Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 August 27

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 27

Is it normal to wish to/want to be a girl?

I am sorry if this violates the Reference Desk guidelines. I hope that it does not, though. I wish to be a productive member of the Wikipedia community. I am curious if it is normal to wish to be a girl. I also love reading gender-bender stories. 79.66.16.141 (talk) 20:46, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

See Transgender for our article. Tevildo (talk) 20:54, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

But I struggle to think I am transgender. Surely, most people would wish to be a girl? I mean, who wouldn't? I wish I was born a girl. I am sorry if this violates the guidelines of the Reference Desk. 79.66.16.141 (talk) 20:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I can't say whether it is "normal" or not, but you are far from the only person with these feelings. "Transgender" is something compleatly different; that is people who feel that they ARE female but were born in the wrong body. Whereas knowing and accepting that you were born male but wishing you had been born a cute girl is something else entirely and doesn't seem to have a specific term attached to it. Don't fear though, you are not alone! And the good news is there is plenty of anime and manga to tickle your fetish and help sedate those desires. I personally recomend Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu and Kämpfer as your gateway animes into the world of boys becoming cute girls. 2404:8000:30:A3:C23F:D5FF:FEA5:7355 (talk) 21:50, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Playing as a female character in a role-playing-game is one way to "be a girl" for awhile, and is quite common and generally not seen as "abnormal". 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:1821:CD59:E35A:CB68 (talk) 22:01, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Girls can't exactly "wish" to be girls, because they already are girls. But they can certainly enjoy being girls. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:12, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Also please note that transgender identities don't work by arbitrarily wishing/wanting to change gender. Georgia guy (talk) 22:24, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

This is an important point to note. I would recommend that the OP take a look at Androphilia and gynephilia (particularly the diagrams), Classification of transsexual people, and Blanchard's transsexualism typology, and be aware they're on a very narrow political tightrope when it comes to terminology. Tevildo (talk) 00:04, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

There are a lot of meanings for the word "normal", some synonyms include: conventional, ordinary, standard, usual, regular, average, expected, natural, healthy, well. Some of these clearly do not apply to people with transgender feelings...others seemingly do apply. It's probably not "average" and certainly not "expected" for a biological male to wish to be female - but whether it's considered "ordinary" or "unconventional" is something that's gradually shifting. It doesn't seem to be especially "unnatural" or "unhealthy".

So "normal" is a word that's too overloaded here.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:00, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

I would advise seeing a therapist who specializes in gender issues. They will likely be able to help you more than anonymous strangers on the Internet. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with it, but I'm male and I've never felt any desire to have been born female. If this desire has a significant impact on your life, that's something a therapist will hopefully be able to help with. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 07:31, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

There is a lot of society-specific thinking on this sort of thing. I mean, Western society (including Iran, I think!) has this notion that there is transgender vs. not transgender, gay vs. heterosexual. I guess the city Manbij that the Kurds, Turks, and ISIS are fighting over is another example, under Atargatis. But other societies think that a Two-Spirit, for example, is a combination of male and female and that heterosexual men can have a relationship with a Two-Spirit. There are many other third sex conceptions. I think that as long as people are supportive rather than condemnatory or conniving, there's not much "pathology" here - had the sexes been meant to be totally separate, surely they could have evolved to develop that way. Wnt (talk) 18:37, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

• Yeah, this is the sort of question we should be hatting. Given it hasn't so been, I think most people would be curious (I am) what it would be like to switch biological gender for a day or a month if it had no lasting consequences, and you could or would switch back. Even though I am quite cis. The men among Jews actually have a prayer that traditionally (if not recently) gave thanks for having been born a man. No comment. μηδείς (talk) 18:48, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

off-topic

Why on earth would you hat this? The question is open ended, but many of of the responses include potentially useful and relevant references. This is the reference desk working properly. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:16, 29 August 2016 (UTC) You may have noticed that I didn't hat this. μηδείς (talk) 20:23, 29 August 2016 (UTC) He didn't say you did. He meant why would you want to hat this? Akld guy (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2016 (UTC) Because I thought just arbitrarily ignoring our guidelines about this not being a debate forum might, in this case, be more fun than following them? Did I that really require an explanation? I sometimes think most people who answer here would fail to be admitted to a state school based on their reading comprehension scores on the SAT's, but evidently those standards has drastically been lowered, innit? μηδείς (talk) 03:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC) Please keep meta-discussions on the talk page. This [stuff] is not helpful to the OP. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:4BF:6AED:D301:8167 (talk) 05:24, 30 August 2016 (UTC) Sorry, I should have said that to Medeis at the start. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:09, 30 August 2016 (UTC) Yes, it requires explanation, because your suggestion of hatting seemed bizarre. As you should know by now, your opinions on hatting are often not in line with consensus. And frankly, your current explanation is entirely unconvincing. The question violates no guideline. It does not ask for any debate. You making digs about SAT scores is not helpful and appears childish. You don't seem to understand that we can provide references, even when OP does not specifically ask for references. Saying the question should be hatted, then spouting un-referenced material on Jewish prayer is kind of hilariously ironic, because while the question is fine, your response is something that could be defensibly hatted, because it's both off-topic, and treating this place like a chat forum. Compare to Tevildo's responses, which are both relevant and references. I did start a conversation about this on the talk page, please ask there if you want consensus on how this kind of question should be treated. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:05, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

What is "normal" that you should care for it, as long as only you know of it? I would be more concerned with not disclosing this desire to others who might make trouble for one's self or one's family, because trans-phobia is a real thing which drives government policy in some US states. You might choose to be very, very careful about letting anyone else know how you feel in this regard.

That aside, online roleplaying games have a considerable amount of male player playing in female avatars. Nick Yee, research scientist and data analyst in the gaming industry found that among players who report playing as avatars of the opposite gender more men play as female avatars than women play as male avatars. So exploring other gender roles in online games is more common among men (though I can't find a source to show how common overall it is among men) than for women. MMORPGs such as Second Life which afford players a wide range of virtual experiences apart from sex and combat may be a good place to explore your feminine side, because that world offers a rich fashion industry from which to choose clothing, hair and other accessories, and allows players to edit their own shapes or purchase body part "appliers" which create the desired 'look' for one's avatar. Second Life, at least for the moment, is free, too.

Just be very careful about computer and Internet privacy before downloading a Second Life viewer and experiencing the other gender. Since Second Life viewers save information to the drive they run from, if you can afford a thumb drive to store and run your Second Life viewer from (and be very careful that your chat logs and any snapshots you take are all stored on that drive, not your computer's hard drive), you should have reasonably good privacy (remember to take the thumb drive out of the computer between Second Life sessions). If you live in a country where cross-gender activity is deprecated by government, using privacy software is a good idea. loupgarous (talk) 18:32, 30 August 2016 (UTC)