If you could change gender for 1 to 3 days

^^^^ That isn't the same thing at all. Prison clothes, cop outfit. . . ???

They both make you look like someone people need to be afraid of.

That's not the same as changing your sex for a few days.

You're making my point for me. Because of your clothes alone, people will change how they see you.

If by changing clothes, people will change their attitude towards you and you consequently your own attitude and actions towards them, how much more intense would it be if you actually could change your gender? That is taking things to a whole new level of intensity. You might hate and detest it, you might like it, but I think it almost axiomatic that your personal feelings and appreciation of yourself will be changed in one way or another.

your example reminded me of the Stanford Prison Experiment, where students were in a fabricated "prison" and observed by psychologists. Some volunteers for the experiment wore the uniforms of guards, and some wore the uniforms of prisoners. Guess how that turned out? Exactly as you would expect, based on your comments. .

I had that in mind as well. That experiment is part of sociology 101 as it were.

I was also thinking of something a bit less intense or abusive in any case. Namely of historical re-enactors. It is quite popular now and has many enthusiastic practitioners. There must be something very satisfying in dressing up in historical garb and being able to act and feel differently over a weekend, to assume a totally different historical persona. True, this has nothing to do with gender changing, though there are lots of ladies who love to dress up as soldiers (often as GI's). It is of a different and less intense level of change.

But I mention it as an example. I've been taken in a few times myself while being scared silly by unexpected appearances of re-enactors dressed as SS or Wehrmacht troops. My fear and loathing were palpable, my heart beating almost beyond control. And that just because of some clothes and uniforms. So again, try and imagine what a change in gender would do.

Susie, I'm not trying to say that reality is subjective. I was referring to the fact that there are 7 billion people in the world and one is just as real as the next. Even if someone's hair color is not natural, the color is still real. It just comes from a bottle and not from one's natural pigmentation. And of course they are still a real person.

Yes, EACH person is as real as the next. What they perceive as reality may differ. There is ONLY ONE reality. Anything else is a mistaken perception.

If someone colors their hair, yes the color is real but it is PAINTED hair. It's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Like you said, it is not natural hair color.

The person is a real person, but may not be what they appear to be. Again, reality is reality and a paint job is a paint job.

.

You're making my point for me. Because of your clothes alone, people will change how they see you.

If by changing clothes, people will change their attitude towards you and you consequently your own attitude and actions towards them, how much more intense would it be if you actually could change your gender? That is taking things to a whole new level of intensity. You might hate and detest it, you might like it, but I think it almost axiomatic that your personal feelings and appreciation of yourself will be changed in one way or another.

I'm really NOT making the point for you. I'm an upstanding member of the community, I know it and people can see it, and whether I'm male or female, I would still have that characteristic. Besides we're talking about changing sexes, not going from a philanthropist to America's most wanted. I would project a similar air and act the same as a man or a woman.

Your prison analogy isn't holding water with me. We are going to have to agree to just disagree on this topic because I have stated why I wouldn't mind changing sexes for a few days and how it doesn't matter to me if I were male or female because the person inside is the same. The skin shape/sex is either "original equipment" or a "paint job." A Volkswagen whose body has been removed and replaced with an Excelsior sports car body is still a Volkswagen. You might fool people at first, but once they look under the hood all they will see is the guts of a Volkswagen. You can wear a costume to look like a jungle animal in "The Lion King" but you cannot BE what you are not. The costume does not make you real. That is where our fundamental difference lies. I have had the same disagreement with other members discussing this topic.

Not even curious, could never give up peeing standing up, much less anything else that would go with that sort of change.

Susie, you mentioned that at a young age you knew you were one of the girls because you had a vagina. But isn't that just like the subjects identifying as prisoners because they wore prison uniforms, or identifying as guards because they wore guard uniforms? The point is that people in a society tend to play the roles that are expected of them, based on their appearance. And yet, one's innate, internal identity does not always coincide with the expectations that society has based on appearance alone. It's a matter of appearance versus reality. They do not always coincide. But if they do, it's a coincidence and nothing more.

It is not the same at all!In the prison experiment, the uniform was an accoutrement, not a permanent body part. Anyone can switch a uniform or a role, but it is MUCH more difficult to switch out a vagina for a penis.

Even if someone is successful in switching a vagina for a penis (or vice versa), there is NO guarantee that the fabricated part will work as originally intended. Further, those parts are formed before birth because of the innate biology and body chemistry of the person. I would not EXPECT that a replacement part of the opposite gender should work properly.

Let's get even deeper into the subject. Has there EVER been a case where a uterus and ovaries have been implanted into a person born as male, and that person has become pregnant? Has there EVER been a case where a penis and testicles have been implanted into a person born as female, and that person has impregnated a woman?

Fantasy is fine. Reality is an entire different universe...

Susie and Intruder,

It just hit me that there is some common ground in this discussion. We are all saying that a book is the same no matter what cover you put on it. We just have different notions of what the book consists of. Why not let each person determine for themselves what their own book consists of, and accept that whatever cover they present as the most accurate is in fact the most accurate in their case? If the cover does not change what is on the inside, as you say, then a person being born with a male body does not change the fact that they might be a female on the inside, for example.

Imagine a book factory that puts the covers on the books at random. You buy a book that says Moby Dick on the cover, but you read the book and it's Harry Potter. So then you erase Moby Dick from the cover and write Harry Potter instead. That is the nature of a gender transition.

The book might even be non-binary, since it was put together at random. Maybe some chapters are from Moby Dick, and some chapters are from Harry Potter. So you might not erase Moby Dick all the way from the cover, but you will still revise the cover to some extent to reflect that the book also contains Harry Potter.

Susie, I think what I am saying is the reverse of your car example. Imagine a car factory where the two different types of cars you mentioned are manufactured. But the bodies are put on the cars at random, not according to the designs. A Volkswagen leaves the factory with the body of the Excelsior, but there is some trouble inside the Volkswagen due to the fact that it's body does not fit. So the Volkswagen then undergoes some modifications to the body/exterior presentation to make it more suited to the Volkswagen underneath.

No pun intended with my choice of book titles! They are just the first two titles of books I thought of. Wow, talk about a Freudian slip.

I have discussed this all I can. I won't be changing my mind and I don't expect you to change yours. A rose by any other name is still a rose--despite a paint job to look like something else.

I know you won't take it personally, Susie. If you learn nothing from what I said, or if you only read it as far as it took for you to see that we still disagree, well then of course I have wasted my words on you. But I know that someone reading this will see what I wrote, and maybe they will get it. Maybe it will make a positive difference in their life, or maybe it will prevent them from having a negative impact on someone else.

Yes, EACH person is as real as the next. What they perceive as reality may differ. There is ONLY ONE reality. Anything else is a mistaken perception.

I think a more correct statement would be: there HAS ONLY BEEN one reality. But, there are a multitude of possible realities lying ahead. And how these work out depend on any number of small and seemingly insignificant changes in how one comports oneself and how others perceive and react to this.

And while there may possibly be only one reality as measured by the empirical sciences (we're leaving all that quantum stuff aside for the moment, let Schroedinger's cat stay in the box for the moment), there are many psychological realities, probably as many as there are individuals. Each person lives in a reality that is defined by their experiences, upbringing, education and also by their possibly minute chemical differences in makeup.

You mention mistaken perceptions. True enough, those certainly exist, but who gets to determine what are the mistakes and what are not? Consider - one person may see a West Virgina mountain and think of woods, deer hunting and rustic living, while another person will only see coal deposits underneath and profits in the bank.

I know it's getting a far aside from temporary gender changing, but how people perceive things is important and fundamental.

A rose by any other name is still a rose--despite a paint job to look like something else.

But once a rose has been painted, it is no longer a natural rose. It has become a painted rose. Which is something different. Sunlight, wind and rain will affect it differently, insects will react differently to it. Hence it will grow differently and have a different life cycle than a natural rose. It's reality will have been altered.

So just carry out the analogy with gender change. It will be much more complex in its effects than just a paint job on a rose.

Agracier,

As far as Susie is concerned, the complex does not exist. Any statement beyond A is A will be categorized as A is non A. I was trying to keep it simple, to keep it in terms of A is A.

Susie identifies the "rose" as the anatomy that one is born with. According to Susie's perception, if a newborn baby is identified as having the tangible physical properties of a rose, they are still a rose in the intangible sense as well, even if they never happen to identify with that physical form, and even if they revise the rose body in any way to be more consistent with the physical form that they do identify with. The problem here is that with this mentality, Susie will not acknowledge a person's right to self determination. It is the same thing as if she told a man that he is only attracted to women because he was born with a penis, and if he is attracted to men then his perception of his own sexuality is false.

But let's say the rose is actually gender. A person identifies as a man or a woman or both or neither, or somewhere in between. For anyone else to deny what that person's rose is, what their gender is, would be to claim that the rose is not a rose. If someone is born with a body that they do not identify with, then that is the rose that looks like something it is not, the inconsistency between appearance and reality, between the superficial surface and the innate essence. So, according to basically the same logic Susie relies on, the truth is that they are still whatever rose they truly identify as, even if they look like something else.

I don't wish for any of this to be personal. I just like a good debate and a chance to air my ideas now and then. Heavens knows no one at home is interested in them ... ha ha.

Why not let each person determine for themselves what their own book consists of, and accept that whatever cover they present as the most accurate is in fact the most accurate in their case? If the cover does not change what is on the inside, as you say, then a person being born with a male body does not change the fact that they might be a female on the inside, for example.

Once more, I believe that a "transgender" person only chooses to play a different role as defined by our culture and society.

Gender evolved as a means of reproduction. A woman-turned-man will never be able to impregnate a woman, and a man-turned-woman will never be able to bear a child. How that person dresses, which toilet he uses, and in what octave he talks will not change that fact.

. . . . Susie will not acknowledge a person's right to self determination. . . .

I'm not against self determination. If a person wants to act in a certain way, that's fine with me.

. . . .Gender evolved as a means of reproduction. [color=#000000][b]A woman-turned-man will never be able to impregnate a woman[/b][/color], and a man-turned-woman will never be able to bear a child. How that person dresses, which toilet he uses, and in what octave he talks will not change that fact.

That is true a woman turned man will never impregnate a woman.

But a woman turned man can become pregnant and have a child. That actually depends on how much surgery they had.

There are "women turned men" who keep their reproductive organs and that's why once in a great while, on the television news you see a "man" who has given birth.

There is nothing I can think of that makes a person female more than that.

...which makes me doubt even more that such a 'woman turned man' has changed at all.

I don't think that a discussion about the biological possibilities of getting pregnant or not are that germane to the intent of the OP. One of the main questions was about feelings. remember?

2. What would excite you the most?.

And feelings are all about subjectivity, irrationality and uncertainty. Feelings can be all over the place, psychologically speaking and all feelings are valid in that they are experienced in a self-contained personal universe. Feelings are also subject to change, sometimes at the drop of a hat because of numerous reasons, one often being how people react to you.

...which makes me doubt even more that such a 'woman turned man' has changed at all.

This isn't a discussion about changing a body's chemical or molecular structures or DNA, but about how subjective feelings may or may not change because of a change in outward appearances. Look at point number 2 in the OP's original post.

But that's the point isn't it? Such individuals are making their bodies match what their perceptual identity is.

But that's the point isn't it? Such individuals are making their bodies match what their perceptual identity is.

I thought the question was about an ability to experience nothing more than a casual change of gender temporarily. Would we be up to the dare and how would we feel about it? And then the derivative discussion comes, asking in what manner experiencing such a (temporary) change would change us, not as physical beings, but as psychological beings.

Terribly sorry! I forgot what this thread was about. I mistook it for the one on sex change. My bad!

Agracier,

but about how subjective feelings may or may not change because of a change in outward appearances. Look at point number 2 in the OP's original post.

As its purely hypothetical yes it is entirely subjective...and being of fantasy thus far removed from REALITY....Being comprised of only 3 questions....2 of which are merely hypothetical....The second (hypothetically) contributing the greater psychological influence if reality were suspended...which is not possible !!....chemical interference / "altered states" aside,also not of reality.

Intruder,

I just want to point out how problematic it is that you define gender by the ability to become pregnant. You say that anyone born with a vagina is a woman, yet many people born with vaginas do not have the ability to get pregnant or choose not to get pregnant. That does not mean they are not women.

Anyway, we know that the anatomy a person was born with does not determine the gender(s) a person is attracted to. Some people born with penises are attracted to men. Some people born with vaginas are attracted to women. Some people born with penises are attracted to both men and women, and some to neither. Some people born with vaginas are attracted to both men and women, and some to neither.

So, if the anatomy a person was born with does not determine the gender(s) they are attracted to, then the anatomy a person was born with cannot determine the gender they identify themselves as, either. Some people born with penises identify as women. Some people born with vaginas identify as men. They are just as accurate in their identification of their own gender as anyone can be in their identification of which gender(s) they are attracted to. In any case, they are not just "acting a certain way," they are that way.

I just want to point out how problematic it is that you define gender by the ability to become pregnant. You say that anyone born with a vagina is a woman, yet many people born with vaginas do not have the ability to get pregnant or choose not to get pregnant. That does not mean they are not women.

That was not meant to be a "definition" of gender, but a clear example of the physical attributes that, together, have defined gender for as long as the concept has been around. From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (non-relevant definitions removed):

GENDER

2 a : sex

b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex

SEX

1: either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures

2: the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of organisms that are involved in reproduction marked by the union of gametes and that distinguish males and females

3a : sexually motivated phenomena or behavior

b : sexual intercourse

The IF/THEN logic actually goes the other way around: If a person gets pregnant and carries/delivers a child, then she IS female. If a person produces semen and impregnates a woman, then he IS male. Lack of either of those actions/attributes does not disprove gender, but presence of one of those mutually exclusive attributes proves gender.

While there is a trend to disassociate gender with physical attributes (micro- as well as macro-), and to associate it instead with behavior, I personally don't buy into that theory. The concept of transgender, to me, is strictly a behavioral or role-playing concept associated with the "typically" verbiage in "GENDER" definition 2b above.

I do accept that homosexuality - sexual attraction to members of the same sex - is a reality that goes beyond chosen behavior. I doubt there is a direct link between homosexuality and transgender. Rather, I perceive transgender more as an extreme form of transvestitism, where the person seeks physical change to go along with the clothing and other trappings of "typical" sexual roles.

Intruder, the dictionary does not prove anything. Its definitions simply correspond with the most prevalent understanding, or misunderstanding, of the concepts it defines. You might as well be quoting the bible at me at this point. Read widely. Educate yourself with more resources than the most obvious source. Investigate every point of view, not just your own. Do not put all your eggs in one basket.

Also, the ability to become pregnant/impregnate someone is not even an attribute that contributes to gender. It's just an anatomical feature. By the way, an individual born with a penis who takes feminizing hormones can no longer impregnate anyone, fyi.

God please save me from all this political correctness!

...which makes me doubt even more that such a 'woman turned man' has changed at all.

EXACTLY!

DNA doesn't lie!

Well I think that it would take a lot longer then 3 days (72 hours) to really experience the change either way. so I guess I would decline any offers if I had the chance to try it for 3 days. that's my view and I'm sticking with it. heheheh 😃

I'm very happy with being a woman in the first place and wouldn't change that for anything in the real world.

Given this is a fantasy and in the mind everything can happen... I don't know, I would probably do it for the sake of understanding where do men come from. As Beyoncé was singing "If I were a boy"

Sometimes it feels like we are from completely different planets. I would do it for no more than 3 days, then 100% return to who I am without any problems.

As I was saying just to understand man mind.