Subject: Your Brain on Fiction
Author:
Posted on: 2017-09-30 01:51:00 UTC
This isn't a new story, but a friend of mine showed it to me today, and I bet it will interest most of you folks, too. Neuroscience shows that reading can make you better at peopling. {= )
"Your Brain on Fiction"
~Neshomeh
Aaaaand we're back. I've actually paid attention to the news this week, so you get rather an excessive number of items -- yay? (As usual, the images are not important parts of the post - they're just here to add a bit of colour.)
Please remember that, when it comes to the state of the world, not everyone will agree with you. You're free to state, discuss, and defend your viewpoint (provided it does not violate the Constitution), but please don't use that fact to attack others.
Fandom News
(Link)
It's here! For the first time in over a decade, there is a new Star Trek series on TV. Star Trek: Discovery has launched. If you're anywhere other than the US, you can probably get it on Netflix; in the US, you're supposed to buy into CBS All Access, which sounds like a great way to waste money.
Kaitlyn and I watched the first two episodes, and will be watching the third. The first episode feels more Wars than Trek, but the second episode gets a bit more into the groove. It's no spoiler to say that the show taps into the long and honourable school of psychopathic Vulcans - the 'shoot first, never ask questions because logic dictates that it was the right thing to do' style exemplified by Voyager's Tuvok is alive and well here. Also there are Klingons (and long speeches in Klingon, which are unfortunately delivered... like... ShatNER is... speaKING... hey, I never said it was perfect).
The linked article does a good job of covering the controversy that's surrounded the series even before it launched.
Silly News
(Generation Z & Prince Harry)
Recently, BBC TV show Newsbeat had Ipsos Mori carry out a poll about Generation Z. That's the post-Millennial generation, apparently, or anyone born between 1994 and 2001; probably quite a lot of the Board, actually.
You can read the article or look at the survey yourself, but the most interesting fact to me was the question on sexual orientation. Generation Z reported only 66% 'only attracted to the opposite sex', while the older generations (Millennial/Y, X, and Baby Boom) came in at 71%, 85%, and 88%. Most of the difference seems to be down to a breaking of the binary 'straight/gay' definition: 26% of Generation Z reported that they were either equally attracted to both sexes (9%), or 'mostly' (rather than 'only') to the opposite (9%) or same (3%). By contrast, Generation X only has 6% on 'mostly the opposite sex', and only 2% 'equally'.
Given that we don't actually live in a world where people are either made of muscles or breasts, and which one it is determines everything about them, this seems like a good thing to me.
Meanwhile, over in Canada, a toddler decided that Prince Harry's popcorn looked delicious. So she stole it. Repeatedly.
Harry, who is currently fifth in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, took it very well. Because apparently being in the news for dressing up as a Nazi a few years back made him realise that yes, people are watching?
Serious News
(The Moon & Mars)
NASA has announced that they will be partnering with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to build a space station in lunar orbit, to be used as a staging ground for deep space missions. There doesn't seem to be a timeline yet, but hey! That's exciting.
Closer to home, but with a much longer timescale, Dubai/the UAE has announced their plan to build a simulated Mars city, to test out the science behind a completely contained city. This is part of their plan to build a 600,000-person city on Mars itself by 2117, which seems... ambitious. Still, running a full-scale trial in a desert is probably a good place to start.
Not News
(Link)
This week, I found out that Batwoman - Kate Kane - is gay. This will get one of two reactions:
1/ "Who's Batwoman?" To which the answer is, she's an actually pretty awesome character in the current range of Batman/Bat-family comics. I'm not 100% on the state of play in Gotham, but she's definitely playing a major role.
2/ "Well, obviously. That's an integral part of her character." Well, I can't speak to that, but a week ago I was very nearly in answer #1 myself. So hey! Cool stuff.
Interestingly, I seem to recall hearing that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy have a bit of an on-again/off-again/villainous-again relationship going on, so... is there something about Gotham that attracts lesbians?
hS
So you know all the fuss a few weeks/months ago over the supposed author of My Immortal publishing a memoir?
She lied.
The TL;DR of it is that s**t went down, she forged documents, the memoir has been canceled, and her brother wasn't as lost as she claimed. Someone doxxed her; she lied about being Native American, about being put in the foster care system, and her claims of writing a trollfic in order to find her brother when he's been on Facebook all along and contacted her several times are, quite simply, false.
She was just another person who tried to claim the story as hers for attention.
The "source" is on Kiwifarms- in case you didn't know their reputation, they're a nasty little bunch of harassers and psychopaths. I know people who have been targets of theirs for multiple years- doxxing, swatting, etcetera, are all normal things for them. So- I don't buy it. In fact, I wish they would drop off the face of the earth.
...You can see starting about ten tweets down her acknowledging the poster as her brother in response to what happened on the thread.
Yeah, I don't buy the story either. Writing a trollfic to find her brother? How could anyone even possibly believe that would work, seriously? Yeah, no. Even if it were actually coming from the real author of the fic instead of some random fangirl, it's still a terrible excuse. And the whole "Native American and put in foster care" thing, while definitely possible in real life on its own, sounds like the premise of a movie when you compare it to the supposed results. It sounds really contrived, a little bit appropriation-y, and overall just plain suspicious. Much like a bad fanfiction.
I have a feeling that the real author of My Immortal, whoever she is, probably doesn't want to reveal her actual identity. Given how logical and grown-up she seems to have become now from looking at the post she wrote saying that she didn't write Handbook for Mortals, she probably decided that letting the world know isn't worth the huge influx of random crud people would send to her. A very wise choice indeed.
-Twistey
The person who doxxed her is the same one who claimed to be her brother, but the only proof he offered was stuff you can get from a Google search. The forum he made this claim on is known for attacking women and minorities and Rose Christo basically the perfect target for them. The "fact checking" she failed, according to the EW article on the subject,is apparently that she changed names to preserve anonymity. Also, beyond some jerk's say-so, there is no proof she was lying about anything. Like, why ia no one seemingly willing to question his story th way they har hers?
Take that how you will.
I think the real 'whaaaaaat' here is that a real publisher was actually considering publishing a book about a badfic. I mean, that's... only in the 21st century, folks!
hS
It doesn't appear for me.
I was waiting to see how long it took Scape to realise how banjaxed her HTML was. ^_~
Her post was supposed to be this:
And that makes me ashamed of using the opportunity to point out a month-old news about Shadows of War (beware of 'spoilers'). They're not even trying anymore.
Hopefully, they won't inflict this indignity to more kings and Nazgul?
I mean, they're all about how they follow an 'alternate timeline' from canon, but there is AU and... badfic.
I'm pretty sure Helmwraith directly contradicts the movies, let alone the books. Remember the 'Tomb of the Nazgul' in Desolation of Smaug? They claimed the Nine were buried there after the fall of Angmar, in 1935 - around the time the last king of Gondor died. But Rohan wasn't even founded until 2510, and Helm died in 2759. Helmwraith would have had to be buried eight hundred years before his death.
Or maybe the claim is that the Nazgul keep being killed off and replaced? But that's... dumb. And anyway, Isilgul has an even bigger problem: Sauron was gone at the time when he needed to place a ring on Isildur's finger. That's literally the whole point.
I am annoyed. I am so annoyed that I must express myself...
...
...
... through POETRY!
(Once I've written some.)
hS
How do we break thee? Let us count the ways:
We claim the Hammerhand slew friend and foe,
When truth holds him a hero in the snow!
King Helm needed no ring to win our praise!
Nor need Isildur flee the Eye of Flames
When Sauron was disbanded, sent below,
In no fit state to grant a ring of woe...
And these are but a tithe of our dismays!
Should Sauron claim a wraith but leave the One?
Should Nazgul rise three thousand years too late?
Did Saruman not find Isildur's bones,
And Helm not stand eternal at the gate?
No, say we! Let us rest, our battles done
And keep us heroes, as the Words dictate.
(With sincerest apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.)
Yeah: to claim Isilgul, Sauron would have had to go 'oh, what was that shiny thing that fell off your finger into the river? WELP GUESS IT WAS NOTHING, OFF WE TROT.'
hS
((Litterally, I doubt they're worth more.))
Shattered canon,
The kings of old are sullied,
The Nine slighted.
In the fair England,
A new source of power,
The tomb of Tolkien.
That's... incomparably stupid.
hS
You know, you can tell it... British are all preparing a cheap energy source for the after Brexit with this game, right?
Though I can't escape the feeling it has too many legs... also a flame mustache. ^_^
We did! We spaced them out over about a month, tacking them onto meals that we felt deserved them. :) Thank you very much.
hS
Next time, I will bring sleepy/nervous Canterbury fudge. Next time... =]
Yesterday, October 1st, Germany's new same-sex marriage legislation came into effect. From now on, a marriage can be entered by "two persons of the same or different sex/gender". Still, there is a lot of cleaning up in other legal texts that still refer to "man" and "woman" necessary, as well as clarification on wether intersex people, who can opt to have the space for sex/gender to be left empty on official documents and IDs, can marry.
Still, it's a big step in the right direction.
~Ak, throwing rainbow confetti
Some fandom news.
Sword Art Online: Alicization has recently been annouced. I've been waiting for this ever since Ordinal Scale teased its release.
Some bad news.
Apparently, Hollywood thought it was a good idea to adapt yet another anime into live action. This time, they have chosen to adapt "Kimi o na wa" or "Your Name". They just never learn, do they? Given their track record, I can only hope that it is at least better than Dragonball Evolution and Netflix Death Note.
Did anyone know that Iron Sky has a website? Some of you probably did, but I only recently discovered it, and am very excited to begin exploring once I get over my chicken-ness and start. All I know is it's got a Flash thing on the main page, so it's probably interactive to some degree. Probably also was made to promote the upcoming second movie (which will ironically enough be released in 2018, and if you remember the Friday Forum segment hS did on it, will involve Hitler riding a T-rex. Yep. It's that weird.)
Ironsky.net is the address. Type it in if you dare, because apparently it doesn't turn into a link.
Now, some of you may be asking, why am I suddenly so knowledgeable about this movie that hS told us about one random day? The answer is: I got curious, especially since 2018 (when the space Nazis land in the movie) is the second calendar year in this school year, and I started speculating about what some of my friends would do if some of the spacefaring fascists took a wrong turn and landed near their location. Upon reading the plot of the movie on Wikipedia, I learned exactly how hilariously weird the movie was (and also concluded that were this to happen IRL, I'd probably get some blonde hair dye thrown at my face. And I would absolutely hate it.) I decided I liked it, and then continued researching it further. And then I found the website and bookmarked it. So yeah.
Thank you for reading my weird piece of Not News. You may now continue with life.
-Twistey
(And because this was posted mainly for hS, I shall accompany it with a piece of obligatory googly-eyed Walfas art.
http://www.makemegoogly.com/67XB7
There you go.)
This post comes to you live from the Touchdown Café in Canterbury Christ Church University, where I have just embarked upon an MA in Creative Writing. It's a fascinating course with a lot of time to hone my craft as a genre author, so it'll be interesting to see how this affects my PPC stuff.
One of the course elements that I'm particularly excited about is a section on learning to write critical essays... so I'll be doing that. I have something in mind for what to write a critical essay concerning, too:
TOS.
Wish me luck. =]
This isn't a new story, but a friend of mine showed it to me today, and I bet it will interest most of you folks, too. Neuroscience shows that reading can make you better at peopling. {= )
"Your Brain on Fiction"
~Neshomeh
... is that if I read enough, I won't have to talk to people any more.
I am fine with that.
hS, incorrigible introvert
(Obviously talking on the Internet doesn't count; the Board is more like interactive fiction with some seriously awesome characters.)
Fallen London is a thing, as those who frequent the Discord may be aware. In considerably more exciting news, a new game in the same setting, Sunless Skies, is in public beta, and was showcased at EGX this week.
The fantastic platformer N++ is coming to Xbox One very soon now. If you ever played the original flash game, or N+ on the 360, you know the drill. If you never played the flash game... Well, it's free, so play it before you buy this one if you're considering it, so you know what you're in for.
Another event you may not be aware of that happened... In July? Jeez... Is the annual XYZZY Awards! Where the Interactive Fiction Community picks the best IF of the year, commercial or hobbyist, CYOA and Twine stuff to traditional Parser IF ala Zork or Adventure itself. I haven't looked over this year's winners yet, but in last year's awards (for the works of 2015), Birdland, a CYOA Twine affair, swept the categories. I would absolutely suggest playing it, because it is funny and touching and amazing and you can save the world from birds really what more do you WANT?
[takes breath after run-on]
In other news, I somehow managed to miss the release of The Delirium Brief, the newest Laundry Files Novel. The Laundry Files are, of course, excellent, and I cannot recommend them enough.
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=color
This is a generator that generates colors with magical properties like in Fallen London. I was curious about the game and looked it up. As such, I know about Fallen London. Sort of. I also posted this because I kinda wanted to show you the generator itself, as you, someone who has heard of the game, would probably enjoy the generator.
Have fun with the generator.
-Twistey
And Birdland's URL is birdland.camp. The Board is messing with the link, sadly...
Otherwise it tries to direct to a sub-directory of the site you're on.
hS
I don't think its anything specific about Gotham in particular, but it is a growing trend in comics at large.
As someone who doesn't read comics that much, I know about Batwoman (... obviously), and Bobby Drake over in Marvel. I also know about Apollo and the Midnighter, but they're old now. And DC's Bombshells series had a lot of this. And the Marvel Star Wars comics have the delightful Doctor Aphra... anyway. My point is that other than Kate and Bobby, those examples are all fairly niche, so probably aren't what you're thinking of. So what are you thinking of?
(Oh, and Wonder Woman. But that's never been explicitly canonised.)
hS
Greg Rucka confirmed in an interview earlier this year that at minimum the version of Wonder Woman that he and Nicola Scott wrote was bisexual. I believe Gaillard Simone said the same thing about her run too. I know she confirmed Catman, of the Secret Six, was, but like half the Secret Six were somewhere on the LGBT+ spectrum.
Northstar. In 2012 Marvel showcased the marriage between Northstar and his husband as the first same-sex marriage ceremony in a comic book.
Bobby Drake was another one.
Other LGBT Comic Characters:
1. Daken (Marvel)
2. Catwoman (DC)
3. Renee Montoya (DC)
4. John Constantine (DC)
5. Mystique (Marvel)
6. Destiny (Marvel)
There are others as well. It really started with both Northstar 2012 and with Batwoman. Both of those has made LGBT characters far more common.
I'm pretty sure Catwoman is currently in the middle of being proposed to by Batman? Also, I remember Constantine flirting with several women... are they both shown as bi, or is this something else on the spectrum?
Anyway, thanks! Random trivia I've heard:
-Apparently Bobby Drake was always implied to be gay (depending on the writer, at least); it's just that it's only recently they've been allowed to say it. It looks like Northstar had the same issue - it was implied from his first appearance in 1979, but only said in 1992.
-Speaking of weddings... one Batwoman writer was seriously angry when DC declared that they wouldn't be allowed to let Batwoman marry her girlfriend. For... reasons? I'unno.
hS
Both Catwoman are in on the LGBT ride:
- The Catwoman we mostly know, Selina Kyle, is - as you know - occasional on-an-off fling of Batman (plus she has a child with another man), but she was confirmed bisexual (via smooching a yakuza lady) in Catwoman #39, in 2015
- Second Catowman, Holly Robinson (protegee of Selina), was full-blown lesbian. She was killed off, unfortunately.
As for Constantine, oh yeah - he was confirmed bisexual since 1992.
Adding to what Uber mentioned, I still remember by heart some of other comic LGBT:
- Alysia Yeoh [DC], trans woman
- Wiccan & Hulkling [Marve], both gay
- newest Aqualad (Jackson Hyde; DC) outed himself as gay not so long ago.
- America Chavez [Marvel]
We now have confirmed airdates for the new series of Robot Wars and Red Dwarf: the 22nd and 12th of October respectively. So that's fun!
Also, in rather substantially less fun news, Northern Irish YouTube content creator and former ChezApocalypse person Jill Bearup (who mentioned us in a long series about the history of fanfiction) was someone I respected considerably. I say was because she went full TERF recently, comparing - and I swear I'm not making this up - wanting to transition to wanting to eat chocolate cake for every meal. Now, when she brought us up in History Of Fanfiction Part 6: I Love You, Mary Sue, she said a lot of what we'd done over the years came off as "mean".
I'm not saying there's a correlation between bad feminism and Mary Sue defenders.
I'm just heavily implying it, because that's what I think.
... I thought you were talking about a combined Robot Wars/Red Dwarf series. But this is almost as good. ;)
Now I'm gonna threadjack my own thread:
Putting 'TERF' into Google takes me to this wiki, which defines it as 'Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist'. It clarifies that as meaning 'feminism which excludes trans people'; it doesn't seem to say where the 'radical' part comes in, so I'm just gonna assume it means they have unfilled (but neutral) outer electron shells and leave it at that.
Then it says this:
Their position (which is not shared by this wiki) denies that trans people's self-affirmed genders and sexes are equally valid as cis people's self-affirmed genders and sexes. (Bold added by me.)
So, then. My understanding is that 'sex' is a biological term; it can either indicate the nature of your primary sexual characteristics, or your chromosomes (these often match). It's not strictly a binary affair, but it comes pretty close. Does transitioning sex therefore imply surgery? Or is a change in secondary sexual characteristics (which includes things like body hair, I think) considered a change of sex? (Or is this a 'depends who you talk to' question?)
Then we come to gender, which is... what? A collection of traits traditionally culturally associated with a sex, and restrictions/requirements connected to them? It's obvious that being female-gendered rather than male-gendered (or vice versa) is a big deal for many people (this is what we call 'understatement'), but I'm... not clear why? The way people have talked about it here, they don't seem to be focussed on how they're viewed/treated by others (ie, it doesn't seem to be a result of variations on 'I'm fed up of the anti-female slant of society and would rather escape it by identifying as male'), but then... what?
I guess the question I'm asking in this part is: what is the difference between the genders 'male' and 'female', other than that other people have different prejudices assigned to the two terms?
Where the above includes misunderstandings or misinterpretations, please correct them. :) That's how we learn.
hS
(aka, I'm attempting to pass on, with some degree of accuracy, things I read on the Internet that appeared to be backed by evidence, but people should feel free to straighten me out)
One thing that seems to exist, from what little we can tell about neurobiology, is a brain-internal map-of-the-self, which gives you a general sense of what your body should consist of. One thing included in that is which sex-linked physical characteristics you expect to have. As I understand it, that mentally-expected layout is your gender identity. This gender identity often both a) matches what is physically present and b) falls into categories we (as a culture) have created called "male" and "female".
Not meeting condition a (gender identity != physical characteristics) makes you transgender (although I believe it's a matter of personal preference and/or fierce debate whether that description persists after transitioning, that is, fixing your physical characteristics so they better match your gender identity, is concluded). Not meeting condition b (gender identity doesn't fall into the male/female buckets) makes you non-binary.
Complicating everything is gender expression, which is how you fit in to the cultural stuff about how a "man" or "woman" should look, act, talk, etc.. That seems to be a related but somewhat separate axis from identity and physical sex stuff. I'll leave that to someone who could say intelligent things about it, except to remark that being regarded as/referred to as/... the gender you identify as is a very big deal, since it's, roughly speaking, a significant component of who you are.
- Tomash
... your understanding is that 'transgender' is actually about sex, not gender? Or is that only part of what you're including under 'physical characteristics'?
Meanwhile, your 'condition b' is about fitting in with the culturally-defined male/female binary. That seems to suggest that if someone moved to a different culture with radically different gender roles, they would automatically become non-binary (in that culture), regardless of whether they they elected to fit in by following the roles ('gender expression', as you say). Is that right?
hS
As someone who has difficulty understanding all the stuff about gender and whatnot, I appreciate this whole clarifying, yet non-polarizing, discussion of what transgender, among other things, means.
First off, to clear up my confusion, what are you thinking of when you say "sex" and "gender"? (For the record, I spent that last post staying away from "gender" because I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that word.)
From what I know, if you take a look at humans as a species, you'll notice several sex characteristics, such as chromosomal sex, reproductive-organ sex, hormonal sex, and probably a few other ones. Sex characteristics aren't binary things, but they tend to fall into two groups that tend to be correlated with each other.
One such characteristic is what I could in this context call mental sex[1], which is called "gender identity" (or maybe just "gender", I'm not sure on that).
"Cisgender" is having a gender identity that accurately matches your other sex characteristics[2]. "Transgender" is all the other cases, broadly speaking.
Gender identity, like the rest of these often-correlated things, is not a binary thing. Having a gender identity (what you expect your body to be like) that doesn't fit into the two major categories of physical layout makes you "non-binary". So I think your second paragraph is somewhat off, in that non-binary is defined by what a culture considers a male body and a female body to be, social roles aside.
Now, we as a species have formed cultures that tend to take the two most visible groups of correlated sex characteristics and label them "male" and "female" (recognition of other categories seems to vary by culture). Then, there are generally social roles or expectations associated with being in (or being regarded as being in) each of these categories. Which of these expectations you follow gives you your "gender expression".
[1]: I made this term up while composing this post, and it's possibly misleading or otherwise unsuitable for general use
[2]: More specifically, I think having matching personally-observable sex characteristics is sufficient
- Tomash
I defined/asked how I was using the terms 'sex' and 'gender' here.
It seems like you are saying that everything except 'gender expression' is tied directly to your body-image: external sexual characteristics, primary and secondary, plus(?) things like chromosomes and hormones which can't be perceived externally, but might affect various aspects of your development. Perhaps an example might help?
Alex McZample exhibits masculine body traits, including sex organs, and doesn't feel any issues with this. Alex is therefore cis-male.
Bobbie McZample has female sex organs, but (due to, oh, probably hormones) is flat-chested, flat-hipped, and grows significant body hair. Bobbie is... non-binary?
Charlie McZample has female characteristics, but feels that they should look more like Bobbie and Alex do. Charlie is therefore trans-male, possibly with male gender expression?
Drew McZample is the cat. The McZamples are a fairly odd couple.
El McZample has male body traits and sex organs, and is fine with that, but prefers to wear dresses. El is... cis-male with female gender expression?
Frankie McZample has female body traits and sex organs, but feels like they should have male sex organs (while retaining the same body shape). Frankie is... non-binary?
Georgie McZample is biologically female (and is fine with that), but wears their hair short and plays football. Georgie is... cis-female with male gender expression?
Harper McZample is Georgie's identical twin, and acts just like them, but has moved to a country where that is the expected way for a female to behave. Harper is therefore cis-female with female gender expression.
Id McZample is biologically female, feels like they should have male sex organs and characteristics, but still wants to wear dresses and makeup. Id is... trans-male with female gender expression?
Of the eight McZample children, how many have I got right? And - other people - how much of Tomash's understanding matches yours?
hS
Josie McZample has female body traits. She considers herself fully female, and is attracted to men. She also wears her hair short, wears a mix of male and female clothing. Enjoys some stereotypical masculine things and some stereotypical feminine things. She is hetero cisgender with a neutral gender expression. I think that the expression can be netral without falling into nonbinary?
So! I like your definitions- I would extend gender to also include a lot of self-image and body-shape stuff, though. The world at large believes that women have long hair, hips, a waistline, breasts, etc, therefore that image is part of that gender.
We trans people don't really talk about "transitioning sex" much- even the term "sex reassignment surgery" is falling out of favor for "gender reassignment" or "gender confirmation". The point of my journey has been entirely about my relationship to my gender- both how the world sees me and how I see myself. The most biologically heavy part of it is that testosterone was making me all kinds of depressed, and getting off that stuff gave me huge dividends.
Gender is all about self-chosen identity. It's frequently conveniently in line with how our bodies are shaped, which is the state we call being cisgender. Ultimately, though, it's a choice we make- how are we shaped? How do we want to be shaped? What hormones are we comfortable with? Where aren't we comfortable with our bodies? Basically all the answers to these questions fall into the arena of gender.
The words we use are really just trying to describe the very squishy answers to those questions- they're not hard categories, they're definitely not easy to be specific with, and all of them are mostly used to try to talk about our feelings and experiences. I won't go into the dictionary 101 here, but it's important to note- "trans" is a huge umbrella, and "non-binary" is usually included in it. Non-binary itself is a big umbrella, there are tons of experiences contained in it. As you would figure, given that it's literally "outside these two well-known options."
Some non-binary people find a lot of help in hormone therapies, and other pieces of the stereotypical binary-to-binary transition process. Others don't- it varies by person. I'm even technically non-binary- while my transition looks very stereotypically b-2-b, I'm genderfluid- there are days where I'm a woman and it's important to me to be perceived as such by myself and others, and there are also days where I'm agender- "do I have to engage with social constructs of gender today? Really?"
So! On to the McZamples!
Alex is indeed a cis man.
Bobbie is an interesting case. If she wanted to be flat-chested, flat-hipped, etc, and was taking hormones to deliberately produce that expression, non-binary would make sense as a label. On the other hand, if it's just how she was, I'd be wondering if she was intersex- that's the usual term for when someone's primary and secondary sex characteristics, hormone balances, and chromosomes didn't fit a normal model. Intersex people can identify as trans, and some find a lot of self-understanding in non-binary identities, but some don't.
Charlie is probably a trans man- once again, if they chose to take that identity.
Drew is adorable, and deserves pets.
El is also complicated. There are cis men who enjoy wearing dresses- Eddie Izzard, for example. There are also cis men who perform drag, putting on an entire feminine identity for a while. They also could be non-binary, expressing a feminine side- you specified that they were comfortable with a masculine/testosterone-oriented body, so the only option there that's really off the table is being a trans woman. (I have a friend who's the sweetest guy you'll ever meet, definitely a guy, and looks absolutely smashing in a miniskirt and heels.)
Frankie is probably non-binary- their ideal body shape is compatible with neither binary option.
George is probably a cis woman with tomboy or butch tendencies- I'm assuming that they're fine with she/her pronouns, and generally being "that girl who plays football"?
Harper is a cis woman, also with tomboy or butch tendencies- as you've noted, they're now in the mystical land of butch women. Please send me the address and nearest airport code...
Id could take a few different identities- they could be a very femme trans-man, although mainstream western society doesn't really have a role for that. They could also be non-binary, if they wanted to acknowledge and claim a feminine side to their identity.
-Delta Juliette
(Or, She Who Writes Many Words About Gender With Little Provocation McZample)
I always find the best way to figure out if you've understood someone is to repeat it back to them in your own words. So here we go:
What you seem to be saying is that 'gender' means (to coin a hopefully neutral word) 'bodyshape': the physical makeup of your body, including primary and secondary sexual characteristics, hormonal balance, and things like hair length and such.
You're then saying that people have an innate sense of what their bodyshape/gender should be; you're not putting it quite as strongly as Tomash did, but I think the idea's there. Essentially the Residual Self-Image from the Matrix, but for real life.
You then note that bodyshape (ideal and current/actual) falls broadly into two categories, which are to an extent socially-defined - long hair was a mark of male youth in Renaissance Italy, for instance, but not so much today. Most people are comfortable in one of those two categories, which pegs them as cis/trans-male/female, in some combination.
Anything which falls outside those categories is non-binary. How far does that go? I'm guessing short hair doesn't make a woman non-binary; or does it, if the intent of cutting it short is to be un-feminine (without specifically/necessarily being masculine)?
And then you throw out the term 'agender', which I think means that on some days your innate sense of what your body should look like... what? Gives up and goes home? That seems to be what you're implying (or at least that you don't see it as important on those days), but I'm honestly not sure.
How did I do?
hS
(I really don't think you can call this 'little provocation. ^_~)
There's one other thing to gender that's almost impossible to put into words- there's a sense, somewhere deep inside us, of what group we belong to. I can look at another woman and recognize- I might not look like her, we might have wildly different outfits or body shapes, but we recognize that we are the same group in a way that any guy- even my hypothetical cis-male twin, would not be.
And I think that's the missing part here- everything else probably shapes that underlying sense, and we're comfortable or uncomfortable with bodyshape, presentation, hormones, etc based off of the combination of it and social constructions. It's all approximately as circular as only psychology can be- but there is that deep group-sense that is usually called "gender identity". Everyone has it. Most (cis) people don't question it. But it's still there.
So! with that introduction- you've pretty much got it! Bodyshape is a thing that's very significant (I've even seen it alter my perceptions of myself- looking in a mirror and wait, where did those curves come from? Or where did they go? I could swear I wasn't shaped like this yesterday...), and for most people, falls into two (broad, mostly socially-defined) categories.
I believe that non-binary identities, as with trans identities, are just that- they come from, at root, internally-held gender identities. My sister, who habitually cuts her hair short, identifies as a woman- therefore, when she performs stereotypically un-womanly actions (cutting her hair short, wearing flannel, driving a pickup truck), she is a woman performing stereotypically un-womanly actions.
On the other hand, a non-binary person, whose gender identity is some combination of not-a-woman and not-a-man, is inherently non-binary. Everything that they do, both in life in general and to be comfortable with their body and presentation, is being done as a non-binary person. Cutting their hair short, discarding a normal image of femininity, brings great relief to some NB people who society wants to see as women.
And here it's important to note- while a lot of NB people aim for maximum androgyny- that's their ideal bodyshape, presentation, etc, there are many who do not. The things they do, the way they present and shape themselves, are reflections of their underlying gender identities rather than creating said gender identities.
And finally! Agender is a gender identity that pretty much boils down to, as you so wonderfully said, the sense of self-shape and gender giving up and going home. When I'm agender, I don't want to be seen, or see myself, as an entity that contains gender. We don't agonize over what gender a building is (except maybe in Spanish class), so why should we worry about mine? I just want to be seen as a person- gender identity has left the building, middle fingers upraised.
Obvious disclaimer: agender is definitely not the only non-binary identity, or even the only non-binary identity I visit. There are days where I relish being maximally androgynous, where I want to see people try, and fail, to put me into a binary box. Agender is... not like that. It's "why are we playing this stupid gender game, again?", it's "don't try to ma'am/sir me, just give me my damn coffee."
I want to thank both you and Tomash for doing an excellent job of explaining a broad and complex field. And this is the third one >>> Thank you.
I have said it thrice;
What I tell you three times is true.
I'm curious about this concept you call 'gender identity' (in your second paragraph). As someone who has never looked at any group or individual - male, female, social, age, fandom, hobby, whatever - and gone 'yes, I belong in a group with this person', I'm interested to know how common it actually is. I am fully aware that I am odd. ^_~
hS
I think, in general, it's safe to say most cisgender people don't go "Hmm, what am I, yes I am male" or "yes I am female" because they don't need to question their identity. To them, their gender just is.
I identify as agender (most of the time; it tends to change) and while I was a kid, I never much thought about what I was. Whenever I told people I was a boy that day and was laughed off, I figured it was just me being weird and kind of suppressed that. And then puberty hit, and with it came the dysphoria and a sense that something wasn't quite right. Still, I kept on thinking maybe I was just a weird girl, because I knew I wasn't a boy (except when I was, oh god why is this so confusing what is happening to me is this normal?).
When you already know what you are and where you feel you belong, there's not much reason to put a lot of thought into it.
So that's my $.02, for what it's worth.
Now that I've been exposed to more different kinds of people and learned more about the world, though, I definitely do.
I think about my gender when I have conversations about books with an older friend of mine who is so very female she finds it difficult to relate to male characters in male-authored books, who (she says) don't care about the things she cares about. That experience is totally alien to me, though I suspect it's fairly common, so it does make me question my female identity. I've always related to male characters just fine, my first best friend in preschool was a boy, and though my closest friends in elementary school were girls (one a tomboy and one even more introverted than me), from about middle school on, I've tended to get on with most men better than most women. I also write a ton more male characters than female ones, and even as a kid, I'd happily play male roles. In dreams, sometimes I'm a guy, too. It's not me, I don't think—I'm often not me in dreams—but still.
And yet I'm female, always have been, always will be. I find that pretty dang weird. ^_^; Like, with all that maleness in me, why am I not trans or agender? Because I know I'm not.
I tend to think it's because I was never treated as weird by my family? It was always okay to like who and what I liked, and be who I wanted to be, even if they didn't always entirely approve of my choices (like outfits consisting entirely of pink sweatclothes, yeesh, why was I allowed out the door).
Hence why I would sort of like it if the whole concept of gender would go defenestrate itself, because it's confusing and weird and often seems to hurt more than it helps? Except that it's actually important for lots of people.
~Neshomeh
I think I may just be to introverted to grasp, in any non-intellectual sense, the concept of 'belonging' that you're trying to convey. But having multiple perspectives is always helpful; it gives me new angles to see it from. So thanks.
hS
(PS: 'not much reason to put a lot of thought into it'?!?! Iximaz - this is the PPC! Putting too much thought into things is what we do! ^_~)
Scientifically, at least, sex is always used for an organism's biological characteristics—the gonads, chromosomes, and hormones. The stuff that's definitely not a choice or a social construct. Everybody is born with a sex, whether it's male, female, or intersex. (Side note: some people have interesting combinations of sex chromosomes such as XO, XXY, XYY, and more! These combinations tend to cause health and development problems, some obvious, some not.)
Gender, therefore, is all that other stuff we've been talking about: the internal mindstate, the Residual Self-Image, the social expectations, the chosen self-expression relating/contrary to one's biological sex.
So I guess my question is answered by the existence of the brain's map of the body, and transgenderism would still be a thing even in the absence of any social expectations relating to body shape. There would still be people with body dysphoria.
That's my take on all this, anyway.
~Neshomeh
I actually know someone who's mosaic 46-XX/XY: some of their cells are "normal" XX, and others are "normal" XY. They're cool people, and a big activist for intersex issues here at work.
It's also possible for people to be genetically "normal" and still intersex- there are lots of developmental conditions that can produce intersex bodies. And there's things like Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, in which an apparently normal woman has a Y chromosome.
And we pretty much try to use sex for the scientific reason- although, for trans people whose transitions include chemical or physical changes, "biological sex" becomes an incredibly complicated concept. I'm at risk for breast cancer... and prostate cancer. Whoops?
And, yeah. My dysphoria was entirely rooted in the shape of my body and the unhappiness of a brain trying to run on testosterone. That would exist regardless of the society I did, or didn't, find myself in- even now, post-transition, I'm still just "one of the engineers"- which is basically indistinguishable from "one of the guys". (There's a whole 'nother rant here about the male-centric nature of the technology industry, but I'll spare you all.)
There are people who are otherwise! There are people whose dysphoria includes not being seen as who they are, and that's a very real form of dysphoria too. There are people who feel no physical discomfort, just social discomfort, and that's enough reason for them to change.
-Delta
Words are hard, and trying to put words to this is harder.
Is that just because you don't know how to articulate it, or are you saying you're offended/upset that I'm asking?
hS
And it feels like whenever I try I just end up making people more confused than before.
Tomash has successfully articulated an interpretation that I could correctly create eight examples from. Which is great! ... so long as it's right. So (and I'm taking your commenting on this thread as implying an interest in saying something; feel free to ignore me if I'm wrong) are you at least able to say whether you agree with his explanation? Which comes down to 'everyone has a body image, if it disagrees with your actual body then you're some degree of trans'.
(Alternately/also, if you think any of the McZamples are wrong, that could be a good way to try and explain things.)
(Or you can just not, if you prefer.)
(But I'd rather be confused than wrong. ^_^)
hS
with the potential caveat that Bobbie could have a gender identity that doesn't match their physical body, and so therefore be rather unhappy about the state of affairs they've found themselves in.
- Tomash
Postulating a future society in which everyone is free to express entirely who they are on the inside regardless of what parts they have on the outside, is transgenderism still a thing? Or is it mostly or entirely a product of society trying to force people into roles they don't fit based on the shape of their bodies?
Recognizing the answer to this may be different for different people, and not wishing to minimize anyone's experience, as a woman who has never especially bought into "being a girl" per society while being completely comfortable having a female body and being referred to as such, I just wonder.
Is it possible to someday do away with gender and just approach everyone as people with a spectrum of anatomies and interests and means of self-expression, or do we need those categories?
~Neshomeh is curious and likes thought experiments.