Side Thought: Do Other Apes Have Gender?

In his 2022 book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, Frans de Waal tells a story of a young, female chimpanzee – who doesn’t act female at all. Rather than showing interest in infants or allogrooming with other juvenile females, she played with a group of young males. When the young males would make showy displays and pant hoot, she would stand up and display with them.

So, was this female “transgender?” A “tomboy?” Did she have an internal sense of being more male than female? Probably not. Instead, de Waal argues, she is an example of the vast, beautiful variation in behavior and other traits seen across the animal kingdom.

Because of the psychosocial dynamics of gender, particularly as it relates to the cognitive sense of self, we simply cannot know whether any other species experience this. We do know that many of the same hormones, physiology, and drives that impact our own species are present for many others. However, without being able to tap fully into the mental experience of self, we simply cannot be sure if or how other species experience gender.

Instead, when discussing using ethnographic analogies to other primates, we focus on biologically based drives, behaviors, and experiences. To do this, we use the biological definition of sex. This allows us to unpack our apeness while also considering what makes us unique – like gender.