Gender's Sixteen Variations

One of the most serious of the problems that LGBTQ people experience is a strong resistance to their acceptance by others. This creates a threat to their peace, based on the mistaken ideas that their gender identity is chosen, not innate, and that sexual expressions other than the traditional binary are abnormal. It also threatens the peace of those who are uncomfortable with alternative expressions of gender and therefore feel a need to suppress them. As such, it is to the advantage of everyone to understand what is creating these variations in gender.

Once I started to explore the psychology of the systems that orchestrate the brain’s various functions, I discovered a simple, coherent, logical model of consciousness. As I see it, it explains much that has long gone undiscovered about human gender behavior.

According to my research, we experience gender as a consequence of the management systems that operate the hemispheres. And there are four of these systems, one of which we will inherit. And what determines which of the four we inherit? Genetic dominance, the same factor that functions to help determine out sex, our eye color, and many other factors. Looking at the graphic below we see that there are three types of genetic dominance, one of which produces two genders, thus making it the source of binary gender.

In my video Gender’s Four Variations I explain that our mind is fed information that is processed by one of four brain-management systems, each capable of overseeing the operation of the brain as a whole. This design creates four types of individuals. The most common of the four types are left-brain-dominants and right-brain-dominants. These two systems give us either masculine or feminine genders. In addition, in some people the two systems integrate to create a hybrid system that produces polysexual behavior. In a fourth group of people the two systems operate as a team to produce bisexual behavior.

To understand how the brain produces sixteen genders we need to recognize that it is possible to inherit two different genders.

To understand how the brain can produce two genders we need to recognize that information input and information output are separate functions. Just because one of the hemispheres might be our default system for processing information input—and give us the default viewpoint that informs us—does not mean that it is also the default system for processing information output—our response. Since we can inherit one of four gendered systems to inform us, and one of four gendered systems to help us output our thoughts and feeling to the world, we therefore embody two opportunities for gender to express itself.

For example, you might have a left-brain operating system inputting information to your mind, thus giving you the consciousness typically associated with a masculine viewpoint—while at the same time have a feminine output dominance leading you to respond to events in a feminine manner to some degree. Just be aware that since these management systems are variables, a gender characteristic might have such a mild effect on us as to be difficult to discern. For example, although a man might have inherited a feminine output dominance, you might not recognize this simply because his output dominance is so weak that his feminine characteristics are barely perceptible—if at all, masking his feminine gender characteristics. Or you might assume he was taught his feminine behavior. Note that the gender associated with our input dominance can also be difficult to recognize, if not more so, since it is processed internally and thus largely hidden.

Alternatively, one might inherit an information input system that is feminine, along with a masculine, hybrid, or team output. Any of the four systems can default to process input and give us their gender; any of the four can default to process output. This creates 16 basic variations in the way humans see and respond to information and events. The 16-part model of consciousness explains the brain’s role in creating feminine men and masculine women, whether gay or straight. I discuss the brain’s role in same-sex attraction in Thirty-Two Variations in Sexual Orientation and my two-part video of the same name.

Ultimately, the 16 variations in brain-operating-system type produce more than 16 variations in gender. This is because the 16 operating systems—the holistic systems especially—are internally variable and thus produce a range of gender expression. This variability helps to create the gender fluidity that we find in culture.

The various characteristics that contribute to making one hemisphere masculine and the other feminine, along with references to the science that reveals this information, are further discussed in my book How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future.