First of all, there are at least 7 kinds of sex and 5 kinds of gender, so there are at least 7*5=35 kinds of gender, and theoretically, there are at least 35 kinds of sexual orientation. That puts the theoretical upper limit for the combination of gender and sexual orientation at least 1,225. Don’t say I have a big imagination, let me slowly explain. You can save the three views here, you should not need them in the next few minutes, don’t forget to come back to get them.
1. Biological Sex
The biological sex is the sex that you are born with, is the individual cannot choose. There are two definitions of biological sex: sex chromosome type and sex characteristics.
The sex chromosomes are either XX (female) or XY (male) for most people, but others don’t fall into either category. For example, the number of sex chromosomes is abnormal: XXY, XYY, XXX, XXYY, etc. In addition to the number of sex chromosomes, there may be abnormalities in the structure of the sex chromosomes, such as the absence of either the short or long arms of the X or Y chromosomes, and sometimes the possibility that the chromosomes cannot be simply represented by X or Y.Of course, these sex chromosomal abnormalities are rare, but even with sex chromosomal abnormalities, individuals can often exhibit some male or female sexual characteristics. I don’t know much about the sex chromosomes. There may be mistakes.
Most people judge their biological sex based on their primary or secondary sexual characteristics, i.e. the presence or absence of male/female genitalia, facial hair, Adam’s apple, breasts, etc. However, the sex and sex chromosome types derived from sex characteristics do not necessarily match perfectly. Fetuses may have abnormalities during development that make their first sexual signs obscure, have first sexual signs opposite sex chromosome type, or have both male and female first sexual signs. These individuals are often painful and confused in the process of growing up, and often do not find out their true biological sex until they are growing up or even at a pre-marital checkup. There is a lot of relevant news, you can check it out. Hope society can pay attention to and treat these minority groups well. Secondary sexual characteristics are more likely to be unreliable, because individuals’ genes, upbringing environments, and events can vary greatly within the same biological sex group.
All right, now let’s sort out the biological sex. First, of course, there are biological males and biological females, and the vast majority of people fall into both categories. Then, for the sake of argument, we’ll call all other sex (both by sex chromosome and by sex character) «other» for the moment. When you fill out a form in some parts of the world, you’ll see a box under «Sex» that looks like «other.»So far we’ve assumed that a person’s biological sex doesn’t change throughout their life, but some people choose to change sex after all (which is a completely different concept from Li Yinhe’s partner’s, as we’ll see later). There are at least four types of transsexuals: male to female, female to male, another female to male, and another male (as far as I know almost no one actively chooses to change to «other» gender). It should be noted that degeneration can only be changed at the sexual level, not the sex chromosomes. In addition, these individuals will generally identify with the gender after the change, but that’s the gender category. From a biological sex point of view, they are still different from other biological men and women: their sex chromosome types and sexual characteristics are generally opposite.
To sum up, biological sex can be at least divided into:
1). The men
2). Women
3). The other
4). Male to female (sex chromosome male, sex characteristics female)
5). Female to male (sex chromosome female, sex characteristics male)
6). Other Transgender Female (Other Sex Chromosomes, Female Sexual Characteristics)
7). Other Transmale (Other Sex Chromosomes, Male Features)
2. Social Sex
Gender refers to what gender a person thinks he or she is. It’s a kind of self-identity. Gender and biological sex can be the same or different, although most people are the same. If a person’s sex is different from their gender, they are transgender, or «T» for LGBT.
So how many different kinds of gender are there? In theory, gender is more fluid and uncertain than sex, because the classification of gender is essentially a social construction, and there is no particular objective and absolute standard. The classification of gender will vary from time to time and from society to culture. Of course, for the convenience of discussion and management, let’s roughly divide it into categories:
1). The men
2). Women
3). Both genders: they consider themselves female even though they are male,
4). Alex: Considers oneself as neither male nor female
5). Others: Including bisexual (with different sexes, double sex of two kinds of gender doesn’t need to be traditional male and female, can also be a «others» gender), flow (sex change, flow is not fixed), sex question (not sure their gender), gender (all own gender), also includes many other more detailed classification, here did not elaborate.
The five categories listed here are my versions, with only a few typical ones. Different people can be classified into different classes, and some versions can be classified into dozens, each with some variation in one dimension or another.
For those interested, check out Facebook’s 56 gender options:
Here’s a List of 58 Gender Options for Facebook Users
So if we put sex and gender together, there would theoretically be 7*5=35 different genders. That’s a bit of a simplification compared to Facebook’s list of 56.
3. Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is what gender you want to have a romantic relationship with. I’m being deliberately vague here because there are two things to note:
1. Are romantic relationships spiritual or physical?
2. Does the other party’s gender refer to the biological gender or the social gender?
Someone whose definition of a romantic relationship is purely spiritual is likely to place more importance on a partner’s gender than on a partner’s biological gender. For others who define romantic relationships as purely physical, they may place more importance on a partner’s biological sex. Of course, most people are in the middle.
So for most people, sexual orientation is as much about gender as it is about the other person’s sex, so there are as many sexual orientations as there are gender types: 35. Most of us, of course, fall into one of two categories: our preferred object is both biologically and socially male, and our preferred object is both biologically and socially female.
Generally speaking, one is homosexual if one is biologically and socially identical to the object of one’s affection, and heterosexual if one is biologically and socially different from the object of one’s affection.
But here’s the problem: Is it gay or straight if you have the same sex as the person you like, but a different gender (or vice versa)? I honestly don’t know.
So we see that the gay/straight dichotomy is a very crude one, and a lot of times it runs into problems. Strictly speaking, one is gay only if one’s gender and the other’s gender match perfectly in those 35 categories, while the other 34 should all be heterosexual, which is a much larger category than what we would normally call heterosexual.
Yet. So far we’ve only assumed that two people have the same sexual orientation (gay people like gay people, or to generalize: A people like those who like A). But if you remove these restriction conditions, A heterosexual assumption is like gay members of the opposite sex, or more general, A gender people like people who like C sex of gender and the AC, if the same is the 35 species of sexual orientation that we mentioned earlier, some special cases of this model. For example, a man who is biologically male is attracted to lesbians (while heterosexual women are not attracted to them), even though they are unlikely to be attracted to him. Who is he then? That’s 35*35* C =1225, which means there are 35*35*35=42875…Here’s an extreme example: a person who is biologically male to female and who is both genders is attracted to someone who is biologically female and gender asexual, but who is biologically male or gender other…mind was blown indeed…
Of course, we don’t usually consider the last dimension, which is that we assume that people only like people of their sexual orientation.
But there’s also the assumption that everyone can only like one sex. Of course, it doesn’t have to be, and bisexuality is an example. But why isn’t it counted in here? Because there are so many things to count…If there were no restrictions at all on the number of preferred sex categories, the total would be:
So 2^35 = 34359738368 sexual orientation…Even if we limited everyone to bisexuality at most, that would still be C(35,1)+C(35,2)=630, which still seems too many.
So in the simplified model, like gender, there are at least 35 sexual orientations, maybe five if you’re a pure spiritual person, maybe seven if you’re a pure physical person.
4. Summary
From the above explanation, we can see where the first 1225 came from 1225=(7*5)^2
Of course, these 1, 225 combinations are purely theoretical, and only some of them have real-life counterparts.99% of the world’s population is likely to be in fewer than 10 of the most common combinations and will be exposed to no more than five or six in a lifetime.
In many places, only two of these 1225 combinations are recognized: biological/gender men prefer biological/gender women, and biological/gender women prefer biological/gender men. Others were collectively referred to as «abnormal», «indecent», «sick», «deformed» and so on, and were marginalized, persecuted, humiliated and even slaughtered. Now, the most common of the remaining 1,223 groups are taking up their positions and speaking out, but resistance is still high.
For most people, this article may be just curious, funny and imaginative, but I hope you can remember that what you find curious is the daily life and life fate of others, who cannot even explain their situation to others, let alone gain understanding and respect. I hope we can be more patient and tolerant. thank you
Disclaimer:
The theoretical framework in this paper is only one of many theories, and the classification does not come from any authoritative source, nor can it be used as a standard. For example, it has been suggested that gender and orientation should be multidimensional contiguous sets, meaning that there is no simple way to distinguish between types. These are just ideas to help you broaden your horizons.