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Not all people identify as male or female. Take a look inside the world outside the gender binary.

Some people fall outside of the classic male/female gender binary. They're still totally legitimate.

To a lot of us, the idea that gender extends beyond simply male and female can be confusing.

"It's a boy!" "It's a girl!" We're labeled with a gender as far back as the moment we were born.

But somewhere along the way, some people realize that terms like "male," "female," "man," "woman," "boy," and "girl" don't properly describe their own sense of self.


Some people simply don't fit neatly into those boxes — demonstrated here by YouTube jack-of-all-trades Lindsay Penn — and so many of them have sought out terms that more accurately describe who they are.

GIF via Lindsay Penn.

In May 2015, Dictionary.com added three new words to its database to help describe some of these nonbinary (not simply male or female) genders.

First, there's the word "agender," which is essentially someone without a gender at all.


Then there's "bigender," a term used to describe someone who may most closely identify with both male and female genders.

And then finally, there's "gender-fluid," used to describe someone whose gender shifts between male, female, and everything in between.

For a more thorough dive into these terms, check out the agender, bigender, and gender-fluid pages on Nonbinary.org.

If it sounds like these three terms are describing the same thing (at first glance, they certainly might), try thinking about it as though you're dividing blocks into groups.

If you look at this image, it's pretty easy to divide these blocks into groups according to color, right?

You've got two yellow, two red, and one orange. Right? It's simple.


But what if it's not always so clear cut? And what if instead of there being three colors to choose from, you had the option to select from hundreds?

You could still make the case that there are two yellow, two red, and one orange, but it's not quite accurate.

Because some colors (like #2 and #4) don't quite neatly fit into the previously arranged groups. # 2 is kind of a yellow-orange; #4 is kind of an orange-red.

Gender is a lot like that. Often, we simplify it into these clear-cut boxes: male and female. The issue is that not everyone fits those boxes, and that is OK.

Just as boxes #2 and #4 are no less real colors than #1 and #5, people whose genders don't fit neatly into the categories of male or female are no less valid than those who do.

Gender can be confusing. Just like the Doctor here explains time travel, gender is like that — just more ... gender-y.


GIF via BBC.

And just as boxes #2 and #4 are outside the main groups, they're still very different colors.

Agender, bigender, and gender-fluid identities are outside of the male-female binary, but are still distinct and different from one another.

Last year, Australian model and actress Ruby Rose came out as gender-fluid.

Rose did so after releasing a video called "Break Free" (seriously, watch it). In an interview with News.com.au, Rose said, “I am very gender fluid and feel more like I wake up every day sort of gender neutral."

Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images.

But what if you're not sure what gender someone is? Don't worry about it.

You can't tell someone's gender just by looking at them. Gender isn't what kind of genitals you have. Gender isn't whether you act a certain way or dress a certain way. Gender is a core sense of self that someone has, and it might not line up with what you picture visually.

If someone tells you what gender they are? Great! Please take them at their word.

If they don't, and you're not sure? Don't worry about it.


A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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