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Gender ID [message #6353]

Thu, 24 December 2009 12:04

mkemp
Messages: 421
Registered: April 2006

Senior Member

"Pakistan's Supreme Court says eunuchs must be allowed to identify themselves as a distinct gender in order to ensure their rights."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8428819.stm

Kinda on-topic here, but possibly in the wrong place.
Moderators, please move this if necessary.

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Re: Gender ID [message #6354]

Sat, 26 December 2009 02:02

Brooke
Messages: 695
Registered: August 2004
Location: Portland, OR

Senior Member

Well, anybody who has actually *studied* database design knows that "pick from a list" values *must* include "other" as a choice unless you want to have to rebuild everything the first time an unlisted item has to be added.

Eunuchs and the intersexed (as well as a lot of not so obvious genetic condition) pretty much make trying to restrict *physical* "sex" to just male/female an exercise in futility (and stupidity)

And even if you are willing to fight to restrict "social" sex (ie gender) to only two choices, trying to tie those the "sex" is dumb.

But too many people have far too much emotional investment in keeping things binary. At least outwardly.

An idea I've had for years but can't do justice to is a society that at first glance would look a lot like ours. The difference would be that "gender" isn't tied to "sex".

So kids would be *expected* to try both genders as they grew up. If they didn't settle on one, they'd be considered odd, but probably not as odd as the general public considers TGs now.

TSes would be unusual only in that they'd want their body changed.

Might still have problems with two masculine or two feminine types dating, much less getting married.

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Re: Gender ID [message #6361]

Fri, 29 January 2010 04:40

Eric
Messages: 641
Registered: January 2003
Location: San Francisco

Senior Member

Have you read Commitment Hour, by James Alan Gardner (Avon, 1998)?

From the jacket of the SF Book Club hardcover edition:

Quote:

Imagine changing sex from year to year until the age of 20. Then imagine that you must choose a gender to commit to: male or female. And that, by law, if you choose to be different -- to be both -- you become an outcast, despised, exiled or even killed.

As you might guess/hope, things start looking better for the IS-wannabes before the story ends...

(Gardner, born 1955, is a Canadian writer of science fiction and computer documentation, who won a Writers of the Future award in 1989. Commitment Hour is his second novel.)

Eric

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