Rain Dove: ‘Gender is used as a weapon to oppress people’
Non-binary model Rain Dove: Gender is a ‘weapon’ (PinkNews)
Non-binary model and activist Rain Dove has said that they believe that gender is often used a “weapon to oppress people.”
Speaking to PinkNews, Dove, who is currently in a relationship with actor and activist Rose McGowan, explained that they believe that the concept of gender carries a history of baggage.
“My personal [belief] is that gender is not something that is totally necessary for medical health benefits,” they said.
Watch the Rain Dove interview below:
“I also think that there are a lot of times where gender is used as a weapon to oppress people into staying within a specific lane and it does keep people from being as free as they possibly can.”
Rain Dove: “History can oftentimes be a weight or a shackle”
Dove, who recently opened up to PinkNews about their relationship with McGowan, explained that negative connotations have been attached to gender throughout history.
“There are a lot of times where gender is used as a weapon to oppress people into staying within a specific lane.”
—Rain Dove
The model and activist added: “With gender comes the history of everything affiliated with whatever gender you’re using.
“That history can oftentimes be a weight or a shackle.”
I know that gender is important to some people, says Rain Dove
However, the 29-year-old model said that they did not believe the idea of gender needs to be scrapped in its entirety.
“I don’t think we need to completely get rid of gender because for some people, they wanna be affiliated with that history,” they continued.
“For instance, I know a lot of trans people who have fought really hard to have their gender identity and that particular pronoun.
“For me a pronoun is just a sound and all I listen for in that sound is positivity.
“But for some people all they listen for is that respect, that right, to be affiliated with the history of a sound. And so I respect it.”
In November, Dove revealed that they were pepper sprayed in a women’s restroom in North Carolina, USA.
Dove posted on Instagram about the attack, which they told PinkNews happened in a high school toilet in Ashville on October 4.
Speaking to PinkNews, Dove, who had been at the school for a meeting, explained that they were confronted by a woman in the restroom with her children.
“This person shrieked and hit me—not directly in the eyes—but just got a good cloud of mace in my face,” said Dove.
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