10 Genders from Fantastic Lands

 1. Yymuqat - Those dedicated to raising and teaching children are explicitly gender-neuter,as are their charges. These creche-keepers are often inaccurately described as eunuchs by outside cultures; they might become male or female, marry, and have children of their own, with the choice to return to their neutral status after the infant has been transferred to the appropriate creche-home.

2. Ayonzanyi - Forges are female, and thus the art of creating things within them is a masculine trade. Thus, when one born as a woman feels the call of metalwork, she might declare herself as ayonzanyi upon reaching menarche. From this point onward he is legally and socially a man with all rights and responsibilities that entails. Some ayonzanyi will undergo full bodily transition, but most will remain as they were born.

3. Tsimashi - Male and female are treated as broad, generic categories containing an effectively-endless number of descriptive epithets, facilitated by the condensed complexity of polysynthetic language. These inner names are might come and go according to the tides of life; they might be declared or given, discarded or recovered, changed or expanded. No one is simply man or woman, but one of countless experiences of the world.

4. Caibilix - In noble families that have no daughters to inherit, it is traditional for the eldest son to assume and fulfill the role. She will be married to an eligible man of another house and a peasant woman (discrete and well-paid) will be found to serve as surrogate. The caibilix will act out mock-pregnancies in full, including ceremonial labor, from which she will emerge with the newborn. When an inheriting daughter reaches age of majority, a caibilix may return to male, though many will elect to remain as they have been.

5. Savikra - Individuals who have mantled a spirit of another gender through an istâdan-bond. This is most commonly found among practitioners of familial necromancy and those artists who make muse-pacts. The bond-maker will retain their preferred identity after mantling, but as they are now privy to greater insight of the world, they exist in a slightly different social context

6. Khothridokht - A priestly caste devoted to serving as paramours of the gods during ritualized sexual encounters. As their partners are divine, demigod children might be safely sired by any human parties involved (it's a miracle!). They are expected to act as submissive, recipient partners; any deviation from this role is noteworthy, and considered a portent that will be analyzed by the sooth-sayers for years to come.

7. Elf, Dwarf, Orc - There is a lot to unpack here. Initially, these began as fads of the nobility a few centuries ago during the height of the elfmania that gripped the aristocracy. Imitation of the elves became the fashion of the hour; dwarves and orcs were soon to follow. Evocation of these peoples through aesthetics of dress or architecture or art evolved into attempts to channel the entire culture as an alternative to existing social structures. This extended to gender and sexuality - Elves were considered haughty and effeminate; dwarves secretive and private; orcs rough and dominant. All three were commonly syncretized into the homosexual relationships of the nobility (socially unacceptable at the time, but not particularly punishable due to noble privilege)

But none of that was based on actual elves, dwarves, and orcs (or rather; kutalmas, mnaqqal, and jaratho). The cultural trappings that became associated with those peoples were skewed from their orginal forms, sometimes beyond recognition. Lies and half-truths abounded. When meaningful connections were made, the images of elves, dwarves, and orcs that had been built by the human nobility - even in places where that nobility no longer existed - were so ingrained that it would be near-impossible to overturn. This has proven a long-simmering source of conflict between peoples.

8. Thaumatine - Big hat. Cool robes. Obscured face. Glowing eyes. Who needs to worry about gender when you have overwhelming magical power? No one is entirely sure where the aesthetic originated, though the leading hypothesis is that it began as protective clothing used by laboratory alchemists in former centuries (protective garments, heavy gloves, sturdy boots) combined with a sorcerer's self-protection precautions (obscuring face and concealing name from other wizards), the accouterments of university doctoral programs (funny hats and robes), and the eccentricities of those who have phenomenal cosmic power (stars, sigils, all that boffo).

9. Lapocoa - In this culture the greatest divide between man and woman is language, with each gender diverging into its own private dialect separate from public speech. Continued social coherence is dependent on translators who can switch between the two modes of speech and in doing so, freely transition from one gender to the other without any change of outward presentation.

10. Five Hearths - Moeity serves as the most important determiner of one's role in society. Sex and presentation are mostly irrelevant; you are either Sun House, Moon House, Red Earth House, Blue Earth House, or Great Tree and that is final. Sexual relations with someone of the same moeity is equivalent to incest. There are some rarely-used paths towards belonging to two moieties at once, but these come with further prescriptions.