Genders

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.)

• Androgyne: another word for hermaphrodite; also describes a eunuch with strong effeminate characteristics.
• Androgynous: being neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine, as in dress, appearance, or behavior. While sometimes applied to hermaphrodites, can also simply refer to a male or female whose appearance cannot, at first glance, be ascribed to one gender or the other.
• Apomict: a plant (or other lifeform if in Puzzlebox) which reproduces (or was produced by) apomixis, which can mean a variety of different kinds of reproduction without meiosis or formation of gametes. Virgin birth, to put it simply.
• Asexual: 1. something which reproduces without sex, usually by cloning itself, and is probably itself sexless (neuter.) 2. a person who is not sexually attracted to any sexes. (Here included to avert any confusion.)
• Berdache: a person, usually a male, who assumes the gender identity and is granted the social status of the opposite sex. The term was first used by French colonists of the Americas to describe certain Native Americans. (But see commentary, below.) The berdace social position often included a somewhat 'mystical' role in the tribe. Only the role is important; no actual physical change is involved. Compare transsexual, transvestite.
• Castrated: incapable of reproduction as a result of removal, destruction, or inactivation of the gonads.
• Epicene: having an ambiguous sexual identity, often with effeminate qualities.
• Eunuch: a male whose testes have been removed or have never developed.
• Female: belonging to the sex which conceives and gives birth to young, or (in a wider sense) which produces ova.
• Gelding: a castrated male.
• Gynandromorphic: having an abnormal condition in which one side has the external characteristics of the male, and the other those of the female.
• Hermaphrodite: having both male and female organs, and produces both male gametes (sperm) and female gametes (eggs). The subject can have both types of organs at the same time (simultaneous hermaphrodite) or have one type early in life and the other type later in life (sequential hermaphrodite).
• Intersexual: having both male and female characteristics, being intermediate between the sexes.
• Male: of or pertaining to the sex that begets or procreates young, or (in a wider sense) to the sex that produces spermatozoa, by which the ova are fertilized.
• Mosaicist: exhibiting a different genetic makeup. Of gender, usually refers to Klinefelter's Syndrome, a condition characterized by small testes with hyalinization of the seminiferous tubules, variable degrees of masculinization, azoospermia and infertility, and increased urinary excretion of gonadotropin. Patients tend to be tall, with long legs, and about half have gybecomastia (enlarged male breasts). It is associated typically with an xxy chromosome complement, although variants include xxyy, xxxy, xxxxy, and several mosaic patterns (xy/xxy, xxy, xxxy, etc.).
• Neuter: having no generative organs, or imperfectly developed ones; sexless.
• Parthenogene: one who gives virgin birth. (Not in dictionary.) Parthenogenesis is a form of reproduction in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new individual, occurring commonly among insects and certain other arthropods.
• Transsexualism: consistently strong desire to change ones anatomic sex and belong to the opposite sex, to change gender and do so by all available means (including surgery, hormonal treatment, dress, and lifestyle).
• Transvestite: a person who dresses in the clothing of the opposite sex, i.e., a person who cross-dresses. A transvestite may place importance on "passing" as the opposite gender, or they might not. Distinct from transsexual in that a transvestite not only does not change physicality, but more often than not has no desire to do so; the gender role changes, but not the physical sex. See also berdache.

CHARACTERS/FACTIONS WITH INTERESTING GENDERS OR GENDER ISSUES

• Carousel?
• Chitin Queens
• Echo
• Flyte
• Marhime
• Rae
• System
• The Statues
• Twin
• Zoe
• shinsei
• Hestril
• Induction-Coil

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.

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.