Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota Let's Go Places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hello, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcasts
Speaker 1: that looks at the future and says, I'm not a woman,
Speaker 1: I'm not a man. I am something that you'll never understand.
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Volgabon and I'm Joe McCormick. And our regular
Speaker 1: host Jonathan Strickland is not with us this week. He
Speaker 1: is off running around somewhere in Europe doing doing who
Speaker 1: knows what. I certainly don't know, but Jonathan's place. Today,
Speaker 1: we are joined by our excellent co worker Raquel. Raquel,
Speaker 1: could you please introduce yourself to our listeners. Sure, Um,
Speaker 1: my name is Raquel Willis. I am a digital publisher
Speaker 1: here at how Stuff Works dot com and I'm also
Speaker 1: a writer and activists. Yeah. We wanted to invite Raquel
Speaker 1: onto the show today because we are talking, if you
Speaker 1: perhaps cottoned onto our prince lyric about the future of
Speaker 1: gender and this is a topic that we that we
Speaker 1: had a listener request for, and so I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to to read this email. It is from Gemma.
Speaker 1: She says, hi, and that said something really nice about
Speaker 1: us that I'm not going to repeat because it's embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I am delighted to say that you guys have helped
Speaker 1: influence my decision to study artificial intelligence at university next
Speaker 1: year and to do further and to further do research
Speaker 1: in the field. As well as being excited about the technology,
Speaker 1: I try to think of how larger social issues will
Speaker 1: be dealt with in the future, such as what impact
Speaker 1: computers and AI could have on developing countries, possibly largely
Speaker 1: through education, and if capitalism will ever crumble a bit
Speaker 1: like the politics you talked about in the Star Trek
Speaker 1: Economy episode. Yeah, yeah, that that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: fan favorites I think. Yeah, we hear about that a lot. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. Um Gemma says, I try to fight
Speaker 1: against all kinds of inequalities and am an enthusiastic feminist
Speaker 1: us too. There are some interesting ideas about the future
Speaker 1: of gender specifically, such as gender neutrality and genderism linked
Speaker 1: with trans humanism. I think it would be really awesome
Speaker 1: if you guys could touch on some of these ideas
Speaker 1: sometime or just look into it. Thanks for your time
Speaker 1: and awesomeness. And then there's a really cool, cute little
Speaker 1: emoticon thing. Well, thank you, Jimma, because I think that
Speaker 1: is a really interesting idea to talk about on this show.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating topic to look at because it occurs
Speaker 1: at the intersection of a bunch of different things that
Speaker 1: we do talk about a lot and and touches all
Speaker 1: of them kind of equally. It includes biology, technology, and culture.
Speaker 1: And uh, now, there's obviously no way we can come
Speaker 1: even close to saying everything there is to say about
Speaker 1: a concept is huge and important as gender. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we we already delayed recording this podcast once because
Speaker 1: we were like, oh, we have too many things to
Speaker 1: say for this to occur today. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: one thing that we can try to do is just
Speaker 1: look at a few indications of trends in how humans
Speaker 1: have been understanding gender, especially in our culture here in
Speaker 1: the West, and how those trends might continue into the future,
Speaker 1: and then touch on Jemma's idea of post genderism towards
Speaker 1: the end, which is which is a really interesting concept
Speaker 1: that frankly, I think we should have explored on this
Speaker 1: show sometime before, given all the ways it interacts with
Speaker 1: topics we talk about all the time, like trans humanism. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of future out there, Joe, and we
Speaker 1: only have two episodes a week. Umuh. And I did
Speaker 1: want to put in here that, uh, of course gender
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in a vacuum. Um, I mean by necessity,
Speaker 1: because it's a cultural and social construct. So so, like
Speaker 1: Joe said, and kind of in the in the interests
Speaker 1: of our heads not exploding totally, we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking mainly today about gender in the West and in
Speaker 1: the United States specifically, and we're going to be speaking
Speaker 1: in some generalized terms. But of course keep in mind
Speaker 1: that you know, the United States is a multicultural society
Speaker 1: and gender gender interconnects with like race and religious beliefs
Speaker 1: and all of these other big, huge factors that certainly
Speaker 1: cannot be ignored. But we might be glossing over a
Speaker 1: tiny bit. But hey, speaking of generalized terms, let's lay
Speaker 1: out some definitions because there seems to be some confusion
Speaker 1: sometimes when people are talking about the terms sex and
Speaker 1: gender and as a side note, sexuality. So yes, so
Speaker 1: we're going to start off with some generalized terms, just
Speaker 1: kind of breaking it down for you guys a little bit.
Speaker 1: These are concepts that we live with throughout our entire lives,
Speaker 1: but of course, unless you really really have to, you
Speaker 1: might not look at them too closely. So starting with sex,
Speaker 1: So sex is generally what we think of biologically wise,
Speaker 1: it's what's going on with your body. So you may
Speaker 1: have always heard that sex is binary, right, it's male
Speaker 1: versus female, But of course we know with the rise
Speaker 1: of genetics and the study of hormones and chromosomes and
Speaker 1: all these different sex therapies, that there's a range. There's
Speaker 1: male female, inter sex, and actually you can change your sex.
Speaker 1: Then we'll get into gender. So gender is socialized. It's
Speaker 1: kind of the person's personalized version of your sex and
Speaker 1: how you were present to the world. Right, So going
Speaker 1: back to that binary, that's a little iffy because not
Speaker 1: everyone identifies as masculine or feminine or either one of those.
Speaker 1: In a strict sense, you can transcend gender, right, You
Speaker 1: can be anywhere on what we consider a continuum or
Speaker 1: the gender spectrum. And then just at a side note,
Speaker 1: a lot of times people conflate sexuality with the with
Speaker 1: your biological sex or with your gender, but these are
Speaker 1: all really independent factors. So if you want to break
Speaker 1: it down, you can kind of think of it as
Speaker 1: you know, sex is basically what you are signed with
Speaker 1: at birth or what you are um said to be
Speaker 1: born as. Gender is often how you feel. It's what
Speaker 1: you go to bad as. And sex and sexuality can
Speaker 1: be thought of as who you may want to go
Speaker 1: to bad with. Putting it absolutely uh And historically all
Speaker 1: of these definitions have have kind of slid and changed.
Speaker 1: The concepts of sex and gender are not solid as
Speaker 1: much as kind of like like. Tradition dictates that they
Speaker 1: have to have been this way all of the time. Um,
Speaker 1: they haven't been. Certainly, the medical definition has changed a
Speaker 1: whole lot in the past hundred years or so. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until the eighteen nineties that humanity first started figuring
Speaker 1: out that there are chromosomes. The chromosomes exist um chromosomes,
Speaker 1: of course, being the winded up bits of DNA that
Speaker 1: helped determine your biological sex. There was a German biologist
Speaker 1: by the name Herman Hanking who was studying sperm formation
Speaker 1: in wasps you know like you do and he u
Speaker 1: He noticed that some of the sperm cells had a
Speaker 1: even chromosomes while others had twelve. He called this X
Speaker 1: chromosome the X element, hence eventually X chromosomes um the
Speaker 1: X element and hypothesized that it had to do with
Speaker 1: sex determination. His hypothesis was then later supported by two
Speaker 1: American zoologists who are working with grasshoppers around nineteen o two.
Speaker 1: Not sure why it was all insects, but anyway, um uh.
Speaker 1: It was eventually the subject of of one paper that
Speaker 1: that that I read caused a lively debate for a
Speaker 1: few years. I'm not positive what in like Victorian ish
Speaker 1: times like lively debate precisely means, but I'm but I'm
Speaker 1: delighted by that, so okay. Prior to these studies, though,
Speaker 1: it was thought that environmental factors determined the sex of
Speaker 1: an embryo. Oh like like fikeets warm while the embryo
Speaker 1: embryo is developing or something exactly. Yeah. Uh. And eventually
Speaker 1: we realize that there are a number of chromosome all
Speaker 1: conditions and humans not just X X and X why
Speaker 1: but extra xes or wise can be present or a
Speaker 1: single X can exist all on its own and um,
Speaker 1: and and that's the the intersex category that that raquel
Speaker 1: was talking about a second ago. And estimates of the
Speaker 1: rate of inter sexuality and the population range from like
Speaker 1: zero point zero two percent to about one point seven percent,
Speaker 1: depending on exactly how you define it. So so biologically speaking,
Speaker 1: there are not just dudes and ladies like that's that's
Speaker 1: not that's not what's up. Um, And just the fun
Speaker 1: fact you cannot always just assume what your chromosomes are.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of different factors that
Speaker 1: can go into your chromosome will makeup and you really
Speaker 1: can only know if you get tested exactly. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: read stories about that where people so your your your phenotype,
Speaker 1: your your what what your genes have produced in your
Speaker 1: body doesn't necessarily make a difference or it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: indicate that you have an XX or an x y UM.
Speaker 1: And it happened to be around the same time that
Speaker 1: that researchers began realizing the roles that hormones play in
Speaker 1: our bodies. To um that there was some animal research
Speaker 1: in the mid eighteen hundreds establishing the idea that organs
Speaker 1: in the body can communicate with each other via chemicals
Speaker 1: like communicate in like a big hilarious eighteen hundreds scare quotes, um.
Speaker 1: And and then uh, we got the word hormone. It
Speaker 1: was coined in nineteen O five and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: since then, we've we've been able to synthesize hormones in
Speaker 1: the lab and develop hormone therapies to help people who
Speaker 1: were either born with um with a with a genetic disorder.
Speaker 1: I mean also technically like insulin is a hormone, so uh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty great that we can synthesize that in labs,
Speaker 1: or of course people who are choosing to change their
Speaker 1: their bodies with hormone therapy. So we've come a long way,
Speaker 1: but we're really still figuring out how individuals bodies regulate
Speaker 1: their own hormones and for the more how those hormones
Speaker 1: interact with with other bodily processes. Yeah, and so that's
Speaker 1: getting us closer to where we are today in terms
Speaker 1: of our understanding of biological sex and uh and intersex conditions.
Speaker 1: But there's also a sort of cultural history that we
Speaker 1: should look at it in terms of received ideas about gender,
Speaker 1: because with this distinction we made earlier, sex is biology,
Speaker 1: gender is identity, and identity involves culture, values, norms, expectations, behaviors,
Speaker 1: and so I guess we should look at how those
Speaker 1: things have changed in the past. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people would just assume that, you know, the traditional
Speaker 1: position as they would see it in the West in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century or something like that has always been
Speaker 1: the case everywhere. Well, we just always believed that there
Speaker 1: are men and women, and that men should be masculine
Speaker 1: and women should be feminine, and that the definitions of
Speaker 1: masculine and feminine have been the same. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: hasn't always been that way everywhere. So, yes, many of
Speaker 1: the world's cultures, historically and even today recognize more than
Speaker 1: just two genders. Um. The idea of a male or
Speaker 1: female role as the only options really is in a
Speaker 1: lot of way, it's very um, let's just say, a
Speaker 1: lot of cultures have been very creative. Um. So, even
Speaker 1: here in the United States, if we think historically among
Speaker 1: Native Americans, the role or the idea of a third, fourth,
Speaker 1: or fifth gender, often called to spirit has been widely documented.
Speaker 1: Children who may have been born physically male or female,
Speaker 1: but showed an interest or proclivity for another gender role
Speaker 1: within their societies were often encouraged to live out those
Speaker 1: gender roles and and see what fit them best. So,
Speaker 1: you know, when you think about these roles and and
Speaker 1: how they were regarded within a lot of Native American cultures,
Speaker 1: we won't say all um, these the roles were given
Speaker 1: a lot of respect, and they were often thought of
Speaker 1: as very spiritually powerful. So people who were two spirits
Speaker 1: were often shamans and teachers and caretakers. And it's very
Speaker 1: important to remember that there are many two spirit identified
Speaker 1: people around today. And of course there are many cultures
Speaker 1: still throughout the world to view gender in a different
Speaker 1: way than we do here in the United States, and
Speaker 1: the and the the history. I mean, like like we
Speaker 1: could do an entire, ridiculously long episode about the changes
Speaker 1: in in this kind of cultural perspective that have happened
Speaker 1: over the past few centuries, let alone the past few millennia,
Speaker 1: and UH that it's it's it's really interesting, And that's
Speaker 1: not what we got into today. But what we did
Speaker 1: get into is, um, some of the modern attitudes and
Speaker 1: definitions that we that we ascribe to gender and sex
Speaker 1: here in the United States, like like like legally and
Speaker 1: culturally speaking. Yeah, that's right, because I think looking at
Speaker 1: law is a good way to sort of get a
Speaker 1: gauge for the level of acceptance something UH is encountering
Speaker 1: in the society at large. So you know, how does
Speaker 1: the law treat gender? Does the law even recognize this
Speaker 1: idea of gender identity as something different than just what
Speaker 1: genitalia you have or what sex chromosomes you have? And
Speaker 1: in US law, traditionally the answer was mostly no, until
Speaker 1: more recently that there was a sex distinction in the law,
Speaker 1: any laws that pertain to how men and women should
Speaker 1: be treated or treated differently or not treated differently. Just
Speaker 1: we're trying to use biological distinctions as understood at the time. Ay, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: They were reverting to the biological binary as they understood it.
Speaker 1: For example, in US law, Title seven of the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty four prohibits, among other things,
Speaker 1: employment discrimination on the basis of sex. So you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to, under this law hire a man when there's
Speaker 1: you know, a more qualified woman that really you you
Speaker 1: should be hiring, but you just would rather have a
Speaker 1: man working for you. So traditionally this was interpreted by
Speaker 1: US courts to refer to biological sex, not gender identity.
Speaker 1: But this is changing and through the accumulation of many
Speaker 1: changes in law and judicial interpretation over time. So I
Speaker 1: want to talk about one example I read about in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or
Speaker 1: the e o C, set this important precedent relating to
Speaker 1: the legal status of gender identity in a case called
Speaker 1: Macy versus Holder, and the holder was Air Culture the
Speaker 1: Attorney General suit being brought to the government about about
Speaker 1: gender discrimination. And so the plaintiff was a police detective
Speaker 1: as she was a ballistics expert who applied for a
Speaker 1: job at a crime hi lab while still presenting as male,
Speaker 1: and she seems to have been offered the job pending
Speaker 1: a background check, but then after she announced to change
Speaker 1: in her listed name and gender, the tentative job offer
Speaker 1: was retracted. And then she reported receiving contradictory explanations for
Speaker 1: why this happened. One person told her budget cuts eliminated
Speaker 1: the position, and a different person told her, you know, well,
Speaker 1: we went with a different candidate who was farther along
Speaker 1: in the process. According to the plaintiff, and in the end,
Speaker 1: the equal point that the e s C ruled that
Speaker 1: Title seven should apply to gender identity, that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that was taken away from the ruling
Speaker 1: in this case. So they wrote, quote, if Title seven
Speaker 1: prescribed only discrimination on the basis of biological sex. Then
Speaker 1: only prohibited gender based disparate treatment would be when an
Speaker 1: employer prefers a man over a woman, or vice versa.
Speaker 1: But the statutes protections sweep far broader than that, in
Speaker 1: part because the term gender encompasses not only a person's
Speaker 1: biological sex, but also the cultural and social aspects associated
Speaker 1: with masculinity and femininity and so yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: one legal precedent for understanding there's a distinction here and
Speaker 1: sort of recognizing that distinction. And of course when courts
Speaker 1: recognize the distinction, it begins to to gain a level
Speaker 1: of leverage essentially over what what can be done with
Speaker 1: the law in the society. And UH, some jurisdictions have
Speaker 1: actually tried to put gender identity into specific terms so that,
Speaker 1: for example, it can be demonstrated in the court in
Speaker 1: the case of, for example, an employment discrimination suit on
Speaker 1: the basis of gender identity. Just one example is a
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven Massachusetts state law UH that tried to
Speaker 1: offer one of these definitions, and it said, quote, gender
Speaker 1: related identity may be shown by providing evidence, including but
Speaker 1: not limited to, medical history, hair, or treatment of the
Speaker 1: gender related identity consistent and uniform assertion of the gender
Speaker 1: related identity, or any other evidence that the gender related
Speaker 1: identity is sincerely held as part of the person's core identity,
Speaker 1: which seems reasonable. Yeah, So I think legal definitions like
Speaker 1: this provides sort of like additional bricks in the edifice
Speaker 1: of mainstream acceptance of the idea of gender identity is
Speaker 1: something distinct from biological sex and thus something that could
Speaker 1: contribute to this post gender idea that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about eventually here. Right. So, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: or one of the main reasons that gender identity is
Speaker 1: kind of this term that we needed to to describe
Speaker 1: um our experience as a gender is that there are
Speaker 1: so many people who may not identify with the gender
Speaker 1: that they were assigned at birth. Right, So we often
Speaker 1: think of um people who may be transitioning from a
Speaker 1: male gender to a female gender or vi versa. But
Speaker 1: of course there are many ways in which people can
Speaker 1: kind of trans egenter. People can identify with gender on
Speaker 1: the spectrum or off of the spectrum, in the middle
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, on different ends of the spectrum. There
Speaker 1: are so many different ways to identify and and we
Speaker 1: often associate this with transgender people. And so there actually
Speaker 1: is a report that came out in two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: from the Williams Institute in California. The estimated that there
Speaker 1: are about seven hundred thousand transagender Americans. I would dare
Speaker 1: to say that there are many, many more. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: number sounds slow to me, it does, I mean, but
Speaker 1: but maybe maybe I'm also including in my mental calculation, uh,
Speaker 1: non gendered people like like people who do feel that
Speaker 1: they fall outside of the spectrum and aren't necessarily in
Speaker 1: our in our living just however they want to, but
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily identify as trans right. And I would imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, since two thousand even there has been such
Speaker 1: an upset invisibility and just understanding. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: new ways in which people describe themselves, um, within the
Speaker 1: transgender community. So there's definitely got to be more out there. Um.
Speaker 1: But going into uh recognition, right, so it's important that
Speaker 1: people can get that legal recognition of how they identify.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things we're seeing lately is
Speaker 1: an expansion of legal gender definitions and options. Recently, an
Speaker 1: Oregan court ruled in favor of a person identifying as
Speaker 1: neither sex option or or traditional sex option or traditional
Speaker 1: gender option, and and so that they can really assert
Speaker 1: their identity as a non binary individual. And so historically
Speaker 1: oregan law. UM it didn't necessarily specifically limit gender options
Speaker 1: to male or female, but that was kind of the
Speaker 1: unspoken idea or rule. It's like the checkbox likes right.
Speaker 1: When rules are unspoken, people sort of default to their prejudices.
Speaker 1: I suppose yeah, right. And then of course, so for
Speaker 1: decades that legal process really only involved this idea of
Speaker 1: changing from one sex to another or changing from one
Speaker 1: gender to another UM. And so that process really was
Speaker 1: very much like changing a name. You know, you submitted
Speaker 1: papers and and and the petition and the petitioner would
Speaker 1: submit that paperwork, you would pay a filing fee, and
Speaker 1: then you know, get a notice of your proposed change.
Speaker 1: And so this judge in particular was like, Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got all the paperwork here. If this is how
Speaker 1: you identified, then this is valid. And so this is
Speaker 1: really one of the first cases within the United States
Speaker 1: of of legal representation of people who don't identify a
Speaker 1: strictly male or strictly female. And of course there are
Speaker 1: other countries around the world that have kind of tackled
Speaker 1: this issue or have some kind of uh built in
Speaker 1: mechanism legally that that encompasses people who identify with the
Speaker 1: gender that isn't just male or female, places like Singapore, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Speaker 1: and then of course there are other places like Australian
Speaker 1: Germany that have stipulations on intersex children or people who
Speaker 1: are born as intersex identifying um in different ways. Right,
Speaker 1: So there really does seem to be a trend, a
Speaker 1: trend towards more recognition of of gender as a separate
Speaker 1: category from sex and of non binary sex identification in
Speaker 1: illegal framework. And it doesn't mean that there's not resistance
Speaker 1: to this trend. It's obviously no surprise that people have
Speaker 1: lots of opinions about gender and how things are supposed
Speaker 1: to be when it comes to sex and sex related concepts.
Speaker 1: But I have noticed that on the internet once or twice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so fairly stated. We all know that people have opinions.
Speaker 1: But I would say, from a from as close to
Speaker 1: we can get as a point of neutral observation, it
Speaker 1: does seem undeniable that in the United States things are changing,
Speaker 1: The law is moving toward a more general recognition of
Speaker 1: gender identity as a category separate from sex and a
Speaker 1: potentially protected class under laws like the sixty four Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act. UM just one more example in an article
Speaker 1: for the American Bar Association, which mentions the things that
Speaker 1: that I was talking about the last time I spoke
Speaker 1: and more. Evan Schlack predicts that this trend of increasing
Speaker 1: legal recognition for gender gender identity will continue into the future.
Speaker 1: And to illustrate the sort of single directionality of the trend, uh,
Speaker 1: he points out that only three states recognized and prohibited
Speaker 1: employer discrimination based on gender identity between nineteen and two
Speaker 1: thousand three, but that expanded to thirteens states plus the
Speaker 1: District of Columbia during the next ten year period up
Speaker 1: to So that does seem like a pretty strong trend
Speaker 1: we can observe there. Uh. And the trend, of course
Speaker 1: in law is mirrored in culture at large is something
Speaker 1: that's probably less strictly codified and enforceable, but you can
Speaker 1: kind of get a gist of generally how gender is
Speaker 1: perceived among you know, in movies and on TV, and
Speaker 1: what what people talk about on the internet. Absolutely absolutely
Speaker 1: all of that that that fascinating pop culture stuff. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So getting out of the kind of nitty gritty legal
Speaker 1: world and we're gonna step into the culture. And if
Speaker 1: you're like everyone in the world and you follow some
Speaker 1: kind of entertainment and media, um, there has always kind
Speaker 1: of been this playground of gender expression. You can think
Speaker 1: about what a lot of who a lot of people
Speaker 1: consider this kind of gender nonconformed any goddess, Grace Jones,
Speaker 1: you can think of the late David Bowie, and of
Speaker 1: course the also very very recently late Prints. But more
Speaker 1: recently there have been a lot of young mouth celebrities
Speaker 1: like Will Smith's son Jaden Smith and Magic Johnson's son E. J. Johnson. Um,
Speaker 1: pushing the envelope for a new generation with closets that
Speaker 1: are a bit more unabashedly feminine. And then, of course
Speaker 1: women have transcended gender in fashion for a long time.
Speaker 1: I mean you can just think of days long ago
Speaker 1: when women could not wear pants, and and of course
Speaker 1: the women wear pants all the time. We have someone
Speaker 1: running for president who always wears pants in the most
Speaker 1: we are both wearing pants right now. It's true, Joe,
Speaker 1: It's all true. Pants for everyone or not, you know,
Speaker 1: or whatever you want. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more except I think or it's been more
Speaker 1: acceptable in women, so it's kind of exciting to see
Speaker 1: men having the opportunity to do that as well. But
Speaker 1: um but yeah, yeah, there there's been uh, certainly in
Speaker 1: high fashion for a long time, this this trend towards
Speaker 1: breaking those rules, right, definitely, Yeah, breaking the rules is
Speaker 1: all the rage in fashion world, and of course androgyns
Speaker 1: models have been involved at various points. However, there's been
Speaker 1: a reluctance for a long time to actually feature models
Speaker 1: that may really identify outside of the bounds of a
Speaker 1: binary gender, right, people who weren't like like playing in
Speaker 1: with it. But we're serious about it, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so not just necessarily a woman breaking norms and in
Speaker 1: a suit or a man breaking norms than a scart,
Speaker 1: but actually people who identify outside of the binary. Um So,
Speaker 1: within the past ten years or so, maybe more, I guess,
Speaker 1: maybe a bit more. Uh, there's been an increase our
Speaker 1: interest in gender variant and transgender models. Um So, in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, there is a model on America's Next
Speaker 1: Top Model, of course, a Tyra Banks masterpiece. Uh, and
Speaker 1: her name is Isis King. She kind of became a
Speaker 1: household name and really um gave a face and a
Speaker 1: start to trans models in a mainstream sense. And then
Speaker 1: we can kind of flash forward to now, um, almost
Speaker 1: a decade later, and there are so many other trans
Speaker 1: models covering magazines all the time, people like Andrea Pejik,
Speaker 1: who really kind of transient transitioned in front of the
Speaker 1: fashion world from from Brilliann androgenus model before to now
Speaker 1: like claiming her identity as a woman. And then Leah
Speaker 1: t Aidan Dowling was on the cover of ment Health
Speaker 1: a trans man um and then Laife Ashley and and
Speaker 1: some other models. There's actually a transgender model agency in
Speaker 1: New York. Yeah, it opened a few months ago. So
Speaker 1: we're really seeing this um continuing trend even in culture,
Speaker 1: and then as well with some specifically gender neutral fashion lines. Um,
Speaker 1: there's also been this huge emergence. There are some lines
Speaker 1: like Vicia, Tillian William, Claire Barrow, Claire Barrow and sixty nine,
Speaker 1: amongst so many other gender neutral fashion lines. But of
Speaker 1: course it doesn't seem that culture as a whole is
Speaker 1: going gender neutral, right. Not everyone's going around wearing nondescript
Speaker 1: gender clothing, but it's kind of undeniable that the options
Speaker 1: from men, women and folks who may identify otherwise are
Speaker 1: kind of expanding, respectively, and and that the cultural acceptance
Speaker 1: of wearing those kind of clothes out out about in
Speaker 1: the world is expanding. It's still I mean, depending on
Speaker 1: what what area you live in. Absolutely, we're We're very
Speaker 1: lucky here in Atlanta, I think to have a very
Speaker 1: diverse community who is who is, who is comfortable and
Speaker 1: and accepting of of people's self expression. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's true about our city. Uh. It's funny how I
Speaker 1: for some reason, my brain did not even go to
Speaker 1: this place when I was thinking about this episode. I didn't.
Speaker 1: It did not even cross my mind to think about
Speaker 1: clothing um as such a fundamentally gendered part of our
Speaker 1: everyday experience. Oh yeah, it's the language. Ye oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: We we had we had Holly on a few months
Speaker 1: to a year ago to talk about the future of
Speaker 1: fashion and uh and and yeah, it's it's it's such
Speaker 1: it's crazy, especially when when I think we decided during
Speaker 1: that episode that that Joe is of the like what
Speaker 1: is what is what can I wear? To be the
Speaker 1: least obtrusive visually speaking in the world um and and
Speaker 1: Holly and I were like more sequence on everything um
Speaker 1: or you know, for for sometimes and so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's very very much um a thing that I
Speaker 1: certainly think about, like every day, like how am I
Speaker 1: going to be perceived as a lady human when I
Speaker 1: put this particular outfit on? Huh, I mean I worry
Speaker 1: about how I'll look. But I guess, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: which is which is also part of part of that,
Speaker 1: like like unfortunate gender binary Uh, oppression, oppression. Oppression is
Speaker 1: a strong word. But but it's but but I'm but
Speaker 1: I'm kind of you and serious like it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting thing where like the amount of
Speaker 1: policing that we do of how men are supposed to
Speaker 1: look versus how women are supposed to look. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: okay to live in that future where everybody wears identical
Speaker 1: jumpsuits muchallic ambolishments or no, yeah, that's the expression. You
Speaker 1: can pick a color. Everybody's got identical jumpsuits and you
Speaker 1: can pick you know, I want a green one. Can
Speaker 1: I just have to wear that color all the time? No,
Speaker 1: you can wear whatever color you want can I pick
Speaker 1: sequin colors to go on. I would never force anybody
Speaker 1: else to wear a jumpsuit. Uh. So, okay, the future
Speaker 1: of gender may not be jumpsuits. But but but we
Speaker 1: but we do have a discussion about about what it
Speaker 1: might look like and what some people are theorizing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because so everything we've talked about now kind of gets
Speaker 1: us gets us up to now, right, so that there
Speaker 1: there are these trends in legal recognition and ideas about gender.
Speaker 1: They're there are trends and what's accepted culturally. But in
Speaker 1: the future, how much could these things change? Uh? And
Speaker 1: here's where we want to come to the future ology
Speaker 1: concept of post genderism, which our our listener, jim Jimma
Speaker 1: brought up in the email she sent us. I think
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting concept and I didn't know
Speaker 1: that much about it before I started doing the research
Speaker 1: for this episode. But I think maybe I'm a post
Speaker 1: genderous now. I think maybe I'm convinced by the argument. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. I think I didn't have a word to
Speaker 1: put on my my opinions before, but I think this
Speaker 1: absolutely sums up how I feel about stuff. Um, we
Speaker 1: should at this point put in a hat tip to
Speaker 1: a to a really useful overview of the topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a paper I found published through the Institute
Speaker 1: for Ethics and Emerging Technologies in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: It was called post Genderism, Behind or Beyond the Gender
Speaker 1: Binary by George Davorski and James Hughes, and it essentially
Speaker 1: just tried to, in a very tight space condense a
Speaker 1: lot of historical and cultural and technological trends that would
Speaker 1: that have led up to where we are with gender
Speaker 1: now and how technology might be changing that. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: so if you guys are are, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: appetite as wetted by this conversation, then maybe go check
Speaker 1: out that article and uh and go through its source
Speaker 1: list because there's a lot of really interesting gender theory
Speaker 1: that they that they referenced. So all that stuff earlier
Speaker 1: we mentioned that we could not possibly explore today. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of gender theory in there. People have a
Speaker 1: lot of thoughts. People do have a lot of thoughts, Joe,
Speaker 1: that's accurate, But we should define it. So what is postgenderism? Essentially,
Speaker 1: post genderism is a movement that predicts or advocates, So
Speaker 1: you could you could think of it just as like
Speaker 1: I'm saying this is most likely to happen, or you
Speaker 1: could think of it as saying I think this is
Speaker 1: what should happen. But either way, it either predicts or
Speaker 1: advocates the voluntary erosion or elimination of gender distinctions and
Speaker 1: human beings or their descendants. And it's associated with trans humanism.
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about trans humanism on the show before,
Speaker 1: but real quick refresher, it's essentially the movement advocating technology
Speaker 1: that fundamentally changes capabilities of the human animal mentally and
Speaker 1: or physically. So if you want to become a cyborg
Speaker 1: with huge, powerful robot arms and claws on the end
Speaker 1: of them, and yet clamps, powerful clams, supersensitive, yes, supersensitive hearing,
Speaker 1: listen through the walls, see if anybody is coming to
Speaker 1: discover you with your clamps whatever you're doing with them.
Speaker 1: Or you want night vision, you want to be the predator,
Speaker 1: any of that. If you want any of that stuff,
Speaker 1: or if you want hey upgrade to your brain, how
Speaker 1: about that. If you want to upgrade your own processing power,
Speaker 1: maybe some onboard memory implants, any of that. Sign up
Speaker 1: for any of these things. You are at some level
Speaker 1: of trans humanist. You want to transcend or modify biologically
Speaker 1: determined aspects of your animal nature. Wait, so do my
Speaker 1: contacts count? Yeah, in a mild form, I think you
Speaker 1: could say that the various pros theses we have today,
Speaker 1: like glasses and hearing aids and stuff like that, surgery,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I think I think those
Speaker 1: are a little bit more than human things. Our cell
Speaker 1: phones are like actually to third arms and oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a useful end defector. It certainly is. I
Speaker 1: think there's actually an interesting case to be made about
Speaker 1: what how we come to think about certain tools that
Speaker 1: we use very often as a part of our body.
Speaker 1: But uh, I we digress. So yeah, So post genderism
Speaker 1: applies essentially this trans humanist concept to the desire to
Speaker 1: modify and transcend our our basic nature, uh, to the
Speaker 1: naturally determined distinctions of sexual dimorphism in the species, and
Speaker 1: also just to culture broadly, to gender norms that flow
Speaker 1: from them. In the words of Dvorsky and Hughes quote,
Speaker 1: post genderists argue that gender is an arbitrary and unnecessary
Speaker 1: limitation on human potential, and foresee the elimination of involuntary
Speaker 1: biological and psychological gendering in the human species through the
Speaker 1: application of neurotechnolog gy, biotechnology, and reproductive technology. So now
Speaker 1: if even if you're not like a very traditionalist person,
Speaker 1: you might be getting a little freaked out there, things
Speaker 1: like wait a minute, you know, there are armies of
Speaker 1: radical postgenders that are gonna come try to turn me
Speaker 1: into an androgenous creature while I'm asleep with their transhuman
Speaker 1: robot clamps. Right. Uh, No, we should point out the
Speaker 1: fact that this is a voluntary movement, right, So it
Speaker 1: says essentially that in the future, to whatever extent you
Speaker 1: display dimorphic sexual characteristics or gendered social behaviors, that's going
Speaker 1: to be up to you. It's not something determined for
Speaker 1: you without your consent by biology or by social expectations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the choice is really the operative thing here. Consent will
Speaker 1: always be sexy, yes, yes, yes, so even thinking about
Speaker 1: the societal expectations expanding, right, So, so when we're and
Speaker 1: we're kind of put into these boxes, right, so kind
Speaker 1: of taking this um idea of post genderism and thinking
Speaker 1: about how it will play out for someone born into
Speaker 1: a post gender world. Um, So, today there are already
Speaker 1: intersex activists who are really challenging this idea about children
Speaker 1: being born intersex being pressured into picking one gender or
Speaker 1: one sex and going with it. Yeah, and that's often
Speaker 1: been the case leading up to now. So children born
Speaker 1: intersex are often they're either it's chosen for them at birth,
Speaker 1: you know, well, we're gonna do some kind of therapy
Speaker 1: to you to try to make you more typically male
Speaker 1: or more typically female and usually a surgery, yeah, um.
Speaker 1: Or they're later in life sort of encouraged to just
Speaker 1: embrace one or the other. Right. And so according to
Speaker 1: this position, you know, why should they Why should we
Speaker 1: put all of these expectations on a human being who
Speaker 1: may realize that that doesn't really fit them. So what
Speaker 1: is really inherently wrong with having some anatomical sex characteristics
Speaker 1: that don't match what we're expected to see based on chromosomes, right,
Speaker 1: Or what's inherently wrong with some ambiguous genitalia? According to
Speaker 1: these activists, Um, you know, if intersex people don't feel
Speaker 1: naturally inclined to embrace one half of the gender binary
Speaker 1: or the other, they shouldn't really be pressured to do so.
Speaker 1: In a sense, the position is really seen as one
Speaker 1: of the earliest forms of fully realized post genderism. People
Speaker 1: are born not fully conforming to a typical sex profile
Speaker 1: of male or female, and it's okay if they want
Speaker 1: to say that way or not. In these cases, the
Speaker 1: gender binary already kind of lies more or less fully vanquished.
Speaker 1: And while it might seem unusual, for example, in America
Speaker 1: in the century, there are precedents of this all over
Speaker 1: the world and in many cultures throughout history. Right. So,
Speaker 1: the the intersex birth cases, I think are one case
Speaker 1: where you're sort of already posed to be in a
Speaker 1: post gender position. All it really requires is the changing
Speaker 1: of attitudes. In that case, like if you are an
Speaker 1: intersex person and you live in an environment where that
Speaker 1: is fine and that you know nobody's telling you you
Speaker 1: well you really should be picking one. Uh you, you've
Speaker 1: already in some sense become post gender there. But there
Speaker 1: are other cases where technology could play a big role
Speaker 1: in changing what's what options are available to people. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and and this isn't it's not just future technologies. This
Speaker 1: has already been going on for a couple hundred years. Honestly,
Speaker 1: because the move towards a post gender society, I would argue,
Speaker 1: has already begun, and it started with industrialization, the stratification
Speaker 1: of our economy, you know, the the creation of a
Speaker 1: middle class, and the slow but but widespread inclusion of
Speaker 1: women in the workforce has changed society's roles for men
Speaker 1: and women moved, moving away from a strict binary Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think that's very true in that work has
Speaker 1: very often been one of the main lines upon which
Speaker 1: gender distinctions and gender oppression occurred throughout history. Sure, And
Speaker 1: and the communication age, the information aged, changed that even further. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's giving more people the option to
Speaker 1: balance work and child care as they desire, which, of course,
Speaker 1: child care being one of those like typically gendered kind
Speaker 1: of roles in society. Also on the on the ideological end,
Speaker 1: this whole digital revolution has been wonderfully speeding the exchange
Speaker 1: of both scientific information and also personal experiences about sex
Speaker 1: and gender. And it's allowed for the for the creation
Speaker 1: of support communities for people outside of the gender norm
Speaker 1: who don't live in areas our such support exists, which
Speaker 1: is so critical for for for changing um quality of
Speaker 1: life and and and changing people's minds eventually. And now
Speaker 1: I had a question for you guys that I just
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to toss out there. How how do
Speaker 1: how do you guys think that the communication technology is
Speaker 1: going to continue changing gender in the future, Like, not
Speaker 1: not biotechnology and stuff like that, but just the computers
Speaker 1: and internet stuff we got right, Yeah, not your sexy,
Speaker 1: sexy modem. But but uh yeah, well, I mean one
Speaker 1: thing that occurred to me. I wonder what y'all think
Speaker 1: about this is virtual gender performance. So uh oh yeah.
Speaker 1: So already we do a lot of our social interaction online,
Speaker 1: but in the future, just imagine a future where we
Speaker 1: do even more of it, there's even less face to
Speaker 1: face social interaction. I mean, whatever you think about that.
Speaker 1: That might sound kind of scary, but let's say we're
Speaker 1: as we're as comfortable with that in the future as
Speaker 1: we are with using Twitter all day on our phone
Speaker 1: is right now, Um, how much of our social interaction
Speaker 1: and public face is going to be mediated by technology,
Speaker 1: including social media, online forums, online video games, virtual worlds.
Speaker 1: Um if these venues end up representing the like a
Speaker 1: really large or even totally dominant percentage of our interactions
Speaker 1: with others, will physicality as in, you know, the biological
Speaker 1: or physical aspects of your body play a smaller and
Speaker 1: smaller role in how your gender traits are expressed, to
Speaker 1: whatever extent they are. Uh So, it's just like so
Speaker 1: much of our thinking about gender always ends up being
Speaker 1: about bodies. But in a in a space where you
Speaker 1: have no body or your body is literally a virtual
Speaker 1: construct construct, does gender disappear or become less important to
Speaker 1: you as a person? I think? I think also there's
Speaker 1: a really interesting trend in social media lately, uh with
Speaker 1: with that has to do with the creation of profiles
Speaker 1: and the the construction of of like a brand for
Speaker 1: yourself online. Like I think that we're all being suddenly
Speaker 1: like like not even encouraged, but but kind of forced
Speaker 1: into like curating a brand for ourselves. And uh and
Speaker 1: so the way that we present ourselves to the world
Speaker 1: is more careful perhaps today, like like more thought out,
Speaker 1: because you you can you can look and evaluate your
Speaker 1: own and other people's profiles and see see how you
Speaker 1: want to be presenting yourself, and and gender is absolutely
Speaker 1: a part of that, you know, I would definitely say,
Speaker 1: of course, with social media and and access to just
Speaker 1: information in general, that kind of levels the playing field, right.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the conversations that we have
Speaker 1: online around gender are so interesting right now. I think
Speaker 1: about Twitter and how we how a lot of feminists
Speaker 1: use Twitter and talk about the inequality these talk about
Speaker 1: their experiences and and then also maybe people who don't
Speaker 1: identify as them to talk about their experiences too, And
Speaker 1: it's really kind of giving us an inside glimpse at
Speaker 1: how we all kind of have thought about gender all along,
Speaker 1: or or have moved throughout society, maybe not knowing how
Speaker 1: people who identified a different way felt. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wonder if if these virtual environments and virtual social circles
Speaker 1: give us the ability to experiment with non binary or
Speaker 1: non traditional gender roles in a way that a lot
Speaker 1: of people wouldn't if it had to involve their body
Speaker 1: and face to face contact. So a person, for example,
Speaker 1: who's biologically male might not feel comfortable uh, performing as
Speaker 1: female in person, but maybe would on the internet. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how prevalent something like that is, but
Speaker 1: but it's interesting that that that kind of venue might
Speaker 1: open up new possibility is for what people can decide
Speaker 1: they like and who they are, right, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it might be a lot more common than we think.
Speaker 1: I mean, catfish, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, I laughed, but I
Speaker 1: don't know what catfish is. You have to Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: that that's one. UM. That's when someone presents as someone
Speaker 1: who they are explicitly not online um. And it's it's
Speaker 1: usually a negative connotation in which someone is is taking
Speaker 1: someone in, is trying to extort someone for money, or
Speaker 1: something like that by presenting the story of this person
Speaker 1: this this this completely made up human uh and and
Speaker 1: it is not infrequently been used cross cross gender. That
Speaker 1: makes sense to me. Hey, sudden insert that you probably
Speaker 1: weren't expecting our record scratch. Yes, our conversation with Riquel
Speaker 1: Willis here on the future gender ended up going very long,
Speaker 1: so we are splitting it up into two episodes, and
Speaker 1: that is going to be the end of part one
Speaker 1: of the episode. But if you want to hear the
Speaker 1: conclusion of this discussion about the future of gender, you
Speaker 1: can join us again next time. Yes, so we we
Speaker 1: hope that you will stay tuned across time and space
Speaker 1: for that one. UM. In the meanwhile, Hey, if you
Speaker 1: guys would like to get in touch with us, we
Speaker 1: would like that too. Our email address is fw thinking
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com. Our profile handle name
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Facebook is also fw thinking. Uh. Search
Speaker 1: around Google US, you'll find us. Uh. We will have
Speaker 1: Raquel's contact information at the end of the second episode.
Speaker 1: Although I believe off the top of my head that
Speaker 1: if you would like to find her website, it is
Speaker 1: Raquel Willis dot com. That is our a q U
Speaker 1: E l w I L l I s dot com.
Speaker 1: I think I can spell. I think that's correct. So yeah,
Speaker 1: get in touch with us. We hope to hear from
Speaker 1: you either away. You will hear from us again very soon.
Speaker 1: For more on this topic in the future of technology,
Speaker 1: visit forward Thinking dot Com, brought to you by Toyota.
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