The concept of gender dualism, based on the binary logic of male and female is historically entrenched in many societies, but there has also been no shortage of exceptions to the rule: the so-called “third sex”. Neutral gender and androgyny, in fact, are recurrent in the languages and mythologies of different eras and continents. However, it is the Western society of the 21st century that definitively questions the binary view of gender by highlighting how it has contributed to the discrimination of so many people.
The right to self-determination and gender inequality
What is at stake today is of considerable importance in guaranteeing to all people the right of self-determination enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It turns out to be improper, therefore, to speak of “gender ideology,” since it is not simply a complex of the ideas and instances claimed by a social group, nor a demand of a minority of the world’s population, but the application of a universal right. All people have the right to self-determination and the consequent non-discrimination with respect to their biological sex, gender identity and gender expression.
Reflection on the third sex critiques gender dualism with the ambition of giving everyone access to self-determination. Indeed, gender dualism, which divides society into males and females, has led to many gender inequalities, often resulting in discrimination, harmful stereotyping, and the oppression of individuals who do not conform to these rigidly defined roles. Patriarchal societies, founded on the power of men, the subordination of women, and the marginalization of anything that according to the patriarchal system differs from the norm, have promoted discrimination against citizens who do not conform to the male-cisgender-heterosexual system. Learn more about the relationship between power and sexuality in my article on Michel Foucault.
Clinical and critique of gender dualism
For medicine, at the level of biological sex, male is XY and female is XX, but nature itself produces the exceptions that science records as deviations from the norm.
In clinical practice dealing with gender dysphorias, with respect to the diversity of the demands of individuals, the common denominator is the demand to express one’s identity as fully as possible, as should be the case for every human being under the principle of self-determination. Unfortunately, this right is not protected for all and gender dualism is a stumbling block to be overcome.
For medical science, each individual constructs his or her identity on the basis of psycho-corporeal mechanisms. Each of us enacts an integration of different sub-identities, which find their central point in the self-representation of body image. But identity is not something static, rather it coincides with each individual’s biography.
According to psychology, the concept of gender identity is represented as a continuum between the masculine and the feminine, along which the person can place himself or herself at any time, and be recognized, with the understanding that this is a focus that temporarily leaves in the background other characteristics and the complexity of existence in its specificity and in its continuous change.
The third sex between yesterday and today
Reflection on a third sex introduces nothing new, because the neuter gender and the androgyne are present in all cultures of the world, in all eras and on all continents. The androgyne myth of Plato’s Symposium, for example, recognizes the complexity of gender identity and the distinctiveness of each human expression.
Even theologies recognize the indeterminacy of the primal god: when the world was not yet split into opposites, god was undifferentiated. To argue that god is queer is for theology to note that the traditional image of god as a male or female being is limiting with respect to the very concept of deity and that, therefore, god can be better understood as a force that operates far beyond gender categories and that, as the All, includes within itself all opposites from the origin of time.
Thus, reflecting on the third sex is not about questioning gender dualism for the purpose of claiming the rights of a supposed minority of people who do not identify with either the male or the female canon, but it is about becoming aware that male and female present in each time and place cultural underpinnings that are embodied in each biography in wholly distinctive ways and that, consequently, cannot be understood as monolithic polarities. Rather, masculine and feminine can be seen as extremes of a nuance of possibility along which each can of self-determination.
Each identity inhabits an original configuration in which biological sex, gender identity and gender expression dance.
Critiquing gender dualism from feminism to queer theories
Feminism has played a significant role in thinking about the third gender. Feminists have often pointed out that gender dualism is rooted in patriarchal culture, which assigns specific roles to men and women. Feminism has emphasized the importance of moving beyond these gender categories, and queer theories have further broadened the discussion of the third sex by recognizing that biological sex, gender identity, and gender expression are not monolithic categories to which people correspond in toto, but are extremes of a scale in which people continue to dislocate throughout their existence.
Feminist and queer theories promote an inclusive and non-exclusive view of the categories of biological sex, gender identity and gender expression. These perspectives have paved the way for equal rights for women and homosexual, transgender, nonbinary, and all people who do not conform to the male-cisgender-heterosexual characterization. Learn more by reading my article on sexuality that does not want production logics.
Thinking about the third sex, therefore, represents a critical challenge to the gender dualism entrenched in our society. This critical effort is necessary to promote greater understanding and acceptance of gender identities that differ from the norm, with the goal of deeply reconsidering what “the norm” is. Indeed, in order to ensure for allə the principle of self-determination enshrined in universal human rights, it is essential that society adopt an inclusive and non-exclusive logic of what is considered “the norm.” Dividing society into two (males and females, men and women, masculine and feminine) and expecting everyone to conform to it produces violence against a human reality that is far from conforming into these stereotypes.
However, the critique of gender dualism cannot itself be relegated to the pars destruens of the discourse. It is necessary to recast what we call “the norm” in an inclusive and non-exclusive sense. Here, the critique of dualism by means of the third gender, understood as the shade between the two extremes of a scale, is able to formulate the pars construens of the discourse.
