Exorsexism or Exornormativity refers to discrimination against non-binary people and the belief that people can only be male or female. The name comes from the term XOR (Exclusive Or Operation) used in computer logic, which analyzes two input variables and only outputs 'true' when the inputs differ (one is true, the other is false). Under a exorsexist view, gender would be analyzed as follows:
- If Male=True and Female=True: not valid
- If Male=True and Female=False: valid
- If Male=False and Female=True: valid
- If Male=False and Female=False: not valid
Therefore, exosexism is the belief that the only allowable genders are wholly and exclusively male and wholly and exclusively female, and one cannot identify as both male and female, or as neither male nor female.
History
Exorsexism was coined by Tumblr user Vergess on or before November 11, 2016.[1] The term was created as their was not previously a term to describe the belief that non-binary people cannot exist. The term also avoids the misuse of the term 'binarism', which describes how the western gender binary was forcibly applied to colonized peoples during the process of colonization.