50 Shades of Gender: Gender Complexity and Post-Gender Society
21 April, 2025
For much of recorded history, gender and sex were used interchangeably: male meant XY chromosomes and masculinity, and female meant XX chromosomes and femininity. However, modern gender has evolved into a broader and more nuanced spectrum—some sources listing dozens, if not hundreds, of uniquely defined identities. This essay examines the nature of gender and argues for abolishing it as a descriptive identifying term.
Historically, and even now in some societies, gender was a binary. I, myself, have seen and experienced what it feels like to be a part of such a society. The modern definition of “gender” has evolved away from “sex” into a social construct. However, the restriction of sex-gender equivalence is also a social construct. So, would it not be fair to argue that social categorisation is inherently restrictive? Let’s explore this. Suppose you have a gradient of colours. Perhaps it looks like the one below:
If we categorise this into just two parts, we can choose between most blue and most red.
But evidently, even we can see that the red part actually includes red, orange, pink (ish), and bits of yellow and magenta. The blue part actually includes green, cyan, blue, violet, and bits of yellow and magenta. So we will do better justice and split it into some major colours.
Even if we ignored the obvious bleed of neighbouring colours into the other, what about different shades of these colours?
But these blocks of colours are not representative of what these colours actually are. So, if you want to actually do justice to all the colours of the gradient, you have to keep splitting it into smaller and smaller groups.
Despite these splits, and the fact that the last strip seems the same, it is still a gradient:
| #ff5600 | #ff6400 | #ff7400 |
So, the only way to do proper justice to the identity of a colour would be to describe them individually and specifically. For example, “green” would mean this:
But the above palette doesn’t even include the normally known “green” colour. It is obvious that this palette does not include our intuitive range of greens. Similarly, some of us may not consider some colours here to be green (personally, the 4th column, 3rd row doesn’t feel exactly green).
Now, you may have realised what my extended metaphor was inching towards. Yes, I intended to use it as an allegory for gender. The traditional definition of gender was too binary to do justice for all the hues—let alone the shades. The modern definition is akin to the split into major colours because ultimately variation still exists within these gender groups, and no definition would ever be enough to describe all in a particular gender group. Unless, of course, you reduce the size of the split to be so small that each would only hold a handful.
This leads me to ask: why should we spend so much effort on defining gender? Anchoring gender so heavily on identity was perhaps a limitation of a learning society—a limitation we can evolve beyond. I propose that gender and even sexuality are deeply personal orientations, just like one’s favourite colour, perhaps reductively. They are deeply personal aspects, not just preferences. One would say, “My preferred pronouns are [...],” or “I find [...] attractive.” So, why assign undue value to this preference?
Many gender activists support ideas like pronouns, social acceptance, legal definitions, etc. However, a main limitation of this cause is partly contextual and partly due to their misguidance. One of the main reasons why I struggled to understand the concept of preferred pronouns was because my native language, Sinhala, commonly uses no gendered pronouns in colloquial use. It was reserved as a formality. So, sometimes, the struggle to self-identify is only the fault of our undue focus on gender in language. I have come to realise that some languages already have linguistic compatibility with gender neutrality. We could perfectly use genderless or gender-neutral pronouns (some languages do not even have gendered pronouns). Surely, it is wrong for me to blame society for having gendered pronouns. I will argue, though, that it is possible to evolve past that. Many languages without gender neutrality are experimenting and evolving neopronouns for it.
Furthermore, the struggle for social acceptance has activists fighting for social perception as their identities. However, this social expectation often revolves around the fact that society cares far more about the social perception of gender than it should. In this lies both support and opposition for modern gender politics. Suppose one’s favourite colour was a personal identifier (likened to gender), and they wear only their favourite colour (likened to gender identity). The social conflict lies in the fact that the majority like red or blue, and they are not happy to produce clothes in other colours (hence the need for activism). My proposition is to remove the need to wear only your favourite colour. Let clothing be a choice, not a label. Accessorising can reflect personal style without defining your identity. You can remove gender from language but retain it as a personal preference. You would never introduce yourself with, “Hello, I am [...]. My favourite colour is [...].”
Finally, another clash lies in the fact that some public infrastructure is built around gender and sex. Some fault lies among a minority of activists who mistake gender and sex—they regard gender change (surgically reassigned or otherwise) as equivalent to a sex change. This misconception leads to some people sharing their gender, not biological sex, in medical or research settings—and facing non-ideal consequences. Furthermore, a more sensitive topic is washrooms. The main concerns against gender-neutral bathrooms include fears of assault and personal discomfort. However, the same concerns echo past social concerns that justified segregation. Equality often challenges the status quo, and discomfort is not always rational evidence for exclusion. It’s almost as if it makes no difference whether you split bathrooms by gender or not. One does their business as their boundaries or capabilities permit, at a urinal or a stall. If one wishes to exploit the vulnerability of a bathroom, a mere label of Men-Women in bathrooms makes no difference.
So, to reiterate my case: gender identity is so complex that categorising will never do justice to its inhabitants. This would set off a social trend of repeatedly adding more categories until gender identity is so varied that it is as arbitrary as asking someone what their favourite colour is. The answer could be as wide as green or as specific as #008080. Such an approach is more suffocating for a society bound to gender identity than freeing. A post-gender society would allow individuals to practice their own gender identity, revealing as much or as little as they needed. Gender identity would not exist. Gender wars would not exist. Gender oppression would not exist. Even attraction and romance could be independent of gender.
Image Rainbow-Regenbogen-meshgradient.png by pd4u under CC0, Kopimi, and WTFPL
This is a personal and philosophical exploration of gender as a social construct. I intend no disrespect and support and uphold the legal and moral rights of all people of all gender identities and sexualities. The essay's metaphors are only for illustration, not equivalence.