Took us long enough to ask this fucking question, but sometimes we need to explore the things that are more familiar to us before stepping back and asking a question as big as "what is gender?"
We've been beating around this bush for a while, right? Is gender biological? Is gender a social construct? Is gender something with multitudes in it? Is gender constant? Is gender static? Is gender maleable? It feels like we're playing 20 questions just to get down to an answer to a question I took four fucking pages to finally ask. So what the hell is gender?
And I don't just mean "is gender a social construct" or "are there more than two genders."
I mean, what is the form of gender itself, not just the various views we can have? What is it made out of? Where does it come from? We talk about it almost constantly in so many roundabout ways--isn't it weird that our answers to "what is gender" are equally roundabout, and even stranger we're so reticent to ask in the first place?
But the problem is, gender can be a lot of things.
To some folks, it's a biological absolute. To others it's something constantly being made. Gender can be as varied or complex, or as simple and thoughtless, as folks want it to be. It can be defining. It can be deep enough to make a whole fucking website out of if you're fool enough, and so straightforward you rarely think about it. It can dictate who you date and what you do. It has the same amount of power as it's given. There are all these different views of what gender is, and all these different ways gender ends up changing perception and action and thought and culture.
When I write "gender is big," I don't just mean you could spend a few thousand words on it.
So maybe asking questions really is the best way to work out what gender is.
Back on the Beyond the Binaries page, I mentioned that gender can function as a way to define socially acceptable behaviors. While this doesn't work well as a universal statement on What Gender Is, it does prompt the question: what are the functions of gender?
Gender often describes relationships, be they the mythic ones in some of our binary systems, or more societal ones with something like gender non-conformity. This pairs well with defined roles for each gender (as well as the denial of those roles), though what those roles are, and whether they're constant is a different question. Again, the more people we need to squeeze into a gender with defined roles or relationships, the more likely we are to have either (1). Very broad definitions for each gender, or (2). A way to "encourage" compliance, such as conformity being tied to morality or other cultural values. This limits the number of relationships we can describe and the specificity of our roles, or otherwise creates a system that's innacurate to reality, but believed in nontheless.
The alternative is to exapnd our sense of gender, and arguably, that's already happened.
Take the interplay of class/financial security and gender, for example. If gender describes roles and relationships, "Upperclass Woman" is going to have different roles and relationships than "Lowerclass Woman," and therefore could be considered a different gender under this system.
Note that the definition of gender (i.e. descriptive of relationships or not descriptive of relationships, or having roles vs not having roles) will affect how it plays with different sociological categories.
And wait!
We just hit on gold there!
Read that sentence again: Note that the definition of gender will affect how it plays with different sociological categories.
Gender is a way to categorize people.
That's true in binary systems, and it's true in non-binary systems. It's true whether you think gender is biological, or sociological, or spiritual.
As far as I can tell, that is the only thing that is true of gender itself, no matter what view we're taking.
Gender is how we categorize people.
And fuck if that doesn't just open up its own can of worms.