How a Grammatical Word Became a Metaphysical System

Many people struggle to grasp the concept of gender — myself included.

There are countless forums where people sincerely ask others to explain what “gender” means. Long threads follow. Articles are linked. Videos are recommended. Workshops are held. Entire academic departments exist for this purpose. People write dissertations about it, publish manuscripts, create presentations, teach seminars, conduct corporate trainings, and develop institutional policies around it.

And yet, after all that effort, many people still quietly admit:

“I still don’t get it.”

Most people understand two genders. Some can comfortably imagine three. But contemporary discussions often describe gender as a broad spectrum of identities. Depending on the source, the number of listed genders may be 20, 50, 72, or effectively unlimited.

At some point, one begins to wonder whether gender is less like biology and more like alchemy, astrology, or tarot cards — a symbolic system understandable only to the initiated. Or perhaps it is like music. Some people are tone deaf; perhaps others are simply gender deaf.

And if some lucky individuals finally manage to understand all 72 flavors of gender, the next question naturally appears:

Why not apply the same framework to race, ethnicity, citizenship, education, profession, or religion? Why is gender uniquely fluid while other categories remain stubbornly objective?

As an analytical person, I tried to think through this logically. I am not trying to mock anyone who identifies with one of these genders. I am simply attempting to explain the concept to myself — and perhaps to others who share the same confusion.

My conclusion is surprisingly simple:

The word gender itself became detached from objective meaning and transformed into a subjective qualifier. Once you realize that, the entire system suddenly becomes easier to understand.

The History of the Word

Historically, the word gender had nothing to do with sex at all.

It comes from the Latin genus, meaning:

Originally, it was mostly used in grammar. Many languages — including French language, German language, Russian language, and Hebrew language — assign grammatical gender to nouns.

The same object may be masculine in one language, feminine in another, and neuter in a third — suggesting that grammatical gender historically functioned as a linguistic convention rather than a statement about the object’s essence.

A book might be masculine in Hebrew language, feminine in Russian language, yet neuter in German language. Nobody imagined the objects themselves possessed some deep internal gender identity. Grammatical gender was simply a linguistic classification system.

A personal anecdote comes to mind. In ulpan — an intensive Hebrew language course — a student once asked the teacher how to remember which nouns are masculine and which are feminine.

The teacher answered:

It’s very simple. Just say the noun together with an adjective. If........

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