How many genders are there?

There are two biological sexes: male and female. The number of genders, in the sense of gender identities, is not fixed. These are self-chosen terms, and the lists in circulation range from a few dozen to more than seventy.

How many genders are there today?

The answer depends on what you mean by the word gender. If you mean biological sex, there are two. The human body is designed to produce either egg cells or sperm cells, and there is no third type of sex cell. You can read more about this on the page about gender and biological sex.

If you mean gender identity, there is no fixed number. A gender identity is the name someone gives to their own feeling of being a man, a woman, both or neither. There is no authority that recognises or counts such terms. Anyone can come up with a new term, and people do so, especially online. As a result, the number keeps growing and every count produces a different result. So anyone asking how many genders there are today will get a different number depending on the source.

Which genders are there?

In everyday life, most people use two categories: man and woman. In addition, there are several terms that frequently come up. Transgender and cisgender say something about the relationship between a person's sex and their gender identity. Non-binary is the umbrella term for anyone who does not call themselves a man or a woman. This umbrella term includes dozens of smaller terms, such as agender, bigender and genderfluid.

The word gender itself has several meanings. On the page What is gender? you can read what they are. The difference between what someone feels and what they show is explained on the page about gender identity and gender expression.

Where do the lists of all genders come from?

The best-known list comes from Facebook. In February 2014, American users were given the option to choose their own gender on their profile. The American broadcaster ABC News then counted 58 options, including agender, androgynous, bigender, cisgender, genderfluid, intersex, non-binary, transgender and two-spirit. Facebook compiled the list with American advocacy organisations for gay, bisexual and transgender people. Users could also choose from three pronouns.

Since then, many other lists have been created by advocacy groups, online dictionaries and social media users. Such a list is a collection of terms encountered by its compiler. The compiler decides which terms count. That is why some sources refer to more than fifty genders and others to more than seventy. There is no official or scientifically established list. An extensive overview of labels in circulation, including their origins and meanings, can be found at transgenderidentiteit.nl.

Types of gender: a classification

The terms can be divided into a few groups. The first group consists of man and woman. The second group includes terms for people who do not identify as either, such as non-binary, agender and neutrois. The third group describes a feeling that changes or consists of several parts, such as genderfluid, bigender and demi-gender. The fourth group consists of roles from other cultures, such as hijra in South Asia and two-spirit in North America. These roles are much older than the Western concept of gender identity and also mean something different. You can read more about this on the page about gender in other cultures.

How many different genders are there under Dutch law?

Dutch law does not recognise genders, but rather records sex. At birth, sex is registered as male or female. Since 2014, someone can have this registration changed from male to female or vice versa, with a statement from an expert. You can read how this works on the page about changing sex registration.

A third option is available only in exceptional cases. Anyone who wants an X in their passport instead of an M or an F must go to court for this. In October 2018, the first Dutch passport with an X was issued after a judge ordered the sex entry on the birth certificate to be changed. A plan to make this easier was withdrawn by the government in 2019. See also the page about changing a passport. The law therefore recognises male, female and, in exceptional cases, X—not a list of gender identities.

All genders in English: the list

Below are all the genders and related terms for which this site has its own page. The list is not complete, because no complete list exists. You can also find the full overview on the pages Identities and Terms.

Identities

• Agender: someone who does not experience gender or rejects the concept of gender for themselves.
• Androgynous: a blend of masculine and feminine characteristics or outward style.
• Bigender: someone who identifies with two genders, either simultaneously or alternately.
• Cisgender: someone whose gender identity corresponds with their sex.
• Demi-gender: someone who identifies partly with a gender.
• Genderfluid: a gender experience that changes over time.
• Genderqueer: an umbrella term for identities that reject the division into man and woman.
• Intersex: a rare physical variation in sex characteristics, and therefore not a gender identity.
• Non-binary: someone who does not identify as a man or a woman.
• Pangender: someone who identifies with all or many genders at the same time.
• Transfeminine: someone of the male sex who moves in a feminine direction.
• Transgender: someone whose gender identity differs from their sex.
• Transmasculine: someone of the female sex who moves in a masculine direction.
• Two-spirit: a term from Indigenous cultures in North America.

Terms and abbreviations

• AFAB: short for assigned female at birth, meaning born female.
• AMAB: short for assigned male at birth, meaning born male.
• Aporagender: a gender that exists separately from man, woman and everything in between.
• Demiboy: someone who partly identifies as a boy or man.
• Demigirl: someone who partly identifies as a girl or woman.
• Fa'afafine: a role in Samoa for men who fulfil a feminine role.
• FTM: short for female to male, a transition from woman to man.
• Gender-diverse: an umbrella term for variation in gender experience and gender expression.
• Genderfae: a fluid gender experience that remains within the feminine spectrum.
• Genderflux: a gender feeling that varies in intensity.
• Gender-neutral: not explicitly designed or presented as masculine or feminine.
• Gender-variant: differing from conventional gender norms, especially in appearance and behaviour.
• Hijra: a centuries-old group in South Asia regarded as a third gender.
• Kathoey: a Thai term for trans women and feminine men.
• Maverique: a gender feeling that exists separately from masculine and feminine.
• MTF: short for male to female, a transition from man to woman.
• Muxe: a third-gender role among the Zapotec people in Mexico.
• Neutrois: a strong desire to look neutral, without masculine or feminine characteristics.
• Polygender: someone who identifies with several specific genders.
• Travesti: a Latin American term for feminine men.
• Trigender: someone who identifies with three genders, often alternately.
• X-gender: a Japanese term for identities outside of man and woman.
• Xenogender: an identity described using images from outside the human world, such as animals or natural phenomena.

A critical note: terms are not sexes

The existence of many terms does not mean that there are many sexes. A gender identity cannot be measured or tested. It is based on what someone says about themselves. Moreover, many terms on these lists describe a style, mood or preference rather than a separate category of people.

Intersex is also often cited as evidence of a third sex. That is not correct: it concerns rare medical variations in males and females. On the page Intersex: the third sex? you can read why. So anyone asking how many genders there are is actually asking about two different things: sexes, of which there are two, and terms, of which new ones keep appearing.