves that they (or others) consider feminine. Does that mean they’re a woman? Of course not. But just like sexuality, gender is a spectrum from a lot to a little with infinite possibilities in between of what it means to be a man, a woman, or something else.

“Normal” is a Scam

So if gender is a social construct and it exists on a spectrum, how do we define normal? What does that even mean? It’s really an awful word that excludes people who might not fit society’s definition. Think back to high school and even early college. How much time did you spend trying to fit in, even when it caused problems for you? How many things have you done in the name of being seen as “normal?”

The same is true with gender. Yes, there are stereotypical traits that we can easily label as masculine or feminine. But not everyone will conform to those traits. People who identify as female will behave in ways society considers masculine. People who identify as male might do things society views as feminine. They are still men and women (or whatever gender they choose to be), because being “normal” is BS. When we learn to accept people as they are, and not who we think they should be, life gets a lot easier — even as it gets messier and more complicated.

We are the gender we assign to ourselves and part of that decision is based on how we interact with the world. To be a man doesn’t require a penis, nor does it require a certain way of speaking or acting. What it means to be a woman has nothing to do with whether you can have babies or you like the color pink. There is nothing wrong with fitting societal expectations, and there’s nothing wrong with breaking those expectations either.