Survey question - "What is your gender?"

[Clord]

I got survey from Stardock and the first question was "What is your gender?"


For most people this is no problem but what if I consider myself as third gender for example?


I play female characters, I feel more related when I'm perceived as a female online. Yet I feel like I'm mix of both genders.


From deep inside I perceive myself as a bit more female than male.

 

[_Shadow_]

Here comes the deal. All people are a little male and a little female. We carry both natures, but before we get born it is decided which of either sexes will dominate thus you are born as a boy or a girl. Not sure if I am 100% right here, I am not a biologist.

When it comes to the mind, I try not to think with "conventional with the society's stereotypes". What I mean is that there are stereotypes in society that make you feel like:

"This is not a man's behaviour. Men must be strong warriors, heartless blah blah blah".

"Women only are allowed to cry. Women only can express feelings of weakness. Women only are allowed to be tender BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!".

These myths tear down into pieces when you become a father for most of the people, but people pretend being something different because they must keep playing "a role" that is decided by stereotypes. I am not a father yet, but I can be caressing and tender. Women are better than me on this all right, but that doesn't mean I have not this caressing nature inside me. Women after all had the freedom to exercise caressing, while stereotypes discouraged me from doing so. That's just an example. When it comes to how I think, I know for sure that it has nothing to do with my gender. 

That's why I am not a homophobic. I got homosexual friends and since they respect me I do respect them too. I can say that they are fantastic persons, (two women and a guy that actually are friends of mine but have to talk to them for a long time, because they moved to another city, miss them ) and they faced a LOT of hate with no reason. Being straight doesn't make me a better person than these people really. Sometimes it makes me sad that people failt to accept someone who thinks different. Because in the end, ALL of us think different. Thats strictly my personal opinion of course @Clord.  I might be right, or might be wrong.

 

[TherainED]

Psycological gender, sure, you can be whatever you want. It doesn't matter if it is a genderfluid latte with pancreatic movility and diverse ectoplasmic mononuchleosys.

Physical gender, you're stuck with what you got unless you take expensive, complicated and rather inconvenient measures to solve it. And it doesn't matter how you feel. If you've been born a man, you're stuck with man untill ops.

That's pretty much the only things I can say before starting to make assumptions, mostly based on previous experiences, but assumptions nevertheless. #STOPASSUMING

 

[Raider]

@Dreadshadow:

Just to let this here, you're right, male and female embryos actually evolve exactly the same in the first few weeks. That's also the reason why men haven nipples *biologist out*

For the topic, I'm really open-minded towards other people, and I believe that people can be born as the "wrong" gender. I'm glad, that I'm not one of them, because I think that this can be very frustrating, even in our open-minded society nowadays.

I don't care if any other person is male/female/whatsoever, as long as they are nice to me. I just don't like, if people act like this to create attention, but I believe (at least hope) that this is not the common case.

I'm not going to discuss gender roles here, because some things about that were already mentioned and it's also a huge topic which you can discuss for hours.

 

[Kes]

If you go by X and Y chromosomes, there are not only 2 combinations (XX and XY) as is commonly supposed, but 6 have been identified.  Maybe there are more?  So even going by ordinary physiology, things are more complex than might at first appear.

 

[Clord]

Psycological gender, sure, you can be whatever you want. It doesn't matter if it is a genderfluid latte with pancreatic movility and diverse ectoplasmic mononuchleosys.


Physical gender, you're stuck with what you got unless you take expensive, complicated and rather inconvenient measures to solve it. And it doesn't matter how you feel. If you've been born a man, you're stuck with man untill ops.


That's pretty much the only things I can say before starting to make assumptions, mostly based on previous experiences, but assumptions nevertheless. #STOPASSUMING

While you're somewhat right, the forms still for the most part don't specify if they mean one's physical gender. Now I would imagine it would be better for marketers to be more precise to get better data.


I have seen some people using answers like "gender male" and "gender female" to show that they are only/mostly physically certain gender.

 

[TherainED]

@Clord, maybe they don't ask for the physical gender specifically, but...come on. Wouldn't it be kind of commonsensical? (Kind of made that word up, BTW)

I mean, it's not like a woman is going to have a prostate problem because she thinks of herself as a man. The same think would happen with ovary issues because some dude somewhere thinks of himself as a woman. That's just...both absurd and immposible.

Not to mention that the marketers have nothing to do in this ecuation, at least from my experience on public healthcare ('murica, srsly, WTF?).

Then again, nowadays, common sense it's not the most common sense, but still I feel like it would be kind of logic.

Now, entering on the field of "gender blah", I can understand that if the subject in question is a herm. If not, I don't see the point of it. In pretty much any paper asking for your gender, specially if we're talking about helathcare or government, they don't give a swollen **** if you recognise yourself as a "beself" or whatever gender pronoun you can possibly come up with. They just care if you're man, woman or herm.

Not in Spainistan, tho. You're citizen, end of story.

Now we enter on the dangerous territory of assumptions, where everything I say isn't wrong nor right even if anything I say is most probably wrong. #STOPASSUMING

Spoiler

Honestly, the "gender blah" being physically a man or a woman with no chance of mistake, I'd regard it as a unnecesary wish of "I'm rebelling against the sistem and as such, I'm right" mixed with a bit of "I have my head way up my arse". Both a waste of time and energy for both you and the poor fool that has to read those papers. It adds no relevant information and some people, with whom I do not agree in this matter, would even say that it's confusing and difficults the proccess.

It all comes back to what I said in the last post: When asking psycological gender, be whatever you want. When asking physical gender, be what you physically are, even if you percieve it differently.

IF, when asked for your physical self, you answer with your phycological self, you either missed the point of the question or have a pointless need to be right, which oneself should question.

Everything I said in a forte tone, but meaning no disrespect towards you.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Isn't the biological make up your 'sex' though and not your 'gender'? I don't know what stardock is, so I wasn't aware we were talking about medical documentation - but personally for things like forums, entertainment sites, blogs, whatever else they should let it be fill in the blank. Some people aren't comfortable picking one or the other, and I don't see the point in forcing them too.

And if it's a demographic survey type thing then There's nothing wrong (or difficult) with having a third option 'other' on the survey. (Or hey, having fill in the blanks too! Why not.)

Edit: thanks auto correct... No I did not mean demographic surgery.

 

[Clord]

@Clord, maybe they don't ask for the physical gender specifically, but...come on. Wouldn't it be kind of commonsensical? (Kind of made that word up, BTW)


I mean, it's not like a woman is going to have a prostate problem because she thinks of herself as a man. The same think would happen with ovary issues because some dude somewhere thinks of himself as a woman. That's just...both absurd and immposible.


Not to mention that the marketers have nothing to do in this ecuation, at least from my experience on public healthcare ('murica, srsly, WTF?).


Then again, nowadays, common sense it's not the most common sense, but still I feel like it would be kind of logic.


Now, entering on the field of "gender blah", I can understand that if the subject in question is a herm. If not, I don't see the point of it. In pretty much any paper asking for your gender, specially if we're talking about helathcare or government, they don't give a swollen **** if you recognise yourself as a "beself" or whatever gender pronoun you can possibly come up with. They just care if you're man, woman or herm.


Not in Spainistan, tho. You're citizen, end of story.


Now we enter on the dangerous territory of assumptions, where everything I say isn't wrong nor right even if anything I say is most probably wrong. #STOPASSUMING

Spoiler

Honestly, the "gender blah" being physically a man or a woman with no chance of mistake, I'd regard it as a unnecesary wish of "I'm rebelling against the sistem and as such, I'm right" mixed with a bit of "I have my head way up my arse". Both a waste of time and energy for both you and the poor fool that has to read those papers. It adds no relevant information and some people, with whom I do not agree in this matter, would even say that it's confusing and difficults the proccess.


It all comes back to what I said in the last post: When asking psycological gender, be whatever you want. When asking physical gender, be what you physically are, even if you percieve it differently.


IF, when asked for your physical self, you answer with your phycological self, you either missed the point of the question or have a pointless need to be right, which oneself should question.

Everything I said in a forte tone, but meaning no disrespect towards you.


So you consider trans, third gender, etc as mental illness?

Isn't the biological make up your 'sex' though and not your 'gender'? I don't know what stardock is, so I wasn't aware we were talking about medical documentation - but personally for things like forums, entertainment sites, blogs, whatever else they should let it be fill in the blank. Some people aren't comfortable picking one or the other, and I don't see the point in forcing them too.


And if it's a demographic survey type thing then There's nothing wrong (or difficult) with having a third option 'other' on the survey. (Or hey, having fill in the blanks too! Why not.)


Edit: thanks auto correct... No I did not mean demographic surgery.

http://www.stardock.com/

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Lol okay thanks. So the whole medical documents thing DID come out of left field then.

 

[Clord]

Lol okay thanks. So the whole medical documents thing DID come out of left field then.

Yeah, I'm not sure what their point was. Especially that part about "Believing HIMSELF to be female."

 

[Raider]

So you consider trans, third gender, etc as mental illness?

I don't think he meant it like that.

I suppose that it was meant, that the biological gender is very clear in the most situation (except transgender etc.) and that most surveys just ask for that, and not how you perceive yourself.

It's one thing to see yourself as a woman/man and an other to really be that biologically. Psychologically it's a complete different thing, but most surveys won't ask for that and sadly do not include the options "other" and so on, which were already mentioned.

 

[Clord]

I don't really mind if someone sees me as male or female. This is probably why it has never been a big issue to me. On online side of things I can however show my preferred gender.

 

[TherainED]

@Clord. No, I never stated such a thing in any of my posts. Please, don't pull a straw man on me.

Surveys ask you about A, and if you answer that question with C because you percieve it that way, whomever is making the survey is going to disregard it.

Thus, A would be oneself's physical gender and C would be psycological gender.

Anyway, I'm going to reread all my posts again in case I said something I didn't mean to. This is a rather delicate subject anyway.

 

[Makio-Kuta]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_gender_distinction

If the survey is asking for gender and not for sex then there IS no reason to assume they are asking for the biological sex of the person though.

And if the person who is making the survey disregards the entries of anyone who sees themselves outside of the gender binary then their getting skewed results.

Let's say for example the survey was to see what gender is most likely to purchase a product. They could be losing out on a chunk of their market if they ignore any results from those outside of gender binary. Plus there's no good reason for a survey like that to force someone into one box or the other.

I'm just going to add that I'm not trying to accuse you of anything; just to watch how you word things. Saying that the survey results of those who might pick option C are going to be discarded can be read a little hurtful. It IS a touchy subject like you say, but that's why it is important for people who make surveys and such to pay attention to these things.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I live with a great advantage in that I was both identified at birth, and identify myself with the same gender. I'm a guy, and even though I'm not the stereotypical guy, and don't match all the societal expectations, I feel like a guy.

But for everyone else. Be what you feel you need to be to be happy. That comes to gender, sexuality, etc, as long as you aren't hurting anyone, good for you. I mean, there are some weird things out there (like people thinking they are animals, just wtf), and then there are some actual harmful beliefs (don't even get me started on people who claim to be transracial), but your thoughts on your gender. Yeah, go for whatever. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It doesn't hurt them, so they can **** off.

 

[TherainED]

@Makio-kota, I'm afaid I can only apologise for my blunt way of speaking. My intention with it is to make a point clear, sometimes a point not even I agree with. There are many ways to do such a thing, but I picked mine long ago. I can only apologise in regards to that.

Now, I'll try to make this my last post on this matter, because I have to do many important things in the next days and I need to end my part of the discussion as soon as possible.

When I refered as surveys, I was referring as medical or governametal surveys, things like a census (Where it's illegal to "lie" about any of the things you are required to write)(Note that the quotes around lie mean anything written that doesn't accord with the perception of the common folk)(Note that I'm talking about the situation in Spain) or simple healthchecks, which I talked about in pretty much all the posts I've made.

Regarding other surveys, like marketing surveys, sure, knowing how someone recognises themself would be important, but I never even mentioned those in any of  my posts. That or it was all a huge mistake I made due to whatever reasons, in wich case, I am very sorry.

 

[Clord]

@Clord. No, I never stated such a thing in any of my posts. Please, don't pull a straw man on me.


Surveys ask you about A, and if you answer that question with C because you percieve it that way, whomever is making the survey is going to disregard it.


Thus, A would be oneself's physical gender and C would be psycological gender.


Anyway, I'm going to reread all my posts again in case I said something I didn't mean to. This is a rather delicate subject anyway.

It's cool. I didn't get offended.

 

[KanaX]

Currently I find a lot of people making a distinction between gender and sex. Claiming that gender is a social construct for people of a certain sex to fall in, while sex refers to the chromosomes, physical traits etc.

If that's the case, then I consider genders to be complete nonsense and a pointless term.

Personality doesn't have a gender. Every one of us, develops an ego according to what we see, what we experience, what we are taught and how. That may lead to some people having mixed traits that can be related to femininity, or masculinity. That range of variety is so big that if we were to individually try and name every single one (which some dear "activists" try to do) we would end up with a million different genders.

The hypocrisy of this, is that the same people who shun society for categorizing psychological and physical traits to refer to only one gender(stereotypes), are the SAME people who create a monstrosity of a term to call themselves based EXACTLY on the same stereotypes. "Well today I wore a pink skirt, so that makes me 75% woman, but I scratched my testicles, and that makes me 25% man. I conclusion I'm a gender-fluid queer, with bi-gendered tendencies when the Full Moon arises and the wolf-kin inside me emerges".

I am male.

I enjoy the "stoic strength" and "protection" roles I am supposed to take on as a man, I am sexually attracted to women, Fight Club made my pound on my chest like a gorilla, I respect and like dressing in a clearly masculine wardrobe and at this time I am in full beard mode.

but

I love purple, I appreciate delicacy, I am strangely enchanted by shoujo anime, my favorite songs are from women and I tend to sing along with my most feminine voice, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

made me tear up really bad, as much as I hate to admit it I momentarily got enticed by the Twilight Saga, I have long hair which I dye blue black, I shave every bit of hair below my neck, I have 6 different wigs (mostly for comedic reasons), I painted my nails once while on the phone (I was in a lady's apartment) because I was bored, I love acting "gay" and if a woman was interested in taking the role of the "man" during sexual intercourse, I would let her.

That doesn't make me a tri-gender-fluid, gynesexual, skoliosexual, man that identifies as a woman. It makes me, me.

I don't say that the people who are fixated on identifying with a gender should stop, I'm just expressing the opinion that this practice is folly and does more bad than good. Especially folly, are those who keep inventing new words to stick on their person like a badge of honor, trying to make themselves feel special.

Nothing personal with you, Clord you are part of the society and I accept what you are and what you feel.

 

[_Shadow_]

Personality doesn't have a gender. Every one of us, develops an ego according to what we see, what we experience, what we are taught and how. That may lead to some people having mixed traits that can be related to femininity, or masculinity. That range of variety is so big that if we were to individually try and name every single one (which some dear "activists" try to do) we would end up with a million different genders.

The hypocrisy of this, is that the same people who shun society for categorizing psychological and physical traits to refer to only one gender(stereotypes), are the SAME people who create a monstrosity of a term to call themselves based EXACTLY on the same stereotypes. "Well today I wore a pink skirt, so that makes me 75% woman, but I scratched my testicles, and that makes me 25% man. I conclusion I'm a gender-fluid queer, with bi-gendered tendencies when the Full Moon arises and the wolf-kin inside me emerges".

I am male.

I enjoy the "stoic strength" and "protection" roles I am supposed to take on as a man, I am sexually attracted to women, Fight Club made my pound on my chest like a gorilla, I respect and like dressing in a clearly masculine wardrobe and at this time I am in full beard mode.

but

I love purple, I appreciate delicacy, I am strangely enchanted by shoujo anime, my favorite songs are from women and I tend to sing along with my most feminine voice, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

made me tear up really bad, as much as I hate to admit it I momentarily got enticed by the Twilight Saga, I have long hair which I dye blue black, I shave every bit of hair below my neck, I have 6 different wigs (mostly for comedic reasons), I painted my nails once while on the phone (I was in a lady's apartment) because I was bored, I love acting "gay" and if a woman was interested in taking the role of the "man" during sexual intercourse, I would let her.

That doesn't make me a tri-gender-fluid, gynesexual, skoliosexual, man that identifies as a woman. It makes me, me.

I don't say that the people who are fixated on identifying with a gender should stop, I'm just expressing the opinion that this practice is folly and does more bad than good. Especially folly, are those who keep inventing new words to stick on their person like a badge of honor, trying to make themselves feel special.

Nothing personal with you, Clord you are part of the society and I accept what you are and what you feel.

I CAN NOT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I AGREE WITH YOU @KANAX!!!

 Many people are "accused" for being "gay" just because their treats don't follow stereotypes of "What a true Man" or "What a true Woman" is.

Like being homosexual is something bad.

BS!

EVERYONE has his/her own RIGHT to be whatever he/she wants. It's nobodys else's business, except if that person MAKES IT everyone's  business to draw attention. Then sorry but there will be consequences.

I consider myself as what people call "straight". Still this is BS. What does "straight" stands for?

I am a man who likes women.  So what? What does that make me? More "regular". More "normal"? I dislike normal. What is "normal"? The most common. A normal person is an average person in my opinion or around the average that is. But the more normal the person is, the less I can learn from that person. I don't care about "normal" people whatsoever.

Still, let me make some things straight. I consider homosexual people straight too.

What I sense is that people try desperately to get acknowledged. And they do that in many stupid ways obviously most of the time.

I will not analyze this here, since it might derail the OP and it might cause scenes of strong arguments and fanaticism might emerge as a result.

But I will talk about this desperation on the gender issue.

Some people "become gay" becuase being straight is too mainstream, so they can "be better and different from the others". BS!

By the way fashion is something that promises you that you will be different, but in the end, most of the "normal" people follow fashion and they become identical!

Being a hipster is a trend so don't consider them "an exception" they are actually part of the rule.

Some people claim that "being straight is the righrt way to be and gay people are inferior or wrong". BS!

Some people  men claim that men are better than women. BS!

Some people women claim that women are better than men. BS!

Everyone is a different and unique person. And everyone is equal in my opinion. Everyone! Even the very person that reads these word right now is equal, but also so unique and precious!

Why do people try to look different when they already are, is something I can't understand. They should already feel unique, precious, pricelss, extraordinary. You are awesome by default! Why do you wanna feel superior anyway? An awesome person doesn't have to feel like that. Anyway.

I love purple too, it's my all time favorite. And lilac (most men will google what lilac is, I don't blame them) and blue and red.I had long hair, now I don't, but I liked them really. I don't shave ANY hair under my neck, I dislike Twilight, I painted my nails once to see how they will look and understand how it's done, I was selling cosmetics for ladies some years before and I had a big success on that, I know what an eyeliner, a concealer and a serum is, I actually know a lot about cosmetics blah blah blah, we have some things in common @Kanax and on some other things we are different. 

Spoiler

You don't say? Surprise! We are all different. And I consider you a true man, just cause you had the balls to talk about such things, not giving a **** about stereotypes.

Oh! I also love to make jokes when being with friends, pretending to be gay. But on the other hand, I respect gay people and nobody EVER made me feel uncomfortable beside them.

 

And yes of course, I don't believe @Clord opened this thread ot draw attention. It actually needs a lot of guts to express such things. I acknowledge that.

So @Clord, I talk in general, not about you!