SL Transgender Poll

I was looking around for a chart on various aspects of gender and sex, but I can't seem to find it so I'll approximate it. Basically the idea is you can pick your spot on these gradient scales:

Gender Identity
F<---------------A----------------->M
Gender Expression (clothes, etc.)
F<---------------A----------------->M
Gender Role (traditionally)
F<---------------A----------------->M
Physical Gender Appearance
F<---------------A----------------->M
Birth Sex Appearance
F<---------------IS----------------->M
Chromosomal Sex
X<---------------IS----------------->Y


(A being androgynous and IS being intersexed).

So I thought. Well, I'm not from the USA. In some societies these sort of topics raise a lot of fuss and people are prepared to slice each others throats over definitions. In some societies it does not, or at least not to the same degree.

I'm university educated myself.

Forgive me Alain, but I recognise none of what you are here describing.

The part that interests me is the part about a cycle. Any constant level of almost anything can be adapted to and handled - the frequent change is in my view the difficulty.

Could you please give us some references to back up your contention of a 3-4 month cycle of hormone levels in the standard male ? Significant enough to have a clearly visible effect on behaviour? I have personally never seen any evidence of any such thing, and I must confess to a suspicion that this may have been bulled up by some warrior scraping the barrel for ammunition in a perceived gender war.

Two or three good links to reputable medical/psychological sources could set my mind at rest, if it's not too much trouble ?

My own searching throws up nothing whatsoever capable of supporting your astonishing contention that there is something even remotely commensurate with the surging glories of the female cycle. Indeed, I find just about nothing at all.

In
http://www.fertilityplus.org/faq/hormonelevels.html
for instance, you will note that the table on female hormone levels has a column for the phase in the cycle, with huge changes occuring as the days go by.
The male table doesnt even have the time column at all.

Evolutionary considerations would suggest that any such cyclical activity in male hormone levels (and presumably in fertility and perhaps in behaviour) would have no survival value, and indeed would likely be counter-productive.

The primary biological task of the human male is to be ready to supply good quality sperm to any female at any time, and this requires a rapid recovery time and consistent performance, since he can never know when his services may be required. It is for this that mother nature has designed his systems. Research shows that recovery to the optimum balance of quantity/quality takes about three days, but of course even three minutes later he will again provide something adequate for the purpose at a push. As we could of course expect.

Absolute consistency, rapid recovery, eternal readiness. That is the evolutionary design task for the male system, and I would not expect, nor do I find any reputable evidence for, such a thing as you suggest.

Are you sure you're not getting muddled with some seasonal variation, Alain ? Which I could believe in both sexes, on the basis of the effect of weather, food supply, etc on infant survival ?

_________________________________________

Interesting side discovery. When researching this male fertility thing a few months ago I discovered something pretty amazing and disturbing. In at least one study it was discovered that the best bet for a female who wants reliable conception and healthy babies from best quality sperm is not necessarily a fine young man at all. The damage caused to growing males by environmental contamination over the last 5 decades is so severe in some locations that it far outweighs any slight (and it is surprisingly slight) deterioration with age. The result is that a man born between 1940 and 1950 (ie 60 YEARS OLD !!!!!!) will on average supply a significantly superior product compared to those younger. From environmentally poor locations. Can you believe that? Shows the huge significance of environmental contamination in the years when a male is growing up.

Sugar Daddy, anyone ?

Hi girls!

*does Groucho with ageing eyebrows*

Yes, there is some confusion about sex and gender, and I suspect that some of that might be cultural. I did some Googling after Kendra's last response to me, and came across some definitions of 'gender' that seemed really strange to me ('Gender is the sex you feel yourself to be').

Again, challenging preconceptions, is the last entry in your chart. I always thought that chromosomal sex was either/or. XX or XY. I know there are some XYY males about, but I can't understand how there can be an intermediate point.

This indeed, is the crux of what I was saying before. Biological sex might not reflect the gender of some people, although it does with most, but it is the only way of actually classifying sex in a reliable manner. Or at least, I thought it was.

Anyway, I think it's a shame that a thread with no bigotry or intolerance at all, that was started by someone who tried to be sensitive to the feelings of others, has given rise to such rancour.

Perhaps someone can clarify for me what I am then. My body is female but I'm told my mind is gender neutral. I'm not sure if this is the case or if it's all to do with cultural norms, but I do know I've never been comfortable with very girlie situations - hairdressers and make-up chat, etc. I also live untidily, watch SF until it comes out of my ears, worked as a systems engineer, eat more or less what's to hand, and make friends with chaps more easily than get hot with them (not that I don't - *waggles bosom*).

You're right, Selador, the last line isn't really a true gradient. There are several conditions that might be considered intermediate, though.

XXY males, sometimes known as Kleinfelter's syndrome.

XX/XY conditions, where a person has different chromosomes present in different cell samples. This is known as mosaicism.

XY females or intersexed persons. This is a genetic condition known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, wherein testosterone is unable to trigger the changes that lead to masculinization.

There are also XO females (just one X chromosome) and XYY males, which might be considered to fall on this scale, but these conditions don't tend to lead to any intersex appearance.

I have never heard of mosaicism, and will look it up once I have finished here. Thank you.

Yes, I mentioned XY females in an earlier posting. This is a strange condition where the individual is to all intents and appearances totally female, while remaining sterile and in fact being biologically male. Some time ago, before it was possible to test for chromosomes, they would have been regarded as female in every respect. These people would fall foul of the classification that was suggested by the original poster, as would those born with genitals that were intermediate between male and female.

I believe that an individual who fell into one of these categories could answer the questions based on the gender they felt themselves to be. It seems like a non-issue to me. I really don't know why it caused so much kerfuffle.

I think it's impossible to set up something like this without either ending up with a multitude of categories or making it difficult for some people to decide which category they fall into. If you tried to divide people into 'blonde', 'brunette' or 'redhead' you would run into the same problem.

I think the original poster did a good job, and I think it's a shame that a thoughtful and inclusive survey created so much anger.

hehe.. You can't touch on a controversial type subject, and not expect some discussion that is less than what you wanted. Nor can you control or dictate to someone what does or does not offend them. You apologized if your words were offensive to anyone, and honestly, that is all you *need* to do if you were sincere in your apology (which I personally think you were). The other things you *could* do, is understand that this is a senistive topic to some, and there may be things we have yet to learn.

Also remember that just as their are diverse genders in SL, there are also diverse cultures. And what one culture finds perfectly acceptable, another culture would find totally offensive.

So I would say, don't read that which you don't want to read (though you could be missing out on some interesting viewpoints), but also don't expect them not to happen. Just let the thread run its course. At least everyone is having a civil disucussion (no flaming), and that can be a hard thing to accomplish on a "touchy" subject.

Although I have nothing to contribute to this discussion, I do want to thank all of you who are participating. I have found this thread to be incredibly thought provoking,informative and fascinating and have enjoyed it thoroughly thus far.

Right! Each person is unique, and that includes how they behave socially. There are general tendencies regarding sexual behaviors, and how much of it is hardwired or learned will be debated till the end of time. Where most people get lost however is in the conception of what comes first: the feeling or the rational?

I mean, does the feeling you have about sexual social behavior rule your own behaviors or do you rationalize what your behavior is during social interactions?

Do you think you are a male/female, or does your hormonal profile decide how you behave?

I have read about lots of research on this subject and the findings are quite interesting.

Bump!

I don't really approve of "bump".

Oh damnation - I just did it myself

Not that she needs defending, but I think Kendra is on much firmer ground than the detractors here. I generally like Newfies comments a lot, but in this case they were just... well ignorant.

(in the sense of being wrong and based on innacurate information or logic)

As Kendra (so eloquently), replied to the first apology by the originator of this thread, "You did not mean to offend, but you did." (paraphrased I think) Just because someone is trying to be nice, doesn't mean they get a free pass for any hurt they may cause. When these same people take no action to change their behaviour after being told that it hurts, are they still "being nice"??

This sounds rather like the "kind slave-owner" argument. "Yes grandpappy was a slaver, but he treated the slaves so much nicer than the other slave owners." The side-dish to this is the idea that if he "knew it was wrong" or lived in todays world, he would have stopped slaving entirely. All of that may be true, but it doesn't change the facts of slavery and the hurt he would presumably have caused.

I take it from your response here, that perhaps you believe that Newfie made some eloquent points himself, or that the argument was there to be discussed at least, but if you boil down what was said, it comes out pretty thin and illogical to me.

The argument seems to be that since a lot of people are ignorant (dont know about the difference between sex and gender), then its understandable that they act ignorantly (hurt the feelings of TG folks). It is also a given (as part of this argument), that although the information on the true nature of gender is out there, that the "average joe" has no requirement to pick up on this idea. No need or obligation to bring themselves out of this ignorance. Needles to say this is hardly a good argument or one that makes much sense.

Apologies to Newfie and for picking on his post, as I said I generally like Newfie and so forth, and I am not faulting him on anything. I am only saying what I do to prove my point that there is not really much of an argument there, even though a lot of people seem to agree with that point of view.

So far so good...



That would be a correct assessment of my opinion. Newfie's post DOES have some good points.


HERE is where your argument goes astray...
If the transgender issue were the ONLY issue of the day, then the average Joe would have no excuse nor valid argument against educating himself about the issues facing transgendered persons; however, right now there are so many issues out there that demand equal if not more attention in the prioritization of someone living within the bell curve that it IS understandable that the average Joe is not educated about these issues. If people were to try to educate themselves about all issues that confronted them in an average day, they would spend the majority of their time on research and little on anything else. As human beings, we blissfully relegate encountered issues to the back-burner/wait-for-free-time-that-never-comes pile all the time.

How much do you know about the plight of neo-pagan parents in the midwest who are having the courts madate that, although BOTH parents are Wiccan, part of their divorce decree is that the child shall have to attend Sunday school and that the parents (neither of them) may NOT practice their federally recognized religion in the presence of the child?

How much do you know about the tensions between the Logging industry and the Naturalists in the Pacific Northwest?

How much do you know about recent discoveries about the development cycle of HIV and how this understanding impacts the drug indistry and PWA's?

I am not saying that the average Joe is excused for being an ignorant cuss... I am saying that it is understandable if the average Joe is ignorant on a particular issue in a world FULL of issues.

I am also not saying that the average Joe should continue with unacceptable behavior in the face of presented education; however, I also think that people need to be a little less brittle when someone stumbles against their issues. Becoming prickly and combative does not serve to educate... or rather, it does not serve to teach anything other than "S/he has 'issues'".



Again, I am not trying to say that ignorance is excusable in the face of education. I am, however saying that Newfie's post about ignorance being understandable has valid points. Note, in no way did Newfie advocate passivity in the face of ignorance... only understanding. If, in your personal language, "Understanding" has an underlying tone of passivity and acceptance, then you may want to review your own personal definitions of the word and replace them with something more active.

My personal stance is: If someone bumps against one of your issues, understand that, unless it is obviously an attack, one should exercise patience as much as possible and accept that this person may currently know no better. When faced with a fellow human being who lives in ignorance, the Superior Man/Woman in posession of the lacking information will opt to educate them instead of vilify them for their lack.

OH, and ELlIE EDO:
I am still looking for "on the web" validation of my assertions regarding male hormone cycles. The information was covered in my high school health class and I have been carrying this notion around since then. If newer findings prove this stance to be incorrect, I will recant.

I know some women here, who are involved in the "sex industry". And yes, I know they are real life women. Their reasons are simple. It's a fantasy world, they want to do things they'd NEVER do in their real life here. I also know a couple of real life men who play women, and it's a simple matter of they're more comfortable as women due to their inner selves.

I don't see an issue at all, play who you want to play, be what you want to be.

I fail to see the relevance on this poll of being involved in the Adult Entertainment Industry

Here is a thought for this topic, what about those Women that use their Husbands an Boy Friends credit cards? You really can`t tell based on this Idea who is male and female?

konnichiwa, bunny-sama

hey joe long time

And it works? A name like JackBurton doens't sound very female. A bit like a female AV called Robert.

Will you marry me?

...as a recent newbie, myself, i'm guilty of the same idle speculation that this survey in part sought to measure...
...i doubt anyone can deny that the propensity for prurient objectification of women in SL runs rampant by the standards of one's RL cultural norms...in my own RL experience women who embrace that mindset are but a small minority, and in fact many treat it with contemptuous loathing, so i naturally presumed that most of SL's sex industry and related content was driven by male players acting out sophomoric fantasies...i've since learned and come to appreciate on an anecdotal basis that many biologically female players in fact find roleplaying within that context to be tremendously empowering, and certainly it's a powerful driving force behind SL's commerce, social status, reputation, et al...
...nonetheless i remained curious about how numbers harder than my own personal experience might measure out across SL's fantasy world, and i think the end result, as (un)seriously as we might get away with taking a simple forum poll, is interesting in that regard...

...i'm also quite amused to see my own gut-feeling that a third of the female avatars are biologically male players and a fifth of the male avatars are biologically female players measure out so closely against the poll's results...



...well put, alain...everyone has difficulty maintaining that broader perspective when confronted on the issues one holds most dearly personal, but i've found that the goodwill such efforts foster is well worth the vigilance it entails...