I've watched the current gender theory evolve over the past decade. I'll try and explain it succinctly.

Gender is a social construct. Traditionally, it is tied to biological sex: if you are male, you are a man; if you are female, you are a woman. Gender manifests as societal expectations on a certain way of behaviour and a certain way of appearance based on your sex. Man: assertive, protector, provider, stoic. Woman: nice, emotional, submissive, requires protection.

So as gender is a social construct, we can technically construct as many genders as we please. The correct answer to the question "How many genders do you think there are?" is "Infinite" or "I don't know". Anyone can come up with a new gender at any time, because under this new gender theory, a gender is essentially an expression of someone's unique personality. And there are endless permutations of personality.

So what's the problem? Do we just have to accept that people are who they say they are?

The problem is this: when someone self-identifies as a particular gender, they are not only defining themselves -- they are defining everyone else. If I am a galaxy-gender and that gender is the feeling of being made of star stuff, then it follows that other genders are not like this. Well, you might think, that's fine, because I'm certainly not going to say that I'm galaxy-gender, so it doesn't matter. Right?

Consider the difference between the following two statements:

1) Some men are trans women.

2) Trans women are women.

Over a decade ago, the first statement was the default. This was around the time I first became aware of the trans movement, and actually read several pieces of writing about how gender was a social construct based on biological sex, and how trans people were challenging the bounds of their gender expectations. A trans woman, born male, is a person breaking free of the societal expectations of being a man. That's how the argument for acceptance of trans people was presented. Nowadays, of course, it's transphobic.

Nowadays, the assertion is that a trans woman is a woman. They are not men. They are women because they say they are. They are no longer males, because that's transphobic, but females.

Have you noticed how trans men and women tend to use gender stereotypical appearance markers? Trans men will grow a beard as soon as possible. Trans women will get long hair and put on a dress and make up. This is because stereotypical appearance markers are the easiest way to signify to an observer that they identify a certain way and would like to be treated as such. If you confront a trans person about this use of stereotypes, they will say that well of course not all men have beards and not all women are hyper feminine. And then you walk away and think, well, that's true, so everything's fine.

But let's couple this with everything else. A trans woman, with all of the stereotypical appearance markers and stereotypical behaviour, is a literal woman. Meanwhlie, someone else, born female, is deciding that they don't "feel like a woman" and are nonbinary, and they signify this by dressing in a gender neutral way. So if a female dressing in a gender neutral way is not a woman, and a male dressing in a stereotypically feminine way is a woman, then what is a woman? Instead of expanding the confinements of gender and abolishing them -- i.e. a male human should be allowed to wear dresses and be feminine -- we are shrinking the definition of woman and man back into restrictive stereotypes. Why are so many young girls coming out as trans? Well why wouldn't they, when the only way they can escape the ever restrictive bounds of womanhood and express their unique personalities is to not be a woman?

So there you have it. There certainly can be an infinite number of genders. But it is not doing us much good, and frankly it is fucking stupid.