Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
What is Bubbles' sexual orientation?
fayelovesbubbles:
The girls didn't exactly like each other at first...
snufflebottoms:
--- Quote from: Thrillho on 20 May 2018, 15:23 ---Lots of stuff
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 20 May 2018, 17:10 ---
That being the case, the best any of us can do is to make our choices carefully to cause the least offense to the fewest people possible. Since the owner of the forum wants radical inclusiveness the moderator team is going to guide the use of language in that direction. We're escalating to using the mod power of Asking Politely. Please pick whatever language for a marginalized group which the most members of it find most inclusive.
--- End quote ---
I think I got accidentally involved in this. I am not advocating for using any terms that are not accepted by the trans community. I am actually confused by how that particular argument broke out on this thread since Bubbles isn't even trans.
It does seem like here more than other places that these kind of arguments break out even though there seems to be a lot of effort to avoid it. I probably shouldn't have made a snarky comment about the forum at large since everything was already kind of tense.
No hard feelings?
ZoeB:
--- Quote from: Morituri on 20 May 2018, 09:55 ---So what happens when bodies are easy to change? In QC, AI have the option of changing chassis. But at some point in the not-too-distant future (probably in time for our greatgrandkids anyway) body modification for humans will become indistinguishable from being born that way.
Imagine that a man can decide in January that he wants to try being a woman, start taking some pills, and by the end of February, be a woman - physically, hormonally, and in every other way, six inches shorter, fifty pounds lighter, with whatever bustline/etc she decided on. So she stops taking the pills, acquires a nice wardrobe, and makes her way from there.
--- End quote ---
Um. It didn't quite happen that way for me, but close enough.
I don't like discussing personal and private details, and only do it if there's some educational objective to be attained.
I have the 3beta Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Deficient form of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Which means my whole steroidogenesis is SNAFU, including but not limited to the sex hormones. While those have the most spectacular visible effects, my health is more contingent on cholesterol, cortisol, minerocortisoids etc. Changing sex naturally is irrelevant if the patient dies from related causes, even if it is unusual, spectacular, even shocking to observers.
No pills required, height only changed an inch due to cartilage thickness changes, 80 rather than 50lbs lighter, and it took 3-6 months not one. Some structures atrophied, nothing new but apparently some structures were present though vestigial. 3BHSD can cause that in the womb, and usually any change happens before birth not after. We think. It's rare, and no two patients are quite the same.
As I said, close enough to your gedankenexperiment.
First, sex hormones affect the adult brain(1). There is some degree of neuroplasticity in some areas (though not others). With such a rapid physical change, the alterations in thinking that nearly everyone gets in puberty are obvious, rather scary, and disorientating. You can feel your brain rewiring. It takes some degree of philosophical and medical knowledge to retain a coherent sense of identity, the knowledge that your personality is performance art not sculpture, you are not quite the same person today as you were yesterday, or will be tomorrow.
This is just the same thing on steroids (so to speak).
--- Quote ---Maybe a few years later, when she has a husband and a couple of kids, she and her husband decide to swap, so they both start taking pills, and a couple of months later they change their designations from "husband" to "wife" and "wife" to "husband" and the kids take a few weeks to get used to it and the oldest decides maybe he ought to be a daughter instead of a son and does that, and life goes on.
--- End quote ---
It doesn't work that way. Or at least, not usually. Observations of those who have had involuntary natural sex changes due to 5ARD, 17BHSD, 3 BHSD(2), and very intersex kids who have been surgically assigned a sex suggest that about 1/3 are male, 1/3 female, and 1/3 can function adequately as either gender. With lesser intersex kids, it's probably closer to 45%/45%/10% but we're not sure.(3)
What that means is that in your thought experiment, there's around a 3 in 4 chance of disabling Gender Dysphoria developing. Though it might be less in someone who wants to try a swap.
References:
1) http://www.eje-online.org/cgi/content/full/155/suppl_1/S107
Changing your sex changes your brain: influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure by Pol et al, Europ Jnl Endocrinology, Vol 155, suppl_1, S107-S114 2006
Results: Compared with controls, anti-androgen + estrogen treatment decreased brain volumes of male-to-female subjects towards female proportions, while androgen treatment in female-to-male subjects increased total brain and hypothalamus volumes towards male proportions.
2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16010463
Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency. Cohen-Kettenis PT. Arch Sex Behav. 2005 Aug;34(4):399-410.
However, an estimation of the prevalence of gender role changes, based on the current literature, shows that gender role changes occur frequently, but not invariably. Gender role changes were reported in 56-63% of cases with 5alpha-RD-2 and 39-64% of cases with 17beta-HSD-3 who were raised as girls. The changes were usually made in adolescence and early adulthood. In these two syndromes, the degree of external genital masculinization at birth does not seem to be related to gender role changes in a systematic way.
3) http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1421517
Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth by Reiner and Gearhart, N Engl J Med. 2004 January 22; 350(4): 333–341.
RESULTS Eight of the 14 subjects assigned to female sex declared themselves male during the course of this study, whereas the 2 raised as males remained male. Subjects could be grouped according to their stated sexual identity. Five subjects were living as females; three were living with unclear sexual identity, although two of the three had declared themselves male; and eight were living as males, six of whom had reassigned themselves to male sex. All 16 subjects had moderate-to-marked interests and attitudes that were considered typical of males. Follow-up ranged from 34 to 98 months
ZoeB:
So getting back on track... If Momo would be put in a male body, would she be OK with it? If human gender us anything to go by, the odds are very much against.
Bubbles identifies as female. Faye identifies as female. Neither has evidenced any attraction to the same sex before.
So to the same extent that Faye is lesbian, so is Bubbles. I think it's more a case of them being attracted to each other, and exact hardware each is instantiated on is at best of secondary importance. They're both comfy with what they've got for themselves, so that's not an issue either.
Getting back to personal and private matters again... My partner in crime, the love of my life and BFF is female. So am I (mostly). We're both straight. It's no biggie. Moreover, we hit the jackpot due to my extremely unusual metabolism. We were able to get married (though that was voided by the 2004 change to marriage law voiding marriages of intersex people), and while it took technical help and many tragically failed attempts, we were able to have a child together.
So what Jeph has written about is by no means implausible.
Dandi Andi:
--- Quote from: snufflebottoms on 21 May 2018, 20:06 ---I am actually confused by how that particular argument broke out on this thread since Bubbles isn't even trans.
--- End quote ---
The short and very simplistic explanation (to hopefully avoid further aggravating the situation) is that someone suggested that our current language and understanding of sex, sexuality and gender may not apply to AI. In doing so, they said some words. Someone pointed out that some of those words are considered impolite by some trans people. Someone disagreed. Then there was a brief and very unhelpful period of a couple of us being generally unpleasant at each other. It was not my proudest moment.
--- Quote from: snufflebottoms on 21 May 2018, 20:06 ---It does seem like here more than other places that these kind of arguments break out even though there seems to be a lot of effort to avoid it.
--- End quote ---
I think that the very act of trying very hard to avoid it creates its own kind of tension. Language is a fluid and adaptable thing. People who are not steeped in the language around marginalized groups can find it to be a minefield. Frequently people are told that words are offensive when they never realized there was any other word for something than the one they used. It can feel very restrictive and unpleasant. And people getting mad at you when you were trying very hard to be friendly and respectful sucks. Similarly, many people (myself included) joined this forum specifically because of the moderators' efforts at "radical inclusiveness" (a phrase I love and will probably steal). So when someone says some words, it can come as a shock and we can forget that people here are usually nice and they probably didn't realize that those words are hurtful to some people.
--- Quote ---No hard feelings?
--- End quote ---
No hard feelings from me, certainly. I would offer to shake your hand, but this is the internet and I'm touch averse anyway. But may we consider our hands shaken in spirit?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version