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Gender Identity Poll


keira

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I recently saw a survey a person asked her facebook friends, and I thought the results were interesting. I would be so bold as to posit the same question here. Due to the polling system of IPB, I've had to host it offsite (While it's better than UBB, the only way to get meaningful data is by making user choices public, which is a Bad Idea). All info is, of course, completely anonymous and confidential. I will __not__ release individual responses, and I will make sure that any info that could be personally identifiable is lumped (similar to what slarty did with the grand poll).

 

The poll is available here. All radio-button answers are shuffled, and most have an "other" option where you can provide your own answer if the ones I made do not fit (This is the case in many of them, as I didn't want to inundate the surveyor with terms they may or may not not be familiar with. Just write 'em in if you know them! :p).

 

Please feel free to discuss the poll and related stuff, but please keep it civil. We don't need a one-year anniversary of Gendergate. :)

Edited by sylae
typo fix
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I will __not__ release individual responses, and I will make sure that any info that could be personally identifiable is lumped (similar to what slarty did with the grand poll).

As long as gender doesn't get lumped into "male" and "other" again. Blech.

 

Agreed. If there was a fault with the poll, it's that I couldn't explain myself adequately in the space provided. It's almost like you didn't want to read an essay or something.

The trick is to write your essays entirely in abbreviations and text speak. :p

 

Dikiyoba.

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Hmm. I think the question that gets to me most is the one about helping a transgender friend get a job in a possibly hostile environment.

 

I would say that, yes, I would put in a word for the friend anyway. Unemployment is, as it were, serious business. But it would be tough...

- Having people insulting you openly and gossiping behind your back really takes its toll. I still remember high school; and relatively speaking I had an easy time of it.

- I could always try to educate my coworkers a bit (or, to put it more bluntly, tell them they were being offensive and callous).

- OTOH, me going into White Knight mode would probable make things worse for the hypothetical friend, and embarrass them to boot.

- Going to the management about it might work... If the management were decent, competent, and living in the 21st century. Unfortunately that is not always the case.

 

(And that's not even touching on the possibility of physical violence, which I'm wholly unequipped to deal with. The police at least tend to be sympathetic around here, but officers arriving on the scene 5 minutes after the fact can't save the victim from getting brain damage.)

 

Ultimately I would have to let my friend make their own decisions, and not hamper them. OTOH, I have to look out for my friends, or I can't very well call them friends can I? I would have to at least give the friend a fair warning, and try to help if things went bad, and... You get the idea.

 

TL;DR the world would be a much nicer place if decent people didn't hold (and act on) vile ideas.

 

Edit: "world," not "would." Stupid lack of sleep.

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A couple of questions seemed ambiguous to me. One mentioned 'perceived gender' but didn't say by whom perceived. Specifying the perceiver could easily reverse the question's answer. Another mentioned something being 'all in the head', but I found this a strange question. Most things are 'all in the head', in the sense that they're in your brain. So?

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Another mentioned something being 'all in the head', but I found this a strange question. Most things are 'all in the head', in the sense that they're in your brain.

 

I took that to mean you can't really be attracted to someone of your own gender and that you're just thinking things up (because you're human), which was what I thought until I read that animals display same-sexual behaviour also (Wiki).

 

-CC-

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Sure, but I'm pretty sure that all those instincts originate somewhere in the brain, as opposed to, say, the pancreas.

 

This may be nitpicking, but it's relevant nitpicking. The fact that the brain is a material, biological organ, albeit of mysterious function, is why people can't just decide to be different from how they are. Nothing is 'all in your head', because everything is all in your head. So it's an unfortunate turn of phrase in this context.

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Sorry for the ambiguous wording, some of this was by design (and a bad idea, it seems) and some just happened.

 

With regards specifically to the "in your head" question, I find myself easily able to think about what this means, but very hard to put down in text properly. I will most likely end up revising this survey based on feedback like this, so keep it coming!

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@Miramor:

 

I thought about this one a bit, too, but my feeling was that it wasn't up to me to decide how much my friend was willing to tolerate. If they wanted this job, then that was their call, and I'd help them as much as I legitimately could, to get it. If I thought they might not know the job environment, I guess I'd try to discuss it with them first, to see if they still wanted the job. But it's also worth bearing in mind that a lot of people change their attitudes when they meet a real person. Being transgender probably means counting on that a fair amount, at least for a lot of people. So my hypothetical friend would probably be willing to try a tougher-seeming environment than I might at first think. It would be their call, anyway.

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Sure, but I'm pretty sure that all those instincts originate somewhere in the brain, as opposed to, say, the pancreas.

 

This may be nitpicking, but it's relevant nitpicking. The fact that the brain is a material, biological organ, albeit of mysterious function, is why people can't just decide to be different from how they are. Nothing is 'all in your head', because everything is all in your head. So it's an unfortunate turn of phrase in this context.

 

well, no, everything isn't all in your head, if only because there are other people's heads to consider as well. something as closely tied to social roles as gender still is can't really be dismissed as an individual matter

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With regards specifically to the "in your head" question, I find myself easily able to think about what this means, but very hard to put down in text properly.

If it helps any, what I thought the question was probably getting at was whether or not a person can change their gender identity if they try. This is a subtle issue, of course, since people can certainly pretend to have a different gender, and people can sometimes pretend things without realizing that they're only pretending. On the one hand, with some things, pretending is being; If you pretend well enough to be a great salesperson, then you really are one. On the other hand you can't pretend to be eight inches taller. Gender identity clearly falls somewhere between those two extremes, and the question about whether one can change gender identity by trying is the question of exactly where between them it falls: closer to height, or to salesmanship. To me, this is precisely the right question, so 'can one change gender identity by trying' seems like a good way to phrase the question.

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well, no, everything isn't all in your head, if only because there are other people's heads to consider as well. something as closely tied to social roles as gender still is can't really be dismissed as an individual matter

Yes, actually I was just thinking that. In particular, thinking about just where gender identity might really lie, on the spectrum between height and salesmanship, I figured that the answer might well depend on social context, because gender identity means different things in different cultures. It may also depend on the individual, though. Character is the limit of culture as N goes to one.

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this is why i mentioned in one of my poll answers that "gender identity" is a problematic term btw: gender is as much a system of social roles as a matter of individual identity. unfortunately we haven't really come up with a better term (in fact, a better term for what? there isn't even agreement on the nature of the phenomenon we're trying to name). "subconscious sex" or "brain sex" are sometimes used but those terms imply things about etiology that aren't yet proven and aren't necessarily relevant anyway

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One of my comments on the poll was that for most people it probably isn't a phenomenon at all, in the sense that it's just not on their radar. If anyone finds it hard to see how that could be true, except by some kind of self-deceiving pretense, then I'm afraid that's the point: it's intuitively hard for most people to see how gender identity could be anything but obvious, except by some kind of self-deceiving pretense. I think that's kind of the whole deal. Discussing gender identity is like a dialog between the color-blind and the tone-deaf.

 

That's why I find the neuropsychology angle most helpful. Color blindness and tone deafness are useful touchstones. There are a zillion ways in which perception is filtered for all of us, and assumptions are hardwired. Seeing gender identity and sexual orientation as examples of this very general fact seems to me to defuse the whole issue. Brains are complicated, but people exist. Okay; fine.

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Hmm. I'll echo the lack of space complaint - I felt particularly crippled on the "gender identity" question.

 

Also, (and I'll risk sounding patronising here, because some of the replies in this thread make it clear I need to be) hopefully everybody is properly distinguishing between sex and gender. Neither are completely straight-forward, but one is certainly much easier to pin down than the other.

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To me, this is precisely the right question, so 'can one change gender identity by trying' seems like a good way to phrase the question.

The answer is either "yes and no" or "no." Some people's gender might be malleable or flexible and be able to choose, but for most people it's not a choice. If it were a choice, the suicide rate for transgender people wouldn't be at 33-40 percent.

 

this is why i mentioned in one of my poll answers that "gender identity" is a problematic term btw: gender is as much a system of social roles as a matter of individual identity. unfortunately we haven't really come up with a better term (in fact, a better term for what? there isn't even agreement on the nature of the phenomenon we're trying to name). "subconscious sex" or "brain sex" are sometimes used but those terms imply things about etiology that aren't yet proven and aren't necessarily relevant anyway

Dikiyoba's personal definition is gender identity is the individual, well, identity, while gender roles are the social aspects.

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I have no qualms about recommending a trans friend for a job as long as I've done my due diligence and been blunt about my concerns about the workplace to the friend. It's not my choice whether to work there, it's his or hers. And given how many workplaces are trans-phobic, it's better to have a good job with people who cause misery than a bad job with people who cause misery.

 

I also had trouble with "all in your head." That can be used to mean that it's a choice, that it's psychopathology, that it's not even real and is some kind of misguided failure of understanding, or that it is, as SoT suggests, a matter that is mental rather than somehow physical. Although I'd be careful about suggesting that the mind is all the brain! Hormones are also important, and while yes, we mostly care about hormones acting on the brain, it's amazing how much effect on state of mind an induced racing heartbeat can have. MInd-body connection very much goes both ways.

 

 

After that tangent, though, I don't think transgenderism is a choice (who would choose so much difficulty?), that it's pathological (although it can include elements of pathological body dysmorphia, I don't think it has to), or that it's somehow fake. I do think it's all in the head; it's a state of mind. It's especially important to recognize that it can be only mind: there are people who see themselves as transgender without having any objection to their bodies or desire for surgical reassignment, or even hypothetical perfect sex-switching.

 

My answer also touched on gender as a complicated issue, though. Gender is how you see yourself, but it's also how others see you—because a large part of how you see yourself is how you see yourself reflected in the eyes of others. Social cues are powerful. But gender is both perceived internally and performed externally; one can be transgender but in the closet, so to speak, and it doesn't make the transgenderism any less real. In fact, that was another question that I had trouble with: do I think I can recognize people who are transgender? No, of course not. Some pass perfectly as a gender that is not... the same as their sex? The gender they grew up with? The gender I would have guessed for them? Whatever it is, they pass. Others make no attempt to pass at all, and consider internal identity more important than any external presentation. In that case I can't tell because there's nothing to see.

 

—Alorael, who in conclusion thinks that binary sex and binary sexuality has problems because sex has messy intersex possibilities as well. Gender is a problem only because it is so socially, and psychologically, laden with meaning. Allowing people to pick gender freely would be good, but abolishing the recognition of gender roles, and thus largely of gender itself, would be better. Certainly not quick or easy but better. And it also separates out the gender dysphoria from the body dysmorphia. (The latter is more likely to be pathological; sexual characteristic dysmorphia is fortunately one of the problems that seems more amenable to treatment.)

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Re "it's all in your head"...

 

For me, it really was all in my head. There was a time when I questioned my gender identity, but it became clear at a certain point that it was about what I wanted to be - an idealized concept of myself, not what I actually was. Maybe it was "just a phase," maybe it was me fooling myself; but in any case, my body image and my thought patterns match the gender role I was born into pretty much exactly. I don't like that, but it's my personality as well as my body; I can't change it.

 

(It also occurs to me that being raised in a certain gender role may override a person's phenotype. But the mechanism doesn't really matter for me.)

 

Anyway, point is it can be "just a phase" or "all in your head." However, what's true for one person can't always be generalized to everyone. That is the only solid rule here, I think - that it's all dependent on the person.

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I am curious as to what criterion people use to decide how they are perceived online, because if you know the person in real life the answer obviously stays the same as in real life, if you don't actually know them in real life how can you determine what they think about you?, even if there is some way to find out, does the answer actually change from that of real life unless you are actively trying to behave in a manner you don't in real life?

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I am curious as to what criterion people use to decide how they are perceived online, because if you know the person in real life the answer obviously stays the same as in real life, if you don't actually know them in real life how can you determine what they think about you?, even if there is some way to find out, does the answer actually change from that of real life unless you are actively trying to behave in a manner you don't in real life?

 

You could ask? Listen out for any gendered pronouns people use to describe you? Stuff like that.

 

I find that people online often perceive me as being female (both in terms of sex as well as gender, because for a lot of people the two are interchangeable and what they really mean is "you have a vagina" - which is an issue in its own right), and yet physically I'm a male. Of course, my name probably has a lot to do with it, but even in places where I don't use my name to identify myself, I obviously act "feminine", or rather, don't act "masculine" enough,

 

(Also, if "full quid" means what I think it does, please refrain from using it. Insulting another member due to your perception of their intelligence is not cool.)

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That wasn't the implication, nor was it meant or used as an insult. It was moreso an "are you serious?"

That's not really what the expression means, so I'd be careful about using it the way you did.

 

Anyway, whichever possible meaning you choose, Lilith is absolutely stuffed with quid. There are banks less full of quid than she is. If she ever visits the UK it will cause hyperinflation.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

As Ernie has implied, this topic was way dead a few days ago. Can we all just let it return to its (hopefully) eternal slumber? If anybody wants to start a new discussion about gender/identity, then, of course, feel free to. Just let this old-timer pass on. Cheers!

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Just for clarity: topic necromancy (posting in a long-dormant topic) is frowned upon, unless you have something genuinely new and useful to add. ("I responded to the poll" does not qualify.) Mistah Q, that was all that we (the moderators) were trying to convey to you. It's not that you're "not welcome," it's just that you're supposed to follow basic etiquette like everyone else.

 

Frankly, if you weren't welcome, we'd ban you. Since we haven't done that, you can conclude that you're fine. Consider this a gentle reminder, not a reason to leave the boards.

 

As far as this topic, I think it deserves to be laid to its final rest.

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