Thorns

Man yeah I don't know how to conceptualise what being trans would look like in a single gender society. Thinking about it sometimes makes me a bit dysphoric: I'm multigender, and the idea of a society where my gender wouldn't make any sense (unless you add concepts from outside the society) feels uncomfortable.

I mean part of it I think is that it's not clear if a society of psychologically human people can be single gender, or if gender of some sort will naturally manifest in some people. Like, we know that trans people exist in a binary gendered society that assumes everyone is cis: some people, raised to believe that there are two genders which are rigidly defined by biological sex, will end up identifying as the other gender, or as both, etc. I know trans-for-their-society people pop up in societies with other setups, like three genders. I haven't heard of it happening before contact with the international trans community, but would expect that it probably happened? But we don't really know why or how that happens, how much is nature versus nurture, whether the same person would define themselves differently if raised differently etc.

From a political POV it's not super important where people's sense of gender comes from, we just need to respect it. But from a personal understanding POV I find it interesting and frustratingly hard to pin down!

I have spoken to agender people who think that a genderless society is attainable, sustainable, and would be good. But afaict no culture in all of human history has ever been entirely genderless, although what genders they believe in have varied. So I wonder if it's to some extent hard wired into enough people that it always shows up once enough humans gather. But maybe I just think that because it feels so hard wired into me! Then again I'm an atheist and still feel the same way about religion: how significant and common religious belief is varies between societies, and the same person might be atheist or various different religions depending on upbringing. But I feel like an entirely religion free society is incompatible with how humans tend to think as a group, even if plenty of individual people have no religious drive.

All of which means that I have trouble getting my head around a genderless/single gender society in the first place, unless it involves non-humans (which dwarves are in theory, but their psychology seems fairly human-ish in this respect). I can imagine one where gender manifests very differently, and has a lot less social significance. Exploring the relationship between that society and, say, ours, could be interesting, if people were like "Oh actually I like that gender they have more than the ones I've encountered in mine", and how you can be trans/gnc in one society and not in another. But I mean, that sort of thing already happens on Earth, you get complicated mixtures of cultural appropriation and inspiration and solidarity in a way I don't see reflected in fiction, even fiction comparing gender between societies, which tends to either assume everyone wants to stick to their own culture, or holds one culture up as The Good One.

I don't remember Provenance clearly, but I think the character who put off choosing a gender did pick one eventually? And noone seemed to even consider not choosing permanently as possible (even as a bad thing bad people do), so it felt like the equivalent of a girl holding onto a tomboy phase before realising she Had To Become A Woman. But I may be misremembering!