Addewid - Essay: Gender

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Essay: Gender

Fractured Paradise

A Novel In Progress

by Oliver Smith
OliverSmith@CyberPoet.com

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Related Essays and Character Profiles:: Sex

Gender
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Gender is a state of identification and being which possess numerous complex, subtle and profound characteristics, all of which play a role in determining the Gender context for an individual. Generally, and roughly, there are two poles at the extremes of the Gender continuum:

Female
Male

The actual meanings of these two words, and the characteristics generally associated with them are not very consistent and serve as a focal point for much intense discussion. On the surface, Gender seems to be rather straightforward, especially if an individual's basis for establishing Gender is centered on the physical manifestation of Gender in the form of Genitalia ( i.e. Penis and Vulva ). But even the physical, natural world is not consistent with respect to Genitalia since some bodies possess both Male and Female Genitalia in one form or another. And others do not possess either. Does this mean that these individuals do not possess Gender?

On Earth, Gender is perceived to be more absolute than it really is, to the point where most cultures generally assume that every individual is unquestionably identified with one Gender or the other. Another Earth Side presumption is that one's genitalia is in harmony with one's Gender Identity.

Although there is a tendency for new arrivals in Addewid to bring this notion of absolute Gender association with them, it is quickly discovered (by those not buried deeply in denial) that Gender is a far more fluid concept that what appeared to the case on Earth.

As it turns out, when the Intredu placed the first Woman and Man in the Gortha Valley on Inniscren,

Praise be,
The Blessed Three

David Maple-Green

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