A Future Where Gender Is TRULY No Object

I'm working on a story which takes place in The Future ("137 years from Now", in fact) and one of the distinguishing characteristics of this story is that meaningful biological differences between men and women have been offset by a combination of eugenics and nanotechnology. Essentially, the idea was for gender to become wholly a choice/lifestyle.

Here are a few details:

• All human beings are still born male or female. However, a century of eugenics and nanotechnology of roughly evened out the distribution of testosterone and/or estrogen, so children stay relatively "baseline" through most of their lives, with maybe a few slight deviations here and there.
• Artificial wombs and methods of insemination now allow anyone to become pregnant or impregnate someone else, and birth control is completely infallible.
• Musculature and physicality are roughly the same between both sexes.

Any thoughts on ways this could work? And what social implications would arise from it?

edited 16th Apr '12 6:23:38 AM by KingZeal

First impression?

Yaoi Fan Girl's Dream.

2nd, a very creepy world where individuality is so subverted, human biology is kept "baseline" by some (hehe )Force.

Clone Wars?

3rd. With Artificial Wombs, women are no longger need to make babies, and thus, not vital as Baby Making Machines since there are methods of Literally making Baby Making Machines.

Even more disturbing though, if this still requires human Labor (PUN! ) we are going to see Factory Breeding via factory workers (who may or may not be Union) and add a whole new dimension to reproduction and prodution issues.

Population booms could be as simple as adding another production run of humans for a breeding season.

edited 16th Apr '12 6:43:16 AM by Natasel

How...how did you come to this conclusion.

Is it sad that was my first conclusion, too? In fact, no offense, I first thought this was a shallow explanation for some kind of porn.

Ignoring that, I don't, personally, think that such a thing would be achievable in such a short amount of time. Not because of technology - we're practically already there - but because of the politics. Even though there's a liberal movement in the world in general, I doubt that in just over 100 years, we'd be able to make "baseline" human beings that are technically "genderless." (I'm probably misusing the definition of gender on a minuscule scale, please don't beat me over the head for this error.)

I think it's kind of a stretch to say that everyone would be up for the idea that anyone can just pick-and-choose their gender and that everyone is "baseline," a word that in itself sounds really... cryptic.

I would imagine that while a lot of people are totally up for this kind of no-gender-object thing, a majority of people would be fairly against it on different levels. Depends on whether or not this is the big focus of your story, however, or if this is just some fluff.

And good luck trying to portray genderless humans or humans with no gender-based personalities. I think most audiences will still give characters meaning based on their gender, so you might be fighting a losing battle.

I'm not even sure what "baseline" is supposed to mean in this case. I mean, I get raising kids without trying to differentiate them much as part of their nurturing, but the vast majority of people are going to identify as the gender they're born with. And then there are the ones who feel strongly enough that they were born in the wrong body that they go and get surgery to correct this.

I'm not even sure you understand how testosterone or estrogen actually affect the body as a child grows and then hits puberty. Because puberty is still going to be a thing growing children experience. Not to mention the current cultural bias against eugenics in general; people are not going to switch to designer babies like in this setting in a mere 137 years. Eugenics, is hated in most of the developed world because of the inherent bigotry embedded in the concept. You're going to have to have some damn good reasons why most of the world as opposed to a small part of the population would have changed so drastically as to have embraced this so completely.

Not to mention that I don't think, even with genetic engineering, we could erase or eliminate our genetic differences between males and females in so little time. That's not enough time for A) us to fully be able to affect how those genes express and B) be able to breed enough to spread that out to the population. It takes time for genes to proliferate. 137 years is not near enough time for that to happen in the human species.

All in all, this sounds like a great way to get a fridge logicy world where anyone who expresses a gender identity of any kind at all is discriminated against.

Political science changes more rapidly than people would think, though. Japan, as an example, has undergone massive changes in cultural attitudes and stereotypes in the past 100 years.

But if you think more time would be necessary (like a thousand years or so), then it's not feasible for me to stretch it out.

And yes, I'm sure that I'm butchering the biology behind testosterone, estrogen and progesterone horribly. However, that's why I also threw in a form of Phlebotinum like Nanomachines.

edited 16th Apr '12 1:39:16 PM by KingZeal

Japan has had a collectivist culture for centuries that makes that kind of sweeping, radical change plausible. That's also one culture. As far as I can tell, you seem to be talking the world, or at the very least the United States. What's going to get the vast majority of either the world or even the United States population to be okay with giving up their gender identity?

edited 16th Apr '12 1:47:07 PM by CrystalGlacia

As someone who is strongly against mandatory gender roles, I have to say that I still find this somewhat dubious.

That's basically what I came here to hammer out, as well as the implications of a lack of gender tropes.

EDIT: A friend of mine recommended that I extend the timeframe to at least 320 years.

EDIT 2: The same friend also suggested that it would be more plausible for such changes to grow organically. She stated that many gender stereotypes we've developed in the past century have come from the exponential growth of memes and media saturation. In other words, Tropes.

edited 16th Apr '12 1:54:53 PM by KingZeal

I'm fuzzy on the biology of it, but I'm pretty sure that males and females differ genetically in ways other than either obvious anatomy or hormone balance. Might want to at least nod in that direction.

Other than that...the idea is a bit strange. I think gender is an inherent enough bit of people's self-image that it's not likely to just go away; even a person who is technically genderless isn't going to think of themselves as 'baseline'. I rather liked how it was handled in the Culture books; there, gender is still part of a person's identity, it's just that it can be trivially changed without extensive medical procedures, so most people just change gender as a matter of course at least once in their lives.

Well the idea is that people won't see themselves as genderless so much as the gender differences as we know them now are rendered mostly moot. People can choose to identify themselves however they want.

Can I ask why this is important? What are you trying to achieve by disestablishing gender roles?

Why is that necessary?

Because what's the point of stressing about it if it doesn't have a goal? If we know what you want to accomplish with a genderless society, we can better help you. We don't know your story and what all needs to be taken into account.

Also, if you just have this in the story for no reason other than fluff, it can come off as... I dunno, a pointless anvil being dropped, like, "Look how great society is without genders." It can be distracting from whatever else is going on.

Might I suggest the OP read The Giver? A similar society exists there.

Because fiction doesn't have to have a goal.

First, it's not a genderless society. It's a society in which genders are not set at birth. As I said, it would be a world where gender is as much of a choice as it's possible to make it.

Second, I don't want to "accomplish" anything. It's a concept.

I'm interested in exploring the concept. That's all.

edited 16th Apr '12 5:49:42 PM by KingZeal

I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something here... You state that's barely any difference between the two genders, and at the same time people can choose what gender they want to be? Why choose if they're practically the same?

Yup.

If gender could be suppressed, why not all other distinguishing characteristics?

A entire species of look alike Greys.

Because that idea is too overused (freaking Fairly Odd Parents did it)? A little variety makes things more interesting.

I believe you're looking for The Culture, from Iain Banks' works.

edited 17th Apr '12 12:06:51 AM by Night

Well, for the same reason someone might desire cosmetic surgery or dark tans. Gender is as much an expression of identity as it is biology.

The general idea is that the difference between genders has been narrowed. As the title says, I'm hoping to explore a future in which Gender Is No Object, but mostly due to transhumanism rather than societal changes.

edited 17th Apr '12 6:26:57 AM by KingZeal

My point is, the only way you're going to get people to ditch their gender identity (and the fact that people fight so very hard today to become what they consider the right gender is an indication that this is an issue that is not going to disappear just because you suddenly find a way to make people born genderless.) within the time frame you want is some totalitarian government just taking over everything and having the tools to start genetically engineering every baby in the womb.

Babies are not born genderless. Not unless you've got a hermaphroditic species going on. If you want to do this, I suggest you look up genetics a bit. As well as works on gender identity. And Ursula Le Guin; I believe she wrote a few things involving a society that made themselves genderless. As well as one where they were all female and born pregnant. I will admit I may be misremembering here.

In any case, we're a ways off from transhumanism. I'm skeptical of the three hundred and twenty years time frame. Mostly because change is truly slower than we think; for all that Japan has had sweeping changes in a few decades there are still massive issues, particularly involving how women and minorities in that country are treated by the law. Here in America you run into the issue of both individualism and extreme religious devotion that would pretty involve people decrying this sort of thing.

Hell, you might have an easier time of it if you make this some sort of experimental space colony or something that does this, and have them interact with characters from Earth. Also, you seem not to realize that transhumanism involves several metric truckloads of societal change. Societal change is going to be inevitable in this concept of yours, otherwise gender identity will be the same in your story as it is now. You cannot be basing anything on this concept and not involve societal change. You won't have to say the words, but it's going to be an integral part of your setting.

Good point. Societal changes are a given.

I haven't read the work in question, but I remember there's a type of parasitic worm that does that.

Anyway, the whole 'averaging out sex hormones so the sex differences are evened out' thing sounds dubious. For one thing, sex hormones are what cause eggs to mature and sperm to be made, so if you mess with them everybody will probably be infertile or sub-fertile. If you're messing with children's hormones, this might also interfere with growth.

For another thing, the bone structure of women is different to that of men for a reason: we need deeper hips with a wider inlet to make room for a baby. If everybody has the same structure, women might not be able to carry children any more.

If both sexes are functionally the same except for the genitals, then... why is gender a 'statement' or a 'lifestyle'? Why wouldn't you just stay as whatever sex and gender you were born with, if you are happy that way and it gives you no variation in skill sets or appearances?

And on a far more superficial level - what about all the secondary sexual things? Will everybody grow beards and breasts regardless of their genitals? (good grief, that's kind of a creepy question)

Everything you just said here is grossly misunderstanding the concept I presented. That's partially my fault because the concept is still in its infancy and I haven't had better time to develop it, but still, I already addressed a few of these things.

No one is abandoning gender identity. In fact, gender identity is actually more important because in the setting I'm attempting, it's almost wholly a choice. How masculine/feminine or biologically male/female a person is mostly determined by personal decisions.

My personal theory as to how this would turn out is that most people would still identify with a given gender, regardless of how it's marginalized. The number of "genderless" people would be a minority, but more than could ever exist in contemporary society.

Please read the OP again. That isn't how I said it would work.

Believe me, I do some amount of research on every topic I write. But, most of the specifics are above my head. That's why I came here to ask. Despite my efforts, I'm still coming up short.

Yes, but technology is an exponential growth—not an additive one. The more technology advances, the more rapidly it will advance, and the more society will change to keep up with it.

However, old habits and social stigma will take new forms. For example, now that science has proven that there's no difference between "negroid" (Black) races and "caucasoid" (White) races, things like financial discrepancies, psychological dispositions and cultural differences are used as fuel for prejudice instead.

I'm well aware that society won't truly be different, under the surface. I'm wondering what superficial changes will exist.

One of the points to this thread is that I want to know how society would change. For one thing, I already know that if biological gender is minimized, then any particular gender identities will be even more scrutinized than before. Even though it would be a case of Gender Is No Object in functionality, human nature wouldn't change.

I'm trying to ask fellow tropers for more ideas how it may change.

This is interesting, actually. These sorts of comments/questions are just what I need.

My thoughts was that, with only 100 years (or 300 years) of progress, gender stereotypes would still exist, but have evolved. Making it almost completely a choice would make some stereotypes even more positive/negative, depending on societal values at the time.

Just saying—I don't find it creepy at all. But to answer the question, I think there would be a few people who would experiment with outliers. But we already have people like that today. There would just be more of them.

edited 19th Apr '12 9:03:27 AM by KingZeal