ABSTRACT
Western societies are often organized around a gender binary, with specific roles and expectations for “men” and “women.” These rigid conceptions of gender are pervasive and systemically enforced within social institutions and public spaces. Social work is no exception. In compliance with a medicalized model steeped in binary constructions of sex and gender, social work has historically been complicit in the policing of gender and the reification of the gender binary. With a commitment to eradicating social injustice, social work educators, practitioners, researchers and students have an ethical obligation to challenge binary gender norms. It is imperative that the profession of social work reckon with past wrongdoings and intentionally engage in expanding binary notions of gender if gender equity is to be achieved. Social work education and research can be spaces of unlearning and expanding understandings of gender beyond binary constructs. Gender expression and expansiveness are areas where social workers can be advocates, allies, facilitators and witnesses to the positive growth and development of individuals and communities.
