LGBTAitP #28: Come Taste the Rainbow!

[Coidzor]

But if they 'fix' the bodymap, would you still be transgender?

Would it matter? Aside from some hardcore "true believers," whose existence I somewhat doubt anyway, I can't imagine that anyone who is of the transitioning transgender persuasion would care that they were now, say, a ciswoman instead of a transwoman.

And as we've seen, there's even some who would take being a cisman over being a transwoman if it were an option. I'm certain you'd have both transgender and cisgender individuals who would willingly shed their sense of gender entirely if that were an option as well.

Would you still be you?

That's the kicker, and the real question.

[noparlpf]

I think it's more a matter of body maps not matching the body. There's an anatomical body map, and we know that feelings of a phantom penis is common among trans men. And we have anecdotal evidence of phantom vagina as well (I believe someone on this forum reported that). And there's probably an endocrine bodymap as well - if HRT indeed reduces gender dysphoria that would be a possible mechanism. I would like a study on the last one, but I couldn't find anything not behind a paywall.

There's that study on phantom penis in transwomen vs. cismen. Although that's skewed because in post-op transwomen most of the material and nerve endings are still there, just moved around. If they only questioned transwomen who lost their genitals in accidents, or due to cancer or something, i.e., the same conditions under which the cismen questioned lost theirs, it might be more reliable.
And yeah, we definitely should have some better studies on HRT as it relates to gender dysphoria, if only to cite to people who are against the treatment. For example, is gender dysphoria decreased before significant physical changes begin?

Well, I'd assume that that would be taken care off. And it depends to what degree dysphoria is dependent on the structure of the brain. Like, if you'd transfer your mind to an artificial entity you wouldn't have the organic bodymap anymore cause that one is part of your brain structure.

Well, if you retain the same structure of the human brain, and just replace the mismatched body with a robotic one that matches the brain's gender, then you end up with Cybermen and that is bad would just see a body matching what the brain expects (except for being metal and polymer and whatever).
Or if we have robot brains capable of processing gender, you could just transfer the female mind into a female robo-brain.

[Asta Kask]

I would love to do such a study. *sigh* There doesn't seem to be any good scale for gender dysphoria though. I found this, but it doesn't allow for measurement of change in dysphoria.

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[noparlpf]

I would love to do such a study. *sigh* There doesn't seem to be any good scale for gender dysphoria though. I found this, but it doesn't allow for measurement of change in dysphoria.

Spoiler

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Just do it subjectively. On a scale of one to ten, how intense is your gender dysphoria? (Or one to one hundred, for more precision.) Track it weekly for six or twelve months of HRT. It's okay if the judgment is subjective because what you're tracking is an individual's subjective experience.

[Astrella]

That's impossible I think. Gender dysphoria is something really personal and contextual and not something you can put in a simple scale. (And personally, I don't even see why there's a need to.)

[Coidzor]

That's impossible I think. Gender dysphoria is something really personal and contextual and not something you can put in a simple scale. (And personally, I don't even see why there's a need to.)

On the contrary, that's why a simple scale would be the better place to start.

[Mono Vertigo]

What angers me more is that even though 'the normals' see LGBT as some kind of sickness or strangeness, the LGBT does it too.
[snip]

Just my thoughts.

Seconding what's been said.
The only thing the whole of the LGBT community has in common is that the cis straight majority doesn't consider us straight, sometimes quite wrongly (see straight trans*, who are absurdly often considered homosexual pre-transition, and sometimes post-transition, too), and treat us differently just because of that. This is the only definition I can come up with that includes the T (and I personally feel like it would be wrong if the T wasn't included in LGBT, even if sexuality=/=gender).
That leaves a lot of room for every single human flaw. I've seen several other groups that are more narrowly-defined than this one that however get torn apart from the inside because of internal conflicts.
I do think one of the important things the whole community should do to help itself is to accept its members' sexuality and genders, but it's not going to magically fix everything, nor is it going to be easily achievable, if at all. Every debate where such a person argues against the existence or legitimacy of asexuals/demisexuals/transsexuals/pansexuals/genderqueers/etc is a lot of wasted time that could have been better spent actually educating oneself or the majority. (Plus, for the cis straight who do make their research and stumble on these heated debates, their quest for answers has become a lot more confusing and difficult, and they might just throw their hands in the air and go "so, if even they don't know what it is all about, I should just stop bothering and go back to my old, ignorant ways!". I'm all for discussing every subject under the sun, but the part of the Internet that can freely accessed by anyone is not be the best place for some such debates.)

[Coidzor]

Every debate where such a person argues against the existence or legitimacy of asexuals/demisexuals/transsexuals/pansexuals/genderqueers/etc is a lot of wasted time that could have been better spent actually educating oneself or the majority.

I'd say that if the right attitudes were encouraged with approaching them, they'd be an opportunity to promulgate understanding out of confusion.

The problem is that there's widespread ignorance within which makes educating those who are without an even more onerous task. Hard to really argue and move towards any kind of consensus though or even a coherent movement.

(Plus, for the cis straight who do make their research and stumble on these heated debates, their quest for answers has become a lot more confusing and difficult, and they might just throw their hands in the air and go "so, if even they don't know what it is all about, I should just stop bothering and go back to my old, ignorant ways!".

I'd say more like "Well, these guys are ****, I'll put my efforts for a better world where they'd be better spent" if they're the type to go to that effort in the first place without being emotionally invested in someone who is LGBT.

I'm all for discussing every subject under the sun, but the part of the Internet that can freely accessed by anyone is not be the best place for some such debates.)

Eh, secrecy and fear are the opposite of the values that should be embraced. We want to move towards a more open society, not making the whole cliquishness worse.

[Astrella]

With regards to T in GSRM, here's something I said about it a few days ago somewhere else:

Because we both suffer discrimination for breaking "gender rules". A gay man breaks the "a man is only attracted to women" rule while say a trans woman breaks the "someone (assigned) male is supposed to act / identify / whatever as male". Not to mention that our goals often overlap. A lot of bigotry doesn't distinguish between people who aren't straight and people who are trans. Lastly, stuff like laws protection gender identity and gender expression benefit anyone who doesn't present / act according to the narrow boxes (e.g. a feminine man / masculine woman.)
Edit; There's also the historic sense. Trans people played a big part in kickstarting the movement and have been huge contributors in general.

[Coidzor]

That reminds me. GSM and GSRM aren't in the OP.

Also, there's a lot of random hanging asterisks in that vocabulary and terminology section.

[noparlpf]

That reminds me. GSM and GSRM aren't in the OP.

"Gender or sexuality [or romantic] minority"? I've never seem those before today. Huh. (Initially I expected it to be "racial" for the "r" but I guess not.)

[Astrella]

Hm hm, Gender, Sexuality and Romantic Minorities.

[Coidzor]

"Gender or sexuality [or romantic] minority"? I've never seem those before today. Huh. (Initially I expected it to be "racial" for the "r" but I guess not.)

Same here. Or at least, I don't recall seeing them and knowing what they meant. And I had to go here to get a definition for them.

I'd disagree with their assertion that being asexual is romantic rather than sexual over having the potential to be tied in with both, but, eh, c'est la vie.

[noparlpf]

Same here. Or at least, I don't recall seeing them and knowing what they meant. And I had to go here to get a definition for them.

I'd disagree with their assertion that being asexual is romantic rather than sexual over having the potential to be tied in with both, but, eh, c'est la vie.

I'm pretty sure asexual is in the sexual bunch as it has to do with sexual attraction. Or we could just join that movement to make everything queer.

[The Succubus]

That reminds me. GSM and GSRM aren't in the OP.

Also, there's a lot of random hanging asterisks in that vocabulary and terminology section.

I understand GSM folks are quite keen on calling each other with their mobiles. /obscuretechjoke

[Astrella]

I understand GSM folks are quite keen on calling each other with their mobiles. /obscuretechjoke

Not that obscure, that's how we call cellphones around here.

[noparlpf]

I understand GSM folks are quite keen on calling each other with their mobiles. /obscuretechjoke

That's awful. Kudos.
Also less obscure than the "Gender and Sexuality Minorities" definition--yours comes up first on Google. (Or rather, at all. I have to search other things like "gsm lgbt" to get that definition.)

[Coidzor]

I'm pretty sure asexual is in the sexual bunch as it has to do with sexual attraction. Or we could just join that movement to make everything queer.

Well, yes, I was disagreeing with the blog post I linked to, as I said.

[noparlpf]

Well, yes, I was disagreeing with the blog post I linked to, as I said.

Yeah, I was agreeing.

[SiuiS]

*a ham beast

I have never heard the term ham beast when it was not being used colloquially for older versions of My Little Ponies.

If souls do exist, they almost definitely fit a given pattern of... Whatever they may be made of. There shouldn't be any reason you couldn't copy 'em. X3

One tends to find a thing and study it long before one can create it. Atoms, for example. Don't think we can create those, but we can map and move them.

I would take that very quickly. *I'm a transhumanist, and see nothing so unique in the human form that a robotic one couldn't improve. *Plus a robot body has handy benefits not available to its fleshy counterpart. *Ease of replication and repair, lack of fatigue, and customization top the list, but I'm sure I could think of more. *I think any attachment on the basis of having spent effort on my current body is just sunk costs fallacy, personally, but mine has some pretty large defects I'd be happy to lose in favor of a metal version

~Laura

The human mind suffers degeneration if it cannot get tactile feedback, and even moreso if it doesn't get feedback along the lines of social touching. Pressure sensors in the skin wouldn't necessarily map to the degree of sensing we urgently have in our skin. There's a lot of data you aren't aware you're receiving that you'd lose. You would suddenly be bombarded by a lack of sensations. Being constantly cold, constantly disconnected.

Yeah, but a computer capable of designing a better computer isn't necessarily an AI, nor is it necessarily capable of designing an AI. We already have computer algorithms for designing spray nozzles for maximizing muzzle velocity and determining optimal shapes for fluid dynamics in general, as well as a host of other applications. They're essentially just a really complex sequence of logic gates and parsing simulators, there's no reason to suspect that the first computer program capable of developing a better computer would be too much more complex than the programs already used for similar applications for optimizing other systems.

This already exists to a certain degree. According to a friend of mine, people are able to build a system, to compute things. The returned computations work, but are advanced enough that the humans can't retro engineer them to find out why or how they work.

Also, it's entirely possible that consciousness cannot be measured in logic gates. As an emergent property, it may not be an end-goal. There may be no configuration of binary circuitry possible that can purposefully create consciousness.

Can't wait for DD to check in here.

This kind of brings into perspective a question......in my head at least. *Is gender completely based on body?

Define "based on body".

To some of you, the answer to my first question is probably quite obvious, but being born male (both physically and mentally) it is harder for be to understand the complexities of gender. *For me, my brain and body just happen to match up, but I know many of you struggle with having different signals from different places (i.e. boy body, girl mind....and visa versa) telling you different things. [...] obviously gender isn't strictly a physical thing....otherwise half the need of this thread would be cut out.

Gender means type. Gender can be used to mean a different type of thing, without referring to sexual characteristics (male/female/etc.) whatsoever. That the two are so correlated is unfortunate, but gender =/= sex. You are a male of the male type. That law is the "correct" word for both of those is confusing.

Think of it through comparison. Nudists. A nudist who is forced to wear clothes is uncomfortable. A non-nudist who has to go nude is uncomfortable. What happens if a child born to nudists, from a long line of nudists, wants to wear clothes but can't?

It's uncomfortable, painful, somewhat Embarassing, and everyone else considers it so much of a nonissue you get ridiculed for bringing it up. If you told your friends that your big existential crisis was you wanted to wear clothes but you couldn't, they would laugh.

Quite a few of you lovely people have been born into the "wrong bodies" and consider yourselves the opposite of your original, physical gender.

Point of order. Your original gender was female. So was mine. Testosterone caused mutations so that you ends up male, but technically everyone start life as a woman.

But your mind tells you a different story, hence the conundrum you are having, because the real you is wanting to get out. *But if you were to scoop out your brain, and self, and place it into a robot body that is somewhat neutral, what kind of odd sensation would that be?

It's not quite my mind not liking my body. It's my body not liking my body. I get the same sense of wrongness from being unfit. My body 'knows' what it should be. If its not there, it chafes. The mind is just along for the ride, like Angel from the Whedonverse discussion.

Never thought that would be referenced again.

Well, the mind is just as much part of the body as anything else, so I always found that duality a bit silly. And a lot of trans people suffer some kind of bodily dysphoria, so it would at least get rid of that?

Is it? The mind is a meta construct. It's an emergent property, and not necessarily something that is part of the physical makeup as such. The min could be a secondary thing, with the brain running an emulator to run the mind. If that makes any sense.

The trouble is people who abjure one for the other. "I don't need a good body because the mind is supreme" is just as stupid as "I don't need a keen mind because I'm so physically awesome". The duality isn't a problem, it's the seemingly antagonistic dichotomy.

Long story short: people are awful, and some of them are queer.

This is awesome.

I would love to do such a study. *sigh* There doesn't seem to be any good scale for gender dysphoria though. I found this, but it doesn't allow for measurement of change in dysphoria.

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That scale is useless. It's all basically the same thing five times, except with a differently tiered preamble. "This person experiences negligible/minor/moderate/severe/utter dysphoria, and a bunch of other factors may or may not apply." it's like not having a scale at all.

Also, there's a lot of random hanging asterisks in that vocabulary and terminology section.

That would be from Phee copying them over. It's an artefact of some notepa programs. They use different characters, so a double space, copies into the forum, instead becomes a space and an asterisk. I get that a lot when I quote people who use double spaces and put the quotes in notepad for future editing.

[Coidzor]

Point of order. Your original gender was female. So was mine. Testosterone caused mutations so that you ends up male, but technically everyone start life as a woman.

Point of order. We have no way of knowing or gauging the gender of fetal humans or if they even have such a thing.

Also, you're making the same mistake of conflating sex and gender as you were decrying earlier.

That scale is useless. It's all basically the same thing five times, except with a differently tiered preamble. "This person experiences negligible/minor/moderate/severe/utter dysphoria, and a bunch of other factors may or may not apply." it's like not having a scale at all.

Afraid to take a stand and actually make delineations, it would seem.

That would be from Phee copying them over. It's an artefact of some notepa programs. They use different characters, so a double space, copies into the forum, instead becomes a space and an asterisk. I get that a lot when I quote people who use double spaces and put the quotes in notepad for future editing.

Ugh.

Wait.

The forum's supposed to delete double-spacing.

[Lady Serpentine]

The human mind suffers degeneration if it cannot get tactile feedback, and even moreso if it doesn't get feedback along the lines of social touching. Pressure sensors in the skin wouldn't necessarily map to the degree of sensing we urgently have in our skin. There's a lot of data you aren't aware you're receiving that you'd lose. You would suddenly be bombarded by a lack of sensations. Being constantly cold, constantly disconnected.

You wouldn't be constantly cold if you had no way of sensing temperature. You'd be constantly lacking any sense of what temperature it was. Cold is not the same thing as 'unwarm'.

Also, you seem to be assuming that at a time when we can safely put ourselves into robot bodies, the most advanced technology we have for tactile sensations will be what we currently have. Which, really, makes no sense.

[the_druid_droid]

I have never heard the term ham beast when it was not being used colloquially for older versions of My Little Ponies.

I think this might also be a word in the Homestuck-verse? It's been a very long time since I followed the comic, but it sounds like something the trolls would say.

This already exists to a certain degree. According to a friend of mine, people are able to build a system, to compute things. The returned computations work, but are advanced enough that the humans can't retro engineer them to find out why or how they work.

Also, it's entirely possible that consciousness cannot be measured in logic gates. As an emergent property, it may not be an end-goal. There may be no configuration of binary circuitry possible that can purposefully create consciousness.

Can't wait for DD to check in here.

Speak of the Devil, and well, you know the rest.

I think you and I were talking about genetic algorithms at the time, which is similar to what Saskia is referring to, if I've read the post correctly. Although the nuts and bolts of those algorithms are out of my field, I would agree with her that the case of a computer-designed computer isn't necessarily a herald of AI. Primarily, that's because the fitness criteria and the weighting schemes are still determined by the programmers, so you do have to have some idea of what you're looking for beforehand. In that regard, "sentience" is too vague to make a successful search for, but something like "improved processing power for a given transistor density" might be getting into the realm of feasibility.

Gender means type. Gender can be used to mean a different type of thing, without referring to sexual characteristics (male/female/etc.) whatsoever. That the two are so correlated is unfortunate, but gender =/= sex. You are a male of the male type. That law is the "correct" word for both of those is confusing.

Think of it through comparison. Nudists. A nudist who is forced to wear clothes is uncomfortable. A non-nudist who has to go nude is uncomfortable. What happens if a child born to nudists, from a long line of nudists, wants to wear clothes but can't?

It's uncomfortable, painful, somewhat Embarassing, and everyone else considers it so much of a nonissue you get ridiculed for bringing it up. If you told your friends that your big existential crisis was you wanted to wear clothes but you couldn't, they would laugh.

This analogy actually offers some helpful perspective for an outsider. Thank you.

That would be from Phee copying them over. It's an artefact of some notepa programs. They use different characters, so a double space, copies into the forum, instead becomes a space and an asterisk. I get that a lot when I quote people who use double spaces and put the quotes in notepad for future editing.

Heh. I used to run myself ragged looking for non-existent footnotes in the Ponythread before we figured out what was going on with that...

[turkishproverb]

*package of hugs drop by via parachute*

I don't really know of any suggestions though. Are you looking for queer stuff in general or specifically stuff involving gay/bi men?

not sure. Just needed a good book to get my mind off some things.

*collects package* Thanks.


*puts it in storage just in case things get worse*

There. Now I have a supply of "Rainy day Hugs"

[noparlpf]

Point of order. Your original gender was female. So was mine. Testosterone caused mutations so that you ends up male, but technically everyone start life as a woman.

We generally accept "gender" to mean "mental sex". You're talking physical sex. For most of the time it's a fetus, a fetus doesn't have a mind to produce a gender; the brain doesn't develop until late in gestation. Therefore, by the time gender can develop, the body is already distinctly either male or female.
Further, testosterone does not cause mutations. My DNA has been largely the same since I was conceived (except for, you know, small errors in transcription and translation in most of my cells, because we're not perfect). Testosterone and estrogen and their relative concentrations are just different signals to the cells to develop in different ways.

[Serpentine]

Humans start out as female while fetuses. The Y chromosome switches on the stuff that makes the ovaries turn into testes, etc*, making those babies develop into males rather than the default female. Then at some point, as the brain matures and social influences and so on, gender - whatever that might mean - develops, and the male or female baby becomes a boy or a girl and eventually a man or a woman.*
I believe this is what SiuiS was referring to, although not particularly accurately (mutations? Starting life as a woman? ): that fetuses are, to start with, female, until the Y chromosome triggers the emergence of maleness.


*Except sometimes it doesn't.

[noparlpf]

Humans start out as female while fetuses. The Y chromosome switches on the stuff that makes the ovaries turn into testes, etc*, making those babies develop into males rather than the default female. Then at some point, as the brain matures and social influences and so on, gender - whatever that might mean - develops, and the male or female baby becomes a boy or a girl and eventually a man or a woman.*
I believe this is what SiuiS was referring to, although not particularly accurately (mutations? Starting life as a woman? ): that fetuses are, to start with, female, until the Y chromosome triggers the emergence of maleness.


*Except sometimes it doesn't.

Specifically, the SRY region on the Y chromosome; mutations there cause things like Swyer's...is that one a syndrome? And it can also cross to an X chromosome, causing issues there.
And it's more like the proto-ovaries develop into testes. Actual developed ovaries developing into testes would take a little more doing. And then the testes are largely responsible for testosterone signalling, from what little of human development I understand.

[Lentrax]

Specifically, the SRY region on the Y chromosome; mutations there cause things like Swyer's...is that one a syndrome? And it can also cross to an X chromosome, causing issues there.
And it's more like the proto-ovaries develop into testes. Actual developed ovaries developing into testes would take a little more doing. And then the testes are largely responsible for testosterone signalling, from what little of human development I understand.

Well, that's more than I know. Everything I know about human anatomy, I learned from Kindergarten Cop.

[blackfox]

I understand GSM folks are quite keen on calling each other with their mobiles. /obscuretechjoke

I actually sputtered out loud.

[Coidzor]

I actually sputtered out loud.

Sputtered?

I believe this is what SiuiS was referring to, although not particularly accurately (mutations? Starting life as a woman? ): that fetuses are, to start with, female, until the Y chromosome triggers the emergence of maleness.

Well, yes, but once you invoke the terrible power of the point of order, it just keeps going.