What can we say about the binary gender system that exists in the English language? Well, looking at it from a computer programmer’s point of view, it has two essential characteristics:

It is binary. There are two options: male and female — or man and woman, if we are sure that the person under discussion is an adult. The words may change — there are auxiliary words that can be used in various grammatical positions, like “he” and “she”, and if we want to support other languages, we may provide translations, but when we use standard English as our reference point, they are all mirrors of the same two binary options — male and female. It is mutually exclusive. If you are male, you cannot at the same time be female, and vice-versa; nor can you be neither. (In computer programming terms, each person has a single gender value, not a set of gender values). There are various complications related to trans people and intersex people, but they don’t change the essential picture. Some trans people say that they “always knew” they were really female, or male; some don’t. Regardless, they’re female (or male) now, and that’s what matters. They’re not simultaneously male and female. We can, of course, and should, distinguish between gender presentation (whether you look male or female to most people) and gender identity (whether you identify as male or female). Gender presentation is further complicated by trans people trying to pass as their gender identity, but failing at first. We need not consider that here; this essay is fundamentally about gender as it relates to gender identity, not as it relates to gender presentation. A trans person can be of female gender identity but not yet transitioned, i.e. not yet presenting as female. For the purposes of this essay — and in general, when the question is what gender they are, without any context — they are female. This is in accordance with advice on correct terminology from mainstream trans activists (as of quite recently, at any rate). As for intersex people, they are assigned either male or female at birth (this might be where the expression “assigned male at birth” comes from, I’m not sure). They might regret that that happened when adults, but that’s essentially no different from other trans people — in either case, we can’t ask a baby what gender it identifies as. And nor would such an answer be dispositive even if we could — many teenagers falsely believe they are trans, and then get over that phase in their life.

But for radical linguistic reformers, this argument is not enough. We could change the meaning of gender, so that it is no longer about binary, mutually-exclusive categories, they seem to argue. We will therefore have to consider the practical implications of so doing. And they are not pretty.

If you wanted to change the English language so that it had three genders — let’s not even consider four or more — what would you have to do? Well, there are basically three options:

Engineer people (using genetic engineering), or I suppose engineer artificially intelligent androids, with a new third type of sex organ and new bodily characteristics — maybe a third arm — that created a clearly distinct third sex. In both cases, this kind of technology is beyond our capabilities as a species at present, so I will not consider it further. Create a new defined gender category that from now on, or possibly also historically (as has happened with LGBT categories), people who meet its definition will be “assigned” into. This one is obviously problematic, as however you define it — narrowly, like “men who like cross-dressing and wearing lipstick”, or more broadly, like “men with man-boobs, or micro-penises, or an extra 3rd chromosome” — you will inevitably reclassify some people who were previously quite happy off being men, into some third gender that they don’t want to be, thank you very much. Which is misgendering — not to mention socially regressive. “Hold on, I thought this was supposed to be about liberating people, not sticking them in a box they don’t want to be in and misgendering them”, I hear you cry. Indeed. So this one is a non-starter. Create a new gender category that will have literally no criteria for membership. It will not be associated exclusively with either men or women — because that would be open to the wise-cracks that “really, you’re just men aren’t you” or “really, you’re just women aren’t you”. No, it’ll be like a club that you can join if you feel so inclined — but you don’t have to, because you can carry on being a man or a woman if you want to, even if you’re gender non-conforming or your genitalia are rather more towards the middle of the genitalia diversity spectrum than at either end. Even if you’re the most gender-nonconforming or gender-ambiguous person ever, in terms of gender presentation, you don’t have to join this club. Because that’s choice, isn’t it? Which is what it’s all about. Anything else would involve misgendering (see above) or restrictive gender roles (if you want this, what are you, some kind of Victorian? It’s current year!)

The thing is, those clubs, while no doubt very nice and “empowering” and exciting for their members, are really nothing like genders at all. They’re not binary. They’re not mutually exclusive. They’re not exclusive at all, in fact. And they’re nothing to do with biological sex (although gender is not necessarily linked to biological sex, in the vast majority of humans, it is — the correlation is extremely high). There is no third biological sex with which we can link a hypothetical third gender (see point 1 above).

If there are two people, both of whom cross-dress in exactly the same way, and one of them identifies simply as a man who happens to engage in crossdressing sometimes, but is still a man, and the other identifies as a member of this group, their membership of this group is not determined by their cross-dressing. The group is not “all men who crossdress” — that would be a descriptive category (and not a gender). This group is something that’s trying to be a gender, but really isn’t. It’s just a clique. A clique cross-dressing as a gender.