The Future of Gender, Part 2

we have joining us today, Raquel Willis. Yes, we were definitely from over achievers. My name is Raquel Willis. I am a digital publisher here at how Stuff Works dot com, and i am also a writer and activist. I'm glad to be here. We are so glad to have you. So yes, so we're going into part two right now.

Another thing that is import to look at in terms of the role of technology and post genderism is technology that would allow us to continue the human race as usual, even if we got to a point where people were altering their bodies, say to uh, not necessarily be men or women in the traditional sense, to be something else, to be whatever it is they want to be, right Yeah, let's let's get out of that headspace and back into the squishy, squishy meat space because because of course meat,

it's electrical part the body is electrical to anyway, the ability to control whether, uh and and when and how a person wants to have kids is so huge to post genderism because of course, for some people, being a biological father or mother is core to their gender experience, and for others, definitely never doing that is equally core to their gender experience. UM So you know, okay, looking

at reproductive planning, which isn't new. UM I just pulled up a pretty great article from the Indian Journal of Urology that details the use of condoms to prevent STDs and pregnancy, and it cites the first known documentation of a condom from circa three thousand b c e. It was a goats bladder. Nice. Yeah, modern technology is great, you guys. Uh. In the more recent past, uh advances in materials technology, we don't have to use goat bladders anymore.

And uh and and biology and hormone therapy have made contraception and abortion very effective and safe and occasionally even affordable. UH. In in the next few years, along those lines, new forms of male birth control techniques are expected to hit the public market. Various things that can can either prevent erm uh from leaving the vast deference allowing liquid but not sperm um to be ejaculated, and also um uh male hormonal hormonal pills are are kind of sort of

in the works. Um. Then then you've got the fertilization half of of baby making um And of course, in vitro fertilization is one of those just absolute modern medical miracles that increases a person's choice in in how and when to have children. Um Uh. Donor eggs or donor sperm can be combined with your own genetic material. Uh. You can even have a surrogate of volunteer carry a baby to term for you. But all of these methods involve using someone else's DNA at some point in the process.

So what if you and a partner or partners who cannot biologically have children together but want to have children together uh, also want those children to be a combination of your own DNA seems feasible or seems like a reasonable thing to to want at the very least, and some searchers are are working on methods to create viable eggs from male tissue and viable sperm cells from female tissue. And it's a it's not really working terrifically well just yet.

Some some methods are using stem cells and others are focusing on on other different ways to coke cells of one type, like like skin cells into becoming reproductive cells. The latter has worked in mice actually, but humans are a lot more complex than mice. And uh so you know, maybe maybe someday it could work on the gestation and birth end of the spectrum. Uh, there are oh, there's there's there's a lot of interesting things going on. There's

um uterus transplants. In a Swedish woman bought a brought a baby to term and a transplant and uterus for the first time. Um the woman was was born with functioning, functioning ovaries, but no uterus. So, uh, if it's possible in a female body, could it some baby possible in a male body? Mm hmmm. It's complicated, No one knows the but it's hypothetically not impossible. Yeah. And another thing that's not impossible is that you might not need a body at all. Yes, yes, what about a method for

bringing babies to term? That doesn't even involve a human carrier. Researchers have in fact grown embryos for up to fourteen days in vitro in in labs. Uh. And right now it's it's ethics rather than physics that are dictating the course of this kind of research. Um, although really, I mean partially because of the ethics of it, no one, no one knows whether we have the technological and medical know how to bring a baby to term in a holy artificial womb. But of course we use our bodies,

are gendered bodies for more than just baby making. Um. You know, there's there's also the physical, your physical appearance, how you want to look and and furthermore, how you

want your genitals to be and uh. And there are currently some some cultural and medical taboos in our society about using surgery to change our bodies selectively, like you know, like like no one's going to disk someone forgetting facial reconstruction after a car accident, But if a woman wants to change her breast size or a man wants to

change his jawline, people have opinions about that. Oh yeah, I guess that is a thing I didn't think about contributing to this, but people people are kind of judge e about using surgery to change the way you look, But that would be a kind of inherent aspect of post genderism, right likely not necessarily surgery always, but having

various methods of controlling different physical expressions of gender, right right. Uh. And you know, partially I think this this taboo is because of the inherent medical risks involved with with with some of these treatments, especially surgery. You know, like you've got anesthesia and infection and possible rejection of tissues or implants or whatever. But um, I don't know, do you guys?

Another question I wanted to ask you all, like, like, do you think that as we improve our medical capacity to do these things, like, we will see a greater acceptance of selective surgeries start happening. Well, you know, the interesting thing is, I'm actually working on an essay about, um, how we kind of think about elective surgeries, cosmetic surgeries and and things like that. But I I think we are going to see a greater acceptance of of surgeries

and and cosmetic surgeries. Um. I think we're going to get to a point where we kind of are more understanding of the nuance of choice, right, and that there can be a lot of benefits even if they aren't kind of the stereotypical, UM life saving benefits that we usually think of. Um. You know, if you think of self esteem and think of ways in which it will make a person, um, just happier to exist, I think those can be some very valid benefits. Oh yeah, I'd

argue that those are absolutely life saving benefits. The quality of life issues are are pretty important. Yeah, I'm I'm feeling hypocritical now. I totally agree with you. But at the same time I think about it, I've like, I've totally made fun of people's hair plugs before, um, and I'm now kind of regretting that. I'm sorry. Well, and I think that you know, that is not necessarily something

to be apologetic about. UM. I think you know it's human, right, It's human that we have our own judgments and and we have our own kind of meters on what is a successful or good or or solid surgery and what you know, why would you do that? Why would you

do that to yourself? Right? Either it looks bad or like, oh you're so vain for wanting to change your sickle appearance, right, Right, And and of course if you think about things even as simple as ash tattoos, right, those are permanent changes, and and our ideas on that versus surgery may be a bit different, a bit different depending on who you're

talking to. I think tattoos are are a great example of the ways that we have well I think really fundamentally in the United States changed how we approach that. I mean, like in the past twenty or thirty years, a few decades ago. I think tattoo tattoos, like if you weren't in prison or in the military or something like that, people would really harshly judge you for tattoos. Uh. Now that I don't know, it seems like everybody accepts tattoos now I never hear really anything about it. Would

you all agree? Yeah? I think that that other than for for like like religious purposes, like like some kind of traditional concept like that that is that is more handed down, um than than uh widely pop cultural. Yeah, everyone's pretty chill with it. Yeah. So, I mean I wonder if if all different kinds of surgeries and body modification of all sorts will end up going the way of tattoos, where it's just not really a thing people

bad and eye at anymore. Yeah, and whether I mean, I feel like whenever you read about that kind of thing in science fiction, like in like in Hunger Games, I don't know if you guys have rested any of that media. But but but in the Capital, uh, there's a group of people who have chosen to very dramatically change their bodies. And it's and it's written about in this kind of in this very negative way, like as though they have like destroyed their own soul through the

destruction of that flesh kind of kind of thing. But I but I don't think that's going to be how it's going to be, right, And and just the I think the other contexts right of that is is this kind of um indictment of capitalism, right in this idea that oh, you know, we've gone so far as a culture that these things that shouldn't be important to people are now important because ways in which purport ourselves are

completely unnatural and should be you know, avoided at our call. Yeah, how dare we all care about our appearance, which is only what everyone around us judges a spy? Right, um? Uh? And and and getting getting into the parts of our bodies that most people don't see all the time. I wanted to talk for a minute about about penis and vagina transplants, because the difficulties in creating functional genitals are are perhaps obviously even greater than the challenges in in

cosmetic surgeries. But we're starting to see really amazing, hopeful work being done. Researchers have had success in implanting vaginas and women who were born without them. They created the kind of like a like a scaffold in the lab, like a protein scaffold, and then college and scaffold, and then grew the tissue into it from the patient's own samples and then successfully implanted them. Um uh and and they're and they're they're functional, they work, they do what

they're supposed to do. Um. Also, the world's second successful penis transplant happened earlier this year. I could talk to y'all a whole bunch about that for a while. Yeah, yeah, I had. I had a really interesting two days where I was covering the topic for a for the video show now that we do. And so my entire Google search history was a fire orble offense at many other companies, I'm sure, but but but but yeah, currently these these

options are not being offered to the trans community. I think partially because they're still so early in development and and honestly because of some really unfortunate transphobia in parts of the medical community. But UM, but I really think and and further more personally hope that a few more years worth of research and and cultural advancement will see these options being made available to more people who who

wants selective elective surgeries. Yeah, and and you know, the thing is is that there actually have been UM a lot of successes and within the trans community when it comes to what is typically considered sexual reassignment surgery or gender reassignment surgery or UM whatever name that there are

so many different names that people use UM for these surgeries. UM, but we are really seeing ways in which UM people are using UM or the actual kind of original materials from what everybody a person is born with to kind of make UM functional genitals that are to their liking UM so that it can be through different forms of skin grass things like that. You know, people can grow organs on other parts of their bodies and then use

them in that process. So it's really kind of interesting what is being done in the medical community are specifically around trans healthcare. Yeah, totally. But of course, a really interesting option in the future if we're thinking about a post gender world, is not even uh, not even creating the traditional normal working of one traditional sex or another, but sort of creating all new different ways for your

body to look and be shaped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what if you don't want normal what if you don't want a normal penis of regina? I mean, I mean, I wonder if we're ever going to come around to a time where there will be a social allowance, like a societal acceptance of people choosing surgeries that are completely different from you know, the good old, good old sex binary. Yeah, I know. One I've read about is the idea of people wanting, for example, androgynous genitalia. Absolutely, yeah, one that

it's not necessarily one or the other. It's uh, it's it's a different thing altogether. Yeah, going along, you know, within within the within the gender. And and at that point i'd say sexual spectrum. Um, of course, they're they're a sexuality exists. It's it's not as visible I think is a lot of other sexualities right now, but it should you know, if that's how people feel, then that

is a thing that the rest of us need to respect. Yeah. So, one other place where biotechnology is going to play a role, possibly in in the post gender future if we get there, is in neuropharmacology and psychopharmacology. So the basic idea here is there's a lot of controversy over whether broad differences in human thoughts and behaviors between men and women are biologically determined by sex in the body or socially prescribed by culture. I think it's pretty clear that it's some

mix of the two. But to whatever extent, we discover that some biological factors do play a role in sexually dimorphic behavior tendencies, you know, ways that women usually act, men usually act. Psychopharmacology and neuropharmacology drugs that affect the nervous system in the in the mind and mood, should allow us to influence these tendencies voluntarily if we wish to do so. Um. But we should also say that

the brain is complex. We're far from having a full understanding of the chemical basis in the brain for you know, very complex effects like human behavior. However, we do know something, it's just simple example, hormones. Hormones like oxytocin vasa press and testosterone estrogen the ones you've heard of before and so forth, have some suggested linkages with behaviors associated most often with one gender or the other, such as maternal

bonding or dominance and aggression and so forth. Um And this is one area where I think we may end up trailing behind others just because of how complex the brain is. But as far as technological control goes, we don't know in the end what we're going to find out. We may end up discovering that biosex diff princes have even less control over human behavior tendencies that we now believe maybe a gigantic part of how we act is

actually just culturally influenced. Um Or, we may discover that there are some fairly strong determinative patterns from from the body, but we'll be able to counteract them with hormones and other pharmacological treatments if we so desire. So these are the factors that we're dealing with. But but but will this happen? I mean, and if it, if it can happen, is it is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Is it something we can place a value

judgment on? I mean, if you I think that, just based on what we've read for this episode, it seems to me that if you continue technological trends in biotech on the trajectories they're on today, doesn't seem like there's any reason we shouldn't be able to live in a

post gender society. Yeah, it seems very very possible, with especially depending on how you define it, because in some ways you could say that some aspects of post genderism or not even that dependent on technology is just about you know, culture and how we talk about things and the aspects that are dependent on technology. The technology doesn't seem crazy to me. We're not talking about faster than light travel or or time travel or something like that.

It's basically just things that we say on the show that we're like, yeah, no, that's never gonna happen. Yeah, it's not stuff like that. It's stuff that seems very reasonable to assume that we can do based on extrapolating trends in in medicine and medical science today, stuff for

which the groundwork has already been laid. Yeah, And it also doesn't seem to me that there's any reason to think that that postgenderism would I don't know, destroy humanity or something like that, Like, I I don't see any reason to think that we necessarily always need gendered biological reproductive organs and male female pairing in order to reproduce

and produce new generations of humans. Yeah, and and furthermore that yeah, it's it's, it's it's it's neither going to be impossible to continue the human species, uh in a post gender society, and neither isn't necessarily going to like immediately be the matrix with everyone being grown in vats and harvested for their energy potential. Yeah. Um, the argument against um it not being possible. Yeah, no, we've already

got all that tech. Uh. I I I guess, I guess there could be arguments that the current norms are too culturally ingrained to ever be changed. But but based on past changes to the norm and also to the current uh interestingly flexi state of society, I think it's

it's pretty obvious that change is possible and furthermore already happening, right. I. I think even if we kind of, um take a step back and look at how we think of each other in a gender way, right, Like, Yeah, we still have these categories of man, woman, um, non binary folks, all of these different categories, even that category right is

an element of this kind of move towards post gender society. Um, but these concepts are becoming less of a hindrance for us, Like we're building in protections for people based on gender right, We're building in um ways in which people can kind of live however they want outside of these kind of historical limited ideas of what a man can do, what a woman can do, really, what a human born a

certain way can do? Right, Yeah, absolutely, which which brings us I mean, it's it's probably pretty obvious from from our conversation, even if this is the only episode of four Thinking you have ever tuned into and don't know that we generally hold these kind of personal beliefs. Um, you know, it's probably pretty obvious that we all in this room think that this is a pretty good thing, um. And and the arguments for it being a good thing

I think are pretty persuasive. Uh yeah, I mean I think it breaks down to stuff that that's kind of hard for people to give rational reasons for disagreeing with, and that it just would give people more choice over deeper facts about themselves. Uh, since it's a voluntary movement. I mean, we'd be talking about a different thing if we were saying we should forcibly eliminate gender gender distinctions. Oh yeah, that would be terrible. Why why would anyone

do that? That would be the worst. Yeah, that's that's the opposite of the point of all of this. But yeah, so I don't know. It seems to me so try to imagine again a society in which a lot of these norms have been eroded. Uh, that seems to me possible that it could lead to less discrimination and less unequal power balance and a large array of situations. So like, what would a society look like if, for example, men

were not on average physically stronger than women. Uh. It seems hard for me to personally imagine a bad outcome from that change, though maybe I don't have a very good imagination. I want to be Serena Williams. Uh, there's a lot of sort of just basic person to person evil in the world that takes place essentially only because there is a man who's a lot stronger than a

woman that he's with. And if that were not often, if that were not the standard, Um, it just seems like that could very easily create a world where there's a lot less unequal relationships and less interpersonal violence. Right, And and so I guess, you know, kind of on the flip side, right, what speaks to me a lot of times is the expanded options for men. Right, Like, a lot of times we talk about gender and it's it's very much what what women need. Right. But you know,

this is a good thing for men to right. Um, men will be able to kind of and send these stereotypical ideas of what is okay for them to do. Right. We can think about parenting, and we can think about this idea that we have long had that you know, fathers aren't as emotionally connected to their families and things like that. I don't think that's true. I think men and fathers have always been capable of this very deep connection on an emotional level to their families and men

to other people. I think that we have just had a lot of societal hang ups around what that looks like and what, um, I guess what we were told to be comfortable with, of course, and it and it turns into a physical problem to for for men. Researchers

found that gender roles. The gender roles that men undertake lead to shorter life expectancies and poor health in some measures from you know, like like behavior where they they see doctors less frequently than women, or engage in riskier behavior, or participate in more military combat or work in more hazardous occupations. Uh so post genderism could could erase some of the pressures that lead to those circumstances, or I

guess at least spread the danger around more, you know. Uh, well, yeah, I mean it could if you're if you're talking about removing expectations, So it could be maybe you want to uh display traditionally male sex traits, but you just don't want to be expected to do the dangerous construction jobs or something like that. Yeah, that might be how you want to do it, Like you want to be a

podcaster or whatever it is. It's not that I'm saying that podcasting is an inherently feminine trait, but it's a communication, right exactly. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. Uh And and so yeah, there are so many really interesting gender biases that I catch myself having all the time, Like like, how I still if I'm playing video games online? And uh, in a voice that comes through my little headphone is a lady, lady voice, a feminine voice. I go, oh,

how nice, how nice? It's a girl and she's playing video games. And then I imbediently feel like the worst feminist who has ever existed, because of course, of course women play video games. That's great, and I am one, and I don't I don't know. Yeah, I think I think that we've all internalized. I think what I'm trying to say is that we've all internalized more of this than we possibly understand all the time on a day

to day basis. And and I would personally like to see some of that go away, because it makes me mad when I recognize it in myself, and it certainly makes me mad when I recognize it in other people. Stop being so awful, Lauren. I'm going to turn that into I'm going to turn that into a sound bite and just play it over and over to myself every day. You know, I wonder in a post gender world how

much our basic language is going to change. There's so many there's so many invisible aspects of of our lives that we don't think about being strongly influenced by sex and gender, like y'all were talking about fashion, and duh. Obviously fashion is very you know, clothes are very gender, but it just didn't even cross my mind when I was thinking about that. Uh. And And another one is language.

So most languages are just full of gendered terminology that's already largely obsolete, you know, with expanding consciousness of inclusivity, even with the traditional gender landscape. So for example, you know, you're not trying to find a policeman, you're trying to find a police officer. That police officer might be a woman who could help you just as much as the

male police officer. Uh. Uh And and then of course they're gendered pronouns, gendering of nouns and languages like Spanish and stuff like that, though that's not fully a product of sex and gender distinctions, though there's some relevant crossover. Uh and uh and write gendered pronouns in English. This is something I think about every now and then. I'm like, man, we finally need a good singular gender neutral pronoun or people finally going to embrace using they as a singular pronoun.

I think I think I have almost I'm working on it. I'm not sure I have. I've had to, Um, I think in the LGBTQ community, and um, having so many friends who do identify as non binary, like there are so many non binary people now, Um, I've had to kind of adapt and not put pronouns onto other people. And then also, I mean, you know, in the lgbc Q community, people change pronouns, so it's it's often very difficult to remember who's using what pronoun um today and

and identity has changed. So you know, I'm all for they. I think the argument against the singular they is very very much, um, not reflective of the fact that we actually do use this gender neutral pronoun pretty often. We do. We do and and and and of course it is so important to to gender people correctly and to to not force your own language onto somebody else's body. That's that's pretty ridiculous. And it's so easy to not be offensive like that, to just be like, hey, what pronouns

would you like me to use for you? Uh. It might be an awkward conversation, but I promise you'll get through it, And even if you have to have it once an hour, it's it's always worthwhile. I also wonder though, UM, if you know, just thinking about the transgender experience if more people in general will kind of have maybe their birth name and then choose a name that they like better, like, oh,

here's another one completely. I didn't even think about this going in gender names, right, Yeah, And again that that's one of those things where I mean, like pronouns and stuff like that, there's there's no police running around telling you what you know, the name has to be applied to a certain gender. But well, that's true in some

some countries do have lists of gender approved names. But but yeah, even in America, where there's there's nobody who is going to make you name your kid a certain thing based on their gender, but names are very gender Yeah, there's a scidal expectation that if a human is named John, it's probably a dude if it's spelled in certain ways in mostly and I would kind of imagine that there may be a lot more options when it comes to

in to gender neutral names now. Um, I don't even know if if parents are as much looking for them, but that's just kind of seems like a trend within itself in recent years, a lot of names that will kind of double have a feminine name or double as um a more gender neutral name, like I think about names like Adrian, and And and and Hayden and a lot of really a lot of names ending an inn. Are you know, gender neutral or something like Aubrey? Right? He

said John, like John? Maybe not John? Maybe I lied Jan right like Jan. That's sometimes a boy's name or a girl's name. J n oh. I think that that is um like culturally because I knew, uh his it was John, though I think it was like Yannis his nickname. I yeah, I know it, but I think it's like Scandinavian or something. Huh. Yeah. People are naming their kids

all kinds of things these days. I'm thinking about a guy we talked about in an episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind named yonda dude who cut out his own bladder stones anyway, hundreds of years ago. Okay, so he's dead either way. Cool. The emotional reaction from both me and Raquel there was very strident. Um. I think I think that just about wraps up what we have

been trying to say today. So thank you guys so much for sticking around for two whole episodes worth of this, and thank you so much Raquel for coming and joining us. Thank you for having me I'm so glad to be here. It's been really fun having you on the show. Yes, yes, uh. If if you guys would like to say anything to Raquel or to us, please get in touch. Our email address is fw thinking at how Stuff Works dot com. You can also reach us on the facebooks and to

the twitters yes plural. That's also how language is changing and you can't stop it. Our screen name in both of those places is also fw thinking and Uh Raquel. If people would like to get in touch with you, would you like to provide a Twitter handle? Definitely not I'm um if you sure, If you are brave enough to check out my Twitter, I am Raquel. Are a q U E l w I l l I s underscore And if you just want to check out my writing or what I'm up to Raquel, well, it's dot com.

Is the place to go cool. Thank you so much. Yeah, we all hope that we will hear from you, and either way, you will hear from us again very soon. For more on this topic in the future of technology, visit forward Thinking dot Com, brought to you by Toyota. Let's Go Places