Gender

[turquoise70]

I don't see it. I think he's got a drastically different face shape and feature arrangement than me.

[bearhead]

I don't see it. I think he's got a drastically different face shape and feature arrangement than me.

Well, I guess when you know your face pretty well, it's difficult to agree when someone else tells you that you and someone else look alike. So, I get it. It's just that I kind of see it, so I figured I'd mention it.

[turquoise70]

Sorry. I don't mean to jump down your throat. It's just that truthfully I'm super self-conscious about my face and my appearance overall. One of my most constant fears is that my face looks masculine or makes people think I'm a guy. I don't really expect you to -know- that beforehand, but now at least I've said it out loud.

[bearhead]

Sorry. I don't mean to jump down your throat. It's just that truthfully I'm super self-conscious about my face and my appearance overall. One of my most constant fears is that my face looks masculine or makes people think I'm a guy. I don't really expect you to -know- that beforehand, but now at least I've said it out loud.

If it makes you feel any better, Melissa Joan Hart and Ariel Pink look quite alike, as you slightly favor him in that picture.



And she doesn't look masculine by any means.

[hexagon son]

I really could less about your gender, orientation, how or what you feel your sexuality is. (dont take this the wrong way!). I am straight but seem to be a magnet for gay men. Whatever lour lifestyle changes are or are going through, I have nothing but respect for that. However, if you suffer some kind of anguish from it, I have no sympathy. Not because I am an uncaring person, only because if we make choices in life that bring us any kind of grief, we have brought it upon ourselves. Having said that, I commend you on talking such a brave choice in is what an otherwise uncaring world. To me, you are always the the identity you have have always been here, no matter your gender. And if we were friends, we still would be.

[IronMark]

Nicole, you absolute hottie. If we weren't on opposite sides of the world I'd be chatting you up as we speak.

[turquoise70]

If it makes you feel any better, Melissa Joan Hart and Ariel Pink look quite alike, as you slightly favor him in that picture.



And she doesn't look masculine by any means.

That actually DOES make me feel WAY better. I ADORE Melissa Joan Hart. Especially in that particular shot. I'm this close to making that an avatar.

Whatever lour lifestyle changes are or are going through, I have nothing but respect for that. However, if you suffer some kind of anguish from it, I have no sympathy. Not because I am an uncaring person, only because if we make choices in life that bring us any kind of grief, we have brought it upon ourselves.

I think you misunderstand what being trans -is-. There's an element of choice in deciding to transition, but being who I am inside is no choice. I chose to openly transition, but the opposite choice was a life of misery never truly being who I am. I attempted suicide in 2011 because I thought I was going to have to be a guy forever. My 'choice' was between almost guaranteed suicide.... and social ridicule, an increased chance of being the subject of a homicide, along with the loss of any meaningful relationship with my family. And you have -no- sympathy for that? Really. I call that being a dick, no matter how well-intentioned your sentiment was.

Nicole, you absolute hottie. If we weren't on opposite sides of the world I'd be chatting you up as we speak.

<3 <3 <3 I'd probably be blushing. Scottish accents are hot

[turquoise70]

Wow, Twoism really doesn't have anything to say about gender unless I'm around.

I find that kinda sad.

Anyway, I have vagina surgery in a week. So there's that.

[Cupz]

That is because most people have little to say about my gender other then "I have a penis/vagina", or "I think its great Nicole is a real woman now", I guess.

I used to be really interested in it before you left my life though...

[IanRedpoint]

I guess most of us are relatively content with the gender we are, or at least don't feel that there's an imbalance there. It's a sliding scale and I guess I see myself as far enough into the male side to not worry about it.

Having a close friend who was unhappy and confused for many years, only to discover that it was his gender that was destroying him, made me understand how desperately hard it must be to go through much of life feeling that you've been born the wrong sex. It took him until he was in his 40s to understand it and do something about it. David became Dawn and is a far better person for it. She's far happier than he ever was and to my great surprise and pleasure, pretty much everyone has accepted and embraced her.

I hope you have support from your friends. I think it's always harder for family to embrace a change like this. Hopefully that will come with time. It really can work. Dawn's family, even her wife, have been onside throughout. Love can and should be stronger than gender.

Let us know that you're okay, post surgery. We'll be thinking of you.

Anyway, we need more women making electronic music.

[fujee]

Great story, congratulations to Dawn. Particularly touching to know her wife is standing by her, that is so great.

[Headphase]

I'm still in school and I swear this is how everyone judges you like this:

"If you are a girl who likes boys, that's okay
If you are a girl who likes girls. that's okay
If you are a boy who likes girls, that's okay
If you are a boy who liek's boys, THAT'S WRONG AND YOU SHOULD BE PUNISHED"

I completely disagree with the statement above, which someone ACTUALLY said to me. I don't care what sexuality you are:
As long as you are happy in life, then you are living life correctly

[turquoise70]

I hope you have support from your friends. I think it's always harder for family to embrace a change like this. Hopefully that will come with time. It really can work. Dawn's family, even her wife, have been onside throughout. Love can and should be stronger than gender.

Let us know that you're okay, post surgery. We'll be thinking of you.

I will!

And that's great to hear. It's always reassuring when someone's story ends happily, like that. I have really great support from the people in my life - my biological family has been rubbish, but they play less of a role in my day to day life now.

Anyway, we need more women making electronic music.

Amen. Onwards!

I'm still in school and I swear this is how everyone judges you like this:

"If you are a girl who likes boys, that's okay
If you are a girl who likes girls. that's okay
If you are a boy who likes girls, that's okay
If you are a boy who liek's boys, THAT'S WRONG AND YOU SHOULD BE PUNISHED"

I completely disagree with the statement above, which someone ACTUALLY said to me. I don't care what sexuality you are:
As long as you are happy in life, then you are living life correctly

I take your point, although gender is not the same thing as sexual orientation. In fact, the two often operate completely independently from one another. Sexual orientation is what you find attractive in another person. Gender is what you feel you, yourself are, or ought to be.

For example, when people ask me about my orientation (and they have a minute or two to spare) I tell them I am polymorphously perverse and autoerotic. Meaning I take sexual arousal from MANY different situations, irrespective of gender and irrespective of if it's even a human or even an animal or even an organism - and autoeroticism means I prefer to physically arouse myself rather than have other people involved. That's MY orientation.

And when asked about my gender, I say this.... I think that, being a human with a full set of genes, the hard distinction between males and females does not exist in nature, only in the human mind. I feel that my mind, my personality, deep down in the core of it all, does not have a gender, and neither does anybody else's. If my personality were a planet, 99% of the inner layers are genderless, gender does not apply to them, it would be like saying a webcam or a pill bottle has a gender; it just doesn't. The OUTER layers, where I express myself, do have a gender, and it's a gender of my own choosing. EVERYONE is free to choose their gender, but most people are content to stick with the one that has been assumed for them. Got a penis at birth, they call you male, you get more testosterone than estrogen, you live the role... why change it, if it works for you? I think that's where most people are at.

(And while we're mentioning genes, arguing that genetics determine identity is horseshit. Having a Y chromosome /does not make you male/. It means you have a gene that /tends to cause male sexual traits/. TENDS. Notice the wording. That's how genes work. I have a gene that TENDS to cause cancer. I do not have cancer. I may never get cancer. Nobody tells me I have to act like a cancer patient because of my gene. Genes do not determine identity.)

In my view, all humans are gender-queer. In the womb, all human fetuses start off with a vagina. That's just a fact. In the womb, pre-hormones, we are all female. Female is the DEFAULT state. Then, if testosterone is present, your gonads descend from the body, your clitoris elongates, and your perineum heals shut. That's right, that line going up your scrotum and down to your butthole? That's a scar. From where your VAGINA used to be. Not even kidding.

All I'm doing is 're-setting' things back how they were. Back how they would've been, and continued to be, had testosterone not been introduced to my development.

Females are males and males are females. The only reason we think there's a huge difference is hormones. Particularly PUBERTY. Shit, children are all pretty androgynous unless they have a severe hormone imbalance. HUMANS are androgynous. Puberty takes whatever sexual hormones are present, and jams them up to 11. Humans, being /morons/, take this as a suggestion from nature that they can only move in one direction or have one identity or call themselves one or the other. There are no instructions written into the natural world that SAY this, it's just something humans decided on and then decided to viciously enforce as an idea. Like, oh, I don't know, monotheistic religion, patriarchal social structures, heterosexuality, and virtually everything else that's actually optional.

[mechanismj]

Very well said.

[Mexicola]

Hey Nicole, just caught up with the latest. Good luck with your surgery!

[turquoise70]

Thanks mechanismj and Mexicola. Good to see you guys again, by the way

I wish I hadn't have lost touch with Twoism so much the past year or so, but it kind of went hand in hand with me putting music aside for the interim. I guess in essence the culprit is transition, although I couldn't for the life of me point out any ONE THING about transition that made it impossible for me to write music or comment on music. Actually I think my ability to care about a -lot- of things was compromised; I had bigger things to worry about, and now that transition is -basically- all over and I'm successfully a woman, I'm back to just enjoying life and pursuing my interests. Or, almost there. Will be once I recover.

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

omg this thread is friggin weird lol

[Mexicola]

who cares

Us. Do one.

[Cupz]

Can we see it, Nicole?

[Jonse]

In making a Gmail account for Simulate Televangelist, I'd noticed that Google has a gender option for "other" alongside male and female. Way to go, Google. Breaking that gender binary for its users before a lot of other big internet corporations. Facebook has just now done this. Took them long enough.