I've spent most of my life wishing I had been born female; stressing over it and trying to forget it, and pretty much driving myself crazy over it. I have hang-ups about my male body, I despise being treated like a "man" and so on. You get the point. So I must be MtF, right?
Well, no. Apparently that's not right.
It recently occured to me that I've been thinking of myself in binary terms. I was never able to picture myself in a female gender role without feeling awkward about it. It's much the same way I feel when I get hit up with "bro talk." Only I at least have experience being treated as a guy, so I can navigate the cismale world with relative ease. But I have no experience being female, and frankly I'm not interested in being a woman per se. It seems it's more complicated than that.
I realized it's not that I want to be female; I want to be female-bodied. I want to be the person I already am, only in the body that better fits my internal self image. I'm not male, I knew that already. I'm not female, that's not a shocker either. For so long I kept trying to wedge myself into one or the other, and neither ever really fit. Female was always a much more comfortable image of myself, but I couldn't picture myself as anything more than a female-bodied person. And that actually makes sense to me now. I feel like my body should be female because my gender, whatever it is, aligns with that body. But I don't want to be treated like a woman any more than I want to be treated like a man.
So I threw out the binary dictionary (both words! I'm so wasteful!) and I started looking for a definition that fits me better. And then I realized I was still stuck in binary thinking, trying to define myself in non-binary terms with a binary explanation. ::)
So I'm trying to disabuse myself of gender labels in the hope of understanding myself better. But I feel like I'm out in the cold and I once again have no idea what I am, except different, which I already knew.
That I'm different, is the only thing I've been sure of all my life. I thought I had gotten past this part. :-\
I'm beginning to think gender is as complex and diverse as personality; that everyone experiences their gender differently. So each person's gender would be unique. Genders like snowflakes? :D
So anyway, I'll be poking around your neck of the woods for a little while, and hopefully I can open my mind in the process and learn to see things from a higher vantage point. I feel like my perspective is still too narrow to see myself clearly.
After a very short time working with people who have gender dysphoria I have realise that there are no definitions, there are no categories. I counsel so called cis people as well and I haven't met two who have the same concept of their sexuality and identity when pushed to think about it.
We seem more attuned to wanting to fit into some sort of category so we can be 'normal'.
Waste of time.
We are.
And that becomes the problem, we then want to be validated as normal.
And how do you validate the obvious?
Because in some countries you have strident (usually religious) groups or politicians who have a position of vocal power they think they can invalidate your belief in yourself.
They cannot:
I'm black. I'm white, I'm yellow, I'm a blend. Which is the right one?
All of them.
Same with gender.
Cindy
Quote from: Cindy on August 29, 2013, 03:34:18 AM
After a very short time working with people who have gender dysphoria I have realise that there are no definitions, there are no categories. I counsel so called cis people as well and I haven't met two who have the same concept of their sexuality and identity when pushed to think about it.
We seem more attuned to wanting to fit into some sort of category so we can be 'normal'.
Waste of time.
We are.
And that becomes the problem, we then want to be validated as normal.
And how do you validate the obvious?
Because in some countries you have strident (usually religious) groups or politicians who have a position of vocal power they think they can invalidate your belief in yourself.
They cannot:
I'm black. I'm white, I'm yellow, I'm a blend. Which is the right one?
All of them.
Same with gender.
Cindy
You're right. I have definitely worried about being discovered as being different -- not like "normal" people. I doubt I'm alone in that feeling.
I like that you said "so called cis." I'm beginning to wonder if trans and cis are anything more than adjectives. If you think about it, if gender is complex and not all neat and orderly like we were taught to believe, then trans and cis both lose their meaning outside politics and bigotry. The concepts themselves are just a way to identify something less tangible than societies are generally comfortable dealing with. So maybe that cis guy down the street has a more complex gender identity than I do, but he doesn't question it because it fits him and what's expected of him by others.
Of course I don't mean to invalidate anyone's experience. I'm just pondering, that's all. :)
My working life uses technology that uses the energy that happens when you hit chemicals with a laser. They then emit energy.
What you see is a spectrum.
There is no good or bad place on that spectrum, there is just a place.
It is the same in gender and in sex.
Of course sex and gender are different.
But that is also a simple hang up for some people.
To make it fun. Me or it that I?
I'm married to a woman who I love and loves me, We have a 30 yr marriage, we have not had sex for about 27 years. She is, due to a terrible accident, in a nursing home.
I have a boyfriend who is straight.
I'm a heterosexual female.
So, bear with me:
I'm a straight female, legally married to a female, who lives with her male boyfriend, who cannot legally be seen as female on my marriage certificate because same sex marriage is illegal in Australia. and while my gender marker has been changed legally on every document
So.
Don't worry about labels!!!!
We are normal!!!
In an odd way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Quote from: Jillian on August 29, 2013, 03:08:26 AM
So I threw out the binary dictionary (both words! I'm so wasteful!) and I started looking for a definition that fits me better. And then I realized I was still stuck in binary thinking, trying to define myself in non-binary terms with a binary explanation. ::)
this gave me a real laugh. thanks a lot.
that dictionary doesn't sound very helpful in describing people, you'd be missing all the important words.
QuoteI'm beginning to think gender is as complex and diverse as personality; that everyone experiences their gender differently. So each person's gender would be unique. Genders like snowflakes? :D
sounds similar to what ativan uses to say. i like to use colors instead. seems they've already gotten to 48 bits, which would be trillions of color. definitely enough to cover all humans in the world. unfortunately the human eye can only discriminate only up to ten million colors, so we're not likely to be able to see the difference between each and every gender that exists. and many will look very similar, so similar many think we only need two words to describe them all (are they color blind?)[/quote]
QuoteSo anyway, I'll be poking around your neck of the woods for a little while, and hopefully I can open my mind in the process and learn to see things from a higher vantage point. I feel like my perspective is still too narrow to see myself clearly.
reminds me of this story from a hunter. he once got an elk calf so close that he could only see hairs in the rifle scope, so he had to look outsite it to get a good aim.
Jillian, I try not to worry about labels too much. They just confuse me, because I tend to be genderfluid - a very non-binary concept - and then I get upset at it all.
Labels are only useful if you want to describe yourself to someone else.
We see things like trans*, cis*, MtF, FtM, and the like. If I have to put a label on it for people here, I might use:
A(maab) ---> A(fem)
[which reads, androgyne (male assigned at birth) to androgyne (femininized)]
As I feel I embody aspects of both the major genders, ideally I would like my predominately male body to reflect that.
Some binary folks like to think, like bi people, were simply in a transitory stage of discovery when we find ourselves under the nonbinary umbrella, and that eventually we're going to stop fooling around and pick one or the other already. Hogwash!
How many of us found that being MtF or FtM was the transitory stage? Many more than they'll ever admit.
There's a terrible pressure to be one or the other or to want to be one or othe other. Don't give in. ;)
Jillian! Welcome to the Forest!
The adventure begins.
When it comes to gender, there are no two people who are exactly alike.
This is important. Really important.
Terms used are descriptive. They not only have meaning to the person using them, but also to the person hearing them.
Rarely do they mean the same thing to each person.
When you use them to tell people who you are, they are going to hear something different than you meant.
That's the downfall of using a description as a label. Stop it.
Don't let labels beat you up by confining yourself to them.
We simply do not do that here. For the most part, there is always the exception.
Most of the discussions around topics here will almost always reflect that one way or another.
Taka likes to use colors as a way of describing gender, and uses it very effectively.
Cindy uses a spectrum to describe gender. It works very well to understand gender.
Everyone has their own approach to it.
The ability to understand the diversity of it, is key to finding your own way.
Gender, gender roles or presentation, and orientation.
All separate, but they all reflect that diversity.
I use a spectrum and a very broad division of gender into to different groups that overlap all over the place.
I use it to help define some of the differences in thinking about gender from two different viewpoints.
There is the binary spectrum and then there is the non-binary not a spectrum.
It's useful to realize that indeed you can have a spectrum of characteristics between male and female.
Some people feel comfortable in finding a small space to a large place on that spectrum.
Binary thinking. It seems to be a comfortable way of viewing gender for quite a few people.
From a non-binary view, this doesn't work. Again the problem of descriptive terms comes up.
We seem to be all over the map in terms of a spectrum, which would appear to be a problem.
It's not. We just have a need to pick and choose from all over the place, never being satisfied with just an area on a spectrum.
Simply put, there are binary and there are non-binary. Don't let that confuse you.
It's simply a way to loosely describe the way we think.
Binaries seem (I don't really know, I assume a lot here) comfortable with a spectrum.
Non-binaries are comfortable with pick and choose from all over that spectrum.
I just define it as a way of thinking about gender. It seems like a legitimate split in the way *Trans People think.
But keep in mind that nobody is confined to thinking in any given way. Binary or Non-Binary.
Like I said, there is a lot of overlap in gender, and gender thinking.
There are people who find themselves moving between Binary and Non-Binary thinking all the time.
It's not unusual, it's usually the result of finding better information that leads to decisions that they are comfortable in making.
I talk about things in terms of binary and non-binary. I'm comfortable with it.
But only because I have been questioning gender and seek answers to my own thoughts and feelings about it.
So the best advice I can give anyone, is to get as much information as possible before making any kind of decisions.
Find that vantage point you are comfortable with.
If you want to know about non-binary, just dig through the topics in this section and read the threads.
The diversity of ideas and views can be overwhelming at first, but the more you know, the better it gets.
There are pages of topics, some short threads, some long.
They all have a tendency to overlap or intersect at points.
We commonly refer to them as paths in this forest.
We are not an exclusive group. Neither is binary. You'll find some of everyone here.
It's a place where different is the normal. Gender description is diverse and doesn't follow any well worn path in life.
Gender morphs into whatever you want it to be. Because it can.
Gender is an ongoing process for many people here. You're not confined by descriptions.
Look around, you just might find a place you want to be. Always a good thing, finding yourself.
But also be aware that you can wander to your hearts content in descriptions.
We refrain from using labels, but use descriptions instead, knowing that they mean different things to different people.
Lots of discussion about those. We learn from each other. We will learn from you as well.
You sound like you're ready to start viewing gender on your own terms.
Hand around, read and consider. Nothing is written in stone here.
You'll find plenty of binaries who visit, for their own reasons.
Maybe it's because we just can't take things too seriously about gender definitions.
We take gender seriously enough, it's just the lack of true non-binary definitions.
It's the definitions that seem loose and fuzzy or wibbly-wobbly, to borrow a term.
We use binary words, because that's what the bulk of our languages use.
We just define them from a different viewpoint.
What a long redundant explanation this is. But it's how that works here.
Ideas and descriptions of things are always changing. We grow as people.
Look around and discover the things you're looking for.
You'll find answers to questions you haven't begun to ask, yet.
We do that, not only to ourselves, but to those who come to visit.
Either way, see you around on the paths. :)
Ativan
Quote from: Cindy on August 29, 2013, 04:33:57 AM
I'm a straight female, legally married to a female, who lives with her male boyfriend, who cannot legally be seen as female on my marriage certificate because same sex marriage is illegal in Australia. and while my gender marker has been changed legally on every document
Wow! That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
It's good that they didn't declare your marriage null and void, but it's pretty convoluted logic to acknowledge you as female under their own laws and then contradict
their own laws when it comes to marriage.
Just legalize marriage already! Forget "same-sex marriage." Marriage! Between people! Because right now, in most of the world, marriage is an exclusive club that "don't serve your kind here."
Quote from: Taka on August 29, 2013, 05:05:40 AM
sounds similar to what ativan uses to say. i like to use colors instead. seems they've already gotten to 48 bits, which would be trillions of color. definitely enough to cover all humans in the world. unfortunately the human eye can only discriminate only up to ten million colors, so we're not likely to be able to see the difference between each and every gender that exists. and many will look very similar, so similar many think we only need two words to describe them all (are they color blind?)
With all the possible combinations of genes (plus the fact that they change over time), the number of different variations of people would be pretty much unimaginable. If gender is unique to the individual, there'd probably never be two identical gender identities. The universe won't exist long enough for a repeat. How cool is that! :D
Quote from: Taka on August 29, 2013, 05:05:40 AM
reminds me of this story from a hunter. he once got an elk calf so close that he could only see hairs in the rifle scope, so he had to look outsite it to get a good aim.
That should be a proverb. There's so much truth in it.
Quote from: Jamie D on August 29, 2013, 05:47:42 AM
A(maab) ---> A(fem)
[which reads, androgyne (male assigned at birth) to androgyne (femininized)]
As I feel I embody aspects of both the major genders, ideally I would like my predominately male body to reflect that.
That's pretty close to what I've been feeling, but I realized that being part-male, part-female makes me something entirely different. But then I had trouble figuring out what that actually was because I was still thinking of it in terms of male and female. But if I reel it back in, that's very similar to how I feel. It just doesn't tell the whole story. :)
But you're right. Labels really are only useful for describing yourself to someone else, which in a perfect world, you should never have to do anyway. I'm naturally curious though. I want to understand things. And it's frustrating not being able to understand the most fundamental part of life – the self.
Quote from: Lo on August 29, 2013, 09:38:34 AM
Some binary folks like to think, like bi people, were simply in a transitory stage of discovery when we find ourselves under the nonbinary umbrella, and that eventually we're going to stop fooling around and pick one or the other already. Hogwash!
How many of us found that being MtF or FtM was the transitory stage? Many more than they'll ever admit.
There's a terrible pressure to be one or the other or to want to be one or othe other. Don't give in. ;)
LOL! I won't! :D
I'm figuring this out myself. The farther I stray from the neat little boxes they want everyone to live in, the more free I feel within myself. That's a very new feeling for me. I've always felt... well, the way I described it to my therapist was, "on my hands and knees chained to the floor with an iron shackle around my neck; unable to move." Or something like that.
I prefer freedom, even if it can be scary out there all alone. It's better than being subjugated by my own fears.
Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on August 29, 2013, 11:38:14 AM
Jillian! Welcome to the Forest!
The adventure begins.
Thank you! :D
I hope there's a tour guide because I'm gonna need one. :P
Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on August 29, 2013, 11:38:14 AM
When it comes to gender, there are no two people who are exactly alike.
This is important. Really important.
Terms used are descriptive. They not only have meaning to the person using them, but also to the person hearing them.
Rarely do they mean the same thing to each person.
When you use them to tell people who you are, they are going to hear something different than you meant.
That's the downfall of using a description as a label. Stop it.
Don't let labels beat you up by confining yourself to them.
That's a very good point. It's not easy to unlearn old habits like that, but I feel like words are losing their meaning the deeper I look into myself. The trick is finding new ways to express what I'm discovering.
Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on August 29, 2013, 11:38:14 AM
So the best advice I can give anyone, is to get as much information as possible before making any kind of decisions.
Find that vantage point you are comfortable with.
If you want to know about non-binary, just dig through the topics in this section and read the threads.
The diversity of ideas and views can be overwhelming at first, but the more you know, the better it gets.
There are pages of topics, some short threads, some long.
They all have a tendency to overlap or intersect at points.
We commonly refer to them as paths in this forest.
We are not an exclusive group. Neither is binary. You'll find some of everyone here.
It's a place where different is the normal. Gender description is diverse and doesn't follow any well worn path in life.
Gender morphs into whatever you want it to be. Because it can.
Gender is an ongoing process for many people here. You're not confined by descriptions.
Look around, you just might find a place you want to be. Always a good thing, finding yourself.
I feel like I've wandered into a much more abstract world than I knew existed. Being able to define things in simple terms is such a crutch, we don't even realize we're using it until we're forced to walk without it. So I put down the crutch, but sometimes I look at myself and realize I'm still holding it! It's a persistent little thing!
But I like abstraction. I refuse to believe that anything is as simple as it appears on the surface. The deeper you go, the more complexities you discover.
It's confusing, and I feel a little lost atm, but I feel kinda free for once. It's a nice feeling!
Thanks for the advice. I fully intend to pick your brains and learn. :)
Quote from: Lo on August 29, 2013, 09:38:34 AM
How many of us found that being MtF or FtM was the transitory stage? Many more than they'll ever admit.
There's a terrible pressure to be one or the other or to want to be one or other other. Don't give in. ;)
I forgot to mention how Lo so easily summed this up.
We put this kind of pressure on ourselves.
It doesn't necessarily come from outside ourselves.
It's a difficult thing to get passed if it isn't right for yourself.
This also works the other way around. Some people here find they truly are MTF or FTM.
Over the time I have been around here, I have seen it happen both ways many times.
Always, it is from finding the information they were seeking.
The more you discover, the greater the truth of who you are.
Abstract thinking goes a long way here.
I think you'll like where it takes you.
Ativan
I don't really have anything to add since all these wonderful people have summed up everything I could have said, but a little redundancy never killed anyone.
Jillian I had almost the same experience as you; I thought I wanted to be a woman and all that jazz, but what I really wanted was to have a female body. And my further explorations have revealed that I do kind of want to be woman, but I wouldn't really consider that I am one it seems to me like trading one ill fitting suit for another. I'm an individual and I think my being is a bit bigger than man or woman, than all the labels we have; I think we're all bigger than the words we use to describe ourselves.
Language is by it's nature limited and pragmatic; we wouldn't have invented poetry if it wasn't. It falls short in those moments where we try to grasp and describe the beautifully complex experiences of being a human being and being alive. Some days if you ask me I'm not even non-binary, most days I'm just me. Words are fun especially labels; I like to think up new ways to describe my gender just because I like to imagine people's reactions if I ever decided to tell anyone further than "I'm trans*".
Anyway that's my bit, and can I just say @Taka I really like your color metaphor for gender you had another post describing it and it solved all the problems I had with the common spectrum narrative.
QuoteMy working life uses technology that uses the energy that happens when you hit chemicals with a laser. They then emit energy.
^^ Also Cindy uses lasers :o
Quote from: Kia on August 29, 2013, 02:03:49 PM
Anyway that's my bit, and can I just say @Taka I really like your color metaphor for gender you had another post describing it and it solved all the problems I had with the common spectrum narrative.
it took me quite a while to visualize it myself. there's that one dimensional line that goes
m –––––––––– a ––––––––––– f
way too simple, my own gender isn't represented there at all.
and then there is this two dimensional spectrum that can blend the colors a lot, but is still usually not more of a blend than a full color circle at best, and just blue and red with some purple in between and maybe a little fade to white at the worse end of that scale. they still don't quite get there, since the world i know is at least three dimensional. if it's not, how is something supposed to be fluid in between...
the reason i like colors is that we tend to associate feelings and emotions with them. and anyone who has color sight and has lived long enough, should know the difference between black and white and full color. i haven't really lived long enough, i just grew up with an outdated tv, so i got used to imagining what colors all those shades of grey were. it's such an interesting experience to see something go from monochrome to full color, like discovering the world anew, so i can't really help using it. it's so much more visual than trying to describe it with only labels that don't necessarily mean all that much.
Quote from: Kia on August 29, 2013, 02:03:49 PM
I don't really have anything to add since all these wonderful people have summed up everything I could have said, but a little redundancy never killed anyone.
Jillian I had almost the same experience as you; I thought I wanted to be a woman and all that jazz, but what I really wanted was to have a female body. And my further explorations have revealed that I do kind of want to be woman, but I wouldn't really consider that I am one it seems to me like trading one ill fitting suit for another. I'm an individual and I think my being is a bit bigger than man or woman, than all the labels we have; I think we're all bigger than the words we use to describe ourselves.
That is very similar to my experience. I think in my case it's trading one ill-fitting role for another. I haven't tried the female body yet, so I can't say if it'll fit or not. I have a feeling the estrogen will feel right in how it makes me think and feel. I'm basing this on the fact that the testosterone does not! I likened it (HRT) to draining an infected wound and cleansing it, when I talked to my gender therapist for the first time yesterday. Although all this stuff was on my mind and my guard was up, so it was overall a strange, not-so-productive first session. But there will be others. :)
Quote from: Kia on August 29, 2013, 02:03:49 PM
Language is by it's nature limited and pragmatic; we wouldn't have invented poetry if it wasn't. It falls short in those moments where we try to grasp and describe the beautifully complex experiences of being a human being and being alive. Some days if you ask me I'm not even non-binary, most days I'm just me. Words are fun especially labels; I like to think up new ways to describe my gender just because I like to imagine people's reactions if I ever decided to tell anyone further than "I'm trans*".
Language is fun! I love learning new words and weaving them into my vocabulary. I *try* to write poetry, but I suck at it. But it's still fun! :D
I was toying with gender+sexuality descriptions the other day. I came up with Androfemme MtX Transbian. Fun with labels. ;D
Quote from: Taka on August 29, 2013, 03:03:35 PM
there's that one dimensional line that goes
m –––––––––– a ––––––––––– f
way too simple
I love the color concept, and I saw the cone on another thread. That's a really good way to visualize it!
You gave me a moment of inspiration and I started writing it up, but it may need its own thread. It's kinda, uh... aw, wth.
I'll at least give it its own post.
Sorry to double post twice in one thread. ;) (Kia saved me!)
That's a good one! i like MtX, it sounds like an extreme sport. :laugh:
I also plan to start HRT, by the end of this year if I'm lucky, because I want a more female body but in my mind it will be my body not a female body. For instance I will never menstruate but I can live with that compared to the constant testosterone poisoning I suffer from.
QuoteI *try* to write poetry, but I suck at it. But it's still fun! :D
that's the good stuff, the best poetry is bad poetry. I've been getting into sound poetry lately because it's fun and no words needed!
Quote from: Taka on August 29, 2013, 03:03:35 PM
it took me quite a while to visualize it myself. there's that one dimensional line that goes
m –––––––––– a ––––––––––– f
way too simple, my own gender isn't represented there at all.
and then there is this two dimensional spectrum that can blend the colors a lot, but is still usually not more of a blend than a full color circle at best, and just blue and red with some purple in between and maybe a little fade to white at the worse end of that scale. they still don't quite get there, since the world i know is at least three dimensional. if it's not, how is something supposed to be fluid in between...
Hmm. This might be overthinking it, but...
Why limit it to three dimensions? If your identity and gender expression change over time it's at least four dimensional. But the fourth is too linear.
Bear with me here...
The fourth dimension is pretty much what we imagine when we think of time: a linear timeline. Past --> Present --> Future.
Five dimensional spacetime is essentially to time what the third dimension is to space. Depth of time, so to speak.
When not observed, a particle exists in a superposition of all its potential points in space simultaneously. But when it's observed it's always in a fixed position in space. It's in a single position because, once observed or measured, its state is no longer simply potential. It goes from possibly anywhere to ---> right here <---
because you observed it.
Everything, past and future, already potentially exists and the present is basically an observation of time. Each moment, as we percieve it, fixes our position in spacetime because we are "observing" it by simply existing within it.
Our potential states are determined not only by the past, but by the future as well. What you do in the future can affect what happens in the present! Pretty cool, huh? :D
Each new fixed position basically branches off into another potential universe; or the sixth dimension of the universe. I assume they all exist within the same "space" for lack of a better way to imagine it.
Which means the people you knew five minutes ago are not the same people you know now. And when you're done reading this sentence, those people will be gone too. We're ever-shifting and sliding in and out of existence as we know it. But we are each essentially the center of the universe, as it is our own experience of the universe that determines which "phase" (again, for lack of clarity) we'll end up in at any given moment. Not that it matters, because it all seems the same to us anyway.
Okay, now here's my point...
If gender is everchanging (which would be logical to assume given every other aspect of the human mind is everchanging) then describing it in terms of three dimensional space is too limiting. Our gender identity changes and reshapes us over time in a very fundamental way. (Moreso for some than for others.)
The potential exists at any given point for your identity to be affected by your experiences, choices, or even just things you think about. This potentiality becomes fixed at the moment you "observe it," ie. live it. And due to its nature, that sends you down yet another path through the fabric of whatever the hell we exist within -- and the people you interact with are no longer the same in mind, body or otherwise (including gender) because they too have travelled their own path, which is almost certainly not the same as yours. Though their interaction with you (changed as you both are) affects the course of development of your identity, of which gender is a fundamental factor.
So, gender has to be at least six dimensional to accurately visualize it.
But then again, I probably have no idea wtf I'm talking about. :P
(Edit: I feel like I should point out that I was half-kidding. Sort of intentionally overthinking it. But it was just so much fun to think about, I couldn't help but share! But IDK, maybe there is something to it?)
Labels, shabels. 8)
Philosophically, I identify genderqueer. Emotionally, I identify female.
It can be a bit of a headtrip trying to figure out who you are. Like, I was born male, but I identify as female, but, im not particularly feminine and feel more on the masculine side of feminine.
Quote from: Keaira on August 29, 2013, 06:38:03 PM
...I identify as female, but, im not particularly feminine and feel more on the masculine side of feminine.
That's where I fully plan to end up. I've come to think of myself as a 40-yard line MtF.
Maddy
Quote from: Keaira on August 29, 2013, 06:38:03 PM
...I identify as female, but, im not particularly feminine and feel more on the masculine side of feminine.
Quote from: Fairy Princess with a Death Ray on August 29, 2013, 06:41:15 PM
That's where I fully plan to end up. I've come to think of myself as a 40-yard line MtF.
"The masculine side of feminine" is the sexiest side. ;)
Quote from: Jillian on August 29, 2013, 05:48:42 PM
[...]
So, gender has to be at least six dimensional to accurately visualize it.
But then again, I probably have no idea wtf I'm talking about. :P
(Edit: I feel like I should point out that I was half-kidding. Sort of intentionally overthinking it. But it was just so much fun to think about, I couldn't help but share! But IDK, maybe there is something to it?)
well....
i think i deleted a whole paragraph from my post about how i wanted to find a way to make that 3d color cone expand to become a cylinder and then wrap itself into a klein bottle. you'd definitely need at least four dimensions to do that.
it's related to this funny thought experiment that i found in a manga, i think it was. take a normal circular band, bend the edges towards each other and attach. what you get, with some elasticity, is a torus.
now, in your mind, take a möbius and do the same. the answer is a klein bottle, but can you visualize wrapping a möbius like that in your mind? it's really difficult, just the same as with trying to wrap your head around the idea of gender not being the binary we're used to hearing it is.
Quote from: Jillian on August 29, 2013, 05:48:42 PM
But then again, I probably have no idea wtf I'm talking about. :P
Oh, but you do. Like I said, I think you're gonna like it here...
Quote from: Taka on August 30, 2013, 03:15:52 AM
it's related to this funny thought experiment that i found in a manga, i think it was. take a normal circular band, bend the edges towards each other and attach. what you get, with some elasticity, is a torus.
now, in your mind, take a möbius and do the same. the answer is a klein bottle, but can you visualize wrapping a möbius like that in your mind? it's really difficult, just the same as with trying to wrap your head around the idea of gender not being the binary we're used to hearing it is.
A ring torus is how I imagine the universe.
We perceive it from the inside surface.
To travel beyond time, to defeat having to surpass light speed, it would be something like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Inside-out_torus_%28animated%2C_small%29.gif
Sure, we are now on the outside, but move a little and turn it inside out again...
This done repeatedly would be time travel, or defeating the space-time continuum.
You just need to keep turning it inside out from the same perceived place when looking at it when away from it
A klein bottle works in much the same way.
Yet it is static on the surface as well.
A hollow Mobius strip.
No matter which direction you go, you will eventually end up at the starting point.
Now turn it inside out as well.
If you see it with gradient or blending colors, along with black and white, you have infinite variations within reach.
Hard to visualize, but possible.
You could look at gender this way.
If you start to back that up, turn the bottle back to it's start, take out the space inside to the mobius and then disconnect that, you have the common spectrum strip.
Which we don't perceive gender as non-binaries.
So connecting the strip without the twist and put space inside it, you are at a ring torus.
Which you can turn inside out.
As non-binaries, we perceive it in one state, and binaries see it in the other state or inside out from our viewpoint.
But I really love the klein bottle, especially full of color and not just on it's surface, turning forever inside out.
Always full of blending colors and blending with black and white.
To be a spot of color, floating around inside would be a wild ride.
Now you have me thinking of gender in terms of not only two sides of a torus, but a rainbow filled klein bottle, forever turning inside itself.
Ativan
Quote from: Taka on August 30, 2013, 03:15:52 AM
well....
i think i deleted a whole paragraph from my post about how i wanted to find a way to make that 3d color cone expand to become a cylinder and then wrap itself into a klein bottle. you'd definitely need at least four dimensions to do that.
it's related to this funny thought experiment that i found in a manga, i think it was. take a normal circular band, bend the edges towards each other and attach. what you get, with some elasticity, is a torus.
now, in your mind, take a möbius and do the same. the answer is a klein bottle, but can you visualize wrapping a möbius like that in your mind? it's really difficult, just the same as with trying to wrap your head around the idea of gender not being the binary we're used to hearing it is.
I have trouble wrapping my head around a klein bottle as it is. I can't figure out how to imagine it without it intersecting, which I assume only happens because it's the only way to illustrate it. But I'm no physicist.
Gender as a self-contained landscape? Is that what you're saying?
How about this: Gender expanding in every direction with no central point. So where ever you are at any given moment,
you are the center. And the "landscape" around you is subtly different depending on where you are; but it's all just the intricate fabric of your gender. It's the cosmos of identity. Complex, unique and amazing!
Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on August 30, 2013, 09:49:17 AM
Oh, but you do. Like I said, I think you're gonna like it here...
I think I will. :D
Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on August 30, 2013, 10:58:07 AM
So connecting the strip without the twist and put space inside it, you are at a ring torus.
Which you can turn inside out.
As non-binaries, we perceive it in one state, and binaries see it in the other state or inside out from our viewpoint.
That's an interesting way to look at it. It kinda knocks me off my high horse of feeling like I'm beginning to see something that most people can't see. But when you put it this way, it's not about lack of vision so much as perspective, which I think is more fair. Certainly the color spectrum is more diverse and elegant than a grayscale view point, but it doesn't devalue the perception of those who haven't yet flipped it around and had the opportunity to see that there's so much more than they ever knew.
I like that. :)
Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on August 30, 2013, 10:58:07 AM
Now you have me thinking of gender in terms of not only two sides of a torus, but a rainbow filled klein bottle, forever turning inside itself.
That's a beautiful image! :)
"Gender expanding in every direction with no central point."
As is our universe, or so the theory goes...
The universe is full of black holes. If they are indeed wormholes, they could be reconnected back to our universe.
Try this out. An Alice Universe is somewhat what this is alluding to.
The idea of opposites exist, but only in a local sense.
Gender depends on which handle your holding.
"In theoretical physics, an Alice universe is a hypothetical universe with no global definition of charge. What a Klein bottle is to a closed two-dimensional surface, an Alice universe is to a closed three-dimensional volume. The name is a reference to the character in Lewis Carroll's children's book, Alice Through the Looking-Glass.
An Alice universe can be considered to allow at least two topologically-distinct routes between any two points, and if one connection (or "handle") is declared to be a "conventional" spatial connection, at least one other must be deemed to be a non-orientable wormhole connection.
Once these two connections are made, we can no longer define whether a given particle is matter or antimatter. A particle might appear as an electron when viewed along one route, and as a positron when viewed along the other. If we define a reference charge as nominally positive and bring it alongside our "undefined charge" particle, the two particles may attract if brought together along one route, and repel if brought together along another - the Alice universe loses the ability to distinguish between positive and negative charges, except locally.
As with a Möbius strip, once the two distinct connections have been made, we can no longer identify which connection is "normal" and which is "reversed" — the lack of a global definition for charge becomes a feature of the global geometry. This behaviour is analogous to the way that a small piece of a Möbius strip allows a local distinction between two sides of a piece of paper, but the distinction disappears when the strip is considered globally."
But yah, it's really about perception.
Simple and beautiful, or elegantly complex and beautiful in it's own way.
No matter how you slice it and dice it, you can see binary and non-binary.
At some point they overlap or connect in one way or another.
However you perceive it, it's only fair to perceive a constant connection of some sort.
I don't want to use the obvious positive-negative, matter- antimatter kind of vision.
Gender doesn't have polar opposites, it has perceptions of that depending on point of view, but not when it is taken in as a whole.
Locally, it can 'feel' like opposites, binary and non-binary, or male and female, but that is a false perception.
They share too many characteristics for that.
Gender is a blend, with different blends depending on your local point of view or perception.
It's difficult to justify a global perception of gender when we perceive ourselves as a type of gender.
Much like the observable gender. It exists if you look at it, only.
It's unfair to consider gender to ever be actually static.
It's an ever evolving process that can have distinctly different routes, but overall, it is still gender, regardless.
We talk about our routes that we take.
Binaries talk about the two cities of male and female and the highway that connects them.
Non-binaries talk about the paths in the forest.
Yet there are side roads off that highway that lead to the forest, as well as paths from the forest to the cities.
Where you are at any given moment, determines your perception of gender.
Ativan
Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on August 30, 2013, 12:15:47 PM
No matter how you slice it and dice it, you can see binary and non-binary.
At some point they overlap or connect in one way or another.
However you perceive it, it's only fair to perceive a constant connection of some sort.
I don't want to use the obvious positive-negative, matter- antimatter kind of vision.
Gender doesn't have polar opposites, it has perceptions of that depending on point of view, but not when it is taken in as a whole.
Locally, it can 'feel' like opposites, binary and non-binary, or male and female, but that is a false perception.
They share too many characteristics for that.
That makes me think of quantum entanglement. (I keep going back to physics, but I don't know what else to apply it to.) Binary and non-binary are essentially the same thing? Like entangled particles in two different locations. Perception is just a matter of which you're observing. But the connection between the two is instantaneous regardless of how far apart they are. It defies the standard model. It doesn't obey the speed of light. My assumption is because there's no actual traversing of space between the two. They exist together, but are only perceived as apart. They overlap basically. As do binary and non-binary is your description. It's a little mindbending, but it feels true.
I'll have to read more about the Alice Universe. It combines two of my favorite things: the universe and Alice! (I love those books so much! I have The Annotated Alice, with so much more than just the stories. I should read it again. :D)
I prefer to stay with the axis model of gender, in that we occupy a single point along countless axes, and when we move, we navigate through countless 2-way spectra that create a multi-dimentional space/self.
So, something like a tesseract. ;)
Like this:
You start off with two points, the binary. Connect them to create a spectrum, a line. Extend the line parallel to itself to create a field (binary and nonbinary), extend the field parallel to itself to create a cubic space (binary, nonbinary, and neither?), extend the cube parallel to itself to create...?
the only problem i have with a spectrum, is that i often occupy more than one spot at a time. i'm definitely a quantum particle that looks like two just because their one-ness isn't visible. and that is why i like to talk about things that bend in impossible ways. i get this weird feeling that my gender's existence is reliant on the possibility of an alice universe being more than just an abstract idea.
the klein bottle is more of an illustration of how difficult i find it to wrap my head around the idea i know i have but can't even express clearly to myself. time to try some zen meditation...? all is nothing, nothing is all. we miss the whole picture because we focus on details. i need to think some more, and try to make it about gender this time, not just illustrations..
Quote from: Lo on August 30, 2013, 03:01:57 PM
So, something like a tesseract. ;)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Tesseract.gif
I could look at this all day... :)
We use what is familiar to ourselves to define perceptions that don't have an accepted definition.Yes, it is like multiple parallel lines creating cubes and such.
It is like blending colors.
It is like the forest and the cities.
It's a lot of fun looking at the finer points in abstract ways, indeed.
At the end of the day though, it's all just gender as a whole.
Binaries have more of a tendency to be somewhere along that spectrum line.
It's generally defined by male at one end and female at the other.
Simplified version that works very well, as it's accepted that way.
That somewhere of any individual consists of characteristics that are usually grouped close together. But not always.
Non-Binaries on the other hand use points from all over that line. But not always.
We even recently speculated on the possibility of something beyond those ends of male and female.
In different combinations and number of points. Rarely having a close grouping.
Sometimes our definitions give that impression of such groupings.
I think that's carry over from Binary language of a sort.
We don't have words that convey what those groups really are.
We have descriptions that use Binary words to describe Non-Binary.
So it's useful to designate one from the other by using separate groups.
But both groups have the same characteristics, each group just uses them differently.
In the Non-Binary group, those characteristics don't line up in any particular fashion.
We don't put male and female at the ends, they don't carry any more weight than anything else.
That screws the line idea of a spectrum up.
So being who we are, we try to make sense out of it by defining the perception.
That perception comes from those many points, used in many different ways or combinations.
A unified description is for the time, out of our reach. But we inch closer all the time.
It's difficulty lies in the way we each utilize those characteristics.
It's difficult to even define subgroups. Binaries can use male and female.
We can use those two groups too, but they carry no more weight than any other group we can come up with.
Also why labels are such a nuisance. Even descriptions get in our way.
But we do use descriptions, they just tend to be abstract in nature. But not always.
*Redundancy alert... There is Gender, which can be divided in a simple way into two groups.
The group Binary can be, in a simple way, subdivided into smaller groups.
Male and female.
Beyond that, I don't pretend to know the finer points of Binary.
The Non-Binary group isn't so easily, in an agreed way, able to be subdivided simply.
There are just too many possible groups on that next level.
While I do understand how that works, I don't have the words to explain it.
*Alert over, glad you made your way through it... ;)This is what defines the two groups, not the differences, because we use the same things.
Each group just uses them differently. You can count that as a difference, but that's a fine line.
You could look at water molecules and say that binary is more like ice and non-binary is more like a liquid.
Same stuff, just used differently.
Same words, different story.
And we have a story to tell.
Meanwhile, back at the perception ranch,...
Ativan
i'm the vapor in the water analogy. both in the water and outside it, might be trapped in ice, but never perfectly constant. pretty much all over the place, never able to recognize a regular flow of anything.
I got a tattoo symbolizing genderlessness when I decided that this was something I was going to actually live and not just think about. It's the alchemical symbol for gold and the astrological symbol for the sun. I've also fancied it to represent a free neutron, since the neutron is one if the things I most strongly associate with the feeling of having no gender; having no charge, but is capable of being part of every element in existence without turning into something other than what it is. And then there's neutronium, which, though theoretical, just sounds like an amazing and beautiful substance. *A*
Taka and Lo,
I love your descriptive symbolism but I prefer to just not over-think this for my own part as it would surely drive me crazy. ;D
Quote from: Shantel on August 31, 2013, 11:11:48 AM
Taka and Lo,
I love your descriptive symbolism but I prefer to just not over-think this for my own part as it would surely drive me crazy. ;D
i just like to over-think things. part of my nature, or maybe it's rooted in a need to identify. so when i can't identify with male or female and there are no other subcategories to choose between in the set, i'll try with a whole different set where there are more subcategories than just two to choose from. my experience is that every time i try with traditional and untraditional gender terms, the idea of a binary still follows all of these words.
lo's analogy works really well for making me understand what place they find themselves comfortable in. i'll insist on being a comet, but the experience of not being like mars or venus while still sharing some qualities, isn't all that different when society insists that everyone needs to identify with one of those two planets.
Mobius strip? Klein bottle? Ring torus?
May I be excused? My brain is full! :o
Quote from: Taka on August 31, 2013, 11:36:43 AM
i'll insist on being a comet, but the experience of not being like mars or venus while still sharing some qualities, isn't all that different when society insists that everyone needs to identify with one of those two planets.
+1 Amen to that!
I often think of gender in terms of orbits: some relatively stable, others highly chaotic; some near-circular, others predictable, yet highly eccentric; all bodies' orbital trajectories influenced by every other, sometimes subtly and sometimes acutely.
Maddy
Quote from: Shantel on August 31, 2013, 11:11:48 AM
Taka and Lo,
I love your descriptive symbolism but I prefer to just not over-think this for my own part as it would surely drive me crazy. ;D
Overthinking is fun. I love to look for patterns and associations in everything. I guess I have a need to explain things to myself. I always sucked at math in school because when it became more complex I couldn't follow the curriculum. I had to be able to visualize the problem to solve it. Geometry was a breeze, but algebra was a lot harder to visualize. (I never made it to pre-cal because I was a trouble maker and didn't stay in any one school for very long. :-\) So I consistantly got 50% on my tests because I'd be able to solve the problem, but I couldn't show my work. Half credit. And the occassional accusations of cheating. :( Luckily I found a tutor who understood how I think, and he taught me how to do equations backwards from the answer to the problem and I learned how to show my work. :)
So I think I'm pretty much hard wired to have to try to visualize things I don't understand. But I also enjoy it! Something as elusive as gender is just so much fun to ponder! :D
Quote from: Fairy Princess with a Death Ray on August 31, 2013, 11:47:53 AM
I often think of gender in terms of orbits: some relatively stable, others highly chaotic; some near-circular, others predictable, yet highly eccentric; all bodies' orbital trajectories influenced by every other, sometimes subtly and sometimes acutely.
Maddy
I like that imagery. That's sort of what I was trying to say earlier, only you did a much better job of it. :) The idea of other people having an influence on your gender. That who you are inside doesn't exist entirely within. People have a very strong effect on one another. Generally we don't think of other people being an influence on something as personal and fundamental as gender, but if it's ever-evolving then you have to account for external influences -- especially other people.
A common thread here is the visualization of gender.
Visual thinkers account for somewhere around a third of people.
Is it more common with Non-Binaries?
Ativan
Quote from: Jillian on August 31, 2013, 01:04:10 PM
Luckily I found a tutor who understood how I think, and he taught me how to do equations backwards from the answer to the problem and I learned how to show my work. :)
So I think I'm pretty much hard wired to have to try to visualize things I don't understand. But I also enjoy it! Something as elusive as gender is just so much fun to ponder! :D
i just like abstract ideas and stretching my mind to try to visualize what can only be represented through formulas. i was also hopeless at maths, but lucky enough to learn early enough how to create the formulas backwards. my way of explaining how i solved problems would probably be through an instinctive recognition of how things are connected, so i know if i do this and that i'll get the right answer, but i can't show why. getting a proper understanding of what formulas are and how they relate to the real world was a powerful experience to me, it gave me a tool to explain my perception of the world in a way that others who know those same terms can understand (mostly related to linguistics).
but we don't have any good formulas for gender. nobody knows the right equation, the answer exists but is yet to be described. i just use the closest analogy i can find to my own experience of gender, and hope that through comparing this and other people's analogies we can find what they all have in common and ind the answers hidden within.
i'm not sure i'm much of a visual thinker. i think in words or pictograms (i count chinese characters as pictograms more than words), and visualize abstract ideas in an imagined 3d space. i recognize connections mostly instinctively, and that's probably why i use analogies so much, i often lack the whole thought process that many think should be behind getting from problem to answer. i need to see as much as possible of the whole picture and all details before my mind can suddenly point at one thing and say "there's the answer", and then i just have to start with the answer and go through everything until i get to the problem. backwards thinking in order to explain to others, not that easy all the time.
Quote from: Shantel on August 31, 2013, 11:11:48 AM
Taka and Lo,
I love your descriptive symbolism but I prefer to just not over-think this for my own part as it would surely drive me crazy. ;D
Thank you! :>
Over-thinking things sometimes is fun. ;)
Quote from: Taka on August 31, 2013, 11:36:43 AM
lo's analogy works really well for making me understand what place they find themselves comfortable in. i'll insist on being a comet, but the experience of not being like mars or venus while still sharing some qualities, isn't all that different when society insists that everyone needs to identify with one of those two planets.
I've officially been reminded that I like planetary analogies in terms of gender and sexuality a lot~
Quote from: Fairy Princess with a Death Ray on August 31, 2013, 11:47:53 AM
I often think of gender in terms of orbits: some relatively stable, others highly chaotic; some near-circular, others predictable, yet highly eccentric; all bodies' orbital trajectories influenced by every other, sometimes subtly and sometimes acutely.
Maddy
Ah, but see, that's why I chose the sun: it dun orbit around any planets or any other star. ;) It just does its own thing.
A little bit of a disclaimer, the tattoo represents both my gender
and my asexuality, which REALLY emphasizes the "I don't orbit around stuff in that way" thing.
The sun does have an orbit, around the galaxy core if nothing else.
Lo, I love your imagery!
In my analogy, different gender manifestations would be represented by structural variations in the orbiting bodies: males could be gas planets, females, rocky, the ice giants could represent a third or intermediary gender, and agender could be represented by a body with an undifferentiated structure(?). My thought is that this allows the possibility of a polyphony of as-of-yet uncatalogued genders above and beyond the traditional ones.
Quote from: LordKAT on August 31, 2013, 10:54:53 PM
The sun does have an orbit, around the galaxy core if nothing else.
And Susans.org is the black hole around which it orbits. How much time have I spent on here today? *checks watch*