Gender, Sex, and Orientation

Ardwind has commonly-accepted conceptions of gender, sex, and sexuality. Their basic definitions, as understood by most Ardwindians, are summarized as follows:

* **Sex**: the sets of sexual characteristics that delineate reproductive compatibility, as well as other associated biological features.
* **Gender**: the expression of one's identity as related or unrelated to their sex, including presentation, behaviors, and/or social roles.
* **Orientation**: one's attraction, be it sexual and/or romantic, to people in relation to their gender (and potentially one's own gender).

## Sex and Gender

### Sexual Trimorphism

Ardwind has 3 sexes: **male**, **female**, and **intersex**. Males are defined as being able to reproduce with females, and vice versa females, while intersexes can reproduce with both males and females (as well as other intersexes). Typically, males are larger, naturally more muscular, grow thicker body hair, and have more visible laryngeal prominences, among other features. Conversely, females are typically smaller, more slender, have thinner but longer hair, and have more prominent breasts. Intersexes usually possess a mixture of male and female features. Males and females each make up 40-45% of Ardwind's population, while intersexes make up the remaining 10-20%. Because of the relative prevalence of intersexes in humanoid populations, humanoids are classed as sexually trimorphic.

### The Gender Trinary

This sexual trimorphism has lead to most societies on Ardwind adopting a gender trinary, with each gender associated with a certain sex. The 3 common genders are **masculine** (associated with males), **feminine** (associated with females), and **epicene** (associated with intersexes). While many cultures associate each gender with certain presentations, behaviors, and social roles, these wildly differ from culture to culture. For example, in Dawnbreakian culture, men are viewed as protectors, women as caretakers, and epicenes as mentors, though the society as a whole is relatively egalitarian. Most languages that have gendered pronouns have one for each trinary gender, and languages with grammatical genders typically sort nouns by the 3 trinary genders.

### Transgender Identities

A **transgender identity** is any identity where the person's gender is not one typically associated with their sex, such as a biological intersex having a feminine gender. These are usually denoted in the "XtY" format, with X being the person's associated gender and Y being the gender they identify as (for example, epicene-to-feminine or EtF). These can fall within the gender trinary or without; the latter are called **non-trinary** identities, and those who have them are called **enties** for short. Non-trinary genders include agender (a lack of gender), bigender (2 genders), trigender (3 genders), genderfluid (a changing gender), and more. Many transgender people often present as their preferred gender, and may even undergo surgical or magical transitions to change their appearance and/or physiology to match that of their preferred gender. Transgender people make up roughly 5% of Ardwind's population.

### Pronouns and Honorifics

As stated previously, many languages on Ardwind have distinct pronouns for each of the 3 trinary genders, as well as a neutral pronoun used for enties. In Common, these are "he/him" (masculine), "she/her" (feminine), and "they/them" (epicene) -- however, "they/them" is also used for enties, people of unknown gender, and groups of people. In languages that lack distinct neutral pronouns, enties typically use the epicene pronoun. Some languages also have gendered honorifics; in Common, these are "Miss/Ms." (feminine), "Mister/Mr." (masculine), "Mistrum/Mm." (epicene), and "Mixx/Mx." (neutral).

## Orientation

### Orientation Labels

Roughly half of Ardwind's population are attracted to genders other than their own. While this may be broadly called **heterosexuality**, most people prefer to label their orientation based on the genders they are attracted to as opposed to those genders’ relation to one’s own. As such, most people identify as some combination of **mascusexual** (attraction to men), **femmesexual** (attraction to women), and/or **episexual** (attraction to epicenes). To simplify, people with attraction to multiple genders may use the terms **bisexual** (attraction to 2 genders), **trisexual** (attraction to 3 genders), or **pansexual** (attraction to all genders). Some people have no attraction to any gender, and label themselves as **asexual**.

### Split Attraction

For most people, their romantic attraction (desire to be in a relationship with a given gender or genders) and their sexual attraction (desire to have sex with a given gender or genders) line up, hence the use of "-sexual" as the default marker for orientations. However, this is not universally the case, as some people have **split attraction**, where their romantic and sexual attractions do not match. For example, one could be panromantic and asexual, aromantic and bisexual, or femmeromantic and trisexual.

### Polyamory

While it differs from culture to culture, with some cultures valuing **monogamy** (dedication to a single romantic/sexual partner at a time) more than others, around 15% of Ardwind's population engage in **polyamory** (dedication to multiple romantic/sexual partners at a time). While it is far from the norm, it is common enough to be respected and accepted. Some societies, notably the Okan-I Shogunate, allow one person to have multiple marriages at once, as well as allowing group marriages of 3 or more people.

### Formal Titles

In many languages, titles that used to be gendered, such as prince and princess, are now neutral. Titles that used to be masculine -- king, emperor, prince, duke, earl, and so on -- are now given to the holder of the position, regardless of their gender, while the feminine counterpart to that title -- queen, empress, princess, duchess, countess, and so on -- is given to their spouse(s). For example, an episexual king married to a man would have a male queen, and a female duke married to two women would have two female duchess. This remains true if multiple spouses have titles, though the higher-rank title is usually preferred when referring to the person.