The concept of the bi-directional gender identity is doomed to end. What will happen to humankind when it does?
Perhaps I should start this off by addressing the elephant in the room. Like you, dear reader, I once thought that the gender identity discussion was pure baloney. Here is proof. However, I’ve begun to soften up to reality: I now think that it is an inevitability that the dichotomy of male and female cease.
Notice that I am not making a moral judgment here. I am saying that such a thing is an inevitability. I do not dare this early on in the process say whether it is good or bad. What I am saying is, alas, we don’t get a choice. Perhaps that sounds fatalistic. But life is fatalistic — things happen outside of your control.
Before I get too deep into the cultural meat of things, let’s get the silly biological stuff out of the way first. Yes, you are born with either a penis or a vagina. Some even argue that you can be born with both a penis and a vagina, or two penises, or none of the above, or some other possible customization option we haven’t unlocked yet. Honestly, I find this discussion awfully boring and we won’t be addressing it. We’ll stick with the identity stuff.
The main argument for why gender identity split — and why it continued to split — was an increasing trend towards individualism. People no longer wanted to be defined by dichotomies or groups — they wanted to be defined by themselves. And while that doesn’t mean dichotomies or patterns don’t exist, it does mean that people will go far to shed them off. This was done with sexuality, and culture, and now gender. People now realize that many of the factors that have traditionally defined boy or girl have no bearing in reality. So they threw them out.
I would also rather brazenly argue that people’s main problem with the gender split wasn’t with the split itself. Rather, it’s because people are becoming more extremist. They do not just want to have their own gender identity, but they want you to acknowledge it! They want it to be part of the social curriculum — to further culturalization in favor of the gender split, no matter what the cost. But I would argue that the gender split and the extremism are two different cultural markers that just happen to intersect very well with each other. While it is true that splitting up gender identity would be a liberal policy, as I mentioned this individualist branding is much longer term. Extremism in politics only flared up again rather recently — while it’s not clear who’s to blame for it, there are some very clear potential culprits (cough the Internet).
It’s not clear how the gender identity game will go in the short term. I have no argument for gender studies breaking through and making their way into the public consciousness now, only that it is destined to happen. It seems clear that people are tired of being thrown into groups of all sorts, and would rather stick with having their own unique, customized style. This comes with its own problems, but perhaps that’s for another post.
