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[scriver]

TFW Moroccans are more modern than white people.

Moroccans are pretty white, dude.

[hops]

TFW Moroccans are more modern than white people.

Moroccans are pretty white, dude.

[Arx]

That's funny until someone asks you that unironically. ;_;

'But the sun', he says. What about the sun?

[hops]

Africa is in an alternate dimension where the Earth has three suns.

[Edmus]

Africa is in an alternate dimension where the Earth has three suns.

The etymology for the name Africa is interesting too.
Ka means sun in the pre-babel unified language. Africa, a-three-ka, a three sun, a three sunned land.

[Reelya]

Mini necro, but this thread is relevant:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4418903/

In 2015 a series of research experiments were published where they sent fake resumes for science tenure positions to various science faculties (typical fields where women are under-represented). The result was that faculty preferred the female applicant 2:1 over identical male applicants. This study isn't getting wide publicity, even though it specifically suggests that women get strong advantages in academic hiring, specifically due to their low numbers in those fields and a desire by academic departments to even out the gender balance.

This kind of research, if it was more widely reported, would actually make science careers sound more attractive to female applicants. But you just know some people are going to angrily reject this research and cite "science hates women" articles instead, and claim that whoever cited the above link must be a sexist. I've seen that exact attitude in these threads before: angry dismissal of any article that claims anything is less than horrible for women in any underrepresented field.

But if the goal is more women in science, then how is such biased reporting supposed to help? Surely good news would encourage more women into those fields. It just seems counter-productive to stress an us-vs-them mentality between feminism and science.

[Criptfeind]

Africa is in an alternate dimension where the Earth has three suns.

The etymology for the name Africa is interesting too.
Ka means sun in the pre-babel unified language. Africa, a-three-ka, a three sun, a three sunned land.

Heh, alright, I had to laugh at this. I went past it and thought "Huh, that's cool." Moving onto the next post until it slowly ticked in my head how silly that is and I had to scroll back up to double check what the you just said.  . Fuck I'm tired. Goodnight.

@Reelya, that's cool, and relevant. But the proselytizing at the end seems to be coming outa a bit of nowhere.

[Reelya]

It's relevant to the issue of women in science however. Some writers claiming to be highly concerned about getting more women in science are heavily selective and only cite horror stories about how bad science is. The bit as the end was preempting people who've used the same logic here in the past. Mainly in the previous gender threads however.

It's like saying you think more Americans should move to Canada, and then telling everyone how Canadians hate you and will beat you up daily when you turn up. The spin is clearly at odds with the goal of getting more Americans to move to Canada.

[Criptfeind]

That's a bit more of a relevant take on it. I just meant the way you set up a strawman to punch around a bit as you threw out general bad vibes accusing people on these threads of bad faith arguments well avoiding any specifics.

[Reelya]

But they did exactly that. I'm not naming names, but I can think of half a dozen existing forumites, and that Smeeprocket who got banned, who is the only one I'll name because she's banned. Basically the pattern is to slam down any research that suggests specific things are less than terrible for women, even if that would be likely to scare women off from fields with shortages of women.

Rather than bad-faith arguments, I'm more concerned that they're good-intentioned arguments but objectively would seem to encourage the opposite result to what was intended.

[Criptfeind]

Sure, I don't think you should name names, but without doing so you're just throwing out a general accusation against people in this thread (and others like it) for what seems like no practical purpose.

Edit: To clarify, bringing up a general discussion of how such things are ignored would be fine, the thing that strikes me as wrong is the way you throw out a simultaneously wishy washy but accusatory statement at anyone in the thread.

[Rolepgeek]

It actually seems relevant in another way as well: If you continually tell cis-hetero people/men that they are already homophobic/misogynistic for [insert typical hetero normative behavior here]/[insert behavior of choice here] and then expect them to behave naturally and positively with queer people....Well. I know I get antsy about it, and I'm not even straight.

Like, it gets them to avoid those behaviors, but it also sorta plants seeds that weren't there to begin with and can negatively impact interactions when you continually tell people they're automatically ____ and need to repent make up for it. Or something.

Gar I'm not even tired.

[Reelya]

Sure, I don't think you should name names, but without doing so you're just throwing out a general accusation against people in this thread (and others like it) for what seems like no practical purpose.

The practical purpose was to head off the same argument that occurs whenever this sort of research got posted in the past, and foster a debate. And I did say that it was indicative of how previous threads have gone, because it's been my experience that this happens 100% of the time when similar studies are posted.

[Criptfeind]

The practical purpose was to head off the same argument that occurs whenever this sort of research got posted in the past, and foster a debate.

This purpose is served by your noting that such a discrepancy in the reporting and attention paid to such articles, which you'll note, isn't what I took umbrage too.

[Shadowlord]

This thread popped up, and I'd never seen it before, so I've been binge-reading the entire thing (well, I skipped some arguments).

If pedophiles don't breed, wouldn't their prevalence be significantly lower than it appears to be? Darwin 101, as you've mentioned before. And homosexuals, for that matter, shouldn't breed by definition. And yet up to 20% of respondents in modern anonymous polls report some level of homosexual tendencies these days.

I want to just point out that Jared Fogle (Subway Man) had a wife and children. I say had because they're divorced and he's in jail for pedo-ing. Mind you, he was just going for less-than-the-legal-age girls, who are/were in parts of the world and much of history considered suitable for marriage, sex, reproduction, etc. Our modern western civilization is more civilized, IMO, since it recognizes that underage people are not emotionally mature and are too easily manipulated by their emotions.

I have also heard of homosexuals historically (even recently, or even now in less accepting society) having wives and families because it was expected of them.

I really don't like discussing pedophiles and homosexuals near each other, because they're nothing alike, despite attempts by some religious groups to demonize homosexuals by claiming that they are all pedophiles.

But since the system is a completely artificial construct of evolution, there's no scientific reason someone couldn't be a trans-cat or something. You could theoretically end up with brain wiring of a cat in part of your head that does identity. Cat neurons aren't any different from human ones, and human neurons have even been made to work properly in other species. It's just extremely unlikely to happen because the brain wiring would have to construct that out of nothing, whereas a male having female traits or a female having male traits is building off existing systems.

I've known a fair number of furries on the internet, but I am not one myself, so I don't really want to speak for them, but could this actually be them?

I had a weird moment a few years ago when I suddenly realized that...probably at least 80% of the different characters I'd created over the years as vehicles for myself were both a) physically sexless and b) outwardly either neither or both genders.

So... apparently that's essentially how I see myself. Not terribly interested in labeling myself in any way, though.

When playing video games*, I play both male and female characters, and when I'm playing female characters I'm attracted to both men and women, but when I play male characters, I'm attracted to women only. So that's a thing. I think it's a form of gender fluidity, even if I only express the female-ness by playing female characters in games? Also, I don't switch randomly between (mental) genders.

* example games: Mass Effect 1-3, Skyrim, the Witcher series (only lets you play Geralt; I've only played through 1 and 2), etc.

That said, what I find most attractive is personality, and I'm not bothered by a person having the equipment for the other gender, or a voice that doesn't quite fit their gender, etc. (I'm surprised that there's no term for attracted-to-personality on http://nonbinary.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation ) For example, in Katawa Shoujo, out of all the girls (and there are no guys you can date), I'm most attracted to Emi, because of her personality.

I have made a choice to be cis, though. I have always been unhappy about how people see me as male, and on the forum I do prefer female pronouns, but I won't be asking people to call me female when they're in person and hearing my deep as hell voice and face to face with my male face. I don't actually subscribe to the concept of "x in y's body" and I'm more concerned about "why does it have to be permanent?" and the main answer is "we can't meaningfully change someone's sex yet", but the thing is, it doesn't hurt to be accommodating and support people while we wait for science to catch up with humanity's demand to be beautiful.

I made that same choice. Deep voice, widow's peak leading to hair loss in the front which had already started at 18, etc. I don't generally experience gender dysphoria and have no problem being 'male', so it's not a huge problem for me. I also only knew of one trans-person when I was growing up, who committed suicide after transitioning fully (Dani Bunten).

Still... if we could have cyberbodies like in Ghost in the Shell, I'd probably try a female one.

That said, voice training to achieve a more feminine voice is a thing. This is one guide, which I have not tried myself: http://www.looking-glass.greenend.org.uk/voice.htm

I don't like choosing my ice cream flavour, so nobody else gets to choose either - they all have to get vanilla.

Chocolate is the only correct choice you vanillanormative scum.

I like mint chocolate chip~
Everyone else tells me it tastes like toothpaste but I don't care
I'm being totally serious.

Maybe my recent "don't give a shit" is a product of recent life events. Attraction included, because I was basically disinterested in the entire mess.
Then my brother linked... uh... PG13, but probably NSFW...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mV-zPMBPuQ
>.<
>.o
O.O
ovo

Edit:
also this sexy villain straight out of Dr Horrible practically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_SlAzsXa7E
also the garbage men in Goldfrapp's "Ride a White Horse" but that's just generic backup singers being sexy, albeit a bit dirty.

Definitely attractive people in both those videos. The James Bondalike and the villain's wife are pretty attractive too. Also, this is way better than actual James Bond.

Armokdamnit, why didn't I do this before? I formulated the rewards and risk for each course of action I could take (HRT, no HRT), and it is painfully obvious that HRT would be a bad idea. Graphs and equations! Bah, who needs counseling when they have logic?

Spoiler: logic (click to show/hide)

Reward of HRT = a*o - c.e.
Risk of HRT= b*o + b.r. + s.r. + i.r.

o is "how important gender is to me", it's probably low
c.e. is the current effectiveness of what I'm doing
b.r. is the biological risk associated with messing with my hormones
s.r. is the risk associated with being unable to pass as cis (minor, but still positive)
i.r. is the risk that the end result of HRT produces even more distress than now

a and b are proportionality things, dependent on how far away from the "probably my gender" I am now and I would be after HRT. I'm not sure how much of treating gender dysphoria is HRT and how much is surgery, so depending on how far HRT goes it could either be "androgyny" or "just as gendered as now, except feminine". If the former, than HRT is probably a bad idea. If the latter, HRT is definitely a horrible idea. Statistics would imply that if I'm unsure, I'm more likely to be cis than trans - betting that I'm trans is definitely too much of a risk.

So HRT would be a good idea if:

1. o is very high, or the reward/risk 'addons' negligible
Neither is the case.

2. and I'm trans (a>>b)
Probably not; androgyne is my current best guess, but who knows

Such a great weight off my back, not having to worry about my gender anymore. How did I come to that conclusion?

As long as no permanent alterations are done (surgery/HRT), it doesn't matter if I'm wrong. What could happen? Mental stability issues? Pfff, haha, like I have any of that to worry about. Being seen as weird because I occasionally hold my body like a girl or something? I'm already seen as weird.

And if I'm only deluding myself into thinking that perceiving myself as androgynous makes me happier, and I have a way of doing so without any downsides... I'll take that!

If I am really androgyne, okay, I've dealt with it pretty well so far. As I practice my BGB (bogus gibber-babble), I'm becoming even better at changing my self-perception and holding it, so... I'll be fine continuing like this.

The only part that made me distressed was "is it a good idea to do HRT," which required me to know whether I was actually androgyne" or not. But HRT is a bad idea regardless of my gender (unless I'm trans, but I'm pretty sure I'm not), so that doesn't matter!

You can do the blockers without the HRT to postpone the decision, and that may actually be the best choice. You'll also know if HRT is a bad idea if you start on estrogen and suddenly start newly experiencing gender dysphoria. (I'd characterize gender dysphoria as 'my hormones don't match my brain,' generally, anyways. It seems to be possible to experience it with only mental changes - it was mentioned in this thread, and happened to me for two or three days in February of this year)

IIRC there are three stages to transitioning when you haven't gone through puberty yet:
1. Testosterone/androgen blockers, which merely postpone puberty, which you can stay on for a few years
2. HRT, that is, Estrogen, basically, which would trigger female puberty, and cause physical feminization. If you waited until you had already gone through male puberty, then it will not alter bone structure - you'll have male bone structure instead of female. Your face and secondary sexual characteristics still become feminine, however. Everything except bone structure changes are reversible, I believe.
3. Surgery to turn the one kind of genitals into the other. This is optional unless experiencing dysphoria due to still having the wrong genitals. It's also not reversible.

If you had gone through puberty, 1 and 2 would be combined into a single stage, I believe. IIRC you only get rid of the need for the blockers by getting rid of your balls.

I'm not saying you need to do these, or some of these. I'm just offering information in case you didn't already know it. You do you.

(Hey! I reached the end of the thread. Only took around four hours.)