(no subject)

[alexseanchai]

I can make the math of sex chromosomes work for a two-sex species like humans. I can make the math work for a four-sex species: XXZ and XXW are one sex, YYZ and YYW are another, XYZ is a third, XYW is a fourth. This math also works for a six-sex species, obviously. Three-sex species, which is where I'm trying to make the math go? Not so much.

Halp.

(I am contemplating gender roles for a three-sex species, assuming the vast majority of people of that species, like the vast majority of humans, are cisgender. I keep running into the fact that humans, at least white USAian humans, tend to conceive of gender roles as binaries, not trinaries.)

Comments

[executrix]

Could the third sex just have an extra chromosome, like XXX or XXY humans? Although gender roles don't have that much to do with chromosomes anyway--transmen usually aren't different chromosomally from ciswomen, and two ciswomen who both have XX chromosomes can vary a great deal in how much they conform to their society's definition of femininity.

ETA: the third sex could also be like worker bees, without a lot of gender markers at all, with the other two sexes being highly feminine (as defined by the society) and highly masculine (as defined by the society).

didn't see your edit at first

[alexseanchai]

Hm, maybe...but one would expect the third sex then to be pretty rare comparatively, like intersex people are in our society, and that doesn't really suit what I'm trying to work out wrt gender relations in this species.

Yeah, I know that, but I'm trying to sort out how this species' societies react to the concept (not the specifics, just the concept) of 'cis gender-A' and 'cis gender-B' and 'cis gender-C' before I get to any permutation of 'trans' or 'genderqueer'. If for no other reason than that how our society reacts to cis women and cis men shapes how it reacts to trans women and trans men and people who defy either of those binaries.

ETA: Truuuue. ponder