It seems to me that one of the challenges we’d face pursuing this kind of social context is the issue of how boundaries relate to the formation of identity. Without some feeling that our identification is significantly distinct from others, could it satisfy the need for identity? Or would we end up perceiving it as, more or less, a mere (at worst, arbitrary) label?

Yeah, absolutely. That’s one of the places where my thinking (which, as I mentioned, is very new still) kind of hits a wall. I mean, I think there is a balance that can be reached there: I’ve drawn parallels before (at FCB and elsewhere) to the balance struck by progressive religious groups (specifically Reform Jews like my family), who’ve managed to cull a distinctive culture and practice that is both compatible with life in a very diverse community and fundamentally respectful of other traditions, including other denominations within its own religion (in stark contrast to many Christian denominations, for example). I think there are things we can learn from that, about how to feel authentically X while still respecting other ways of being X.

But, yeah — balancing the need for difference and distinction with the need for equality and flexibility is the fundamental challenge of an idea in this vein, I think.

It seems like it would be easy to lose our balance, there. Any ideas on how we could maintain it?

Well, the one I put forth in the post is sort of cop out, but: that individuals need to work that puzzle out for themselves, in a respectful way, and if many people do that, it can get translated up to the larger scale. I don’t really see any top-down approach that would work for a problem like that; hopefully as people crafted solutions unique to their lives some broadly applicable ones would emerge.

And one big problem, of course, is that I wrote this from a sort of speculative standpoint, ignoring to come extent the gender climate we’re starting from. And that’s huge. It’s not like we get to start from a blank slate and say, in some calculated way, “This is what masculinity will mean, this is what femininity will mean.” We have the much harder task of sorting out what’s workable from the roles that already exist. Which is another part of the reason I think people basically have to grapple with it themselves and then share their experiences: I can’t tell you what parts of gender will work for you. All I can do is tell you what parts work for me, which I only vaguely know at this point.

What I mean to suggest by this is that a diverse gender ecosystem would seem to require a limit on the number of gender species within it, so that each can still perceive itself as coherent and unique — while still remaining cognizant of its relationship (and kinship) with the others.

It seems like it would be easy to lose our balance, there. Any ideas on how we could maintain it?