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Male/female deceptions?


Gorax

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This thread will probably irk a few people, but after the recent incident with Modred, I feel that it has to be discussed.

Someone has a physical gender. Someone doesn't like their physical gender. On the Internet, someone doesn't have to be their physical gender anymore . . . I'm sure everyone knows where this is going.

Is it acceptable for someone to act as, or refer to themselves as another gender?

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You don't ask easy questions, do you? :D

Seriously, I can't think of a viable ethical defense vis someone lying about their gender. Cases like Mordred's, where the action is deliberately deceptive, are completely indefensible.

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I don't like my physical gender, and would be quite happy if I could get my penis removed. Don't see me lying about it. STUPID MORDRED! *stabby*

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It's a deep ethical question. It would appear to have a simple answer, but it does not. And I am not going to explore it in terms of any particular system of ethics, though I may come back to that in a later post. But explore it I will.

If you are a bio-m but feel yourself to be and identify as f, and present yourself to others as the f you feel yourself to be, is that a lie? If someone comes right out and asks you what your biogender is, are you under any obligation to answer, or to answer correctly? Especially if you feel the question has no correct answer? In many ways, it depends on your intent, their intent, and the circumstances in which you present yourself and in which the question is asked.

If you are bio-f but self-id as m, and are using an essentially anonymous forum to explore this diversity in yourself in a way that, while misleading perhaps to others, is not intended and does not become any threat to them, is not used to manipulate them, or harm them, but is used for you to be the person you feel yourself to be and see how others you get to know react to the person you feel yourself to be, then I see no harm in it.

If you then begin to feel an affinity with some member(s) of that community and want to open up selectively a little more about the bio side of yourself, fine. If not, fine. And if somebody flat out asks you if you have a penis or not, in a forum like this, where your intent is be who you feel yourself to be with no intent to harm others, then it seems perfectly fine to me to not answer, or to say anything that seems reasonable to you.

But regardless of the sex/gender question, if you are here for reasons that involve harming others, or intending to harm others, or knowingly risking the harm of others, then any behavior that furthers those goals is wrong, whether it involves untruths about your biogender or not.

boa

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It's a difficult question in one respect but an easy one in another. I was born Male and even though I live with a Pseudo-Hermaphroditic "disorder" I am still Male in most things. I have a penis, I do not have a vagina. I do not have breasts, I have nipples so I am Male.

However, I feel as Female as Male inside and often when I am in chat rooms, even though my profile says I am male, most people just assume I am female and were you to meet me, you would be able to see that I am as female as I am male.

I guess, the real difference here is "do I adopt a specific gender because I seek to mislead others into thinking I am somehow different from who I really am?" then the answer is NO! I don't. If I were perfectly honest, I would like to not have to ally myself with either gender because I am both yet neither at the same time but in truth, we have to so in that respect I am male in body and therefore it is being male that I ascribe to.

8)

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If I were to tell people I'm a girl, I would be lying to myself. If I told people I'm a guy, I would be lying to them . . . So it all comes down to which one I'd prefer lying to.

Ah hell, it's not really lying, is it? I mean I never did say I was either :mrgreen: It's still . . . Meh. It can be problematic, especially when meetups are concerned o_O

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I would like to thank you all for being so supportive of me now I am at last coming out about my KS. I have always been ashamed of who and what I am but in holding back, I have only stored up problems for myself mentally and emotionally.

((((((((((AVEN)))))))))))

:D

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I'm all male, all ways, all the time, yet, oddly I have fairly sizable breasts, in a male, endomorphic, obese sort of way. Yet again, the language with which we talk about these things is impoverished. It is binary. It is insufficient to describe the realities that we are. So, Gorax, it is not necessarily a choice between lieing to yourself or the one you talk to. You can have the purest, truest heart in the universe, and speak the truth to the limits of the language, and the language, because of its insufficiencies, will lie for you. It is only a problem when trying to communicate with those who think that language has a 1 to 1 relationship with what it names. Which unfortunately means most people most of the time. Don't beat yourself up over this.

Hats, with full support and fuller ignorance, what is KS?

boa

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VivreEstEsperer

I think we're forgetting the difference between gender and sex here. Sex is biological and gender is psychological. A person's sex does not necessarily match up to their gender. So a person can say their gender is male when their sex is female and still not be lying.

Problem is, most of the public doesn't understand this and could never grasp that there's a difference between sex and gender.

In terms of online motive definitely makes a differnece too. People tend to think of biological sex as the real distinction and if a person says that their gender is different from that - it depends on the motive.

I thought Mordred said he was transgender though?

Kate

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Is it acceptable for someone to act as, or refer to themselves as another gender?

I don't think it's acceptable. It's about as acceptable as lying about your age.

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I don't think it's acceptable. It's about as acceptable as lying about your age.

I get in the movie theatre as youth all the time . . . Damn I'm a con artist 8)

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Worthless Poster

It depends on your motives. With Gorax, yeah it's cool, whichever. Modred, well, that was just a lie, plain and simple.

Me, personally, I will never call myself a girl. I'm a female. That's the only term I'll use. I'm not particularly a huge fan of being female, and i try to be as masculine as possible in most things... although it tends to come rather naturally... but I wouldn't want to be a male, either, so.... *shrugs*

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ishouldbelockedinaninsane

As an asexual I dont care much about gender....especially on the internet where i cant see people anyway, and i lie all the time about both my gender and my age, even off the internet. What did this transgender called Modred do anyway? Was he trying to get some pussy?

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I don't think it's acceptable. It's about as acceptable as lying about your age.

I get in the movie theatre as youth all the time . . . Damn I'm a con artist 8)

I mean online, if someone you're chatting with completely lies about their age, I think it's wrong....

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I think it comes down to intent. If a person intends to mislead people (e.g. masking their identity in order to keep tabs on someone) it's wrong, if it's simply the way a person feels, then it's fine by me. I don't see why sex/gender matters unless you're in an intimate relationship with someone anyway. That's like making everyone confess to his or her natural hair colour and then judging them on that.

Cate

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ishouldbelockedinaninsane

Hmmm....well if it wasnt trying to get dates, what does gender have to do with anything out of curiousity? Is that what you were asking?

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I was whacked hard over the head with my own biological gender difficulties just yesterday. I was asked to leave a Dianic women's group because I was acting too 'masculine'. Apparently, my energies were too much for them (they were very feminine, gentle people), and my normal style of interacting was overwhelming them. I am a dynamic person, and sometimes dominate a conversation, but most people like me for my brains and twisted sense of humor.

Ten years ago, I had a laproscopic endrometriosis surgery. Just to make sure everything was OK, they took a biopsy of my ovaries. The pathological report was...interesting. No disease. But there was a surprise.

One "ovary" was a testis. The other was an ovary. I have an obviously functional uterus and pill- regulated monthly menses, and might even be fertile. I never told my family, and lost the lab report. But I remember it saying something about my being a 'mosaic XX/XY hermaphrodite'. Last year's breast reduction confirmed that- the pathologist reported that all the tissue removed was fat, with little to no glandular tissue. In reducing my breasts, the surgeon removed part of my breast where the milk glands should reside- and there were none. Had I ever become pregnant, I would not have been able to breast feed the child.

I was born female and raised female in spite of my tomboyish tendancies. I loved science, electronics and stuff like that, although my mother refused to teach me math, because she hated it. (I still have some difficulties with it today, have taught myself algebra and calculus.) I disdained 'girly' things like curls, makeup, fancy dresses, and boys but didn't get into the boyish stuff, either. I was not attracted to males or females.

Today, I am an asexual eccentric. I've grown my hair to my waist because it is such an unusual natural color, wear little makeup, dress fairly unisexually, and feel like a third person in many respects. I still 'act' female because I was raised that way. And I have some of the better female traits- like sensitive hearing, full color vision, and communications ability. But I also express male traits- like spatial and gepgraphical adeptness, systems understanding, and 'people blindness'. Unless someone really stands out to me, they all look alike- male and female.

My body is a mix, too- 'mosaic' means that the double set of genes I got will express themselves in different places in different ways. "X" won most of the coin tosses, but "Y" got his licks in- especially in the hair department. I'm just glad that it's blonde, or I'd be an electrolysis operator's dream. I have heavy bones and muscular legs and big feet. My big worry is that mosaicism can sometimes lead to early onset Alzheimers and heart problems. All I know is that the gender rulebook doesn't cover me or my body. If I were criminally minded, I could get away with all sorts of stuff, because I cannot be genetically defined. One sample might be female, and another might be male. CSI would think I was two different people.

Even when I was young, I knew I was a boy in some ways. I even expressed the idea that I wanted to be a boy, and played with boys more than girls. My parents blew it off, and I grew up fairly normally- but still went into a very male oriented career field. I never felt the dysphoria that leads some females to get sexually reassigned, because there were aspects of being female that I also liked. And my body is too small to really 'pass' as a bio male. Besides, I'd still be 'mixed'. So, I dismissed that notion and saved myself a lot of heartache.

But I do ache right now. Being asked to leave the Dianic group really hurts- I wanted to get in touch with my feminine side. They do not know my real biological status. I'm not a 'he' or a 'she', I'm a 'me'. But as someone said, 'you can BS the fans, but you can't BS the players', and I guess they saw beyond my female appearance. Dianics are rather anti-male in many ways, and they kicked the 'guy' out.

Sigh...

So, 'gender' to me is the 'default' sex that I was born looking like, but never truly was. I'd love to see an 'other' or 'neither' category for mutants like me. Still, I think my Creatorix dished out the best of both sexes, and in spite my body being the punchline of some cosmic joke, I am content with myself. Besides, ladies rooms are usually much cleaner than mens rooms.

Sunfell

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Besides, ladies rooms are usually much cleaner than mens rooms.

I have to disagree with that one :lol:

Your post was interesting. Sometimes I feel like I should get tested for things like that. I don't know why I haven't been yet.

What are Dianics?

. . . And what is "a laproscopic endrometriosis surgery" ^^ (yes I had to copy and paste that :? )

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I've learned that the proper term for my 'condition' (if you want to call it that) is 'intersex'- possesing something called an ovotestis- a mixed 'nad.

I wouldn't have even known about it except that I first had a big cyst on the right ovary (which went away) and the other one looked odd to the doctors, so they took a sample. Otherwise, I am outwardly female in every way- including menstruation and endometriosis, which is a nasty little affliction that permits endrometrial tissue (which normally grows on the inside of the uterus) to grow outside of it.

Laproscopic surgery is a simple and minimally invasive procedure where the doctor inserts lights, camera, and a laser gun through small incisions, and zaps the endometriosis to get rid of it. He took a look at my innards while doing it, and made the discovery. I guess I was lucky- some intersex people have external genitalia that has doctors pouncing all over them and really messing them up. I looked like a normal female, which probably saved me from a lot of poking and prodding. Even my late menarche and scanty periods were not alarming, and I was put on the pill to correct that problem. I went off the pill because I was never sexually active, but was put back on after this stupid surgery to 'regulate' me.

Funny thing was, I got the path report, and really didn't realize what it meant, and tossed it. Ah, well. I'm still me, no matter what my genes say.

Dianic witches are very exclusive, and believe that males are the scum of the earth. They are exclusively goddess-oriented, and very defensive of their practice. Any hint of masculinity is not allowed. I guess my dynamic personality and engineer's mind blew it for me. Oh, well.

And you're right- today's general public restrooms are equally nasty.

8)

Sunfell

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