Gender by Erickson-Schroth Laura; Davis Benjamin;

Author:Erickson-Schroth, Laura; Davis, Benjamin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Do some cultures have more than two gender options?

In many countries today there is growing visibility and conversation around nonbinary gender identities. In 2016 Oregon resident Jamie Shupe became the first U.S. citizen to be legally recognized as nonbinary, with many following in Jamie’s footsteps and legally updating their legal gender markers from “M” or “F” to “X” or “Unknown.”

Some individuals have gender identities that lie between the boundaries of “man” and “woman.” Many of these individuals would be categorized under the umbrella term transgender and may use language like nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, genderqueer, bigender, or gender nonconforming. In 2014, Facebook began allowing users to choose among 58 defined genders, with many other social media networks and online dating sites following their lead. Today, many university applications have options for gender identities that fall beyond male and female. There are third gender or “other” gender options for some local government records, as well as for many organizations and programs providing social services and aid. However, while there is increasing accessibility for an individual to change their legal gender from male to female or female to male, at the time of this writing it is still difficult if not impossible in most U.S. states to legally be recognized as a third gender.

Despite legal hurdles, there is an undeniable growing conversation and acceptance of gender diversity. Schools and social service agencies are urged to be mindful of inclusion of nonbinary identities, based in large part in evidence of the psychological and educational roadblocks associated with disregard of such vital aspects of personhood. But there are those too who stand in fierce opposition to policy change that would increase acknowledgment of nonbinary and intersex individuals (those who are born with bodies not considered either completely male or female). Objectors may have religious or political doubts regarding the legitimacy and realness of such identities. Pathologized, nonbinary and intersex bodies are often seen as defective, and gender identities invisible to the human eye continue to be regarded with skepticism and doubt. Others have voiced concern that seeking legal gender reassignment could make someone more difficult to trace or track, and could increase the potential for identity fraud or evading a warrant or search.

While it is true that creating a legal record of transgender and nonbinary people who fall outside the traditional binary necessitates a major overhaul in systems (and social awareness), volumes of evidence indicate that individuals with genders apart from “male” and “female” have existed throughout time and across the globe. Some of our oldest records, gleamed from ancient Egyptian pottery created between 2000 and 1800 bce, depict three distinct genders: tai (male), sḫt (sekhet), and hmt (female). In Mesopotamian mythology, among the earliest written records of humanity, there are references to types of people who are neither male nor female. Plato’s Symposium, written around the 4th century bce, details a creation myth involving three original sexes: female, male, and androgynous. Rabbi Elliot Kukla, who studies religious scripture and gender, has commented on the existence of six distinct genders referenced in ancient religious texts.

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