[Meizicht]

I'm not going to answer questions specifically; I just wanted to give a certain opinion here about one thing in particular.
In my opinion, pronouns to use have nothing to do with what parts you have in real life. The only way what gender you are irl has any importance is if you plan to have sex with them or you're a doctor and you need to know for medical reasons. It always really pisses me off when I see someone get unreasonably mad at a person who projects his/her/theirself as one gender, but are physically the other. It's nobody's business, really. It's not like they have to inform everyone if they have specific parts; in my opinion, it's really intrusive when people ask one another what they are irl. Really... why would they need to know? What would they use that information for? If you're a he, you'll tell people. If you're a she, you'll tell people. If you're neither or both or whatever, you'll tell people. Regardless of what you are physically. Aside from those you're romantically involved with, and your doctor, it's nobody's business whatsoever.

( Btw, the pronouns to use for me are and will always be "he/his/him", even though I'm pretty damn androgynous, irl and avi-wise, lol. )

[Xurxo]

1. Do you have a preference for your avatar gender and if so what is it and why and does it match your RL gender? Just answer as much of this question as you prefer.

Except for on Gaia (where I have both), I always have male avatars. I prefer the pronouns that are used for me to match the avatar I'm using.

2. Do you have perception issues with gender identification in that if you are looking at a obviously male avatar you think you are talking to a male person and same with female? Or do you have a neutral perception?

Neutral. I know that it's not uncommon for people to just pick what they want to dress up as for the day.

3. Do you like to know the gender of the person you talk to online, for example here at Trisphee, or do you just not care about it?

I only care so I can use the correct pronouns.

[Lauv Keiko]

Ideas to discuss:
1. Do you have a preference for your avatar gender and if so what is it and why and does it match your RL gender? Just answer as much of this question as you prefer.

♫♫ My rl gender is my pref, it matches my real life gender and I like it that way just because ^^;

2. Do you have perception issues with gender identification in that if you are looking at a obviously male avatar you think you are talking to a male person and same with female? Or do you have a neutral perception?

♫♫ I always tend to associate the person's gender with their avatars. I had that problem before with one of my friends here (not naming them) and got into a bit of a confusion (not in a bad way though), but now I'm starting to /try/ having the neutral perception on everything (but it's just haaaaaaaaaard)

3. Do you like to know the gender of the person you talk to online, for example here at Trisphee, or do you just not care about it?

♫♫ Yes, absolutely. I want to know if they're female, male, trans, neutral, neither... or however it is, so that I may know what "pronouns" to use. I end up slightly offending people and I don't want that.

[Gaius]

I'll start by saying that I don't identify with either gender. Usually I just say I am genderfluid because to explain how I really feel about gender would longer than most people have time for.

1. Do you have a preference for your avatar gender and if so what is it and why and does it match your RL gender?

I fluctuate between a male and female avatar randomly. Right now, I think my avatar is technically female, though it could easily be switched to male with little difference.

2. Do you have perception issues with gender identification in that if you are looking at a obviously male avatar you think you are talking to a male person and same with female? Or do you have a neutral perception?

Sometimes I begin to imagine the person I am talking to as if they look just like their avatar. So in that sense, if your avatar is a male, I might imagine you as that male. In the end though, it doesn't make a difference to me if I'm wrong. It's not like my perception changes if someone I thought was a woman is actually a man or vice versa. It's a trivial difference.

3. Do you like to know the gender of the person you talk to online, for example here at Trisphee, or do you just not care about it?

I'm not interested to know the gender of the person I am talking to. It's irrelevant to me.

[Umaeril]

Meizicht wrote:
"I'm not going to answer questions specifically; I just wanted to give a certain opinion here about one thing in particular.
In my opinion, pronouns to use have nothing to do with what parts you have in real life. The only way what gender you are irl has any importance is if you plan to have sex with them or you're a doctor and you need to know for medical reasons."

Hi there, sorry I really have to disagree with this. I think I know what you are getting at from what you say afterwards, but just let me interject that RL gender is part and parcel of what we are not only internally and externally but socially and it has complete relevance and importance to the individual no matter what, no matter if you embrace the concept or you reject it. Avatar gender is a different matter.

Meizicht goes on to say:
"It always really pisses me off when I see someone get unreasonably mad at a person who projects his/her/theirself as one gender, but are physically the other. It's nobody's business, really. It's not like they have to inform everyone if they have specific parts; in my opinion, it's really intrusive when people ask one another what they are irl. Really... why would they need to know? What would they use that information for? If you're a he, you'll tell people. If you're a she, you'll tell people. If you're neither or both or whatever, you'll tell people. Regardless of what you are physically. Aside from those you're romantically involved with, and your doctor, it's nobody's business whatsoever."

I think you are right that on some level it is intrusive to ask, however, we are a curious species. We are a social species and we are a young species. We have a lot of male/female baggage genetically, historically, socially. It's only natural to be curious about those with whom we interact. :]

[Gaius]

I happen to like what Meizicht has to say. I imagine that someday in the future, gender won't have the relevance it does today, just as today it doesn't have the relevance it did in the past. Meizicht is right that the only real practical reasons to distinguish between gender are sexual/reproductive. And since our species is thriving right now, it's not especially important to procreate anymore. Then, the only reason gender becomes such an important part of our identities is that it has been historically so our society keeps passing that on to its children.

[Umaeril]

That is an interesting point of view Gaius. I think the world of the future will be all the more interesting for the thoughts and opinions of you and Meizicht and others who feel the same. Though I said above I disagreed on the importance to us in RL of our genders, for a variety of reasons, perhaps the tide is turning on that for some people. You will find of the 6 billion on the earth that most of them are interested in gender. I think that is fact. However, to have a world where it did not matter...well that would be very good indeed. I think we need to just keep evolving and producing people who just don't care much about it and it will come to pass.

[Gaius]

Indeed. I just look at how far we have come, even in the last one hundred years. If you think people are interested in gender now, how do you think they felt about it in the early 1900s when women couldn't even vote or hold jobs or get an education because they were all just expected to get married to men who would support them while they stayed home and did housework and reared children? The old model has been challenged so much even in that short time, I cannot imagine the current one wouldn't be.

[Coda]

Quick set of bullet points:

* No, physical sex has absolutely no ties to personal gender beyond just a statistical correlation that most people physically male are also male-gendered and most people physically female are also female-gendered. The exceptions aren't necessarily a "rejection" of the physical sex.

* While older feminist theories thought that gender was a purely social construct, that's just as naive of a view as the thought that gender is purely physical. Both extremes fail to account for a LOT of people.

* You will find that most of those 6 billion people actually AREN'T "interested" in their gender. They just live their lives as they find comfortable, rarely thinking about the role their gender plays.

Gender is a complicated thing and there are few generalizations that can be safely made without alienating or omitting some people. The most important thing is to respect those who you meet.

[Yokuutsu]

1. Do you have a preference for your avatar gender and if so what is it and why and does it match your RL gender? Just answer as much of this question as you prefer.
Female-it is my gender in real life, though I have been mistaken for a guy/lesbian multiple times -.-

2. Do you have perception issues with gender identification in that if you are looking at a obviously male avatar you think you are talking to a male person and same with female? Or do you have a neutral perception?
I try to go neutral because people just choose a gender for an avatar and many even change it if the website lets them due to gender specific items and all.

3. Do you like to know the gender of the person you talk to online, for example here at Trisphee, or do you just not care about it?
It doesn't matter...unless they start hitting on me which never happens XD

[Xurxo]

Originally Posted by Coda

Gender is a complicated thing and there are few generalizations that can be safely made without alienating or omitting some people. The most important thing is to respect those who you meet.

This especially. Because people are so varied, I generally ask - if I don't know - what people prefer to be referred to.

[Tiva]

Gender is a social construct, in the US there are only 2 in some places there are as much as 7 different genders. Male, Female, Bisexual, Transexual, Masculine Female, Feminine Male, & Inner sex are the ones I have come across. The Jewish texts have 6 genders mentioned in it.
Sex is your physical placement, if you have a Y chromosome you are of the male sex if you have no Y you are female sex, this is due to markers in the body and skeleton things like your hips, skull and long bones. Muscle attachments also trend to be larger.

That is what I have been taught in my field of study.

[Gaius]

Coda, I don't see how it's naive to think of gender as a social construct. I just can't wrap my head around that. :/ Why do you say that view fails to account for some people?

What are you studying Tiva? :O

[Xurxo]

Interesting, Tiva. I don't see bisexuality or intersexed as relating to gender, as it relates to sex and sexuality.

An intersexed individual could identify as a female, male, bigendered, androgynous. None of the above, or what have you.

Same with a bisexual.

[Meizicht]

I don't really see how physical gender has anything to do with what you wish to be called. If what you identify with fits your physical build, it's all the same as if you identify with a gender that isn't your physical sex. Pronouns, in my opinion, have no real anchor in your physical build. There's really no reason that they should be. If you want to be called something, then people should call you what you wish to be called. Someone can ask "are you a boy or a girl" and it doesn't matter whether you have the physical parts; if you want to be treated socially as a man or a woman or neither or anything else, then your physical parts should have no weight in the matter at all.
In my opinion, physical gender should be treated like race should be; irrelevant. Humans are humans. Pronouns should be determined by the individual, not by what they use to reproduce, just like nobody should treat one person differently than another person with a different color of skin or nationality. This is how I view it.
Gender stereotypes is another big issue for me. But that's a different subject, although closely linked.

In any case, I cannot see how anyone should be offended or upset or have any problem with people who do not want to give out their physical gender. Whatever they tell you should be good enough. Honestly I cannot find a reason, outside of medical and intimate reasons, why anyone at all would need to know what parts you have on your own body, and to me, curiosity just doesn't cut it. You can be curious if a darker skinned guy is either "african american" or "latino" but you don't go up and ask him. In a perfect world, that would be eliminated, along with gender stereotypes and people would just be people.

( Not attacking anyone's opinion here, btw. I'm just stating mine lol. Sometimes I get misunderstood. OTL )


Edit: Figured I should also point out, although I say all these things I do see and agree with all the things Coda pointed out. The stuff I wrote is my opinion and what I think should be, but I am very much aware that that isn't how it is now.
"Gender is a complicated thing and there are few generalizations that can be safely made without alienating or omitting some people. The most important thing is to respect those who you meet." Of all the things that should be solid as stone, this should be it. No matter what you tell a person you are, they should respect you as a human, and no matter what our opinions are, there are those who feel very differently about it. Nobody can be right or wrong about this, since this is all the views of different people.

[Coda]

Neither sex nor gender is that simple, Tiva. Looking at it from the perspective of X and Y chromosomes completely disregards intersex conditions and the activity of hormones in the womb and during development.

Saying that there are only 2 genders in the US and as many as 7 in other cultures is completely missing the point. The language spoken in the US may only verbally acknowledge two, but Ultima lives in the US and they're neither male nor female. And there are people -- in the US -- who consider themselves both at once, or a third gender as opposed to one or the other. Gender is not a binary, it is not a spectrum, it's more like a ball of wibbly-wobbly, gendery-wendery... stuff.

Furthermore, plenty of women in the US these days are pursuing lifestyles that are societally considered masculine, but no one doubts their femininity. (The same cannot be said for men -- it seems in our culture it's much easier to doubt someone's masculinity.) Does their lifestyle, and society's statements about their lifestyle, determine their gender? Does it influence their gender? Clearly the answer is: no, it does not.

The fact remains that transgender individuals exist in all cultures across the world and throughout time, regardless of what that society's standards and opinions are. You can have a butch transwoman, and she's still a woman even if she acts masculinely and has a Y chromosome. Saying that gender is solely a societal construct is NOT empowering -- it is as limiting as saying that gender is a biological construct.