Mechanisms of assimilation push GNC folk into the gender binary by making basic necessities and goods available only to persons who assimilate to some binary gender. Whereas mechanisms of assignment push us into some assigned place in the gender binary—usually the gender associated with one’s presumed birth assignment—mechanisms of assimilation push us to be somewhere, anywhere in the gender binary. Mechanisms of assignment enforce the placelessness of GNC folk by assigning individual people into binary gender roles; mechanisms of assimilation enforce the same by pushing GNC folk to assimilate into physical, institutional, legal, and social spaces that allow only for binary gender roles. Mechanisms of assignment push triangular (oval, rectangular, trapezoidal, etc.) blocks into round holes or square holes. Mechanisms of assimilation produce lids (for buckets of blocks) that have only round and square holes.
Readers are likely aware that the organization of physical, institutional, legal, and social space is such that there is often no place for GNC folk [as] GNC. Gender segregated bathrooms, schools, dormitories, sports, prisons, shelters, and recovery centers are common. They organize physical, institutional, legal, and social space in ways that make appropriate places for people who are men (and not women) and appropriate places for people who are women (and not men). If you are both or neither, then patriarchal gender segregation organizes the world such that there is no place for you. If you want to use the bathroom, live in a dormitory, play a sport, or access a shelter for homelessness, addiction, or to escape abuse, then you will often have to assimilate into the gender binary; this means you must stop being both/neither, conceal your gender non-conformity, or let others overlook it. If you are incarcerated or sent to a gender segregated school, shelter, or care facility, you will be presumed to be (only) a man or (only) a woman. Gender segregated spaces serve to enforce the nonexistence of GNC folk and push us into the gender binary.