How many genders are there, anyway?

It may seem as though talking about someone's gender identity is a trendy, woke symptom of the twenty-twenties, but the term "gender identity" was actually coined in 1964 by Robert Stoller, an American professor of psychiatry - over 60 years ago.

"Gender identity" is defined, according to The Trevor Project, as "a person’s experience of their own gender; a person’s innermost concept of self as masculine, feminine, a blend of both, another gender(s), or none. This is not always congruent with biological sex or gender assigned at birth."

The Human Rights Campaign differentiates gender identity from gender expression, explaining that gender expression is the "external appearance of one's gender identity, usually expressed through behavior, clothing, body characteristics or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine."

So, simply: Your gender identity is your self-concept of your own gender, and you decide this for yourself, whether it matches your biological sex or not. Your gender expression is how you choose to present yourself, again, whether it matches your gender identity or not, and whether it matches your biological sex or not.

If you need an explanation of "biological sex" - also called "gender assignment" - here's a simple one: Biological sex is usually assigned at birth based on an examination of a baby's external private parts. You might have seen the terms "AMAB" and "AFAB", which mean "assigned male at birth" and "assigned female at birth". This is referring to biological sex. Biological sex is not the same as gender.

Here's how The Trevor Project puts it: "When we are born, a doctor assigns us a sex. This has to do with our biology, chromosomes, and physical body. Male babies are generally labeled as boys and female babies are generally labeled as girls. But even sex is more complex than that - and it really exists on a spectrum. Intersex individuals have physical sex traits or reproductive anatomy that are present at birth or emerge spontaneously later in life, and differ from normative expectations of 'male' and 'female'.”

Those definitions are really useful grounding for our understanding of gender identity, and helps open up a respectful discussion of the topic.

So just how many genders are there, anyway?

Everyone knows about "male" and "female", of course, and indeed, the US government has recently decided that these are the only two genders that exist, as enumerated in the 2025 incoming president's inauguration speech: "As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female."

But if you do an internet search for the phrase "How many genders are there?" you'll get varying results, but one of the most intriguing is this article that refers to 72 - and that's 72 genders besides male and female. Seventy-two!

Good ol' Wikipedia has an even more extensive list, with 87 gender identities, and a further 25 sub-genders (more distinct gender identities which fall under an umbrella term - such as agenderfluid, agenderflux, genderblank, genderfree, and polyagende, which all fall under the agender umbrella).

Because gender is a spectrum, like sexuality, this list is bound to change and shift. But here are just a few of those 72 or 87 genders that people identify with, which you may not have heard of:

• Fa’afāfine: In Samoa, fa’afāfine are people who were assigned male at birth and who are feminine in varying ways. Many, but not all, are women. Fa’afāfine have been an integrated part of Samoan communities for centuries. "Fa’afafine" translates as "in the manner of a woman".
• X-gender/x-jendā/Xジェンダー: In Japan, this term is generally understood to refer to a gender identity that is neither female nor male, open to individual interpretation. The word "jendā" itself is the Japanese transliteration of the English word "gender".
• Xenogender: A gender that cannot be contained by human understandings of gender; more concerned with crafting other methods of gender categorization and hierarchy such as those relating to animals, plants, or other creatures/things. Some sources say that xenogender is a term used by neurodivergent individuals as they may see the world, and gender, differently to neurotypical people, but the term isn't exclusive.

The point is, there are many, many more genders than just "male" and "female", and it's quite interesting to learn about them!

Some other terms you might find useful to know

"Cisgender" refers to people for whom the physical characteristics of "boy" or "girl" match the way they feel inside.

"Transgender" doesn't denote any particular sexual orientation (that's a whole separate topic that has to do with who you are or are not attracted to sexually). That's not what we're talking about here. Transgender is more of an umbrella term (we love our umbrella terms!) and honestly, it doesn't have a universally accepted definition. Broadly speaking, someone whose innermost sense of gender doesn't match the physical characteristics they possess might be transgender - that is, they may have the physical characteristics usually attributed to males, but identify as female, or they may have the physical characteristics usually attributed to females, but identify as male.

"Nonbinary" refers to people who may not feel like either "male" or "female", may feel like their identity encompasses both genders, or may feel like something entirely other than male or female. Some sources say that nobinary identities are under the transgender umbrella, but some nonbinary people don't feel that "transgender" describes their experience with gender and don't use the term.

Humans are wonderfully complicated beings, with nuances and unique characteristics that make each of us, well, ourselves. Gender is a part of that picture, and each individual deserves the right to define what gender means - or doesn't mean - to them, without definitions that are imposed on them by others. Education, inclusion, and acceptance are human rights, and the right to self-determine gender goes along with the liberty and freedom that all humans deserve.