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The Cranky Philosopher is gender-sensitive!

Gender-sensitivity is one of the hottest topics of our society today. The Cranky Philosopher feels compelled to contribute with calm reassurance.

The Human Genome Project and the sequencing of the human genome being ‘old hat’ by now, humanity is now firmly embarked on the exciting project of sequencing the human gender. Perhaps the most widely known sequence today is LGBTQ+, which refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer/questioning, with the plus sign signifying that the sequencing project is still in progress. This sequence, however, still harks back to about the nineties. The most recent sequence The Cranky Philosopher could find is LGBTQQIP2SAA+, indicating that the sequencing project has been making good progress. This sequence stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, pansexual, two-spirit (2S), androgynous and asexual, the plus sign having the meaning as before. The two-spirit (2S) gender is a novel addition, attributable to some indigenous North Americans to describe those who fulfill a traditional third-gender ceremonial role. A further notable addition is the gender ‘asexual’. Finally, this acknowledges the neuter gender, which has been a traditional feature of some languages, like German, although only to a lesser extent of others, such as English. Possibly due to the latter language being used for the sequencing project, it took surprisingly long to acknowledge the asexual, or neuter, gender.

Whilst the sequencers surely deserve accolades for the impressive progress they have made in deriving the sequence LGBTQQIP2SAA+, the Cranky Philosopher nevertheless remains baffled by the omission of the two most anciently and widely adopted genders – female and male.

Another observation the Cranky Philosopher wishes to submit to the human gender sequencers for consideration arises from the recognition given to the two-spirit gender. The Cranky Philosopher thus wishes to suggest the addition of ‘C’ for ‘celibate’ to the sequence, in recognition of the spiritual role of Catholic priests. The Cranky Philosopher therefore proposes the sequence to be extended to LGBTQQIP2SAAFMC+.

The Cranky Philosopher believes a cool feature of this proposed sequence is that, albeit belatedly, the three genders most commonly used in languages today, asexual/neuter, female and male, are grouped together, and followed by a C to affirm that gender isn’t just about having sex.

Now, to come back to the current debate about gender sensitivity. Despite all the progress made by gender sequencers, this debate still mostly revolves around the equitable and inclusive use of the female and male genders in everyday spoken and written language. Even the use of the neuter gender has been drawn into the debate on suspicion of it being used as a lazy way to avoid having to repetitively mention both the female and male genders. In essence, the question is whether we must always use both the ‘she’ and ‘he’ forms, or to be both politically correct and lazy, are allowed to alternatively use the one or the other, or may we just take a lazy shortcut and ‘it’ the whole debate? It, she, or/and he? Considering that the ‘he’ is already included in ‘she’, the Cranky Philosopher concludes that the current gender sensitivity debate is in essence about the use of the ‘itshe’ vocabulary, as also reflected in the proposed gender sequence part …’AFM’…

It appears reasonable to conclude that the itshe vocabulary can also to at least some extent do justice to the ‘LG’… part of the gender sequence, as well as the …’C’… part. The …’BTQQIP2SA’… part is, sadly, not yet formally covered in current vocabularies. The communities covered by the said part are still challenged to extend the current, very limited, itshe vocabulary to also include their individual identification needs. Hence, the Cranky Philosopher will hereafter proceed with addressing gender sensitivity issues pertaining to the current itshe vocabulary only, recognizing that sensitivities revolve around three main factors: equity, inclusivity and nondiscrimination.

On the equity factor, the approach of the Cranky Philosopher is based on the premise that, contrary to popular perception, women and men talk (in spoken and written language) approximately equally much. The misconception about this fact arises primarily out of women and men not always talking on the same forums at the same time. Given this fact, it stands to reason that the female and male genders would share an equitable amount of exposure in communication, if women were to always use the ‘she’ vocabulary, and men were to always use the ‘he’ vocabulary. Notably, this would avoid embarrassing situations where, say, a man were to politely use the ‘he’ and ‘she’ vocabularies alternatively, but at some point innocently using the ‘she’ vocabulary in a context that to sharp observers would seem discriminatory against women.

Based on the above premise and the proposal that women should always use the ‘she’ vocabulary (which, oddly, even in our enlightened society still seems to be rarely the case), the Cranky Philosopher will therefore always use the ‘he’ vocabulary. In both cases, of course, alongside the ‘it’ where appropriate. Exceptions may, however, be appropriate in the interest of inclusivity.

Critique about a lack of inclusivity holds that men tend to address their audiences as if they are addressing men only, leaving women excluded. This is of course impolite, and particularly objectionable considering that publicly conspicuous positions are still predominantly occupied by men. Tradition has been sensitive to this issue. Even today, it is still good protocol to conclude the introduction to every address with: “…, Ladies and Gentlemen”; that is, after having observed the protocol of first addressing all those dignitaries that are somehow elevated beyond mere ladies and gentlemen. The Cranky Philosopher undertakes to observe the protocol of inclusivity whenever he addresses an audience that includes both ladies and gentlemen.

Last, but not least, the issue of nondiscrimination deserves attention, with discrimination against transgender persons taking up much of the current heated debate. Interestingly, it seems that particularly ‘biological boys’ increasingly prefer to identify with the female gender. The Cranky Philosopher believes that this phenomenon has an interesting developmental background. Probably very few people even know that in the initial stage of development of the human fetus, all of us are programmed to develop into girls – the one’s with the XX chromosome. Then, at some stage in the development of some of us, the fetus suddenly discovers that one of the X’s is missing a leg, like in the chromosome XY. This is a somewhat crippling experience; think of a lizard losing its tail to a predatory cat. The body is challenged to try and recreate the missing limb. In the case of a lizard tail, the result is imperfect. Trying to recreate the missing leg in the XY chromosome, is even more so, with the result being more like X. Ergo – boys are imperfect girls. Hopefully, this realization will help in understanding, why some ‘biological boys’ prefer to identify with the female gender.

As an aside – the Cranky Philosopher also does so occasionally. Sadly, he is suffering from what is euphemistically called ‘the shy bladder syndrome’. When he urgently needs to ‘spring a leak’ in a public place, he dutifully reports in the ‘Gents’. However, when choosing where to ‘spring a leak’ in the ‘Gents’, he invariably identifies with the female gender.

© The Cranky Philosopher 2025