How many genders are there?

I believe that no one feels completely the same about their gender, even in the groups they identifies as. So I'm going to say infinitely.

 

Pretty much what NT said. I expect it's a spectrum between male and female; we can find rough groupings and give those labels ("male" "female" "androgynous"), that's all. If we define say that one label covers one gender, then there are probably a small number, but if we ignore the labels then really it's just a question of the resolution of the scale. Dependent on the definition of "gender". Something like that.

 

Male, female, and androgynous, to various degrees in different people.
And if we're talking about sex, then, male, female, and intersex (note that I don't count transgender as a separate gender).
I see a chart, instead of a spectrum.

 

I see a spectrum, meaning infinite numbers of places that your gender could fall on. Whilst many fall under certain terms such as girl, boy, agender, pangender, I think it'd be remarkable if there are any two people at exactly the same point.

 

I am with the above

gender is a spectrum, for some expresses with certainty and even some variable

sex is the biological

 

Think of all the people alive at any given point in time, and that's how many genders exist (at the very least), since everyone experiences it differently. I hold a similar view regarding sexuality.

I like the term genderqueer since it encompasses all non-binary identities, including but not limited to: two or more genders (bigender, trigender, pangender), without a gender (nongendered, genderless, agender, neutrois), a fluctuating gender identity (genderfluid), and third gender or other-gendered (including those who do not wish to name their gender).

 

I see gender as a spectrum. There are a lot of different identities on the spectrum. So, I think that there are an infinite amount of genders.

 

How am I supposed to know? I'm only one.

 

I think there's an infinitely many number of genders ranging from complete male and female, and those in between.

 

I'm not sure I understand. As soon as you admit that gender is not binary, you open up Xeno's paradox. If there is a midway between these points, how can you say there is no midway between those. And halfway between those there must be another point, that's how a line works. Of course you could argue that these are just varying degrees of androgyny and do not count as their own gender, but then what qualifies as gender? Is gender only one dimensional? Great, now I've confused myself. I'll just say there are √(-1) genders.

 

I don't know if there's a correct answer to this. Really, it doesn't matter to me. Quantifying gender, I think, would only lead to more labeling. I do think there's a spectrum, but why worry about it? Do what you want.

Though, when I do think about gender, this graphic always comes to mind...

Spoiler

 

To me gender isn't dictated by anything other than the parts you have. It doesn't matter how you think, a male has a penis, a female has a vagina.

The thought that acting a certain way makes you more like another gender is ridiculous, you are acting like your species.

Slaughterhouse Five is a weird book I read, which had aliens in it, and the aliens in the book had four genders that all had a role, and homosexuals of both sexes were the other two genders. I know it is just a book, but that was the first thing I ever read that actually made me feel alright about being gay. There was a purpose; though fictional, to being gay.

Still, I think gender is different from sexuality, and personality, and is purely biological.

There are people born with both parts, but they aren't a third gender, they are just the two genders at once.

Its like saying Black and White are a different colour if put on the same canvas, no they are still black and white, the picture is now two different shades, but it isn't a third or different shade from black or white, it is just both. Same with hermaphrodites, they aren't a third separate gender, they are just both of the ONLY two options.

 

:jawdrop:according to Wikipedia its a jaw dropping 67 different groups .

 

Wow. And on an LGBT forum no less. Thanks for invalidating us, bro.

 

Gender =/= biological sex, and there are multiple identities on the vast spectrum of gender. There are the two binary genders, and people who may identify with both binaries (hence bigender), and there's a multitude of other genders such as trigender, pangender, genderqueer, agender, ect. - and anyone can lie wherever on the spectrum, and identify accordingly.

 

∞ Infinitely many possible genders. I don't like to think of it as a continuum or spectrum though... more like a "galaxy" or "web" where all genders are equal.

 

There will never be an infinite number of people so even if every single person identified as a unique gender there wouldn't be infinite genders.
Even if every single person changed which gender they identified as each second, there wouldn't be an infinite number of personseconds, so there still wouldn't be infinite genders...

You may be able to say there are an infinite number of potential genders to select from... but I don't really like that either because there is a finite number of ways a human's brain and psychology can be made up, and because of the deterministic nature of our existence this will lead to a finite number of identified genders.

I don't think it's responsible use of the word 'infinite' to apply it in this way! I'd rather just say there were 'a lot'.

 

I'm gonna say infinite/a lot because we are only basing this on terrestrial genders, whereas alien genders could be very different. Plus I don't want to limit myself by saying that humans can only fall into two genders. Yes, you can argue that there are only two because of the two types of genitals, but gender is a mental state as well as physical one. I'm male, I know that totally, but I do have some traits which would put me away from "pure male". Everyone is different, as clichéd as that is, but it's true, and everyone's perception of how they identify as their gender is going to be slightly to drastically different. I personally know someone who is straight, but has a really close bromance with another guy (they've actually kissed and refer to themselves as boyfriends, not entirely jokingly), and his father actually asked him if he was gay because he comes across like that. He's male, he's straight, but he's not 100% male and straight.

 

^^

Gender, IMO, is a spectrum, not on the binary or a box.