If you use an avatar of a gender you are not, are you good at portraying that gender?

[Akane Nacht]

11 hours ago, CatfishChef said:

Who made up these silly rules about gender stereotypes anyway?

Fashion industry.

11 hours ago, CatfishChef said:

I want to meet the person who came up with these gender rules and give them forty lashes with a wet noodle.

They'll drape that noodle over you and say You look fabulous dahling. 

[Lewis Luminos]

On 10/10/2022 at 4:14 AM, Rowan Amore said:

Personally, I've never made a male avatar but I'm sure I could play it pretty well.  I won't bother though since men just don't have as many hair options as women and I LOVE hair.

I wear womens hair anyway, far more often than I wear mens hair. As long as it's not too long (shoulder length or just below), it usually works well. That's a style I adopted in my first week in SL, a kind of rough rocker style, and I've stuck with it ever since. I only ever wear actual men's hair when I'm in a classy jazz club.

Left to right:  Doux (Tegan), Magika (Ash), Magika (Lydia), Truth (Mitzi), Exile (Betty).  I also have loads from No Match, because they actually rig their long hair for male bodies too, but I don't like their textures any more. 

I have more hair than I have wearable clothing.

[Charalyne Blackwood]

2 hours ago, Lewis Luminos said:

I wear womens hair anyway, far more often than I wear mens hair. As long as it's not too long (shoulder length or just below), it usually works well. That's a style I adopted in my first week in SL, a kind of rough rocker style, and I've stuck with it ever since. I only ever wear actual men's hair when I'm in a classy jazz club.

Left to right:  Doux (Tegan), Magika (Ash), Magika (Lydia), Truth (Mitzi), Exile (Betty).  I also have loads from No Match, because they actually rig their long hair for male bodies too, but I don't like their textures any more. 

I have more hair than I have wearable clothing.

*fans self*

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, Lewis Luminos said:

I wear womens hair anyway, far more often than I wear mens hair. As long as it's not too long (shoulder length or just below), it usually works well. That's a style I adopted in my first week in SL, a kind of rough rocker style, and I've stuck with it ever since. I only ever wear actual men's hair when I'm in a classy jazz club.

Left to right:  Doux (Tegan), Magika (Ash), Magika (Lydia), Truth (Mitzi), Exile (Betty).  I also have loads from No Match, because they actually rig their long hair for male bodies too, but I don't like their textures any more. 

I have more hair than I have wearable clothing.

I always love your long hair!

That hair is almost a perfect color for my mane. I've had to wear women's hair for awhile now, due to "long hair = mane".

[Maitimo]

23 hours ago, Lewis Luminos said:

I wear womens hair anyway, far more often than I wear mens hair. As long as it's not too long (shoulder length or just below), it usually works well. That's a style I adopted in my first week in SL, a kind of rough rocker style, and I've stuck with it ever since. I only ever wear actual men's hair when I'm in a classy jazz club.

Left to right:  Doux (Tegan), Magika (Ash), Magika (Lydia), Truth (Mitzi), Exile (Betty).  I also have loads from No Match, because they actually rig their long hair for male bodies too, but I don't like their textures any more. 

I have more hair than I have wearable clothing.

😍

That second one looks really good on you.

[cunomar]

Must have taken Lewis forever to find that much long male hair so i will add ARGRACE MIYABI to his list

https://gyazo.com/604b4fdb1c9312f31bab5caa607427e6

[Jackson Redstar]

But, doesn't it take a biologist to know what gender is what?

[Theresa Tennyson]

39 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

But, doesn't it take a biologist to know what gender is what?

It can take a whole team of doctors.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31466074/

[Lewis Luminos]

1 hour ago, cunomar said:

Must have taken Lewis forever to find that much long male hair so i will add ARGRACE MIYABI to his list

https://gyazo.com/604b4fdb1c9312f31bab5caa607427e6

Thanks. It can be a bit of trial and error - those are all womens styles and not all will work. Sometimes they clip too far into the back, or stand out too far in front.  That last one in my lineup actualy does clip at the back but its close enought to my neck so it just looks like it's all tucked inside my collar, and I really like how it looks form the front. 

1 hour ago, Jackson Redstar said:

But, doesn't it take a biologist to know what gender is what?

Biologists and doctors to know what sex is what, in cases where there is ambuguity. Ther may be a chromosome combination that isn't XX or XY, or it may even be that they have an unexpected combination - for example women (who developed as girls since conception) but have XY chromosomes because they have androgen insensitivity - in other words, they're immune to testosterone. They lack a uterus (as do many XX women) but are otherwise biologically entirely female. Chromosomes are not always a good indicator of biological sex, and are totally useless at indicating gender.

It takes psychlogists and psychiatrists to know what gender is what. This is what happens when someone says they want to transition - they have to be assesed by a psychiatrist to rule out other conditions such as brain injury or drug abuse as a cause of gender dysphoria. It prevents the situation where people transition un-necessarily and end up regretting it.  Gender is likely identifiable via analysis of thought processes in the brain but there's some overlap, and we're not yet at the stage where brain funcion is sufficiently well-understood, so it can't be relied upon yet. So identifying gender right now is 100% about listening to what the person tells us about their own gender identity.  

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Jackson Redstar said:

But, doesn't it take a biologist to know what gender is what?

No, because your gender is not your biology.

If biology is a pile of lego bricks, gender is what you shaped them into.

If, for entirely personal reasons, you decided not to build with the same color bricks as your biologically similar peers, that is fine and entirely valid.

 

To step away from the lego analogy. Biology is a detailed description of what you have & where you started. Gender is personal. While there may be a biological basis for some gender variance, biology is so insanely complicated and influenced by so many factors, that once it's taken two steps out the starting gate it no longer defines the person who it belongs to.

Biology might strongly hint at what a persons gender is, but to know for sure you have to ask them.

 

 

[Katherine Heartsong]

On 10/11/2022 at 3:55 AM, Akane Nacht said:

Fashion industry.

They'll drape that noodle over you and say You look fabulous dahling. 

[Love Zhaoying]

On 10/11/2022 at 3:55 AM, Akane Nacht said:

They'll drape that noodle over you and say You look fabulous dahling. 

That reminds me of a very old, and completely inappropriate joke!

[Luna Bliss]

On 10/11/2022 at 5:42 AM, Lewis Luminos said:

I wear womens hair anyway, far more often than I wear mens hair. As long as it's not too long (shoulder length or just below), it usually works well. That's a style I adopted in my first week in SL, a kind of rough rocker style, and I've stuck with it ever since. I only ever wear actual men's hair when I'm in a classy jazz club.

Left to right:  Doux (Tegan), Magika (Ash), Magika (Lydia), Truth (Mitzi), Exile (Betty).  I also have loads from No Match, because they actually rig their long hair for male bodies too, but I don't like their textures any more. 

I have more hair than I have wearable clothing.

Thanks for posting those...and even creator info...am at Truth now.

Usually a red head...so see a couple of yours I'd like.

Changed to a darker color and it disappears way too easily from a short distance...do not like looking half bald.  But I love the style 

 

[Lewis Luminos]

12 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Thanks for posting those...and even creator info...am at Truth now.

Usually a red head...so see a couple of yours I'd like.

Changed to a darker color and it disappears way too easily from a short distance...do not like looking half bald.  But I love the style 

 

 

That Truth one in my pics is very old. Truth hair is looking kind of dated lately, especially when compared with the quality of Magika and Doux. The one you have there looks older too, I guess the older styles aren;t as good with the LOD as newer ones.

[Istelathis]

The behavior of people differs so widely that to me, there appears to be no standard in real life that would define gender by behavior alone.  I do notice patterns of expectations out of the gender of a person though, and some people play along with those expectations as they feel comfortable with holding them for themselves, and others. Beyond such a mask of expectations though, I feel people in general, have a lot of variety when it comes to personality and behaviors.

As for myself, I prefer to do my own thing with no expectations from others due to gender.  As the such, no matter which avatar I am using, be it male or female, would a good portrayal of those expectations.  Playing such a role is uncomfortable for me, so I perform it poorly.  Further, I don't hold any expectations out of others due to their gender.  I think because of this, it is hard at times to portray myself as even human, because it is ingrained to the fabric of society.

A fun thought experiment I have had in the past, is a hypothetical as to how we would behave if we were all genderless and physically identical to one another, what sort of groups would arise from it and how we would form our own identities.  Would there still be gender in such a scenario, and who would decide which gender a person gets to be.  

Edited October 12, 2022 by Istelathis

[Bree Giffen]

15 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

A fun thought experiment I have had in the past, is a hypothetical as to how we would behave if we were all genderless and physically identical to one another, what sort of groups would arise from it and how we would form our own identities.  Would there still be gender in such a scenario, and who would decide which gender a person gets to be.  

You mean like The Smurfs? There was Brainy Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Handy Smurf, etc.

[Charalyne Blackwood]

40 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

A fun thought experiment I have had in the past, is a hypothetical as to how we would behave if we were all genderless and physically identical to one another, what sort of groups would arise from it and how we would form our own identities.  Would there still be gender in such a scenario, and who would decide which gender a person gets to be.  

I think it would be interesting to see LL give non binary options for base avatars and profile info

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I think it would be interesting to see LL give non binary options for base avatars and profile info

Hoping some of the new "NUX" (is that the name?) default avatars are non-binary  / Androgynous!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

49 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

A fun thought experiment I have had in the past, is a hypothetical as to how we would behave if we were all genderless and physically identical to one another, what sort of groups would arise from it and how we would form our own identities.  Would there still be gender in such a scenario, and who would decide which gender a person gets to be.  

I suspect that even more interesting than our behavior in such circumstances would be how we interpreted that of others. I think we've been culturally indoctrinated in reading gender, and that many of us would spend a lot of our time trying to decode the behavior of people around us for "clues" as to RL gender. So strong is out programming that it would be difficult to escape from that.

What would be really interesting would be an analysis of how often we were correct. I suspect it would come as a shock to many people how frequently they weren't.

[Love Zhaoying]

16 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

What would be really interesting would be an analysis of how often we were correct. I suspect it would come as a shock to many people how frequently they weren't.

Why do you find it interesting?  Just curious.

Whether or not I can interpret someone else's gender, is none of my business.

 

[Lewis Luminos]

28 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I suspect that even more interesting than our behavior in such circumstances would be how we interpreted that of others. I think we've been culturally indoctrinated in reading gender, and that many of us would spend a lot of our time trying to decode the behavior of people around us for "clues" as to RL gender. So strong is out programming that it would be difficult to escape from that.

What would be really interesting would be an analysis of how often we were correct. I suspect it would come as a shock to many people how frequently they weren't.

You can see that situation in certain internet forums, such as Reddit, which have minimal or no profile info and no avatar representation.  In a situation like that, the only clues you have to a person's gender are the name they choose for themselves (which may or may not be a gendered name) and their words and behaviour in posts and comments.  They may choose to disclose things that either hint at or explicitly expose their gender, but many people don't, and forums like that are by their nature, a place where everyone is basically genderless.  I am sure that I'm wrong very often when guessing at the gender of other users.

On this forum and in-world it's different because everyone has an avatar, the majority of which are gendered, so we have at least something to go on, even if it's not always accurate.

But in the scenario proposed by @Istelathis, if everyone had been non-gendered right from the very beginning (with everyone presumably capable of taking either or both roles in reproduction), I don't think we'd have developed a concept of gender at all. There would be no such thing as transgender because there would be no "other" and nothing to transition to. 

Still, with humans being humans, I'm sure that other features would be used to segregate some portion of the population as inferior to the other. Racism, classism, ageism, ableism, the list is long even when sexism is absent.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Lewis Luminos

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Why do you find it interesting?  Just curious.

Whether or not I can interpret someone else's gender, is none of my business.

 

Because I think it would demonstrate the differences between biological sex and culturally-determined gender roles. Each and every time we got it "wrong" would be a reminder of how artificial and independent of biological markers our understanding of gender is.

It would, or should, entail a re-evaluation of our socially-prescribed certainties about the correspondence of certain codes behaviors with biology.

It would introduce doubt into our thinking. And insofar as that should lead to a re-appraisal of received beliefs and assumptions, that's a good thing.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

21 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

But in the scenario proposed by @Istelathis, if everyone had been non-gendered right from the very beginning (with everyone presumably capable of taking either or both roles in reproduction), I don't think we'd have developed a concept of gender at all. There would be no such thing as transgender because there would be no "other" and nothing to transition to.

I wish I could believe this were true. But I really don't believe we're all capable of abandoning the arbitrary categories that have been assigned to gender in our RL. They are pretty much everywhere -- in popular media, advertisements, politics, our social interactions -- and I don't think any of us, even those of us who want to question them, are capable of simply jettisoning them. You yourself point out that you make, consciously or unconsciously, guesses or assumptions about posters on Reddit.

In some ways, I think this is fine, because those moments of doubt or proven error can become instruments of education and self-awareness. I think that most of the behaviours and attitudes that we associate with established gender identities are nonsense (please note, though, that I say "most"), but I still fall into this trap myself. And every time I am proven wrong, it forces me to step back and examine my own assumptions. And that's an excellent thing.

21 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

Still, with humans being humans, I'm sure that other features would be used to segregate some portion of the population as inferior to the other. Racism, classism, ageism, ableism, the list is long even when sexism is absent.

I'd like to believe that this is not true, but I suspect that, at this moment in human evolution anyway, it is. And that's precisely why I suspect we'd impose gender even where there was no real basis to do so. Gender is one of the oldest and mostly deeply ingrained ways of thinking that we possess. I find it hard to believe we wouldn't impose it, even without warrant.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Lewis Luminos]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I wish I could believe this were true. But I really don't believe we're all capable of abandoning the arbitrary categories that have been assigned to gender in our RL.

But if humans had evolved to be gender-neutral right from the start, those gender categories and the socialisation would never have existed in the first place. You're working on the assumption that we all suddenly become genderless.

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And that's precisely why I suspect we'd impose gender even where there was no real basis to do so. Gender is one of the oldest and mostly deeply ingrained ways of thinking that we possess. I find it hard to believe we wouldn't impose it, even without warrant.

We couldn't impose it if we didn't know what it was. Instead we'd impose other things. Maybe some sort of caste system, if the other current methods of segregation were not sufficient. I'm sure that in the US it would be religion.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I think it would be interesting to see LL give non binary options for base avatars and profile info

Base avatars should be better, period.  As far as profiles?  They are completely non-gender specific until you put something in there.  Why would we need options for profiles?