Originally Posted by
SinisterDeath
RJ had a military background. He went to an all male military college (The Citadel), and was a vocal opponent when asked about the first woman to attend the Citadel, and held some sexist views (in the early 90s) regarding segregating education along gender lines. (I'm almost 100% positive if you asked RJ about girls wearing distracting clothing, he'd side with the school)
We know that RJ wrote the WoT as an exploration of a world flipped on it's head, that explored gender roles/dynamics and the balance there of.
The current gender discussion going on wasn't anywhere on RJ's radar even on his death bed. They might have been talked about in some circles, but not to the scale it is today. We can't know what RJ would have written had he started writing it in 2016 instead of the late 80s.
Obviously some are hopeful he'd pick up on the current debate and explore that.
Some think he'd double down on binary gender to push back against the current narrative.
Regardless, RJ's world building does have issues with any non-binary gender existing in his world. Even Min who dressed like a boy, just like pillow friends self-corrected as the story went along. Many of us, just take this as RJ was an old dude, a product of his time, with some outdated ideas and a good heart.
From a world-building standpoint, given the current discussion on gender, gender roles, etc creating a trans character, or even an intersex character could be interesting counterpoint to the Halima issue.
Degendering souls is a metaphysical concept that ultimately asks "How do people in universe even know these rules?"
RJ's gendered souls was used to ultimately explain Saidin/Saidar and assuring that a male channeler could only ever be born into a male body and only ever channel Saidin. To an extent, this to justify Halima' as twisted joke by the DO, and to maintain the dragon as always born male, and to drive home the idea that men could never understand women because even in their past lives they were always male.
The concept of Gendered souls, AFAIK is asynchronous with the real-world concept of reincarnation which doesn't seem to care about gender or species.
/rambles