Gender Essentialism: The
belief of there being a fixed essence to women. Women’s essence is assumed to
be universal and is generally identified with those characteristics viewed as
being specifically feminine.

I believe that people can
be anything, that there are no fixed traits that are male or female, or
masculine and feminine. Aggression, compassion, those are human traits that
anyone can have.

I believe in more than a
binary of genders. I believe in a spectrum of genders, each important and
valid.

I believe magic is for
people. Any people. It whispers and screams from the oceans and the trees.

I believe that magic is
open to all genders. It’s not exclusionary.

The cosmic feminine, the great
mother, the idea that there is something special about being a woman, that there
is a better spiritual connection that comes with it, bothers me as someone who
is femme but not a woman. It cuts me out of the equation, it bars me from
magic.

I understand that this sprouts
from the patriarchy and male dominated god-forms, but to exclude anyone who is
not a woman seems counterproductive to me.

I understand the shared
pain of women. I know that is open to femmes and woman-aligned people, but to
exclude others because of their un-feminine-ness? To say, we have the key to
the universe, but you cannot get in? That there is something better about being
a woman than anyone else? I think it’s harmful.

It’s more than being
balanced, because balance is a binary. The whole system needs to be shaken up
and undone.