• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

What gender are you?

Do you identify as

  • Male

  • Female

  • Trans Male (FTM)

  • Trans Female (MTF)

  • Gender Neutral


Results are only viewable after voting.
As far as I interpreted the options the "cis" was implied in the "male" and "female" options. The "trans" options I think are to keep things simple. I don't think any offence was intended. I think the intent was to try and be inclusive.

I know of a lot of people online on various forums and on YouTube who refer to themselves as "trans" as shorthand for the long form "trans male or trans female. I think it's a very commonly accepted term amongst the trans community.
It doesn't really matter if offense wasn't intended, this is a form of othering that should be corrected and not done again. This is like when you're reading a novel and enjoying the plot when suddenly the narrator chooses to describe a person as "Indian" or "Asian" (people seem to find more creative ways to describe a Black person lol) when everyone else so far is just implied to be white. Only if you're white will you barely notice this, but for the rest of us it definitely changes the whole game. As a society we've done a decent job to be more inclusive of (white, cis, middle-class) women, but that seems to be about as far as we'll go.

I'm not really in trans spaces all that much, but I do know a lot of women take issue with being called "female" (one reason being the dehumanizing aspect of it, especially in the context that it seems to be the term preferred by angry incels). I imagine those who have decided to come out as trans have been in enough of these discussions to refer to themselves as either a man or a woman (if they're not identifying as non-binary), not a male or a female.
 
I don't believe I've heard it described exactly like that. But I have read that in cases of intersexed births, it was common to raise kids as female in this case. This lead to a lot of people who began to identify as male later in life having the gender of female enforced with hormones.
Yeah it's actually unfortunately common for intersex individuals or individuals with ambiguous genitalia to undergo surgery as infants or children to 'correct' their sex characteristics so they'll appear to have 'normal' external genitalia instead.

I should note that these surgeries are considered medically unnecessary and are highly controversial because, you know, infants and children are incapable of consenting to these procedures, so it's instead the parents who have to consent.

So far literally only a few countries ban non-consensual medical interventions to modify sex anatomy.
 
I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but biology does indeed lie. There are people that look perfectly cis female, but they are genetically male. There are people that look entirely cis male and possess female chromosomes.

These conditions are considered rare. But as it has been pointed out. It's rarely tested for, so we have no way to know how prevalent this is in the general population.

You are female, and you would still be female as far as I'm concerned, even if you turned out to have a Y chromosome.
Technically the biology still doesnt lie. Our eyes do for assuming male/female because of certain physical traits. If a female has a Y chromosome it usually shows when puberty hits. You have a very good point. But not as a counter to biological truth.
 
I'm identified at birth as male but I've always been uncomfortable with that. When I was young gender was often confused with sexuality and was very much a taboo subject. So I kept my feelings and activities secret well into my 30s. Until I met my late wife who was supportive of my wish to express myself as male and female. Long story short, but now I often go out in public as female although my anatomy and voice are male. Everyone I meet treats me with respect and politeness and occasionally even with enthusiasm! I've had very few problems. That's all I ask.

I don't plan to use hormones or have surgery as I am ok as 'him' or 'her'. It would be nice though, to have blue and pink pills and transform either way completely at will. But I make the best of what is.

BTW, I'm happy to talk about this privately with anyone here. Just ask.
 
Technically the biology still doesnt lie. Our eyes do for assuming male/female because of certain physical traits. If a female has a Y chromosome it usually shows when puberty hits. You have a very good point. But not as a counter to biological truth.
So basically; XX doesn't necessarily make you female and XY doesn't necessarily make you male. Or having female physical characteristics doesn't necessarily mean you are XX and having male characters doesn't mean you are necessarily XY.

If the female in your example has been classified as female due to characteristics at birth, but turns out to have a Y chromosome and still identifies as female, then they are still female right? Regardless of the "biological truth"?
 
When I try to describe my gender now, I run a subtantial risk of getting thorougly abused for being prejudiced.
 
So basically; XX doesn't necessarily make you female and XY doesn't necessarily make you male. Or having female physical characteristics doesn't necessarily mean you are XX and having male characters doesn't mean you are necessarily XY.

If the female in your example has been classified as female due to characteristics at birth, but turns out to have a Y chromosome and still identifies as female, then they are still female right? Regardless of the "biological truth"?
Not completely. XX and XY make you male or female. That is basic science and a consistent truth. However. If someone would be XXY for example. They are neither male or female. They are intersex.
Now, in reality for almost anyone. The female or male characteristics will mean they have either XX or XY. Thus babies do not really need to be tested to see what they are.
For me, if someone who has all characteristics of female, identifies as female but has an Y chromosome. TECHNICALLY they are not female.

Unless we start a worldwide chromosome testing, the research shows that only 0.018% of the world population is intersex. Fausto-Sterling has estimated it to be 1.7% but from what I can find this is not accurate.
So in almost every case the assumption of male of female based on characteristics is accurate.
Strange example. But there are a lot of people that are born without 10 fingers. But everyone would say humans have 10 fingers when asked for a number.

Now, would I socially adress the person in your example as a woman? Ofcourse I would.
Who am I to tell someone they cannot be who they feel they are when it does not hurt others.
But as soon as we start mixing gender and sex it is a different story. As for example when we talk about transgers in sports. Which is clearly devided by differences in sex, and not gender.

Not trying to dismiss others believes here. Just trying to explain how I see it.
 
Now, would I socially adress the person in your example as a woman? Ofcourse I would.
Who am I to tell someone they cannot be who they feel they are when it does not hurt others.
Excellent! I'm glad we can agree on that. That's the bottom line really.

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to do genetic testing in general, it might be rather enlightening. We might just learn something important about the whole situation/relationship between sex and gender. Perhaps there's large numbers of trans people who have the genes that are in harmony with their identity. Until it's done, we simply don't know.

It may even make a huge difference to those people. It could save a few lives even.
 
Excellent! I'm glad we can agree on that. That's the bottom line really.

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to do genetic testing in general, it might be rather enlightening. We might just learn something important about the whole situation/relationship between sex and gender. Perhaps there's large numbers of trans people who have the genes that are in harmony with their identity. Until it's done, we simply don't know.

It may even make a huge difference to those people. It could save a few lives even.
I agree.
 
Everyone I meet treats me with respect and politeness and occasionally even with enthusiasm! I've had very few problems. That's all I ask.
The ideal situation for all! I ask for this for everyone.
 
I am a biological male, but spiritually... I don't think I am a defined gender. I tend to flip-flop between feeling masculine and feminine quite alot. Alot of self perceptions of being either male, female, or a mix of both.

In fact my character Xinyta is made as androgynous for that reason.
 
I am male, both in my body and in my identity. However I'm pretty in touch with the parts of me that have been called my "feminine side". But I don't get that, they are all me, so it is "my side"? Anyway, that's what I've been told.
 
It seems so ridiculous nowadays to read about state prescribed hormones being administered to (in particular) gay men. But it happened.
In the UK this law was only repealed 5 years before I was born. Homosexual men (not women) were given a choice... chemical castration or prison.

We are a long way from being truly civilised in my opinion.
Agreed. In my lifetime, and roughly around my teenage school years, it was illegal for UK schools to teach about homosexuality. That law was repealed around 2003 if my memory serves. And now the government is trying to get a similar law passed to suppress teaching about transsexuality.

Without even going into the issues themselves... the principle of forcing kids to grow up ignorant seems wrong to me, and risky for all concerned.

Progress... is slow.
 
In the UK this law was only repealed 5 years before I was born. Homosexual men (not women) were given a choice... chemical castration or prison.


Agreed. In my lifetime, and roughly around my teenage school years, it was illegal for UK schools to teach about homosexuality. That law was repealed around 2003 if my memory serves. And now the government is trying to get a similar law passed to suppress teaching about transsexuality.

Without even going into the issues themselves... the principle of forcing kids to grow up ignorant seems wrong to me, and risky for all concerned.

Progress... is slow.
Sex in general is taboo to talk about still even though the human race was acquired due to such behavior.
Sex should be no different then talking about food at-least from a general aspect.
 
In the UK this law was only repealed 5 years before I was born. Homosexual men (not women) were given a choice... chemical castration or prison.

I'm not comfortable with the formulation "X years before I was born", so here's a bit more detail from wikipedia:

Homosexuality:
* Always legal for women
* Decriminalised for men in:
*** 1967 (England and Wales)
*** 1981 (Scotland)
*** 1982 (Northern Ireland)
Age of consent equalised in 2001
 

New Threads

Top Bottom