So far, the comic has hewn pretty close to my gender constructs. Thus, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to play "one of these things is not like the other" where the AIs are concerned.
The things you're pointing your finger at stem from how you view humans, not how you view AIs. For the record AIs aren't "
less than", they're their own characters and warrant the same amount of respect one would give to any human on the cast.
Also finger-pointing about "
adequate femininity" isn't a game.
If someone wanted to be transgender would you advise them to 'just re-evaluate their gender constructs?'
I ask this because the acceptance of trans-sexuality/body dysmorphic disorder/whatever as something "real" rather than an arbitrary or learned choice seems to indicate a pretty deep-seated human connection with a certain gender that precedes any constructs society might impose.
People tried doing random gender reassignment on hermaphrodites a few decades ago, based on the notion that gender identification was arbitrary. The results are currently believed to have been pretty disastrous. This suggests that whatever gender is, it is more than just a social construct. As offensive or threatening as that notion may be to some people.
First and foremost "
Hermaphrodite" is not an appropriate thing to call an intersex person at all. Nor is it "
trans sexuality", as it isn't a sexual orientation. Also it's
Gender Dysphoria.
Secondly, just because our
genders aren't constructs doesn't mean there aren't constructs built
around them, true, but which no one of any gender need adhere to. "
Statistical tendencies" toward certain traits does not equate to them being a necessity for
anyone of that gender. This is equally important to recognize when thinking of us, as transgender people, because it's so often precisely this type of thinking that brings up the "
Well men can wear dresses have feminine mannerisms too, you don't need to change like that!" (or the eternally loathed "
Can't you just be gay?"), but I have no particular intent of wearing an extraordinary amount of dresses. It isn't seeking permission for those constructs - because fuck all that nonsense, it's simply what I am. Nor would it invalidate who I am just because I'm wearing a t-shirt and jeans right now or that I happened to write the word "
fuck" in that earlier parenthesis. Even if I admittedly mostly did to write that afterwards.
The sad reality of society's cisnormativity faced by transgender & intersex people does not make either of us an excuse for gender-essentialist sexism, such as doubting if a person can "
really be" their gender given certain behaviors.
What if Dickmouth Stinkface is the victim of a warden like that? What if she's set to male in software but maliciously assigned to a humiliating female avatar?
Indeed. It'd be an awful thing for it to be the case. Certainly not out of the ordinary in our world, given all the trans people sent to the wrong prisons and suffering terrible abuse over it as-is... but it might be a tad grim as an ongoing situation for a character, maybe?