Genders

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Once, it is said, there were only two. In truth, this rigid dualism was much more a social construct than a reflection of biological reality. From the beginning, gender was never as binary as most people thought; but the advance of technology made flesh ever more plastic. Surgical gender reassignment became possible a few short years after the first digital computer appeared. Early transhumanist and uploading advocate Hans Moravec was asked whether posthumans would have gender; he replied that posthumans would certainly have play, and one likely form of play would be the costume party.

On Puzzlebox, where bodies can be near-infinitely realtime-reconfigurable according to the owner's desire, gender is utterly fluid, at least in potential. Nonetheless, archetypal male and female forms continue to predominate among humanoids, although individuals can and often do change genders more often than their ancestors changed clothes.

Also see Pronouns.

Genders

Being a list of terms applied to gender roles and morphism, with an emphasis on role and physicality, rather than fetishes or sexual prefence. (Thus terms such as "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are here omitted.)

CHARACTERS/FACTIONS WITH INTERESTING GENDERS OR GENDER ISSUES

PLAYERS/BUILDERS WITH INTERESTING GENDERS OR GENDER ISSUES

Most of them, one sometimes suspects. The playerbase of Puzzlebox has a higher-than-normal percentage of transsexuals, primarily male-to-female at this point in time. Some are just beginning to come out to themselves and others, some have made a sort of peace with their bodies and decided not to transition, some are post-op.

No list will be provided.

Commentary

Due to the derogatory implications implicit in the etymology of berdache, contemporary Native Americans have suggested that its scholarly use be discontinued. Among the alternatives in current use, the most widely employed is two-spirit. Other scholars use specific native terms, such as winkte (from Lakota) or nadle (from Navajo), or else use a literal translation, such as “man-woman,” of a native word.

In Jack Vance's novel Planet of Adventure, the alien race of the Dirdir have twenty-six distinct sexes, 12 of which are designated "male" and 14 "female". Society dictates that Dirdir keep their sexual organs a secret, revealing them only after monogamous marriage. Since not all male-female combinations are compatible, divorce right after honeymoon is frequent and carries no stigma. Their servitor race, the "Dirdirmen", are Terran humans whose genitals have been surgically altered into new and strange sexes. Illustrations of the Dirdir (including speculation of their private anatomy) are included in Barlowe's Guide to Extra-Terrestrials.

The song "S-E-X-X-Y" by musical group They Might Be Giants is ostensibly a pop song about a subject with Klinefelter's Syndrome.

There is also the potential for gender to be in flux -- changing, for instance, cyclically, or according to the will of the individual, or randomly. Ursula LeGuin's novel The Left Hand of Darkness features the Gethenians, who spend most of their time as sexually inactive hermaphrodites (or, to put it another way, as neuters with latent genetalia of both sexes), but who assume one gender or the other during kemmering, the mating heat. The thing that's most interesting about the gender assignment during kemmering is that it is both outside the control of the Gethenian and unpredictable. Thus, they do not know whether they will be male or female for any given sexual encounter.

In Greek myth, Tiresias was a priest of Zeus, and as a young man he encountered two snakes mating and hit them with a stick. He was then transformed into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children. According to some versions of the tale, Lady Tiresias was a prostitute of great renown. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias again found mating snakes, struck them with her staff, and became a man once more. As a result of his experiences, Zeus and Hera asked him to settle the question of which sex, male or female, experienced more pleasure during intercourse. Zeus claimed it was women; Hera claimed it was men. When Tiresias sided with Zeus, Hera struck him blind. Since Zeus could not undo what she had done, he gave him the gift of prophecy. The figure of Tiresias has been much-invoked by fiction writers and poets. Most notably, T. S. Eliot used Tiresias as the primary speaker in his landmark Modernist poem, The Waste Land. [Source: Wikipedia]

And this: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/complabstuds/russia/gendinfo.htm

Platypuses are famous for laying eggs yet producing milk, having a bird-like bill and a skeleton with reptilian features. Now it turns out that the mammal has an equally eye-catching way of deciding its sex, according to a study by Frank Grützner and Jenny Graves at the Australian National University in Canberra, and colleagues. [You can read the article on NewScientist.com.]

And this: Try looking at this page in terms of a PBX native. How would they see it? As a political statement? As an infection? Go wild with it and write this all from that POV. Be bold.


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Edited December 13, 2004 10:34 am by Camilla (diff)
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