In the week leading up to today, 8 March, International Women’s Day, Veritum Sandus has shared an opinion poll with Sandum citizens and micronationalists around the world about the topic of postgenderism, a sociopolitical and cultural movement for the voluntary elimination of gender in the human species, and gender traditionalism. This topic is important in a country like Sandus, where the government has policies on the books to help transgender and gender-nonconforming people. In Sandus, many policies have been enacted to the effect of empowering personal decisions concerning gender identity and gender expression, so Veritum Sandus set out to discover the opinions both of Sandum citizens and of the intermicronational community at large. Here is what we found.
Although a majority stated they believed in traditional gender roles, 67% of Sandum citizens who responded to the poll stated that they thought that Sandus is a postgender society, that Sandus should be a postgender society in their opinion, and that they believe their macronation (the United States) should be more of a postgenderist society. Sandus’s policies towards postgenderism in Sandum society and culture appear to be seen positively by Sandum citizens according to this poll.
The same cannot be said of other micronationalists, however. Of the 35 respondents, 54% said that they believed in traditional gender roles when asked if they believed in postgenderism, compared to 46% who stated they believed that gender was a personal matter and agreed with postgenderism. The numbers were scant when respondents were asked if they believed their micronation “exists in a postgender society:” only 26% said yes, or 9 of the 35 respondents, compared to 26 who said no (74%). When asked if they thought their micronation should exist in a postgender society, the numbers varied slightly from respondents’ personal opinions about postgenderism — 43% said yes, that their micronation should be a postgender society, compared to 57% who said no. The numbers were the same when asked about their macronations.
When asked about Sandus, however, numbers were more aligned with the Sandum sample. Though 20 of the 35 people (57%) responded they were unsure, most who were aware agreed that Sandus is a postgender society (32%, compared to 11%) — of the respondents who had an opinion on the question, that is the aware respondents, 11 (73%) to 4 (27%) stated that Sandus is a postgender society. When asked if Sandus should be a postgender society, most agreed that it should be (57%) while 43% said Sandus should not be a postgender society. When asked about governmental policies and culture, however, the numbers were far more even: only 51% stated that they agreed with Sandum policies and culture towards making a postgender society.
These numbers may not be wholly accurate, however. While this was not a scientific poll, a handful of micronationalists and Sandum citizens also critiqued the poll, stating that — ironically — this poll is a false dichotomy. Postgenderism and gender traditionalism are not opposites these people said, and we here at Veritum Sandus agree. Just as there are some binary transgender people who embrace traditional gender roles, both postgenderism and gender traditionalism are not mutually exclusive. Some of the responses to the opinion poll can reflect that view, as well: of Sandum citizens, most disagreed with postgenderism personally or agreed with gender traditionalism yet agreed with it as a policy and objective of the State of Sandus. When asked some open-ended qualitative questions about their criticisms of the poll, some stated as well that they agreed with aspects of both postgenderism and gender traditionalism, depending on the context and situation. A quantitative poll, however, has that effect of simplifying and removing the nuances and complexities of an individual’s opinion.
Regardless, the poll shows that the State of Sandus has a clear popular mandate for its policies concerning gender and postgenderism, and that a majority of micronationalists agree with Sandus’s sovereign right to be a postgender society even if they do not agree with it themselves.
sandus.org 