Gender systems by country

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Gender systems are social constructs generally linking inherent physical sexual characteristics to specific social roles, but not always strictly. They can become linked to legal systems, defining specific rights for different genders. While most societies recognize at least two genders (male and female, often exclusively), many other cultures have different systems. Even among groups with overall similar systems, there may be different divisions of labour, dress codes, and other differences. As social systems, gender systems are usually tied to particular ethnic groups or world regions, but may also be enforced by religion or other structures.

In all societies there are inevitably those who do not fall neatly into any strict definition of a gender. These people might be transgender, nonbinary, intersex or gender non-conforming.

Terminology

In this article, it is recommended to reserve the terms "male and female, masculine and feminine, boys and girls, men and women, and nonbinary/genderqueer/etc" for social genders, and "AFAB, AMAB, and intersex" to refer to sexual characteristics. AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) people are typically born with a vulva, vagina, uterus and ovaries, and develop breasts and the ability to give birth, have higher oestrogen levels, and XX chromosomes. People who are Assigned Male At Birth (AMAB) are typically born with a penis and testicles, and develop facial hair (at least, in most ethnic groups) and the ability to impregnate, and have higher testosterone levels, and XY chromosomes. However, some unknown percentage of the population are intersex or sex-variant, having some mixture of these characteristics.

Together AFAB and AMAB can be referred to as the binary sexes or binary sex system. Similarly male and female can be called the binary genders.

Gender systems

Binary gender systems

Most of Sahar uses a binary gender system of male and female, linking those genders to AMAB and AFAB phenotypes. Some of these countries permit legal sex change and/or medical sex change to the other binary gender, while others do not.

Alpa

Sanmra legally recognizes a male/female binary gender system; there is no way to change a person's sex designation on their legal birth record. There is also strong social pressure for people to adhere to the binary gender system. However, there are no laws restricting gender presentation or non-binary genders, and while it is not uncommon for surgical intervention on intersex people as infants, it is also not legally mandated.

Baredina

Notzel legally recognizes a male/female binary gender system. Sex change is illegal, there is no way to change a person's sex designation on their legal birth record. There is also strong social pressure for people to conform with their sex assigned at birth. People who have thoughts of being the opposite sex are often seen as “highly covetous” and therefore the idea of wanting to be the other sex is seen as morally deplorable.

Boroso

Miraria

Soltennan cultures are also typically binary but more lenient in terms of transgender rights, with the exception of the Qonklese bloc.

Vaniuan regional culture recognizes only two genders and ties them strictly to the binary sexes. They tend to mandate surgical intervention on those with intersex characteristics.

Nagu

Ystel

In Ystel, Gfiewistan as well as the Klambari and Samwati people on Jute adhere to a binary male-female system.

Alternative binaries

An alternative binary system has two genders, but they are not male/female.

Trinary systems

There are two broad types of trinary systems: the "male-female-other" system, which sets the vast majority of the population into the two binary genders, and recognizes either a specific third gender or has a legal "basket taxon" for several distinct groups (e.g. nonbinary, transgender and intersex people). These can be called "binary-plus" systems (although that could also refer to larger systems where the basis is still male/female). The other main type are those that do not rely on sex characteristics at all, or do not map them to social roles in the same way as the typical binary system. In contrast to "binary-plus" this might be called a "true trinary" system.

Binary-plus systems show a somewhat random distribution. Some countries with this system include Amerhan, Astalva, Congaval, Jáhkavarra, Lhavres, Magali, Ngeyvger, Ngutan, Quaxin Xun, and Syoranka.

Atsiq

The Jáhka people, native to the archipelago of Jáhkavarra, have always recognised various forms of a "third gender" apart from male and female. Called lihttin (singular lihto) in the Jáhkarrá language, members of this gender were and are generally accepted and integrated. In a traditional society, lihttin could perform both female and male duties, even switiching between different societal contexts, but were expected to conform to a single gender in a given environment. Because of this special aspect of their identity, lihttin often became shamans and as such wielded substantial influence over both tribal chiftains and common people alike. The Jáhka system is thus not one of three separate gender roles, but has a third one whose fluidity between the genders is considered natural. Homosexuals, both male and female, were sometimes also labelled lihto, although the continuing modernisation and internationalisation of Jáhkavarra and the concomitant awareness of gender studies has narrowed down use of the term so that it nowadays mainly refers to transgender, genderfluid and/or intersex people.

West Baredina

One concentrated area that uses a binary-plus system is in western Baredina where the Algazi Union, Lhivrala and Norjihan all (share a system?)

South Baredina

The countries of the former Sa'inya Kingdom almost unilaterally use the binary-plus system adopted from the E'atusyawa religion; Taiwoqa, NAME, and NAME have adopted this gender system. Each gender has specific social roles they must adhere to, with the exception of the nonbinary gender. The nonbinary gender is sort of a catch-all for those who do not adhere to either male or female. Legally a citizen of one of these countries must choose one of the three genders. As such, many Atruozans who live in the Post-Sa'inya countries that do not adhere to either male or female choose to adopt the nonbinary gender.

Lahan

The Lahani countries of Kaiyyo, Teru and Tuyo have a traditional true trinary system based on codifications of labour division. The system evolved from a mix of various groups that came to the island in successive migrant waves including the pre-Sañuan peoples, the Sañuans, and the Lahiri. The three genders can be quickly summarized as "those that stay [at home/in the village], those that leave [for the day and then come back], and those that voyage [for extended periods]" with a roughly 40:50:10 traditional demographic makeup.

During the colonial era these systems were influenced first by the quarternary Neviran and binary Shohuanese systems. This reformed the legal system from the 1700s to the 1950s when the countries won independence. While there has been a push to return to the still-practiced traditional system in legal terms, the situation is complicated by settler descendants of the two colonial groups and recent immigrant populations.

Ngerupic and Mañic

The Mañic cultures, dominant in Awating, Mänea, Quaxin Xun, and Yachiro, and representing sizable minorities of Qonklaks, Shohai, and Zaizung, among others, have a traditional gender trinary system, related to the traditional gender trinary system of other Ngerupic cultures (including those of Qonklaks, Shohai, and Lutya).

Transgender identities, especially binary transgender identities, are considered somewhat distinct from the third gender in Mañic society. Quaxin Xun has a long history of supporting social and legal transition to the third gender but not to either binary gender. When medical transition through hormones and surgery initially became available in Quaxin Xun, it was made available specifically to third gender people. Recent activism by transgender activists, whose rhetoric and self-understanding often draws upon the traditional trinary gender system of Xuni culture, has made medical transition more widely available.

Historically, a small number of Xuni and other Mañic people are known to have lived as female-to-male or male-to-female transgender people. This practice is, however, historically frowned upon, and during the 18th century in Quaxin Xun, a number of female-to-male transgender people were legally tried for deception of their wives in what is known as the "Third-Gender Husbands" scandal.

Unlike gay and lesbian relationships, relationships between a third-gender person and a person of any other gender (including another third gender person) are fully acceptable, and have full legal status. Other than the division of roles in the household, they are not looked upon as different from heterosexual relationships.

Jute and South Jute

Main article: Jute § Traditional gender norms

In Jute the Coastal Jutean and River Jutean people recognize three genders, netumo ("guard, sentry"), sehukumo ("nurturer, fosterer") and vamejo ("magician"). The old term kove ("inbetween") is nowadays considered derogatory or even offensive.

A typical family originally consisted of a netumo and a sehukumo, with vamejo often being the people who were expected to go childless and devote their life to the community, taking over the tasks no one else could or wanted to take over. However, nowadays same-gender marriages and families with vamejo are becoming increasingly common and socially accepted, too.

Quaternary systems

Some countries, notably those in Lower Ekuosia, recognize four genders. These may have some link to sexual characteristics, or not.

Ekuosia

The predominant legal and social gender system in Lower Ekuosia is the quaternary Quurozarq gender system (QGS). QGS is also legally recognized in some neighbouring states such as Barradiwa which have strong historical ties to Lower Ekuosia. There are two genders each per the two binary sexes, roughly divided into masculine and feminine personalities respectively, but each has its own distinct social roles, dress codes, legal rights including those related to property ownership and acceptable wedding unions, and religious duties.

Gender is determined in late childhood. After that time legal sex change is permitted, albeit rare. Medical sex change is also permitted, but not required. Finally, those born with intersex characteristics are, in some regions, set into an unofficial fifth gender; while others are permitted to take whichever of the four genders suits them best. Surgical intervention on intersex individuals occurs only voluntarily.

Other quaternary systems

Herdek also recognizes four genders.

Quinary and larger systems

Some countries, notably those in South Baredina and Southern Ystel, recognize five genders. These may have some link to sexual characteristics, or not.

South Baredina and Ystel

In South Baredina and Ystel, centred on the Atruosphere, exists the Atruozan gender system (also called the Five-Gender System), which is postulated to be related to the Lower Ekuosian Gender System due to similarities they bear and the origin of the Ystelo-Atruozans in Lower Ekuosia. It contains five genders, with one being considered largely neutral and the other four being split into two groups of two based on similar characteristics (represented in English as "masculine" and "feminine"), which are primarily job/role-based, although there are notable sex-based trends. These genders can be roughly simplified to "home-carers", "hunters", "processors", "crafters", and "shamans/teachers/healers".

Gender is determined at one's coming-of-age ceremony at the start of adulthood, with lots of exploration being expected of children beforehand. After this, for the four years of being "new adults" from 16 to 20 years of age, individuals ensure that their chosen gender is that which they identify with, and may (albeit uncommonly) change it at their maturation ceremony at 20 when their clan is determined. It is not expected to change after this and is often stigmatised, although it is legal in the large majority of countries (for both legal and medical sex change, although the latter is often reserved for medical reasons such as physical dysphoria).

Nonary systems

Some areas have no formal gender system whatsoever. While they may recognize the distribution of the majority population into two (or more) sex groups, they have no distinctive social roles tied to them in a legal or cultural sense.

In the Allied Territories of the Achiyitqan and Vodholk Peoples, there is no formal or legal gender system. In common spoken language, the nearest words to genders or sexes are for people who are pregnant or who have given birth, and no other distinctions are made; terminology exists in medical and agricultural circles to describe different classic sexual phenotypes, but these are not in common usage. (These linguistic tendencies extend to the entire Maakpauean language family as well as the extant Vodholk language in the area. This can cause difficulties for international travel to some regions.

There is also no gender system in the majority of Northern Ystel.

Legal recognition

Countries may have a difference between their own traditional or social system, and the various systems or genders that they recognize in legal terms. There may especially be differences between the genders they will print on their own citizens' identification papers, and those that they will recognize as valid for incoming tourists or immigrants.

Country Local system Legality of other systems
 Achiyitqana Nonary There is no legal distinction. All forms of ID are accepted.
 Balakia Binary All forms of ID are accepted for tourists, who may be granted a temporary, appropriate gender marker for their ID. Immigrants are assigned a traditional sex-based gender in addition to the one they identify as on their ID. Citizens of Balakia must have one of the two recognised genders.
 Jute Jute Gender has no legal significance, any gender on an ID is accepted. Immigrants are often expected to choose a gender to be able to integrate properly, but this is rarely mandatory.
 Kaiyyo Lahani TBD
 Nevira Quurozarq TBD
 Povan Union Quurozarq 'Male' and 'female' typically equate to sena and ukrar. Visitors and non-citizens are usually given the "most equivalent" Quurozarq gender in addition to the one they identify as on their ID. Citizens of the Povan Union must have one of the four recognized genders. (Permanent residents in the provinces of Lannado, Romutho, and Iveti must also use one of the four Quuroziri genders on all provincial documentation.)
 Tabiqa Quurozarq 'Male' and 'female' are typically simply considered sena and ukrar. Tourists may be granted a temporary, appropriate gender marker for their ID. Immigrants must take a Quurozarq gender.
 Tuyo Lahani Most IDs are accepted for tourists. Some citizens have been granted Quurozarq IDs. Most immigrants must take a Lahani gender.