The Double Historicity of Sex and Gender

How many sexes are there?How many genders?Answering these questions is not just challenging: It is about as silly as trying to determine how many kinds of stories or how many species there are: Where?And when?And, most importantly, in what sense?Instead, I suggest taking a closer look at the double historicity of phenomena and concepts of sex/ gender: Research concepts of sex and gender are contextdependent, plural, and historically dynamic; and so are the phenomena that these concepts refer to.For reasons of both scientific accuracy and justice, understanding the double historicity of sex/gender transforms the "How many are there" questions.Instead of absolutist single-answer approaches of the "There are x number of sexes/genders" style, it demands a research ethos that involves contextual awareness regarding concepts and phenomena; reflective distance from one's own analytical research concepts and aims; and epistemic humility. "Sex" and "Gender" Are Said in Many WaysThe referents of "sex" and "gender" are historically complex.They involve contextual variation, cross-level interaction, entanglement, dynamicity, and plurality of most (if not all) dimensions of sex and gender (Fausto-Sterling,