Other How many genders?

[Rachael of the Shire]

I identify as a bi cisenger female human. I believe in two genders and that is not likely to change in the near future.I also believe it is possible to be intersex/trans.. Do what makes you happy. Dress like a guy, dress like a girl, date guys, date girls, date guys and girls, don't date anyone, wear makeup, don't wear makeup, change or don't change your body... if it's what you feel in your soul is right, do it. There is no need to let society or other people define you.
As someone who likes being accepted into male groups and has trouble identifying as other females, I get what Pine says. I would add that gender identity must be figured out by each individual as he/she grows. I was questioned about my gender by my relatives and they tried to force me to start transgender treatments because I didn't act girly enough for them. This is why I look at gender discussions the way I do.
You all can react to my humble opinions and experiences as you so desire. I expect hatred, but I would like to think people will be... a little more considerate of a young tomboy who's barely figuring herself out.

 

[Pine]

OK but how can one not belong to either gender? Or switch gender depending on the day? I don't understand it.

my roommate is experimenting with the label of agender. from what they've told me, they don't really feel like they identify with their assigned gender. at the same time, they don't really feel any pull towards the opposite gender. as far as what i can inference from what we've discussed in the past, they don't believe in the role of gender and any set of traits that go with it, especially in regards to themselves. i just don't think they really "feel" male or "feel" female. note: they do not consider themselves trans afaik.

i have never personally met someone who identifies as genderfluid or bigender (though i do plan on doing more research into bigender because i'm working on a new character that identifies as such). i cannot speak for any of these parties further, though i wouldn't be surprised if fluctuated/inconsistent dysphoria had something to do with it.

It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust these studies.

dude... you can't just dismiss every single study just because some studies have been fucked up in the past #NotAllStudies. you're going to end up being one of those guys that conveniently only remembers to call shit "fake news" when they find something that doesn't align with your pre-established opinions

i linked you directly to the studies because a lot of the sensationalism you're talking about usually comes from journalism, not the science itself. as for the science, yes psychology and neuroscience are very new fields but we have shit like the... fuck, i can't remember the name. but basically there's a committee that was created at least in america that studies need to be approved by even before the actual studies are conducted. this is to check ethics, efficacy, so forth (in response to stuff like the experiments done in germany during wwii, the prison experiment, the... what was it, polio experiment? idk some lethal disease that exploited black people in poverty, unethical shit like that)

i'm only going to look at the first study i linked because fuck if i'm going to bust my ass just to have some other person roll into the thread and come up with some more convenient excuses to ignore science.

1. the study was approved by the bethlem and maudsley research ethics committee. i don't know what they're about, but if they're anything like the american committee, they checked the study's design, that it was ethical, that it was useful knowledge for ppl, and other shit idr because i really hated taking those statistical methods classes
2. they used a p<0.01 for the study and still found statistical significance. studies commonly only strive for p<0.05. if you don't know about p-values, this basically means that the significant difference they found in the study was less than one percent. these people weren't looking for any leniency for the sake of $$ (and also i think regardless of their findings in the study, they would have had a target audience delighted to eat this up)
3. they had a sample size of 135 people. that's really fucking good considering how expensive this shit is. their funding probably would have been sucked dry if they tried pulling 2,000 people out of their ass for brain scanning. funding is also another reason to not have the diversity you're looking for. luckily! this problem is solved/going to be solved with point number five
4. control groups are a baseline for the "experimental group" to be compared to. males acted as the control group for females, and females acted as the control group for males. this was a study that scanned brains as they were. there is no variable being manipulated here. it's a comparative study based on observations in brain scans.
5. i reiterate, this shit is expensive. luckily, we have the magic of Replication Studies. that would be the other stuff i linked you to. different parts of the world performing the same study and replicating the results is very good news ala the problem that otherwise would come from a lack of diversity, i.e. this isn't some region exclusive thing for the gray:white matter difference.

experiments work in collaboration with each other to eliminate confounding variables. this experiment targeted making sure that the only difference between these two groups would be male and female. age range was recorded, as well as which hand they write with. there is a very likely chance that the cause for this difference is simply that: cismale and cisfemale.

if you're still going to choose to disregard these studies because of your general knowledge of how there's a possibility of the study being manipulated, then i'm not going to waste my time by discussing any of this any further.

 

[Idea]

my roommate is experimenting with the label of agender. from what they've told me, they don't really feel like they identify with their assigned gender. at the same time, they don't really feel any pull towards the opposite gender. as far as what i can inference from what we've discussed in the past, they don't believe in the role of gender and any set of traits that go with it, especially in regards to themselves. i just don't think they really "feel" male or "feel" female. note: they do not consider themselves trans afaik.

i have never personally met someone who identifies as genderfluid or bigender (though i do plan on doing more research into bigender because i'm working on a new character that identifies as such). i cannot speak for any of these parties further, though i wouldn't be surprised if fluctuated/inconsistent dysphoria had something to do with it.

Disfunctional or not the fact is, you can't be something whose physical properties are null or interchanging between two stable things. Certain animals are in fact capable of gender change, but the idea that such a deep internal change would happen on a human being, an animal not related by any means to the ones capable of sex change and without environmental pressures to evolve it as such, is just too far fetched to be even considered.

The key word here is "feel". Nomatter how you "feel" it doesn't change what you are. You don't need to be mentally ill to have confusion regarding your own body either. In the process of growing up, in various situations in life that deal with strong emotions, maybe even just an overactive imaginatio are all things known for leaving one's self-identity potentially damaged or confused. Even the most common age groups that show cases of alleged people who were "born the wrong gender" or similar supports this idea, at least going from what I know given I never heard a single case of an elder within that situation (which doesn't mean there aren't any, but it does testify to it's appearant rarity). But one thing is experiencing that confusion, acting upon it is a completely different matter and saying you actually are a different thing just because you feel differently is another entirely. And that's the thing about taking genders apart like that. Feeling and being are different matters.

Of course, as I already stated, if indeed there physical issues at hand, then this may deserve a different classification. But unless the process is actually impossible to occur in nature (transsexuality), or completely escapes the boundaries of either sex (being born without any hormone production or sexual organs of any kind) over at least a couple generations , it's a simple error. And as any error, it should be fixed.

dude... you can't just dismiss every single study just because some studies have been fucked up in the past #NotAllStudies. you're going to end up being one of those guys that conveniently only remembers to call shit "fake news" when they find something that doesn't align with your pre-established opinions

i linked you directly to the studies because a lot of the sensationalism you're talking about usually comes from journalism, not the science itself. as for the science, yes psychology and neuroscience are very new fields but we have shit like the... fuck, i can't remember the name. but basically there's a committee that was created at least in america that studies need to be approved by even before the actual studies are conducted. this is to check ethics, efficacy, so forth (in response to stuff like the experiments done in germany during wwii, the prison experiment, the... what was it, polio experiment? idk some lethal disease that exploited black people in poverty, unethical shit like that)

i'm only going to look at the first study i linked because fuck if i'm going to bust my ass just to have some other person roll into the thread and come up with some more convenient excuses to ignore science.

1. the study was approved by the bethlem and maudsley research ethics committee. i don't know what they're about, but if they're anything like the american committee, they checked the study's design, that it was ethical, that it was useful knowledge for ppl, and other shit idr because i really hated taking those statistical methods classes
2. they used a p<0.01 for the study and still found statistical significance. studies commonly only strive for p<0.05. if you don't know about p-values, this basically means that the significant difference they found in the study was less than one percent. these people weren't looking for any leniency for the sake of $$ (and also i think regardless of their findings in the study, they would have had a target audience delighted to eat this up)
3. they had a sample size of 135 people. that's really fucking good considering how expensive this shit is. their funding probably would have been sucked dry if they tried pulling 2,000 people out of their ass for brain scanning. funding is also another reason to not have the diversity you're looking for. luckily! this problem is solved/going to be solved with point number five
4. control groups are a baseline for the "experimental group" to be compared to. males acted as the control group for females, and females acted as the control group for males. this was a study that scanned brains as they were. there is no variable being manipulated here. it's a comparative study based on observations in brain scans.
5. i reiterate, this shit is expensive. luckily, we have the magic of Replication Studies. that would be the other stuff i linked you to. different parts of the world performing the same study and replicating the results is very good news ala the problem that otherwise would come from a lack of diversity, i.e. this isn't some region exclusive thing for the gray:white matter difference.

experiments work in collaboration with each other to eliminate confounding variables. this experiment targeted making sure that the only difference between these two groups would be male and female. age range was recorded, as well as which hand they write with. there is a very likely chance that the cause for this difference is simply that: cismale and cisfemale.

if you're still going to choose to disregard these studies because of your general knowledge of how there's a possibility of the study being manipulated, then i'm not going to waste my time by discussing any of this any further.

I don't dismiss every single study, but I do dismiss studies who fall into the following four conditions:
1. Do not have a perfect or near-perfect execution of the scientific method- Almost every study WILL fall there , because it means either you need a perfectly distributed sample or I cannot even begin to conceive a proper sample for the HUMAN POPULATION being less than 700 people, though the ideal would be at least a tenth of 7 billion. But more than this, you need equipment that you know for sure is actually measuring what you are thinking it does, you actually bother to repeat and have control groups when it applies. This is scratching the surface though. The scientific method is important because it is so rigorous.
2. If the results go AGAINST one's expectations- I am open to new links being found, but if you want to dismiss what was previously expected, you can't half-ass it. When people believe something, anything, there is a reason for it. Something that makes them believe it. And if you want something previously scientifically accepted or accepted by common sense to be dismissed their reasons must be that much better. Just saying you disagree doesn't change a thing, and so I am not inclined to accepting something all logic would otherwise told me it's false if they don't show enough credibility to fade my doubts.
3. The results are flashy or benefit someone among the researchers- I hope I don't need to explain why this can make a study suspicious.
4. if the way to explain the results IS the results- this is a classic fallacy, circular argument. Though against facts there are no arguments, if you can't even explain how you arrived at a conclusion or why you think your data shows what you think it does, I am unlikely to accept it.

Without at least three of those conditions being checked, I can probably accept a study or statistic wholeheartedly. But if at least three verify, then I must take it with a grain of salt. I don't doubt the competence or dedication of most researchers, but that same dedication is a double-edged sword, as I often see it blinding people to the very simple mistakes that can tear down attempts at conducting statistical studies or scientific studies.

Money is not the issue. Nomatter how much you spend or not, the monetary value of an experiment isn't any guarantee of it's quality. You can't buy certainty. Especially considering the more expensive equipment is also often the most sensititve, and in case you or anyone else reading this does not see how that is a problem, allow me to explain: Sensitive equipment is sensitive to more things, not sensitive to a certain specific thing. X-ray machines are basically the opposite of a zoom, because while a zoom focuses on a point, the x-ray machine is sensitive to a different kind of radiation. And just as you can't specify in the machine "show me only the bones and don't shoot raditaion into anything else", brain scans work on the basis of eletro-magnetism. One of the basic forces of the universe, litterally everywhere. What scientists read with brain scans may be neurons, but it can also be any number of other things. A spark, the machine's own heating, human breath, static eletricity, small things that can tip the results ever so slightly, often not thought about. This is why you need the scientific method to be ridiculously rigorous, and the reason why you can get so many contraditory results in various experiments, even a small change in conditions can send all the precision out the window.


Now, you probably don't want to discuss this anymore, that is fine. But, regardless of what you or others may state about me after this, I am not close minded or any form of science denier. But I AM the kind of person who looks first to how things work and only then to who does it and what they say. Nomatter how beautiful a clock, if it's missing even the smallest clog, it may not work. And if it may not work, you can't trade your old but still functional one for it.

 

[sathanas]

I think arguing about which definition to use is pretty pointless lol.

Personally, in the most simplified explanation I can give, I see it this way-

When using the definition of gender = internal and sex = external, and gender is based on personal feelings and self-identity in relation to cultural roles of fucking course there's going to be more than two black and white ways to relate to and identify with those roles.

And feelings and identity can't be "not real," "incorrect," or even "correct" for that matter because they're feelings. They just are.

So if an agender person feels like distanced from the gender roles of male and female as they're defined in modern American culture, that's literally just how they're feeling. As a binary trans person who knows many trans people including nonbinary, not a single one of us has any delusions about the actual physical state of our bodies, our biological sex, or how it will be perceived by society? That's where dysphoria comes from lol. It's not about that when you're only talking about whether multiple genders exist using this definition.

 

[Project Naiad]

So if an agender person feels like distanced from the gender roles of male and female as they're defined in modern American culture, that's literally just how they're feeling.

Sounds simply like a personality trait to me. No need invent a new gender identity. Maybe people see 'male' and 'female' as too restrictive, but I believe you can be male (or female) and still not be 100% like the stereotypical male.
But being agender (as an actual gender) sounds impossible, because everything about us tells our gender: clothes, hair, speech, preferences, etc.

 

[Fable]

Trolling posts, irrelevant posts and the like have been removed. Keep this thread constructive, civil, and on topic.

 

[Lappi]

I'm under the belief that gender is a binary. And that usually you are male, female, or transitioning.

 

[Phosphenes]

First of all, I'd just like to precursor my post by saying that I'm a cis woman and so, I'm certainly not the best authority on this subject. However, I still think it's an important topic that should be discussed and shed light on.

Personally, I believe there are TWO sexes, but not two genders. Sex is biological - male or female. But, gender is more of an identity thing to me. Someone may biologically be male, but if they identify as female, who am I to tell them they're wrong? Gender is a scale, like sexuality, rather than a box or specific label. I believe its flexible and open to personal interpretation. If I get to make a choice to identify and present as a female, why shouldn't everyone else get the right to make that choice for themselves?

 

[sathanas]

Sounds simply like a personality trait to me. No need invent a new gender identity. Maybe people see 'male' and 'female' as too restrictive, but I believe you can be male (or female) and still not be 100% like the stereotypical male.
But being agender (as an actual gender) sounds impossible, because everything about us tells our gender: clothes, hair, speech, preferences, etc.

When using the definition of gender = internal and sex = external, and gender is based on personal feelings and self-identity in relation to cultural roles of course there's going to be more than two black and white ways to relate to and identify with those roles.

I would say it could be considered a personality thing and it's not so much of inventing a new gender identity as just a way to label what your identity is and ways of relating to the cultural roles are, so it's easier to say "I'm a boy" or "I'm agender" than taking the time to explain in detail the exact nuance of your experience.

In terms of hair, clothes, etc, there are nonbinary people who strive to look and dress and walk and act as androgynous as possible so people literally cannot tell if they're girls or boys just by looking. I know this because I've read content made by those kinds of people and even stumbled across a video on how to make your voice sound ambiguous so there's nothing that "gives you away."

 

[Project Naiad]

When using the definition of gender = internal and sex = external, and gender is based on personal feelings and self-identity in relation to cultural roles of course there's going to be more than two black and white ways to relate to and identify with those roles.

I would say it could be considered a personality thing and it's not so much of inventing a new gender identity as just a way to label what your identity is and ways of relating to the cultural roles are, so it's easier to say "I'm a boy" or "I'm agender" than taking the time to explain in detail the exact nuance of your experience.

In terms of hair, clothes, etc, there are nonbinary people who strive to look and dress and walk and act as androgynous as possible so people literally cannot tell if they're girls or boys just by looking. I know this because I've read content made by those kinds of people and even stumbled across a video on how to make your voice sound ambiguous so there's nothing that "gives you away."

Again, I think it's kind of impossible to suppress every single thing of one's own gender AND the opposite one. Even the slightlest thing we do everyday is bound to a gender or the other: sitting, walking, talking. One can't take that all away and replace it with nothing.
But even if they managed, it still seems to me that they would be a boy or a girl that doesn't identify much with their gender.
I can see the appeal of making a new label for one's way to experience gender, but everyone experiences it in his own way, if we made a label for everyone's way of relating to gender we'd have countless useless labels.

 

[Iskandar]

This thread was an interesting read, mostly because, surprisingly it was very civil. Minus the "I'm a blank" comment here and there.(granted I skimmed a few posts. Too long to read at 2AM)

As for me, I am a straight cisgender male, and I am only 17, so I don't have much life experience in general. I am not too concerned about someone's gender though, as long as it isn't too outrageous. It doesn't really affect me, and I should respect their opinion and beliefs. Now if they try to push the subject and get me to believe there are 32 genders or whatever, then we may have a problem. I'll still respect their opinion, I just won't agree with it.

I think the psychological factors when it comes to determining one's own gender are much more fascinating.

 

[bobbo_mush]

Okay, I read the thread to the end, but I'm going to quote this from the first page because it's still relevant.

Thanks for posting!
I also do not believe that everyone can be categorized in 100% male and 100% female. Rather than there being only 2 strict alternative, I kinda believe that gender is a spectrum, where one can happen to be a male with some feminine characteristics (ex: me, I'm not exactly the archetype of manliness myself). However I still believe that it all comes down to male and female, since in my opinion gender originates from society, but also from biology. Hence my problem with non binary, since I don't see how a third gender, or absence of gender could be possible.
(Not sure if I'm making myself clear here :/)

I think you understand nonbinary more than you might think. Yes, gender is a spectrum, with male and female being on the ends, and there are things in between. Believing the binary and the binary only would mean believing there is only male and female, but you acknowledge that there's more than that- varying levels of masculinity and femininity. That's what nonbinary is about. It's just that names are being put to what was already there in between.

I, personally, am agender. I'm just a person. I believe that gender as a whole should be done away with, so we can all just live and be ourselves without having to worry about finding a label that fits you or being punished for not fitting your percieved labels, but I also know that that'll never happen during my lifetime, so I'll make do with agender. This, of course, isn't the case for every agender, but it is the reason I have chosen it.


Anyways, if there are any grammatical errors or anything, my apologies; it is the middle of the night and I came here because I couldn't find sleep. Hopefully I communicated my thoughts well enough to get the point across.

 

[Project Naiad]

bobbo_mush If you don't mind me asking, you don't identify as male or female? And how does that reflect in your everyday life? Do you adopt a particular way of dressing, talking etcetera?
I'm honestly interested, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to.

 

[bobbo_mush]

bobbo_mush If you don't mind me asking, you don't identify as male or female? And how does that reflect in your everyday life? Do you adopt a particular way of dressing, talking etcetera?
I'm honestly interested, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to.

I don't identify as male or female because neither of those words can describe who I am. I'm just me. I'm not going to calculate how in-between I am and tell everyone I'm 47% female, so yes. I identify as neither.

The way I dress and talk is whichever way I want to. I dress in whatever I think looks nice or comfy or expresses me that day, just like any person would. Sometimes that means a dress, sometimes it means a collared shirt and a bowtie. Most of the time it means jeans and a T-shirt.

I'm not sure what you mean when you ask how it reflects in everyday life.

 

[Project Naiad]

I don't identify as male or female because neither of those words can describe who I am. I'm just me. I'm not going to calculate how in-between I am and tell everyone I'm 47% female, so yes. I identify as neither.

The way I dress and talk is whichever way I want to. I dress in whatever I think looks nice or comfy or expresses me that day, just like any person would. Sometimes that means a dress, sometimes it means a collared shirt and a bowtie. Most of the time it means jeans and a T-shirt.

I'm not sure what you mean when you ask how it reflects in everyday life.

So, like, the only thing that sets you apart from a cis girl is the way you see yourself?

 

[Noble Scion]

Technically infinite unofficial genders.

1. Male
2. Female
3. Other

Would be what I consider official for passports and such.

 

[Project Naiad]

Technically infinite unofficial genders.

1. Male
2. Female
3. Other

Would be what I consider official for passports and such.

That's awfully generic :/

 

[Noble Scion]

That's awfully generic :/

Meh, I could list off a bunch but forget one and might annoy someone xP
Short, simple and not too specific doesn't really harm anything :3

 

[bobbo_mush]

So, like, the only thing that sets you apart from a cis girl is the way you see yourself?

just about as much as the only thing separating a trans and cisgender person is how they see themself.

 

[Project Naiad]

just about as much as the only thing separating a trans and cisgender person is how they see themself.

Errr, and gender disphoria.

 

[Physiicz]

To me, there are only two genders but I also believe people can do whatever the hell they want. If they feel like being a guy on Tuesday and girl on Wednesday then go for it. It's their lives. Although even if I don't agree with it, I'm not gonna start pushing my opinion on them.

Have fun and live life.

 

[iridescently]

I believe there are more than two genders, just because to me gender is just what you consider yourself. However, SEX is whether you have a penis or a vagina, which means there are only two sexes.

 

[Maki]

 

[PortugalTM]

There are two genders.

Male. Female.

Agender is neither, therefore isn't a gender, you are labelling yourself as not a gender.

Transgender is quite simply, switching your gender, from m>f or f>m, so I don't see 'transgender male' as it's own gender. It's a switch.

However if you're talking sexuality that's a whole new story.

I personally am cisgender (not a gender just means your the same as birth), heterosexual, male, so if you void my opinion because I have no experience.

Fine.

(But also r00d)


Asides, the only true genders are conke and bepis.

 

[jinkx]

warning: i use the word "queer" several times as a reclaimed slur throughout my post to refer to people within the lgtbq+ community, including transgender and non gender conforming people. i am a member of the lgtbq+ community and am using it in a reclaimed sense. however, don't read if the word makes you uncomfortable.

i also want it noted that when i say "non gender conforming", i am referring to anybody that isn't cis. and that this post was not written to "change your mind", this is simply me speaking about gender and lgtbq+ culture as a person who does not identify as cis.

frankly, i don't give a shit if you "agree" with me or not.

how does one define gender? that's what you first take into account when opening this particular can of worms.

gender is a concept. it's a social construct that exists within human society. it's something that humans have invented and that's something that cannot be denied. just like the days of the week, gender identity is something that exists within human society for no other reason than because we say it does.

"but jinkx!!" i hear you cry "there have always been females and males!!"

yes, that's true. there have always (traditionally) been two sexes. your biological sex can be male or female. or so it was originally thought- within the last few centuries, more and more people have been defined as "intersex". that means biologically, they don't fit into "female" or "male". did intersex people just start existing suddenly, a cultural phenomenon? no, of course not!! but we know a lot more now about biological sexes than before and we know now that it's not as simple as one of two boxes to tick.

so, we know that biological sexes have been around since the beginning of time. many people make the mistake of assuming that your sex and your gender identity are one and the same. this isn't true. this has never been true. your sex is biology, your body, while your gender is how you identify.

this is why generally the term transgender is used instead of transsexual. a transgender person is a person who identifies as a gender they weren't designated at birth. you may have heard the terms "designated female at birth" or "designated male at birth" floating around. these refer to the genders stamped on your birth certificate when you were born, which generally matches your biological sex.

(if you were interested, intersex people are generally assigned male or female at birth despite not being biologically male or female)

another common misconception is that brains are somehow gendered. originally it was thought that there were "male" brains and "female" brains- this was sometimes used to explain transgender people, saying they'd somehow got the "wrong" brain for their body. scientists now think that actually, there's no inherent difference between brains. brains aren't either "male" or "female", they're just brains.

"but jinkx!!" you cry again, "surely there are only two genders!!"

actually... no. you would be wrong in saying that. and that's not just me being a "special snowflake" or whatever other misused insult you want to rip from fight club and shove in my face.

see, traditionally, in society we used something called the "gender binary". if you're familiar with binary, you can probably guess what this means. the "gender binary" was the two tick boxes of gender- girl or boy. scientists now think that thinking of gender as a binary ISN'T correct. now, they think we should of gender as more of a spectrum. instead of putting everybody into a box of "girl" or "boy", scientists think it's better to think of everybody as landing somewhere on the spectrum of gender.

for example, you might identify as female or male. but you might also identify as transgender, agender, genderfluid, or another such gender. you also might not have a label at all for what you feel and that's okay too. this might be difficult to comprehend if you identify as the same gender you were assigned at birth because you've never experienced gender dysphoria or identified as another gender. but MANY people identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned.

"but jinkx!!" I hear you cry once more, "if all these genders exist, how come we never heard of them till now??"

a valid question, indeed. there have always been transgender people and gender non conforming people throughout history, just as there have always been gay people. so how come we never heard of them? it's simple, actually!

queer people and their legacy have been erased from history time and time again, that's why. what people don't understand or don't like, they hide away. that's why people don't learn that leonardo da vinci was not straight (he wasn't, look it up). queer people have had their identities stripped away from them by people that feared them. but transgender people and non gender conforming peeps have always been out there since the beginning of time. if you search hard enough, you can find people throughout history who were gender non conforming, there just weren't terms to identify it.

for example, marsha p johnson of the stonewall riots was a transwoman as well as a drag queen, (yes, you can be both). but there wasn't a word for it back then. she didn't have a term to identify herself, which is why she's commonly not referred to as a transwoman. the terminology simply didn't exist.

another example much earlier in history is in original american/first nation culture. people known as "two-spirits" identified as non gender conforming long before america was colonised. but they were mostly erased from history when america was colonised and original american culture was destroyed.

there are lots of examples of gender identities other than cis throughout history but you can bet your ass that they were written over like so many parts of queer history.

another reason that you can't find many people throughout history who don't identify as their gender assigned at birth is because it simply wasn't an accepted thing. trans folks and gender non conforming folks wouldn't have been safe living their lives fifty years ago, let alone hundreds of years ago. people could have been executed for identifying as anything other than what they were told they were- people still are executed in some cultures for not being cisgender!!

multiple genders aren't NEW, they've been around forever but we haven't used the same terminology or weren't safe to openly identify as such. people that did openly identify as such have been closeted by historians. never forget that history is written by the victors and it is so rare that queer people get to be the victors- that's why so much of our history has been erased.

"but jinkx!!" you cry, "you've been talking for bloody ages now and still haven't gotten to answering the question!!"

yes, that's my bad. i just wanted to cover all my bases and this is a subject i am very passionate about.

how many genders are there? who can say for sure. people are using different labels and words and pronouns all the time now. but i raise you another question: does it matter? does it truly matter to you what other people identify as? we're all human beings on earth, all of us living out different lives with different experiences. some people don't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, some people do, and some people aren't sure: but we are all human.

"but jinkx!!" you cry, "i don't believe in there being more than two genders"

okay, cool, whatever. i'm not here to convince you to change your beliefs or anything. if i went around convincing everybody that there's more than two genders all the time, i wouldn't have any time to do my own thing. the one thing i do request is that you are respectful of other people.

it doesn't hurt you to use somebody's pronouns that they've asked you to use, it doesn't hurt to use a name that they feel more comfortable with, and it doesn't hurt you to have the same respect for a trans/gender non conforming that you would have for any other person. you don't necessarily have to understand or care about someone's gender but please be respectful and compassionate. treat other people as you would like to be treated.

i'll answer any honest questions people may have but i won't be responding to any sneering comments. you've heard my thoughts on the matter.