Vaarsuvius is genderfluid?

[Mx56]

After seeing all the head-butting on this thread, I have done a little research, and apparently (surprise) there are multiple definitions of the word genderqueer.

The definition I am familiar with is "anyone who is not cisgender". However, it seems that it can also be used to mean "anyone who does not identify with a strictly male or female gender, regardless of their Sex Assigned at Birth".

To be honest, I've never heard the term used in the former sense (familiar with queer as an umbrella term for anybody who is either not cisgender or not heterosexual, but that's not quite the same thing), but fair enough that does explain some of the cross purposes being talked at.

The funny thing is though, "people who don't believe in gender roles" would fall under the term no matter which definition you use

I'm not so sure about that. I don't want to stray into discussing real world politics on here because thems the rules, but somebody might reject gender roles as being socially harmful while still not themselves being cisgender (identifying with the binary gender assigned to them at birth), they "don't believe in gender roles" in the sense that they don't like them and don't seek to adhere to them, but they still have a binary gender and are not genderqueer in the sense that I would use it and are cis so not genderqueer in the sense that you would use it.

[DaggerPen]

What would one base one's gender identity on, if not traditional gender roles? What does gender consist of, if not gender roles and grammar?

That's a good question, isn't it?

I'm a cis queer woman. I feel very comfortable in my identity as female, and can feel a little uncomfortable when perceived otherwise, something that happens surprisingly often based on my... less than endowed frame, short hair and tendency to prefer multiple layers of loose androgynous clothing because that's way comfier than the paper thin really tight shirts that plague women's clothing.

At the same time, I definitely do not remotely conform to my own culture's conception of female gender roles. I like computers, science and comics. I can't cook to save my life. I despise clothes and shoe shopping and only barely tolerate shopping if it gets me books or games/game paraphernalia. I have short hair. Oh yeah, and I am sexually and romantically attracted to other women (as well as to men and nonbinary folks.) So where does my identification as a woman come from?

Gender roles, certainly, vary wildly by time and culture. And yet, though a lot of original traditions have been sadly destroyed by colonialism, making it hard to be sure, it seems like most cultures at least have had some conception of gender. The fact that it's typically associated with genitalia implies that whatever gender is, there is some correlation between gonads, sex chromosomes, and gender.

The existence of trans people and the fact that many cultures have had some form of third gender (and not necessarily ones associated with being intersex, though the construction of sex as a binary thing is in and of itself an interesting topic) implies that, while related, gender is not wholly reducible to physical sex.

The existence of sexual and romantic orientations by gender, and the history of third genders as including attraction to particular genders, indicates some tie between orientation and gender as a concept, and yet the current framework of orientations in which we can distinguish gender identity, sexual orientation and romantic orientation indicates that they are not innately the same thing.

Gender roles are culture dependent. The particular configuration of gender categories is something that does vary by culture but that does have some commonalities between them. It's related to sex, sexual orientation and romantic orientation, but is not wholly synonymous.

So what exactly is gender? Probably, it's the lens through which different cultures categorize broad variations in gonads, hormone levels (probably prenatal), various body feelings, and roles that people within those categories may fall into due to broad cultural trends. Will it stay the same over time, even within cultures? Probably not! Will we ever be entirely rid of it? I doubt it.

Basically - gender: heck if we know what it means, but we know it when we feel it.

[littlebum2002]

I'm simply stating a fact. Plenty of people don't accept traditional gender roles but still identify as either male or female.

Eddie Izzard, for example

I'm not so sure about that. I don't want to stray into discussing real world politics on here because thems the rules, but somebody might reject gender roles as being socially harmful while still not themselves being cisgender (identifying with the binary gender assigned to them at birth), they "don't believe in gender roles" in the sense that they don't like them and don't seek to adhere to them, but they still have a binary gender and are not genderqueer in the sense that I would use it and are cis so not genderqueer in the sense that you would use it.

That makes sense, not everyone who believes in Gender Nominalism is genderqueer. I'll rephrase my statement:

"I can't think of any definition of genderqueer which would not include Vaarsuvius"

[Mx56]

That makes sense, not everyone who believes in Gender Nominalism is genderqueer. I'll rephrase my statement:

"I can't think of any definition of genderqueer which would not include Vaarsuvius"

I think we can agree on that, aye :)

And quibbling over terminology aside, I appreciate the fact that Rich included a non-binary character in his story, given how rare that is in fiction, and a non-binary character whose story and character traits don't centre around their gender at that, which is rare as rocking horse dung.

[Themrys]

And quibbling over terminology aside, I appreciate the fact that Rich included a non-binary character in his story, given how rare that is in fiction, and a non-binary character whose story and character traits don't centre around their gender at that, which is rare as rocking horse dung.

I don't think it's that rare. It's just that most fictional characters who don't identify as masculine or feminine gendered are easily identifiable as belonging to the female or male sex, and it is just assumed that they are therefore identifying with the gender role commonly assigned to their sex, even if they never say so.

According to the definition of "doesn't identify as any gender in particular" probably lots and lots of fictional characters are "genderqueer" without people even noticing.

As for characters explicitly stated to be genderqueer ...

Without even looking something up, the webcomic Blindsprings has a genderqueer character that is explicitly described as such, and the novel Ancilliary Justice has a protagonist who comes from a culture that has no gendered language, and no concept of gender, making the main protagonist and a lot of side characters about as non-binary as Vaarsuvius.

And let's not forget that Pratchett's dwarves discovered femininity only very recently. Which might mean that they also fall under the umbrella term of "genderqueer". (If there is no feminine gender, does that not make the masculine gender a non-binary one, then?)


I could mention more, but I don't want to derail this into a book recommendations thread.

[Psyren]

After seeing all the head-butting on this thread, I have done a little research, and apparently (surprise) there are multiple definitions of the word genderqueer.

The definition I am familiar with is "anyone who is not cisgender". However, it seems that it can also be used to mean "anyone who does not identify with a strictly male or female gender, regardless of their Sex Assigned at Birth".

The funny thing is though, "people who don't believe in gender roles" would fall under the term no matter which definition you use, so I still fail to see a definition of Genderqueer in which V would not be identified as such. Maybe there's a 3rd definition out there that Themrys is using.

All of this, and also - while I personally was using the first definition you have here - the second one is important too, specifically the clause "does not identify," which can have multiple meanings itself. It can mean that the person disagrees with/actively opposes any attempts to label them, or it can mean that they are simply apathetic and don't care about/oppose the perceptions and pronouns of others (except when those others press the issue or express frustration at being unable to fit them into a neat box.) Vaarsuvius is clearly the latter of those two, even to the point of explicitly telling Roy to write whatever he feels like writing into the gender box on V's application form because it matters so little.

[dps]

Yes, the fact that you repeated the bolded does not make it any less dubious.

Edit: I suppose I should explain myself. Since Tarquin IS, plainly, freaking out, and it's ALSO clear Rich is referring to Vaarsuvius, your logic is essentially saying "Nuh-uh, the author isn't talking about who he's talking about."

In other words, you can say it wouldn't "ruffle an old guard like Tarquin" all you want... and yet, there Tarquin is, ruffled.

But the Giant didn't say that Tarquin was freaking out over V being, genderqueer or whatever V is, he's freaking out over the other straight white male not being the focus of the narrative. Quite a different thing. There's not any evidence that Tarquin has any particular problem or animus towards non-straight people--see his reaction to Roy and Belkar pretending to be gay.

[Mastikator]

I don't think it's that rare. It's just that most fictional characters who don't identify as masculine or feminine gendered are easily identifiable as belonging to the female or male sex, and it is just assumed that they are therefore identifying with the gender role commonly assigned to their sex, even if they never say so.

According to the definition of "doesn't identify as any gender in particular" probably lots and lots of fictional characters are "genderqueer" without people even noticing.

As for characters explicitly stated to be genderqueer ...

Without even looking something up, the webcomic Blindsprings has a genderqueer character that is explicitly described as such, and the novel Ancilliary Justice has a protagonist who comes from a culture that has no gendered language, and no concept of gender, making the main protagonist and a lot of side characters about as non-binary as Vaarsuvius.

And let's not forget that Pratchett's dwarves discovered femininity only very recently. Which might mean that they also fall under the umbrella term of "genderqueer". (If there is no feminine gender, does that not make the masculine gender a non-binary one, then?)


I could mention more, but I don't want to derail this into a book recommendations thread.

Considering that fraction of any population of people who identify as nonbinary is less than 1/1000 one could argue that genderqueer characters are as overrepresented as white people.

[Fey]

Considering that fraction of any population of people who identify as nonbinary is less than 1/1000 one could argue that genderqueer characters are as overrepresented as white people.

As a genderqueer person, I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree with your analysis.

I identify as two-spirit (a person with both a male and female identity coexisting at the same time), and I am in a relationship with someone who identifies as nonbinary and genderfluid (her presentation and self-identification are constantly in flux, making it impossible for her to fit into a single label).

I've researched a number of gender-related topics before, and I think it can be important to use actual statistics instead of guesstimates.

This paper quotes several gender-based population studies. One that says "4.6% of people assigned male at birth and 3.2% of people assigned female at birth reported an ‘ambivalent gender identity’ (defined as equal identification with the other sex as with the sex assigned to them at birth) and 1.1% of people assigned male at birth and 0.8% of people assigned female at birth reported an ‘incongruent gender identity’ (defined as stronger identification with the other sex as with the sex assigned to them at birth)." Another that says "the prevalence of ‘gender ambivalence’ or non-binary gender was 1.8% in natal men and 4.1% in natal women."

And when it comes to "wider gender experience and expression, rather than specific identities," they found that "35% felt that they were to some extent the ‘other’ gender, ‘both’ genders, and/or neither gender."

Then there's this study, which states "Reliable figures show that at least 0.4% of the UK population defines as nonbinary when given a 3-way choice in terms of female, male or another description. That’s about 1 in every 250 people."

Furthermore, your claim that nonbinary people are "over represented" would require an analysis of the percentage of characters (whether in OotS or other media) who are represented as nonbinary. To the best of my knowledge (and please correct me if you have better information), Vaarsuvius is the only character in OotS who has an uncertain gender identity, and even that is ambiguous...I would argue that V doesn't even count as "nonbinary representation" because their presentation in the comic has always been deliberately vague and ambiguous, which is not the same as being nonbinary. But even assuming you take the Giant's word as a clear definition rather than as a general comment, V would still not consist of "over representation" since there are hundreds of binary characters in the comic. If we use the 1 in 250 statistic I posted above (which is the smallest figure; based on the other study, it could be more than that), there would need to be at least 1 nonbinary OotS character per every 250 total characters in the comic. The "Number of Character Appearances" thread lists well over that number of characters.

[Mastikator]

Vaarsuvius is not the only genderqueer character in the comic. Vaarsuvius has a spouse who is also genderqueer.

The list you gave had 65 nonminor characters and 112 minor characters. A grand total of 177 characters, of which 2 are genderqueer.

[Porthos]

Since most works of fiction don't have hundreds of characters of any real importance arguing statistics is a GREAT way of turning under-repesented folks into never-represented folks.

Just sayin'.

[Ruck]

But the Giant didn't say that Tarquin was freaking out over V being, genderqueer or whatever V is, he's freaking out over the other straight white male not being the focus of the narrative. Quite a different thing. There's not any evidence that Tarquin has any particular problem or animus towards non-straight people--see his reaction to Roy and Belkar pretending to be gay.

OK? I think you are taking this post out of context, and should read my other posts on this subject.

[Vinyadan]

Just like cars right?

Being a human invention doesn't mean it isn't something that exists in the real world. It just means it might not be a very accurate or good way to describe things. Which means it can change. I don't think many people think that gender is an unchanging universal law. Hence why it is expanding to be able to include people who didn't fit into it before.

Also it seems like that definition doesn't actually have much to do with what gender someone is. Thinking gender is a human invention doesn't mean you aren't part of it. I think names are a human invention and I still have a name.

By your definition I would guess most of us are gender atheists. At least if we ignore the implication that human inventions aren't real.

Also you seem to think that a human invention can't also be a real thing. At least you don't think social constructs are real things.

I think it has more to do with humour theory in medicine, by which I don't mean Patch Adams, but the belief in the influence of certain bodily fluids on a man's behaviour (blood, bile, mucus and so on). It is a much better comparison, because cars are physical objects which can be directly studied, while a theory of humours or a theory of genders are attempts to develop a reference system for phenomenons (an abundance of phlegma, the presence of a gender or orientation) which can only be observed through results (behaviour).

Btw, wouldn't "gender skeptic" be a better definition than gender atheist? Gender atheist sounds weirdly like an oblique attack to the intransigence of gender theorists. Gender nominalist would bring us back to the times of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas and the problem of universals.

Vaarsuvius is not the only genderqueer character in the comic. Vaarsuvius has a spouse who is also genderqueer.

Do we know that? Inky could really be anything.

[martianmister]

Vaarsuvius is not the only genderqueer character in the comic. Vaarsuvius has a spouse who is also genderqueer.

Kyrie is obviously a Pansexual.

[Mastikator]

Kyrie is obviously a Pansexual.

One does not preclude the other