How Many Genders Are There?

[ingemann]

Two human ones XX and XY, I'm not aware of of how many non human genders which exist.

[politicus]

There are two sexes, how many genders there are varies from culture to culture, but usually there are also only two. Sexually abstaining groups (clergy etc.) have often been seen as a third gender. Sometimes a third gender is constructed from men occupying a female role (like in traditional Polynesia). The reverse seems never to be the case (women being "upgraded" to doing mens work in traditional societies is a rare and temporary phenomenon).

The gender situation is fluid in the modern West, but at least it is clear that gays are not considered a separate gender and the asexuals are still gendered. Then there is the whole transgender problematic, but Western transgender people do not strive to establish a separate gender, but to separate biological sex and gender identity (or adjust their biology to their preferred gender). So I suppose it is two, but with some complexities.

Older and more varied gender definitions seems to either have been replaced/or are being replaced by a more rigid bi-gender dichotomy in the non-Western societies that had more complex systems (but I don't know enough about that to make a proper evaluation).

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Two human ones XX and XY, I'm not aware of of how many non human genders which exist.

Chromosomes are an inexact method of finding sex in humans though. You have a certain amount of XX males, and XY females, as well as syndromes from aneuplidy like Turner's syndrome, XYY syndrome, XXYY syndrome etc.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

I fail to understand the "ze hir" business.

i fail to understand the stock market. doesn't mean it's not real.

[bore]

How many numbers are there between 1 and 2?

Infinitely many is the objectively correct answer.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Two. If people want to define themselves as something else, expect my support, pardon my confusion.

So does that include galaxiegender?

Yes, if that's what someone comes up with.  That is the beauty of endless gender.

Have you ever considered that people who say they are galaxiegender or something of that nature really are just men or women looking for attention.

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Two, male and female.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

more than  two

[Murica!]

I honestly don't care. Be what ever you want to be.

[Free Bird]

How are sex and gender different? They're synonyms.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Two (Normal)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How are sex and gender different? They're synonyms.

Sex is a scientific description used to denote a biological organism by its reproductive organs and various secondary sexual characteristics, while gender can be defined as the differences between sexes of humans in a social context or an individual's personal identification. In casual use, gender and sex are synonymous, but this is distinct from a scientific or academic use of the two descriptors. Much like some people will simply call all of the organs of the digestive tract "the stomach", casual non-defined usage isn't helpful in an academic context.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Two- male and female

[ingemann]

I decided to look up the origin of gender and sex, as a non-native speaker maybe there was a sublety I didn't get.

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Nope I seem to use it in the way it's usual used outside a small niche in academia, who seem to use it as shorthand for gender identity out of some kind of lazyness, and now insist the rest of us should use it the same way.

[tik 🪀✨]

Bad news, ingemann, feminist writing has influenced modern society (run!) and this interpretation of the word "gender" is becoming mainstream. There is really no useful distinction between "gender" and "gender identity" when we already have a word for what you want gender to mean.

To answer the thread question - there are two basic genders and most people have a combinations of personality traits and qualities that can be ascribed to either, both, or neither. Some people don't feel gendered at all (but not as something else, just not anything so I don't consider it its own thing, although noteworthy). Some people come up with ridiculously specific (and yet, somehow, useless and indecipherable) nomenclature for their personal experience of gender (which often draws on the two base genders, so they might as well be the only ones that solidly exist for simplicity sake in my opinion). I find all of that pretty cringey myself but young people have been doing stupid sh**t to help themselves figure out who they are and how they fit in to society forever.

tl;dr - There are 2 genders, and a great big fat asterisk

[Alcon]

I decided to look up the origin of gender and sex, as a non-native speaker maybe there was a sublety I didn't get.

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Nope I seem to use it in the way it's usual used outside a small niche in academia, who seem to use it as shorthand for gender identity out of some kind of lazyness, and now insist the rest of us should use it the same way.

I'm with Tik on this one.  It's nice to learn that the word "gender" has such a dumb origin.  But, considering I think we're comfortable saying "sex" in 2015, I'd rather "gender" describe something useful (gender identity) than just be a useless synonym.

Again, I say this as someone who (like Tik) kind of cringes at people who invent ridiculously arcane terms for this kind of thing, as if every possible permutation of human feeling or experience needs its own named subculture.

[politicus]

How are sex and gender different? They're synonyms.

In a Western context biological sex and social gender more or less correspond (but its obviously a bit more complex).

Other cultures have had (and to some extent have) more than two genders.

I tried to explain this in #26 and Madeleine was as usual on point:

Two and change. Gender is not the same thing as biological sex but it is also not something one can just unilaterally decree for oneself (and I should know). There are cultures that have more than two clearly delineated genders but very few if any of us are living in one of them.

[Gustaf]

I don't see much reason to care...

[DemPGH]

For me personally, I do not, and have a very hard time understanding a difference between, male anatomy and "being" a male - or, really "being" male or female. What else is there? Asexuality, for instance, is very rare, but it very occasionally happens. So IDK, and it's not my field or really my interest. We're a species that reproduces sexually between male and female, and sexual reproduction has a very long evolutionary history, so outside of that the subject gets very difficult for me to comprehend. Anatomically, you'd be one or the other, so unless you're actually asexual and are completely inert, you're going to identify with one or the other, I would think. So I have to say two. I mean, people can invent labels for whatever they want, but I think at the end of the story, there are two.

[Penelope]

How many numbers are there between 1 and 2? How many sounds between A and B flat? It's a meaningless question. Gender identity doses not equal sex does not equal gender expression.

Also, not to sound like a bitch, but ... the west isn't the only culture, people.

[politicus]

For me personally, I do not, and have a very hard time understanding a difference between, male anatomy and "being" a male - or, really "being" male or female. What else is there?

To take an example in traditional Polynesia if there was a shortage of women in a family one of the boys was selected to be raised as a female, doing women's work. Some boys also chose this later on because they could escape the heavy toil in the "gardens" in the bush and participating in war and instead pursue creative activities like weaving, pottery etc. They were not always gays, but did not marry and procreate and were regarded as a different group from both men (= warriors) and women. Given that all work was extremely gendered you simply seized to be a man if you did women's work, but it didn't make you a woman either. They didn't have a name back then, but have taken the fakaleiti (and later just elite = pidgin for lady) in late 20th century and have adopted a more Western mix of transgender/gay identity, but there are still some straight fakaleitis. So an identity/social role which has been Westernized towards a female transgender identity, but was originally a third gender and still is to some degree.

Traditional Japan offers other examples and some historians claim celibate clergy was seen as a separate gender in early medieval Europe. Generally, if gender is determined by either being sexually active or doing certain kinds of work then those that do not do those things can become a separate gender.

[bagelman]

Three: M, F, and Other

It's a good compromise to make the insane tumblr SJWs to shut up with their talk of 100 genders while not  excluding genderqueers and others. Also useful on the internet for being anon.

[Bigby]

Why, there are several. There are men, women, otherkin, sharks, even bigger sharks, monster trucks, Apache attack helicopters, cupcakes...

Real answer: 2, and I don't really care if anyone identifies as more than the other two. Stop making it a big deal.