A Gendered Affair

http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/a-gendered-affair/
9/5/2008

Imagine this image: a human brain in a vat. The brain has been removed from a real, live person and painstakingly wired into a machine which keeps it alive, utterly duplicating the necessary processes of organic flesh. Sight, sound and smell are simulated by clever contraptions, emotional surges provoke the correct chemical and hormonal reactions. To all intents and purposes, the being - the brain - is real, their sense of self intact: they are simply no longer housed in a body.

Which begs the question: do they still have a gender?