Gender coded magic systems

Anything can be done well, especially if you're doing it with a more nuanced view than has been used in the past.

I think taking on gender-coded magic systems with an eye on the fact that the gender binary is not a binary, but two Bell curves that overlap in the middle, could be extremely interesting.

The magic wouldn't care if humans yearn for a simple, easy-to-understand explanation; it would react to the biology only, and humans would be forced to accept the reality of how the magic reacts. In fact, you could make a point of having people in the story trying to explain away the nuances of gender identity and physical sex as part of the "mystery" of magic, because they don't understand the truths of gender identity and physical sex.

I agree with jjdebenedictis, of course every thing can be done well. and even it has been done before you can still do it and make it interesting and good.

My question will be, do you want to create a gender magic system to be a part of the story or do you want the gender magic system to be THE story.
There is no problem the have your way with this kine of magic system, but I think that if you will try to push it to the extreme, on one side or the other, you will find that it will provoke extreme reaction from some one. It is not necessarily a bad thing and if you want to do it, you can go for it. just keep in mind that it will be politically infuse reaction to that ever you do.

I think a gendered system of magic, a real, actual gendered system, is capable of being done well when you approach it with a nuanced view as a previous poster said. There are a lot of interesting things to be done with that when you consider that even biological sex isn't really a binary, that there are more than just XX and XY. What happens with your magic if someone is intersex, I wonder (cause this is the kind of thing I, as a reader, and I, as someone with a biologist for a husband, would think about), or with someone with XXY chromosomes or something?

To your second question, I think that is answered based mostly on the source of the magic. Where is it coming from? The magic in the novels I'm currently focusing on is divinely given, and if it were truly gendered, it would be given based on gender expression and not biological gender. However, if your magic stems from something internal, that seems like it would react to whatever the 'bio' sex is, therefor you might get someone who presents as female but who, at a chromosomal level, is male, so they have male magic since the magic comes from an impartial, internal source. I hope that makes sense.

Basically, I think you're perfectly capable of doing it well and doing it justice as long as you approach it with sensitivity and nuance and build up a good story to go with such an interesting magic system.

I like magic best when it doesn't have many rules and stays mysterious, so I guessed I'd get a little annoyed just based on the fact that the magic has gender-based constraints. That said, I am very interesting in the societal conventions surrounding magic, and especially how that interplays with gender; taboos, initiation rights, roles in the culture, and the like.

I would have a hard time believing a gender-based magic system could be anything more than just that; based on gender, and not sex. I'd expect the system to one that is naturally fluid, and bound up by convention, tradition, and socialization more than a natural law of the universe. But then that's just me, and probably reflects on my ideas on magic systems more than anything.

Harlequin said:

Ah, well, I was saying magic system because that is more common, but supernatural abilities would be closer in this particular case.

I've tentatively gone with something equivalent to Huntington's, in terms of it is way more likely to affect men than women but still occasionally affects women, and is genetic; I think this more or less covers my bases without hopefully walking into self made traps. I do not think I know biology well enough to be more detailed than that, though I would love it if someone more educated did a take or spin on the subject.

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Someone more educated then you about magic? someone who studied at Hogwarts?

Harlequin said:

Ah, well, I was saying magic system because that is more common, but supernatural abilities would be closer in this particular case.

I've tentatively gone with something equivalent to Huntington's, in terms of it is way more likely to affect men than women but still occasionally affects women, and is genetic; I think this more or less covers my bases without hopefully walking into self made traps. I do not think I know biology well enough to be more detailed than that, though I would love it if someone more educated did a take or spin on the subject.

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If it was a recessive gene where women have to have two copies, wouldn't this not only make them more rare but also more powerful? So you have more men doing magic but more women in the elite?

The men would be the bulk of your arcane army, but the women would be the magical equivalent of the Dora Milaje.

I actually went a little crazy and wrote a cyberpunk novel where magic exists, but then the distribution of magic ended up going along gendered lines. So while magic is still not something that everyone can use, of the general global magic using population, it's at about 70% female, 30% male, usually along matrilineal lines. That's not something that actually plays a major role in the plot of the book, but I suppose it's something I'll have to give more serious thought to in terms of ramifications if I ever got an opportunity to write a sequel.

As it happens, in my WIP, at the beginning most of the characters think only males can do the sort-of magic they're dealing with. (It turns out to be a lot less simple.) Any premise along those lines is fine; it's just a matter of how you develop it.

Harlequin said:

Ah, well, I was saying magic system because that is more common, but supernatural abilities would be closer in this particular case.

I've tentatively gone with something equivalent to Huntington's, in terms of it is way more likely to affect men than women but still occasionally affects women, and is genetic; I think this more or less covers my bases without hopefully walking into self made traps. I do not think I know biology well enough to be more detailed than that, though I would love it if someone more educated did a take or spin on the subject.

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There are scientists, among them Dr. Kenneth Zucker a Canadian psychologist who studied 500 'gender-non-conforming' children over thirty-five years and came out with a study about the whole issue. His findings were that these upwards of 90% of these children with gender dysphoria accepted their natal sex by late adolescence. A lot of information about him has been removed from the Internet, but here's a link to more information about him and his findings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Zucker

I understand that is not exactly your question, but I thought I'd start there. I'd also suggest looking at https://www.peaktrans.org/.

In terms of your original question, yes, of course there are biologically (genetic) diseases based on sex. And by sex, I mean the natal sex of the individual. It's interesting that men who go into chemical hormone treatment to become feminized have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, as happened to a male friend of mine who, after having his breast removed, made the decision to de-transition and went off all chemical treatment. He now sees himself as a slightly effeminate man.

As always, we must turn to the master - Terry Pratchett. He has a gendered magic system, which he promptly subverts in the first book that it is introduced in (Equal Rites) but which is then immediately re-established throughout the course of every single other Discworld novel. He uses tropes ironically as well as for social insight but mainly the whole thing is coz it's based on traditional English folk-magic systems.

As far as recommendations go in terms of actually writing one - go ahead and see if you can make it work within-world but handle with care as it can be very easy to slip into gross stereotyping.

Redredrose said:

There are scientists, among them Dr. Kenneth Zucker a Canadian psychologist who studied 500 'gender-non-conforming' children over thirty-five years and came out with a study about the whole issue. His findings were that these upwards of 90% of these children with gender dysphoria accepted their natal sex by late adolescence. A lot of information about him has been removed from the Internet, but here's a link to more information about him and his findings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Zucker

I understand that is not exactly your question, but I thought I'd start there. I'd also suggest looking at https://www.peaktrans.org/.

In terms of your original question, yes, of course there are biologically (genetic) diseases based on sex. And by sex, I mean the natal sex of the individual. It's interesting that men who go into chemical hormone treatment to become feminized have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, as happened to a male friend of mine who, after having his breast removed, made the decision to de-transition and went off all chemical treatment. He now sees himself as a slightly effeminate man.

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This is all very fascinating and whatnot but I'm not sure it has any relevance to the discussion at hand.

gender is different from sex.

If you chose to have your magic based on gender--it would potentially be limitless. Whereas sex will definitely have some limits as we are only assigned sex based on our genetalia.

I think sex based systems are totally viable in many ways. There is plenty in nature based on sex, and, as others mentioned, genetic quirks could lead to all kinds of interesting twists. Men being out of control in this case could potentially be fine. Link it to a testosterone trigger or lack of estrogen or something if you want a simple in world explanation, or dive deeper into genetics if you want to get fancy.

Gender is another matter. I still think it's fine to have gender exclusive cults. It's not like that doesn't happen today (hello college frats and sororities). I'd just make clear it is the practice (or whatever), not the gender itself, that causes bad X. It wouldn't hurt to show an example of it not happening, either, but that might not be necessary. I mean, who's to say that drinking Cthulu blood and bathing in unicorn urine while evoking the north-western ukulele demi-god doesn't eventually lead to aggressive insanity 100% of the time. If the magic is learned, however, then non-conforming genders probably wouldn't mean much other than on an interpersonal level.

Even a mix of the two could work, IMO. You just have to make clear it's genetics/practice/god curse/whatever that causes it and not simply because the character identifies as male or female or other. If it does depend on how someone identifies, then you are writing something that people will take as some sort of statement and claim there is an agenda. How many claim that, and how much of a distraction/problem it is depends on how big a deal the gender identity stuff actually matters to the plot and how much page space it gets. If it is more than a minor part of the story--maybe even more than a passing part of the story--at least some people will probably start identifying it more with an agenda than a genre. Because trolls do that. Anything with a same-sex relationship, even if it's practically irrelevant, gets labeled as gay propaganda by certain portions of the population, for example. And actually, if someone doesn't want to be pigeon-holed as an X agenda writer, they'd probably be better off waiting until a couple "safe" books had been published to build a broad fan-base before risking it.

Okay, I'll try again. There's a flood of young girls, puberty age, rushing to gender clinics. In fact, in the U.K., there's a 4,000 percent increase in young females demanding to reassigned as men in the last ten years. SOME of those young biological women who claim to now be transgendered males, have gotten pregnant and given birth to babies. A singular ability that only biological females can do, given the need for a uterus, fallopian tubes, and fertilized eggs. By the way, I'm not attempting to suggest an imagined plot; this is actually happening.

Harlequin said:

Do you think this can still be done well, or do you feel it is outdated by default (and reinforcing bad stereotypes) to have men with X ability, women with Y ability?

In particular, the trope of men being dangerous and out of control (not a stereotype that should be promoted, perhaps) in their abilities.

How does this interact with more fluid perceptions of gender, and especially in a modern/contemporary context?

Is it problematic to present a character whose gender doesn't match their biological sex, and give them an ability linked to biological sex?

Apologies if I've phrased anythign in a clumsy way, I'm struggling to explain all the things I mean.

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I think the problem is, that we simply don't really now what causes gender identity and there seem to be a lot of conflicting data on this - and it's not made any easier by very loud angry people. There is a certain biological component (perhaps related to genetics, perhaps to prenatal hormone levels), but how large that component is vis-a-vis the psychological/sociological component is currently anyone's guess (as far as I've been able to judge from loosely following the research).

This in itself makes the mechanics fairly difficult to construe, and when you can't understand them yourself and go super vague on the underpinnings, you might walk into a trap that looks (for example) transphobic when some new scientific breakthrough comes out. I think there is a fairly well established scientific base for difference in brain structure at least (which is no surprise because of brain plasticity = the brain develops through one's life) so that might be an angle worth exploring, if you write a purely gender based magic system.

Using biological, chromosome-defined or sexual organ defined sex as the base and magic as its representation and then contrast that with gender is probably something that requires quite a lot of pondering. It could be a commentary on the current discussion of it, but would as such most likely not live very well through changes in society. I think it can be done meaningfully, and in a way that gives the reader a lot of things to think about, but the discussion seems to change quite rapidly, so it's a bit of a risk. Also, atypical biological representations of sex (chromosomal atypicals or true hermaphrodites) are something that would likely be needed to be included if you want to discuss the issue via the book.

It is also important to understand, that there are very few things in our biology that truly force us to do anything (with the advances in medical science, we don't even have to have compatible sexual organs anymore), rather than guide us (to a degree I'm unsure of). As such, tropes that say men are violent and women are caring depend very much on the society you are building in your book, and should not be confused with biology. Like a testosterone researcher once so well put it "obviously behavior and cognition are extraordinarily complex and don’t pivot on one molecule”.

Redredrose said:

There are scientists, among them Dr. Kenneth Zucker a Canadian psychologist who studied 500 'gender-non-conforming' children over thirty-five years and came out with a study about the whole issue. His findings were that these upwards of 90% of these children with gender dysphoria accepted their natal sex by late adolescence. A lot of information about him has been removed from the Internet, but here's a link to more information about him and his findings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Zucker

I understand that is not exactly your question, but I thought I'd start there. I'd also suggest looking at https://www.peaktrans.org/.

In terms of your original question, yes, of course there are biologically (genetic) diseases based on sex. And by sex, I mean the natal sex of the individual. It's interesting that men who go into chemical hormone treatment to become feminized have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, as happened to a male friend of mine who, after having his breast removed, made the decision to de-transition and went off all chemical treatment. He now sees himself as a slightly effeminate man.

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Perhaps this is not the place for this. Especially the second link.

Some years ago during a discussion about gender-based magic it occurred to me to approach the issue sideways, and make the way magic manifests in an individual personality-based. So traditionally feminine individuals manifest magic in a certain way, and such.

My immediate thought is that you could just have men and women both have the same 2 types of magical energies in them or accessible to them. Men could have more of one type of energy, and women could have more of another, so certain magics would be easier for men then women and vise versa. Theoretically, a men could still do a woman's kind of magic with enough practice, and a woman could do a man's. I imagine this could be an interesting way to explore the experience of transitioning genders by having trans people strive to master the magic of the gender they identify with. Non-binary people could dabble in both male and female magic.

I feel like if you want to LBGTQ, there is some very interesting territory to explore, and it doesn't have to be in-your-face. It can be subtle. You could have a gay character, who isn't openly gay but there are clues, and this character's magic leans a little towards female magic. You establish the magic and then what magical abilities people have could hint at their identity.

The Last Airbender was brilliant in using their magic to talk about the personalities of those who used it. I saw a fan theory that Zuko was Austistic, and wow does that theory make sense. And it leads right up to his personality crisis. That is clever writing.

You never need to tell people how your gender based magic works. You show them and keep it subtle. Let them figure it out.

- Mark Charke