5 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Do non-binary identities reenforce gender stereotypes?
If gender is determined by genitals and you're in a body without genitals, then you'd be non-binary by this reasoning, right? So if you'd use male pronouns in a man's body, it stands to reason you'd use neutral pronouns in a robot's body, but since you still lean toward continuing to use feminine pronouns in that scenario, I thought you might have a preference for female identity that transcends physical traits.
I'm not trying to argue, btw. I was thinking that looking at it from this perspective might connect with you, but it's looking like I was wrong, so my mistake.
Comment by Important_Spread1492 at 14/01/2025 at 17:48 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
since you still lean toward continuing to use feminine pronouns in that scenario, I thought you might have a preference for female identity that transcends physical traits.
Not the OP, but I don't think that's the case. They are saying that they would choose the pronouns that are familiar, given that they wouldn't have a sexed body. Much like most people wouldn't want to have to change their name when they have used it their whole life.
But if they were a man, they would have a male sexed body, so it would make sense to change pronouns, in the absence of any internal gender separate from body parts. The physical reality would override the desire to just keep using the same name/pronouns.
As you've mentioned, we do use gendered pronouns for robots in popular culture despite them not having sexed bodies. So you could choose either. Now, if it was commonplace to only ever refer to robots as "they," I think there'd be more likelihood people would adapt to being referred to as gender neutral as a robot.
In any case, how exactly would you transfer a person into a robots body? How would that actually work? As long as they still had a brain, they would still have sexed cells within that brain so would still be male/female/intersex as they were at birth
Comment by Costiony at 14/01/2025 at 19:06 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This is a very interesting way of looking at it, but I think a "mistake" in the logic would be if I'm keeping my memories or not. If I remember my previous life as a human, I would maybe stick to the "normalcy" of female pronouns. Yet if I woke up one day, in a male body, I think the physical things would override the sense of normalcy, and I would try to get used to male pronouns. (Which basically just means that, to me, gender is based on the physical)
However, if I woke up as a robot with no physical tell, and no memories, I have no idea what I would prefer.