Schrödinger’s Gender.
Someone wrote…
Schrödinger’s Gender:
I exist in a superposition of gender; it is only by interaction with an outside observer that I settle into some semblance of male or female.
What’s your experience?
Posted by julian on May 1st, 2011 at 08:00 am
Category: your voice 14 comments »
May 1st, 2011 at 8:02 am |
Haha! I like this.
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May 1st, 2011 at 8:10 am |
I just might have to borrow this,if you don’t mind.
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May 1st, 2011 at 8:51 am |
That’s definitely a good explanation of how it feels to be trans. We search for the meaning of gender in our lives, but it is through interaction with the rest of the world that we get to test our own definitions of what it means to be ourselves.
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May 1st, 2011 at 9:06 am |
But then, the human categories “Male” and “Female” only have reality and significance for humans, in relation to each other, anyway – yup – got that!!!
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May 1st, 2011 at 10:28 am |
This is the essential condition of humanity. The binary is an imaginary construct, an irrelevant detail. We all use it, abuse it, disregard it, enforce it to achieve our personal objectives.
I sometimes wonder, if human beings didn’t have genders, would I be genderqueer, or am I just reacting to a circumstance (an unjust and inaccurate world) that is beyond my control?
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May 1st, 2011 at 12:30 pm |
Cool, I’ve always said that they/them is Schrödinger’s Pronoun. That’s why I use they/them for someone of unknown gender. (Of course, I always use the pronouns the person asks me to use.)
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May 1st, 2011 at 12:48 pm |
I love this. There are deeper (i.e. more obscure) quantum mechanical ways of mixing incompatible things that I also like to apply to gender.
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May 1st, 2011 at 3:46 pm |
As a geek, I really like this. :D
When I’m among nerdy computer types, I like to describe my orientation (pansexual) as “platform-agnostic.”*
*(That is, I don’t see the “platform”/sex/gender of the person I’m interacting with — just the person.)
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May 2nd, 2011 at 5:08 am |
In my case, i DO see the obvious gender of the person that i’m interacting with, but then be careful, and courteous enough to treat them as a person. I find it unrealistic to pretend that all the conditioning has somehow gone away
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May 2nd, 2011 at 4:18 pm |
it might be useful if there were better words to differentiate gender identity from gender expression.
i.e., in reply to Clare–just because you can see (in some ways) a person’s gender, doesn’t mean you know what gender they “are.” but this is the fault of language because gender means so many things in so many ways.
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May 3rd, 2011 at 12:11 pm |
This may just be the most badass thing I’ve ever heard.
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May 3rd, 2011 at 5:47 pm |
LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! I’d like to quote this….
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May 5th, 2011 at 7:49 am |
Aww, glad you all like this. Feel free to borrow/quote/steal at will.
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May 12th, 2011 at 6:42 pm |
|gender> = 1/sqrt2(|male>+|female>)
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