Moving beyond the terminology of "tolerance," our world is slowly opening to the celebration of How Things Are. We exist as, with, and because of an incredible diversity of life. This fluidity includes gender, of course. All of us have ancestors that transcend masculine-feminine gender duality. Let's just take a moment to think about and acknowledge that. Our very own ancestors, born to be who they are. Maybe today we'd call them genderqueer (or any number of emerging terms to address the specific identity-needs of humans), but they certainly had their own terms. In many cultures, such people were, and are, woven into tribal fabric as another valued strand. Our two-spirited predecessors whose very embodiment signals the big, beautiful truth of simultaneity, held important cultural posts.

Stone Age gender-fluid person buried in Prague

The organization Engender published an article by Randy P.L. Conner called Men-Women, Gatekeepers, and Fairy Mounds that discusses some of the roles and terminology of indigenous "gatekeepers" from all over the world. I highly recommend it, especially if you are craving a cultural context for your gender expression. Included are peoples from West Africa, India, Siberia, North America, the Middle East, and even a rare story from Ireland about the faeries' mischievous manipulation of time and gender.

We'wha was a Zuni Native American from New Mexico. She was the most famous lhamana (Zuni term for two-spirit) and served as a crafter, spiritual mentor, and cultural ambassador for her people.

As a healthcare professional and as a human being, it is my honor to serve the guardians of the threshold. I acknowledge my limitations as a person born to a cisgendered body, but it is my great desire to see, serve, and support people of all genders to the best of my ability. I want to continually put the ball back into the court of people who defy the binary, to echo their own power back to them with a mirror of Yes, so that they can lead us all to the threshold, or so they can simply be.

Hajdari, a woman who chose to live as a man (burnnesha), in northern Albania — Hajdari, a woman who chose to live as a man (burnnesha), in northern Albania

I also leave room for new ways to express gender, non-gender, and gender neutrality. We are on the tip of life's tongue, and we are what it's saying. What emerges next from our wild, magical vitality?