Designers have been making clothing for individuals and not for a particular gender for some time. This isn't just a reflection of global fashion trends, it's become a reflection of how the world is changing.Feminism and gender equality issues are currently at the forefront of many conversations today.As the world becomes smaller, thanks in part to social media, those of us who were given the short end of the patriarchy stick are saying, ''We don't want be defined by our genitals. We're individuals and should be able to be whoever and whatever we want to be."Never before has the transgender story been as visible. Even ignoring Caitlyn Jenner, activists have been using the internet to educate people about transgenderism before it became ''Vanity Fair cool" to be trans.Millennials are progressive on gender, challenging traditional roles at home and in the workplace. Generation Zs have grown up in a world where social attitudes have softened significantly.In a J Walter Thompson intelligence survey, 81% of them said gender did not define a person, and 82% said sexual orientation "does not matter".The oldest members of this cohort are already in universities or institutions that are increasingly acknowledging gender multiplicity by recognising a third gender - neutrality.The honorific Mx is already being widely used by gender non-conforming individuals, and in the UK it is now an option in official forms alongside Mr, Ms, Miss and Mrs.Gender is not the same thing as assigned birth sex. Gender is a performance we put on to sustain the roles we are assigned as men and women. As with a lot of learned behaviours, challenges stem from the gender binary, the wage gap, violence against women and children, perpetrated by men who grew up being told to ''man up" and that ''boys don't cry".We now live in a world where there's a clear desire for the reversal of these outdated ideas.In Nepal, a conservative Himalayan nation, the country's first third-gender passport was issued last year. India's supreme court recently recognised a third gender, saying it was the right of "every human being to choose".The ANC Women's League's decision to grant membership to transwomen should not go unnoticed, either. It indicates an acknowledgement that gender is indeed not something society should, or can, impose on an individual...