Quote from: Emerald on June 25, 2007, 06:15:56 PM
Lord have mercy... Androgyne Monster? Androgyne Furry? Androgyne Animal?
What comes next? Androgyne Hobbit, Androgyne Insect, Androgyne Alien, and Androgyne Boogieman?
...
No offense to the werewolves, furries, vampires, glam rockers, goths, and all that jazz out there, but none of these things have anything to do with gender.
Eh. I think that Ken/Kendra's coined term 'androgyne monster' is a poor one, as it implies a desire for non-human status. However, I have explained just what I meant, and remarked that I think being an androgyne and feeling that you are a cat (or whatever) at heart are two separate things.
As for monsters, lets try one more time. The Chimera is a classical monster, the most classical of classical monsters, such that its name is also used to indicate any classical monster.
Quotechi·me·ra [ki-meer-uh, kahy-]
–noun, plural -ras.
1. (often initial capital letter) a mythological, fire-breathing monster, commonly represented with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
2. any similarly grotesque monster having disparate parts, esp. as depicted in decorative art.
3. a horrible or unreal creature of the imagination; a vain or idle fancy: He is far different from the chimera your fears have made of him.
4. Genetics. an organism composed of two or more genetically distinct tissues, as an organism that is partly male and partly female, or an artificially produced individual having tissues of several species.
My gender, I think, is definition two, with a kindly removal of 'grotesque' which really ought not to be there, as unicorns and gryphons and the like are also
classical monsters, and chimeras. My gender is also definition four, in the sense that I think it is written in my DNA to be that way.
I
DO NOT think that I am, nor do I want to become, a fire-breathing beast with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and a tail made out of a snake. Nor does the author of the essay I mentioned.
I am an air-breathing higher primate with the legs and smell of a man, the genitals and size of a woman, the communication-style of a man, the tenderness of a woman, the hobbies and interests of an androgyne, etc. etc. These things are not fluid nor are they merged. They are not at war with each other or separate, either. I am not bigender, my gender doesn't change so I am not fluid, my gendered aspects are not smoothly blended so I am not exactly intergendered either. I am mostly masculine in the way the Chimera is mostly a goat, but the Chimera is not a goat with grafted on parts and I am not really a man with stuck on female parts.
Quote from: Emerald on June 25, 2007, 06:15:56 PM
I think we can safely state that psychological Androgynes are highly evolved humans which do not devolve into subhuman critters.
The most psychologically androgynous people I have ever met are considered to be developmentally disabled. They are asexual and find the very concept of gender incomprehensible and irrelevant. They are certainly not subhuman in the least, but with the notable exception of Temple Grandin, they're not more 'highly evolved' than other people.
And indeed, Ken/Kendra is quite correct -- when you add a recognized prefix or suffix to a known word, the word you have thus created is a 'real' word.