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If you live in a progressive city anywhere in our country, this much seems obvious: Gender is in flux. We are in the midst of a big cultural shift.

For some men, probably most of you reading this, gender feels fixed, binary and frankly macho.

This essay is about these men and how we might all find charity for one another, perhaps walk together into a more friendly and evolved new world.

Sex & Gender Norms 101

First, here’s a little context for those who are unfamiliar with these topics.

What is sex? Like the biological designation, not the activity.

Sex is an outcome of genes, of fertilization. It describes a person hormonally. Sex describes anatomy. It’s about the kind of junk between your legs and a variety of neurobiological nudges. For you readers out there, Robert Sapolsky adds a ton of nuance and complexity to all of this, to our understandings of testosterone and estrogen and how things like gender work in our brains, in his book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.