Don't get caught in the confusion trap of "gender", which is more of a cultural-behavioral thing and means different things to different people. Gender has *always* been a fluid term. Chromosomal determination of sex is absolute and there is no ambiguity there. Males have the XY pair of genes, and females have XX. Some males may have XYY, rarely, and there are even more rare cases of true hermaphrodites which are the third classification. Natural physical characteristics are derived from the individual's set of chromosomes, and this even applies to plants! I have male and female juniper trees in my yard, and you can tell by the berry-like cones.
Scientists have wondered why sexual reproduction became so dominant on the Earth over the aeons ... it didn't used to be that way. In fact, there are arguments that asexual reproduction is actually more efficient (cf. algae). For complex organisms, I think it has something to do with the ability to rapidly adapt during times of cataclysm. A male juniper tree could pollinate thousands of females thousands of miles away during a hurricane, and thus spread a favorable mutation much faster and more widespread than some form of asexual root grafting.
I am sure Larian regularly discusses these big issues and strives to keep the game on the right track.
