Kaj_Sotala comments on Open Thread: January 2010 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 01 January 2010 05:02PM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 03 January 2010 08:25:45AM 3 points [-]

I'd be really curious to see what happened in a society where your social gender was determined by something else than your biological sex. Birth order, for instance. Odd male and even female, so that every family's first child is considered a boy and their second a girl. Or vice versa. No matter what the biology. (Presumably, there'd need to be some certain sign of the gender to tell the two apart, like all social females wearing a dress and no social males doing so.)

Comment author: RichardKennaway 03 January 2010 06:30:08PM 0 points [-]

The concept of the berdache might be relevant. The link is just to a Google search on the word, as the politics surrounding it leave me uncertain what to believe about the subject.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 03 January 2010 12:16:40PM *  0 points [-]

Ursula LeGuin has written a short story with a premise that's not quite the same, but still interesting. (The introduction is the useful part, there - the story excerpt cuts off before getting anywhere terribly interesting.)

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 03 January 2010 01:08:50PM 0 points [-]

That is indeed an interesting variation of the premise. (It does feel a bit contrived, but then again, so does my original.)