I’ve recently begun going through a bit of a personal renaissance regarding my gender, and I realized my numbers-focused brain needs something to quantify gender identity, both for myself and so I can better understand others. I also just don’t like socially-constructed labels, at least for myself.
So, using the Kinsey Scale of Sexuality as inspiration, and with input from good friends, I made up my own Gender Identity Scale.
- Three axes: X, Y, and Z
- X: Man (not necessarily masculinity), 0 to 6
- Y: Woman (not necessarily femininity), 0 to 6
- Z: Fluidity, 0 to 2
- X and Y axes’ numbers go from
0 - not part of my identityto6 - strongly identify as - Z axis’s numbers go from
0 - non-fluidto2 - always changing
Example: The average cis-man is 6,0,0, the average cis-woman is 0,6,0, and a “balanced” nonbinary person might be 3,3,1, or 0,0,0, or 6,6,2…
Personally, I think I’m about a 3,2,1 - I don’t have a strong connection to either base gender, but being biologically male, I do identify a bit more as a man. I also feel that I’m somewhat gender-fluid, but not entirely so. I honestly don’t fully understand gender fluidity yet, so the Z-axis may require some tweaking.
Does this make sense? Can you use this to accurately quantify your own gender identity? I wanna know!
It makes sense, if we’re only talking about midbinary genders. But as someone with a lot of abinary genders, no, I wouldn’t be able to use this scale to quantify most of my genders.
They all would end up with 0,0,0, which in no way quantifies the differences in quality and intensity between them.
It’s people like you who give the trans community beauty and complexity. How dare you!
I’m no masochist, but I love hearing about how ill-conceived this scale is. I love seeing how nuanced and personal the subject of gender is.
The best ways for me to learn are through mistakes (this post) and conversations with others with viewpoints different from mine (most comments in this post). So, thank you for sharing your perspective. 💖