Thoughts on the Prospects of Moderernizing the One-Sex Worldview

            “Boy or girl?” The quintessential question most frequently asked by those meeting new babies and new pets. In variations, we ask this of gender and sexuality as well: “Do you like men or women?” “Do you identify as male or female?” “Left or Right?” “Top or Bottom?” Whatever illusion of variance we think is offered by asking such questions amounts to little more than a declaration of categories. INTJ. ESFP. Digits in a computerized binary code. No matter how many options for labels we may dream up, they remain points on a menu. A bigger cage isn’t freedom.

            By no means without their own cages, Western societies of Antiquity were at least freer in one respect: The One-Sex worldview. As dangerously easy as it was to skew the notion of a sexless species in favor of a particular gender, there remains an intoxicating appeal. How might a modern world revise a One-Sex worldview? Certainly it would invalidate labels of hetero and homosexual acts. If all humans are simply humans, then all sex is humansexual, and thus we would no longer be confused about our sexuality nor would we question our impulses, being under the culture wide assumption that all are pansexual.

The One-Sex worldview might even bring about the usurpation of gender as a concept in the modern world. No more would assertiveness be associated with maleness, because there are no males. No more would sensitivity be associated with femaleness, because there are no females. All character traits would be up for grabs for any human being living. The One-Sex view would not by itself eradicate gender, but would lay a strong foundation for such an arduous endeavor to be built upon.

For any of this to happen, there would have to be ample scientific evidence to support it – theoretically. The Ancients knew plenty more than enough about human anatomy to distinguish from penises and vaginas. Enough to deny those with vaginas citizenship anyway. But they assumed One-Species as One-Sex all the same by means of their culture wide preconceptions. Their fixation on penetration obligated them to value penises above vaginas. So then we must adapt our own cultural fixations. Perhaps is we fixated not on genitalia or chromosomes, but on our belonging to the human species. It is a note worth making that all fetuses begin the earliest stages of development as default female, this being the reason why men have nipples. Instead of defining persons by their parts, we define persons based on their broader categorization as members of the Domain Eukaryote, Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Mammalia, Order Primates, Suborder Haplorhini, Family Hominidae, Genus Homo, Species Homo sapiens, Subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens. Such an attitude would have the added benefit of erasing the very concept of race as inconsequential to taxonomical efforts. After species the importance of labels would end.

But what sort of implications would cause most social discomfort? Once a modernized One-Sex worldview eliminates gender, there will be no need for gender specific bathrooms. A victory for transgender, gender fluid, and gender non-binary rights for sure – But on a more fundamental note, would the erasure of the concept of gender also erase transgender identities as a result? Much of the animosity directed at transgendered people is likely derived from a perceived threat to the gendered world order, but is there such a threat at all? Transmen often express themselves as gendered males, transwomen often express themselves as gendered females. This is no attack, but an embrace of gender roles. Would ending gender systems in culture alleviate or exacerbate gender dysphoria? Would gender dysphoria exist without gender? Or is the term gender dysphoria misleading? Should it be redubbed sex dysphoria? In which case, are sex labels important after all? To what degree are labels an impediment to self-actualization? To what degree are labels useful tools for guidance to self-actualization? Humans are but one of many species on but one of many planets in one of many galaxies in the vast expanse of the universe. Are labels the only means we have of giving meaning to our small existence?