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[Nilocy]

I love how the issue of transgenderism is so broad and deep that it pretty much effects every single part of your life. Your gender and sex is so integral to you that you often forget its there.

Interestingly, a few weeks back some Finnish doctors managed to transplant wombs from a mother to a daughter. That give me great hopes that transplanted wombs will become available for MtFs if they so choose.

Also Duke have you ever heard of two-spirit? Its this native american belief that a person can be inhabited by two different spirits (male/female). Its a really nice way of thinking of it.

@Kogan I think they'd be able to define themselves. Genetically they'd be male. If they choose to remain being called male/a man I'd do that. You don't suddenly say a guy is a girl when he gets a kidney transplant from a female right? Whys it any different for a uterus?

Man, I love this discussion so much

[Kogan Loloklam]

Nilocy, I am telling you point blank they would be called Male. I don't identify as female at all just for making my body work in ways that it can.

Granted surgical womb implantation does involved in a transplanted womb, but if it's grown with your own cells, can you even say it's a female part? It's just extreme body modification, not much different than adding rare earth magnets to your fingers.

[Ogdibus]

.

[Alastar]

The whole concept of gender does little beyond establishing prejudices (i.e. quick a-priori estimates about people, to be checked against observation when important). Expecting anything more likely leads to bad science and political opinion-slinging.

[Nilocy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXAoG8vAyzI Good video for anyone having trouble getting their brains around this topic.

[misko27]

Granted surgical womb implantation does involved in a transplanted womb, but if it's grown with your own cells, can you even say it's a female part? It's just extreme body modification, not much different than adding rare earth magnets to your fingers.

I disagree strongly. It is a entirely different thing. A uterus is designed, by evolution mind you, to work in human females. If your body accepts something, its as much a part of you as anything. You know, soon they may be ablee to create blood, would that be a modification? No, cause its part of you, unlike magnets.

Besides, Biological entities reject metals other then titanium, which for some reason is incorporated into the bone. your body wouls reject magnets, but it wouldn't do so with a compatible organ.

[Virex]

I thought Tungsten was also biocompatible?

[Nilocy]

Also iron and copper and small doses of gold

Edit: @misko Evolution doesn't design anything. A uterus serves a purpose because it served a purpose in the previous generation.

[bombzero]

Edit: @misko Evolution doesn't design anything. A uterus serves a purpose because it served a purpose in the previous generation.

A lot of people miss the fact that evolution isn't so much 'design' as 'survival'.

Basically in pre-civilization times he who was strong, fast, and willing to do what was needed survived, sickly people died, genetic diseases died out fast in a line, etc etc.
Once civilization came along we started helping those with conditions that would have lead to death previously, while not necessarily bad this has "soured the gene pool" so to speak leading to higher and higher instances of genetic diseases.
It's also one of the main reasons I get pissed when people are against genetic manipulation aimed at curing genetic diseases that only exist because of the attempts to be egalitarian by modern society.
Don't want to fix the problem even though we have the means to, despite being the entire reason it exists in the first place. sounds.... human.
(Sorry for the derail, pro-transhumanist here(bionics, genetic manipulation, etc))

[Bauglir]

'S a question of how evolution works, which is very much not this thread. Short version: human evolution hasn't stopped, and it never will as long as we're dying and reproducing in some capacity - which may well cease to be through the end of the consciousness and sex, respectively. Transhumanism is great, phrases like "soured the gene pool" give me pause, though.

[bombzero]

'S a question of how evolution works, which is very much not this thread. Short version: human evolution hasn't stopped, and it never will as long as we're dying and reproducing in some capacity - which may well cease to be through the end of the consciousness and sex, respectively. Transhumanism is great, phrases like "soured the gene pool" give me pause, though.

In reply to that: I use "soured gene pool" to refer to the fact that refusal to use our tools to fix the problem, while consciously continuing the problem in the name of humanitarianism is kind of flawed, and leads to a general degradation of the human gene pool.


At any rate, I did have a thought earlier, and I want to ask you guys a question.

From a social perspective(normal life basically), which is more important? masculinity/femininity*, or genetic/physical male/female**?
From a sexual perspective?

*How "male" or "female" they act according to traditional gender roles.
**Their actual physical gender.

[DJ]

The latter. I don't see why gender should be relevant to anything but sex.

[misko27]

The latter. I don't see why gender should be relevant to anything but sex.

Technically, there are a number of slight differences. Females have double the number of Red receptors in their eyes, while men are proven to be better at navigating themselves on a North-South-East-West map. Not exactly massive differences, but still.

[Frumple]

It's kind of tongue in cheek, but I guess we need to stop everything and make those societal roles where absolute paragon reading of cardinal direction based maps is essential male only. Because the statistical correlation between some (was it even a majority?) males being (somewhat) better than some females at NSEW-based map reading means that no women ever will be the most effective individual to suit the needs of that position, nevermind what other capabilities might be needed or the fact that any number them may still be better than whatever male candidates are available.

Mind you, this goes the other way, too. Any jobs where identifying the color red (I guess? I'm not really sure what red receptors do, honestly.) is paramount must become strictly female dominated!

Silliness aside, the primary point is that the differences are minor. Generally, incredibly minor and easily overshadowed by individual differences or previous training.

So, yeah. Sexual acts is about the only thing physical sex actually matters in, and I guess reproduction for another couple of decades or whatever (I'd be completely unsurprised if medical science finishes cracking the particulars of the stuff gender-locking that in my life time).

Everything else, there are specific virtues or traits which have no necessary connection to gender. Those are the things that are important. Whether a person will have them will vary based on the individual, not their varying nether regions. So, we should judge by the individual in question, not their reproductive physiology.

Though I guess I'm ranting a bit, again. Or something. Fairly tired and overly warm, bleh.

For BZ's stuff... man, I don't even know what you'd count as a "normal life" anymore (Which country's? Which cultural group's?), or by what measure you're considering important. Important for... what? Societal stability? Personal survivability? <Insert 50 thousand different heuristics>? But I guess from a general societal perspective you're going to run into more problems if your gender role display doesn't match your sex than if they do. You can be fairly lacking in the masculine traits of your culture and still get by if you're not displaying the feminine ones as a male, and vise versa as a female, though it's likely to land you in a lower totem pole, so to speak, in the social hierarchy. Or something. Neither aspect stands alone in general human interaction, from what I've seen.

Sexual perspective is another weird one. I'm not really sure how you'd classify masculine or feminine "in the bedroom", so to speak, in any manner that's not so culturally entangled as to be a useless label for any wider discussion. Hell, most of the stuff I've seen expressed as being one or the other occurs in the other gender, just in a slightly different (or sometimes flatly identical!) manner.

Clarify the teeerrrmmmmsss!

[Descan]

I'll probably get something like "clarify your terms" tattooed on my arm or something. I use it a lot, could use a quick reference. :3