Here’s a question I’ve been pitting to friends and family this last month: if tomorrow you woke up without a body, would you be able to guess what gender you are?
We can’t tell the gender of a musician, or a composer. Examiners can’t tell the gender of those who submit exam papers, whether in English, science or maths… So, what makes us think we would guess our own gender?
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In most twentieth century communist societies, the roles of men and women were perfectly equal, in dress and occupation (babies were handed over to state nurseries to be reared); in eighteenth century Europe, high heels and make-up were the prerogative of men, while women dressed more chastely. Societies create gender-roles and biases. There is nothing ‘essential’ about gender.
But my point is this: if biological sex is not the determining factor of gender, and culture is permanently shifting decade by decade and country by country, what is the determining factor? If there is no objective criterion, and the choice of gender is simply ‘what feels right for the individual’, then there are suddenly as many genders as there are individuals, in fact possibly as many genders as there are people who have ever lived, at any time and in any place.
