Are there really so many gender identities?

I confuse people with my Agender-ness lol.

 

I think we all try to find that box that describes us, and when it doesnt we make a new one, based on our cultural and personal understanding of where we are at. Gender is both complicated and not complicated.

For some, gender is a binary, with two categories. For others, gender is linear, with a blurry area between two extremes. Still for others, it is a multidimensional plane, with axes mapping out gender presentation, internal gender identification, predominant gender to whom they are attracted, preferred gender pronouns, preferred gender to socialize with, level of fluidity of all these things... These are definitely driven by societal/cultural standards, but that can be as important a part of gender identity as any internal factors. It's important to note that just because it's simple for most people does not mean it's simple for everyone, and as soon as they don't identify 100% as cis-gender they feel compelled to explore this N-dimensional genderspace.

We just need to respect each others' prerogative to do so, and not doubt the validity of experiences outside our own.

 

Really, the idea of gender itself is something that is made up entirely by society. Different societies have had different views of gender. There are some societies that have had 4 mainstream genders. These were: male, female, masculine female and feminine male. (Those are translated from another language, I cannot remember which one off the top of my head though.)

There are some gender identities that I think are just repeats of other named gender identities, which plays a role into there being so many. Different groups have a tendency to come up with various identities and then they take off from there. It does not make them any less valid (at an individual level), but it does make things more confusing.

 

Chip, have you seen these narcissistic-like traits in regards to sexual and gender orientation or just gender? Has this increased in recent years as far as you've observed?

I'd also like to add that I agree with most of what you're saying, but that this isn't entirely true; third gender, two-spirit, and intersex are some examples of non-binary genders that have been recognized by different cultures for a long time.

I also think that yes much of the phenomenon overthinking of labels and trying to fit into boxes is narcissism; but gender has gotten confusing in recent times, maybe due to the fact that the industrial and technological revolutions have evened the playing field for men and women to pursue lives outside of the traditional division of labor that used to be the norm.

Maybe there can be a middle ground between allowing everyone to define whatever gender they want and dub themselves an outsider, and putting everyone into two rigid boxes. It seems like a lot of people think we're moving not in the direction of more boxes; but in the direction of not believing that the boxes matter, and that gender will become increasingly irrelevant. Maybe that's not the worst thing?

 

A very interesting thread. I am surprised to see it at EC to tell the truth.

I wonder what has caused this generation to be so different.

 

Many people want to separate sex and gender and act like they are two separate concepts. They may be separate, but they're interrelated. Gender is how a lifeform (yes, I'm being super general) expresses its sex. If gender and sex correlate to some norm, than you can say it's cisgender. If it's not, then it's transgender. It'd be interesting if research would be done on if animals can be transgender. For example, a peahen strutting her feathers as if she had the plumage of a peacock. I think gender identity in humans is also influenced by our large brain. I doubt a fruit fly spends any time thinking about what gender it is. I think technology plays a huge role as well. As we increasingly become more connected to more information and more people, our brains can ponder more avenues of thought. Even twenty years ago forums like this didn't exist.

If you thought you were transgender, you could only connect with the local community and the only real access to more information was through the library. The hill toward transition and lack of support might lead you to conclude that you were not transgender, or any other gender variant.

The fluidity of any identity is only going to get "worse" as technology more-and-more defines what it means to be human. And that is a very good thing. More diversity in identity will lead to more diversity in thought, which will lead to more creative diversity, which in turn will lead to more technological and cultural development. It's only narcissistic if you think your identity is better than someone else's. Welcome to the brave new world.

 

Chip, I think the proliferation of different/new terms for sexual orientation and gender identity has less to do with "narcissism" (btw, it's really offensive to accuse my generation of narcissism and I'm surprised to see you're still doing it) then it does with the recognition of the meaninglessness of gender, something that's been diffusing into our culture since second-wave feminism.

Do I think some of it is silly? Yes. But the silliness comes from people realizing that the "traditional"* understanding of sexual orientation and gender doesn't fit the complexity of the reality of human experience and everyone's trying on their own to work out how to describe themselves. I do agree with you that it's likely to die down in a few years and that some consensus will emerge on how to label the newly explored complexities.

*Traditional in air quotes because both understandings are less than a century old. Neither sexual orientation or transgenderness as we understand them today existed 100 years ago

 

Edit: perhaps I should have added pleasantly surprised.

 

I honestly don't know... but I lean on saying no. I think it's normal for most people to question what gender means at some point during their lives. Hell, I don't believe everything I hear or what the news crams into my skull and I think it's good to test and question things. I think 'male' or 'female' when I see people, and that's it for gender, unless they correct me. I understand male and female. I also consider ftm to be male and mtf to be female. It took me a while to see 'masculine' and 'feminine' for what they really are. What is considered masculine and feminine can indeed depend on the culture.

I don't fully understand agender, bigender, and genderfluid, but I respect those. Some gender labels are seemingly impossible. I tried my best to understand 'star gender' and I simply cannot believe in it. A person can be one of the 'boring' genders and still be an exciting person. It sometimes feels as if I'm reading complex ingredients on food packages when a person uses a ton of the latest tumblr gender and sexuality terms to explain themselves. It makes them look like more of everything instead of individual.

 

I think the need for a third- and fourth gender would be increased when the gender roles are more rigid, to give those not in compliance an alternative. Where roles aren't as clear cut or as strictly enforced, the need for "official" alternative genders is a little less.

What I do find fascinating is the extreme bipolarity of children's toys and entertainment, which seems to me to have increased in recent years to hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine at the same time that many adults are trying to break down those types of gender barriers. Will this cause more people to feel in-betgween? Maybe it's selective memory, but it seems to me that toys weren't quite so gender-coded when I was a kid, that there were more toys that appealed to both boys and girls. Where does it come from? Are the parents encouraging this distinction, or are the children doing it themselves out of some kind of inherent need to define their gender?

 

Hm...I would say, there are as many gender as there are human experiences.

A person "maleness" would be different from another person "maleness" for example, due to innumerable different factors from physiological differences to cultural and personal beliefs and more.

Of course, that doesn't justify that there should be so many different genders just for minute differences in human experiences. It also doesn't mean we can abolish the gender labels just yet. The labels that we put on ourselves are, after all, a step to construct mutual understanding between two and more unique human beings, so that they can communicate efficiently based on that mutual understanding.

However, I think it would be better if people start thinking outside of the boxes they built themselves.

 

I think you mean "sex" if it involves biological factors, for example, XX chromosome and XY chromosomes are considered "biological female" and "biological male" while the people with those chromosomes may not identify themselves are male or female at all.
"Gender" would comprise of more than just biological and sociological factors, just as how kids with the physical strength and being groomed to be athletes may never choose to be one at all.
There are many subjective experiences that we can't account for, and we can't just group it with either being nature or nurture. Especially with something we called "identities". Identities are very personal. They are a representation of who you think you are. It might be influenced by many things, but it is still a product of you processing all those influences and compile it into the thing that you call yourself. You can't ignore the human factor when talking about identities, because it is very human in essence.

Hence why I said there would be as many gender identities as there are human experience. However, labels are necessary for communication purposes, and for that end, to risk complications, confusions and reduce noises, we only create a few of those labels, with them being intentionally vague in definition, so that we can put them on ourselves without feeling too much uncomfortable, and let us have a common ground where we can talk.

 

I definitely believe in stuff like agender, bigender, androgyne, and genderfluid. Some of the more new gender labels, like "necrogender" (a gender that is dead?) don't really make any sense to me and I really doubt they're real...but that's just my opinion

 

Personally it's hard for me to think that the concept of gender as it currently exists wasn't just made up. Tons of different cultures have different ideas of what gender is. For example the hijra of India, the bissu of Indonesia, the sworn virgins of Albania. None of them fit the concept of gender as we have it in the west. You can't accuse them of being narcissists who make up their own genders, because in their cultures those genders are pre-established as real things. Furthermore, it's ridiculous to say that just because someone doesn't want to force themselves to act how other people say those of their birth sex should, they are narcissists. Just like trans people don't turn out to be the gender typically associated with their birth sex, some people might get left somewhere in between or outside of the gender binary.

I'm going to say that I honestly don't understand some of the newer gender identities from tumblr(or anything from tumblr for that matter). But in the end it is literally none of my business what they identify as. If someone thinks they are somehow simultaneously transgender, cisgender, man, woman, androgyne, demigirl, demiguy, and agender, I'm not 100% sure I can believe them. But I'm not going to tell them that they are wrong, for the same reason I wouldn't want anyone telling me I should have to fit their concept of gender.

I will say however that a few gender identities sound like something that was invented to make fun of genderqueers. Someone else mentioned necrogender. That sounds like a parody to me, because if your gender was dead, then wouldn't it be alive again when someone identified as it?

 

There's got to be an infinite number, I am sure. Just look at this chart. Your gender is whatever you feel is right.