Meta Question

rebbel's avatar

Am I a boy or a girl? [Details inside].

Asked by rebbel (35553points) November 22nd, 2011

Not only at 10K, 20K, 30K, etc. parties, but also in ‘normal’ threads I sometimes have difficulties determine whether a certain Jelly is male or female.
Of course it is not at all important whether a Jelly is the one or the other, but sometimes when I have no clue of the Jelly’s sex when I want to respond to a member, I want to use the words she or he or another word or phrase that has to do with either sex (of the Jelly).
Recently, in a xxK party, I didn’t know again, but after some searching I found out the sex of the Jelly whose milestone we celebrated.
Half the time though, I cannot find clues.
So my question is this: Would it be possible/desirable if we state in our profile whether we are male or female for those who have no problem with publicizing this information.

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

54 Answers

AmWiser's avatar

Those who have no problem with publicizing, do. I wouldn’t put to much emphasis on what sex a jelly is, this is the internet, you won’t know for sure anyway.

Also you might PM a jelly to find out for sure. If they have been here long enough to reach 10K, you should feel comfortable in asking.

JilltheTooth's avatar

Well, saying I’m someone’s mommy seems to be a good indicator, but I agree with you that I do sometimes have that pesky pronoun issue myself when addressing other Jellies. I’ll be interested to see how the others answer this…could get interesting!

Brian1946's avatar

IMO, you are an adult male. ;-p

For those who aren’t familiar with the term “dude”, I too am an adult male.

Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

As long as there options NOT to choose a gender, I wouldn’t care. You can also use the gender neutral term for me like ‘ze’.

Coloma's avatar

I’ve had a few peeps undergo sex changes based on my assumptions which were wrong.

I can assure you all I am a naturally born woman and, for the record, my avatar is about my love of mountain lions not symbolic of my own cougar hood. I think little cubs are adorable, but my prey of choice are mature alpha toms. ;-)

Coloma's avatar

@JilltheTooth Not to mention I haven’t known any men named Jill. lol

Jude's avatar

I like the idea.

I am woman, hear me roar.

JilltheTooth's avatar

@Coloma : Yeah, I thought about that, but Rebbel is Dutch, I didn’t know if the obvious feminine name would carry across international borders.

Pied_Pfeffer's avatar

Like you, this was a condrundrium when I first joined. While it is difficult to let go of wanting to know someone’s gender, it is becoming easier. Re-read the question or the responses, and it is often clear that a gender isn’t necessary to know. It just sometimes makes it harder to type out a response without knowing. In that instance, it just means putting a little more effort into crafting the answer. In a way, I wish we didn’t rely so much on knowing each others’ genders.

dappled_leaves's avatar

@Pied_Pfeffer Why should knowing someone’s gender change the way you respond to them? Or are you just saying that it’s difficult to avoid using he or she?

Coloma's avatar

I think it’s just a natural curiosity, it really doesn’t matter, but I like to have an idea of sex and age just for a reference point.

Pied_Pfeffer's avatar

@dappled_leaves For me, it is difficult to avoid ‘he’ and ‘she’. I sort of like not knowing. It really doesn’t matter in most cases.

Coloma's avatar

@JilltheTooth

The roots of the Jack & Jill poem are french. Not too far from the Netherlands.
Maybe Rebbel and Jill will go up the hill to fetch a pail of tulips. hahaha

downtide's avatar

y’all can call me “he”. :)

MilkyWay's avatar

I’m a she. A female. A girl. A young woman. A daughter of Adam and Eve. A her. A feminine being. A human with a womb. And other lady parts.

Lightlyseared's avatar

Who cares? Does the validity of ones answer change depending upon ones sex?

janbb's avatar

I would think the details would be inside!

wundayatta's avatar

I always find it amusing when people think I’m a different gender from the way I identify myself. Actually, it’s something of a compliment.

rebbel's avatar

I am, of course, not talking about validity of Jellies’ answers, depending on whether they are female or male.
@Pied_Pfeffer worded pretty much how I am in to this thing; I don’t mind someone’s sex, I ‘struggle’ sometimes with how I word my respons to/about a Jelly.
To rephrase it in a way that I still can get my point across without knowing the sex is not a big deal for me…..., if anything, it improves my English as I am ‘forced’ to think how I can write a reply in another way.
And as @AmWiser said, those who have no problem with publicizing, do, so the ‘problem’ already is/gets solved for a part.
Maybe some members who hadn’t thought about it (before) will now make a remark in their profile, who knows….?
To those who will do (or already done so)..., thank you!
@janbb You are right, I didn’t enclose details…, (PM)!

janbb's avatar

I always kind of enjoy the surprise I feel when someone is revealed eventually to be a different sex or gender than what I had assumed. It makes me question my assumptions. It’s the Internet not The Crying Game after all!

ucme's avatar

Not entirely relevant, but any excuse to play a decent tune.

ANef_is_Enuf's avatar

I figure if a jelly wants us to know, they usually do somehow. I always consider that someone might prefer not to answer that question, so I don’t dwell on it. I’ve been wrong many times here, as well. I can think of one jelly that had to tell me twice that he is male, because I had it stuck in my head that he was female. Pronouns are easy enough to avoid if you’re unsure, imho.

bobbinhood's avatar

My profile used to make it pretty clear that I’m a girl, but the last time I edited, I didn’t have much time. Now there is no indication either way. Perhaps I’ll fix that the next time I have a chance to edit my profile. I like to update it every few months with where I am in life.

keobooks's avatar

I am with @janbb . It’s fun to guess—even though I am almost always wrong. Seriously. If your name is HeManDude, I will probably envision you female. It’s not THAT bad, but just about. I also like getting a picture in my head what someone looks like.

For some reason, until I kept blathering about my baby in the last year or so, people have always assumed that I was male online. It’s never bothered me. I remember being on World of Warcraft and some new guild member called me a guy. The guildmaster corrected the newcomer and said “He’s a chick”. And everyone still referred to me as he. I thought it was kinda funny. I guess I put out dude vibes or something.

For the most part, I like how you can be as up front or as ambiguous as you like online about various aspects of your life.

YARNLADY's avatar

It never even occurred to me to wonder. I can’t see that it matters.

LuckyGuy's avatar

I’m 99.92% male.
The other 0.08% in a biohazard bucket.

Kardamom's avatar

It just dawned on me that some people reading some of my posts might think that I’m a dude because of my sparky comments about Fran Drescher.

“Sparky” for those of you who don’t know, is a word that me and @Luiveton coined to describe the feeling that women sometimes get towards other women that make them feel all hot and happy, even though we’re not Lesbians or bisexual. I guess it’s because they’re beautiful and/or inspiring. It’s kind of like the male equivalent of a bromance.

So for the record, I’m a straight female, who happens to happens to feel Sparky towards Fran : )

Come on ladies (and fellas), just look at Her

Oh yeah, somebody once thought that I was a mother, because they did not know that Kardamom (cardamom) is actually a spice.

janbb's avatar

@Kardamom Oh c’mon – no dude would use as many links as you do. Dead giveaway!

Kardamom's avatar

@janbb Ha Ha, I guess you’re right. Apparently dudes don’t have multiple orgas links.

nor do they like to carry hand sanitizer according to that other Q about why men don’t carry purses

Paradox25's avatar

I think most of the time it is easy to tell what gender a user is just by the way they write their posts, the way they use the words they do and their responses/questions in general. Other times there are key giveaways in their answers if you’re fortunate enough to read and remember them.

filmfann's avatar

On forms I fill out, it asks Sex: M or F.
I always think, well, when I have sex, I like to F, but usually I have to M.

rebbel's avatar

@janbb A dude wouldn’t?
Then again, is it already determined that I am a dude?

Berserker's avatar

@Kardamom Oh yeah, somebody once thought that I was a mother, because they did not know that Kardamom (cardamom) is actually a spice.

I wonder who the hell that dumbass was.

..oh, wait. Haha. XD

Female here. As putting it in the profile, well, some do, some don’t. Was never a concern to me much. I end up assuming what gender people are, I’m actually right many times, but yeah, been surprised someitmes. Still, it isn’t really an issue that I’d like to see it stated in every profile.

fundevogel's avatar

I think the interesting thing about not knowing people’s genders is how people estimate gender based on what is available. Username, avatar, how they write, what they write. You certainly can deduce someone’s gender from these things…but there’s always someone that just isn’t the gender you assumed. It’s kinda neat when you find out your expectations were wrong. :)

Blackberry's avatar

I’m a dude.

muppetish's avatar

I have been asked by Jellies before what gender I identify as and have had other jellies simply choose one gender and stick to referring to me by that. Much to the chagrin of my professors, I have no qualms using “their” as a gender neutral pronoun (singular and plural) and generally employ that on Fluther and other websites in which the gender of the person I am referring to is not indicated. Lately, I have taken to the Finnish pronoun “hän” and think more languages should have gender neutral pronouns.

@YARNLADY I’d give you more lurve if I could.

tinyfaery's avatar

I kinda like not knowing. It’s a mystery to be solved. I can only think of 1 real surprise.

XOIIO's avatar

I’m male inside and outside. Especially inside the ladies

fundevogel's avatar

@XOIIO it’s the inside that cunts counts.

fundevogel's avatar

I think @muppetish is one of the few people I have asked about their gender and hän was coy of course. Which is fun. That’s when I tick the “gender mysterious” box in my head.

keobooks's avatar

@muppetish is F—for Fraggle—in my head. I think fraggles are asexual in nature so I’d prefer it if Muppitish remained mysterious forever. Because I would be heartbroken to find out muppitish wasn’t really a fraggle. Please don’t ruin my fantasy.

bob_'s avatar

<—all man

AshLeigh's avatar

<—All man, also. ;)
No, I’m a girl. If you can’t tell by the name, and the picture…

Coloma's avatar

My daughter was just telling me about the flaming drag queen she sat next to on the metro in San Francisco over the weekend, lots of mysterious gender guessing in the city. lol

MRSHINYSHOES's avatar

It doesn’t really matter to me if someone states in their profile their gender. It would be nice to know the gender of the people I communicate with, but it’s not essential. I assume you are male.

I am an adult male.

ETpro's avatar

If my profile link to the picture of me posing with my son isn’t definitive enough to guess, my word would be no more definitive. Guess.

As to you, I thought you said you were a girl. Right?

Just kidding. I take you at your word. You’re a male and adult. Neither a boy or a girl.

augustlan's avatar

I say I’m a mother on my profile, so you’d think that would be sufficient. Still, I can’t tell you the number of times people have assumed I’m male.

OpryLeigh's avatar

I’m a bird!

wilma's avatar

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I didn’t know about the gender neutral term “ze”. Is that word used often? It certainly would be nice to have a term like that to use, and especially if everyone understood it’s meaning.

Facade's avatar

I think it’s a good idea
(Woman)

fundevogel's avatar

Shall we see about bringing “ze” into common (or commoner) usage on fluther? It would make sense seeing as how there are plenty of times that we don’t know (or need to know) the gender of the person we refer to.

lillycoyote's avatar

It might be useful and would save me a ton of embarrassment, but you can’t force people to fill out their profile pages, I haven’t put any information in mine and don’t intend to, let alone require them to provide specific information. I have gotten people’s genders wrong a number of times and it is or can be embarrassing. If I’m not sure, before I make a comment that requires me to specify a gender, I review their questions and answers for clues, but as you mention, there are not always definitive clues. Making mistakes just kind of comes with the territory. Hopefully people understand or they or others are willing and capable of correcting me, all of us, graciously.

jazmina88's avatar

we are spirits, with different genders. I think it matters on NSFW questions, but I try not to be gender biased.

I do think more hateful messages can come from men. well, maybe a bit biased…:P

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.
Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther