Interesting, I've been reading a bit about this lately and didn't really understand the physical/mental distinction until recently.

Question: are some of them mutually exclusive, like "Gender Doesn't Matter" and "Gender Does/Doesn't Match"? Because that sort of makes more sense to me than if they weren't, but I dunno...

I'm kinda learning along too! (: Or at least hearing more about it than I have before.

And one thing I'm fixing with this right now - there are 5 sorta options here, all different things. Like Gender Does/Doesn't Matter and Gender Does/Doesn't Match are 2 separate options, so each should have their own separate answer. Thanks for mentinonin' it!

I'm gender sure and my gender doesn't really matter when addressed because I am guilty of not putting effort into looking the gender I identify with (I don't bind my chest so I look female. I don't care if you call me female even though I am Neutrois).

For the partner thing I just kind of stared at it for a minute.
I guess my partner should be sure of themselves and comfortable with my gender. I'm not non-sexual. Despite my third gender.

Ah, I'm glad people can figure out where they'd sorta be with these! (Though I gotta separate the 5 sorta options properly... @.@

Ah, sorry if the preference thing was confusing. I was thinking of it more in terms of if you're sure of who you'd like and who you're open to liking. I think I have a word or two in there that could be improved though.

Thanks for the detailed comment! (:

Ahhh that makes sense! uvu You always make pretty interesting posts concerning sexuality and identity and i've seen you around the internet (fuckyeahkinkydevil, anyone?) and so i thought i'd leave you a comment. uvu

Haha, oh wow! I thought ya found this while browsing or something. X3 And I'm surprised you noticed that was me too! :D I'm definitely interested in these things, and usually wanna make sure I address it all correctly and not bust anyone up about it.

gender identity varies so much from person to person if they're not cis. some people are really defensive about their gender identities and pronouns and there's me who doesn't really care because neutrois people have no natural sounding pronouns. :\ I just tend to suck it up.

That's very true! When I was sort of organizing all this, I was talking to a friend on here who is blind, and there's a similar sort of issue where there's a whole lot of over-generalization with labels. I even asked him if he thought there would be a better labelling system for that stuff than just blind or not, but he explained how there's a wide variety of visual issues people can have, and how it can't really be organized as neatly. I'd think that could apply to lots of things - especially things like gender and sexuality.

I kind of wish it was easier to make everyone happy with that sorta stuff too! Even beyond there just not being proper common names and pronouns and words for everyone and everything, I was most surprised to hear how upset and bothered people could be even just when someone asks them what their gender is. I'm always thankful when I can run into people who can kinda be open and talk about that stuff and not mind it as much, because I'm a pretty curious hammy!

Also I updated the layout a bit so I hope it's a bit clearer! If you hit refresh it should be a little more organized. (:

I think they'd be less upset if people meant gender when they asked which gender someone is, and not sex <.<
Obviously I shouldn't claim 'I'm right and everyone else is wrong' when it comes to language, since 'majority rules' in most such situations, but seems to me most people agree to the distinction when pressed (and besides, I've got dictionary.com to back me up:)


gender
[jen-der]
noun
1.
Grammar .
a.
(in many languages) a set of classes that together include all nouns, membership in a particular class being shown by the form of the noun itself or by the form or choice of words that modify, replace, or otherwise refer to the noun, as, in English, the choice of he to replace the man, of she to replace the woman, of it to replace the table, of it or she to replace the ship. The number of genders in different languages varies from 2 to more than 20; often the classification correlates in part with sex or animateness. The most familiar sets of genders are of three classes (as masculine, feminine, and neuter in Latin and German) or of two (as common and neuter in Dutch, or masculine and feminine in French and Spanish).



sex
   [seks] Show IPA
noun
1.
either the male or female division of a species, especially as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions.
2.
the sum of the structural and functional differences by which the male and female are distinguished, or the phenomena or behavior dependent on these differences.



In other words, Gender is about which pronoun one uses, more or less, while sex is entirely observational: If you've got all the 'male' parts and no 'female' parts you aren't supposed to have, and no one's able to find anything provably different about your brain-matter, you're of the male sex. Closed case (or at least closed until neuro-science progresses a bit)
Essentially, it's the 'physical gender' you referred to, except not quite; To add to the confusion, one could conceivably have different gender-pronouns for one-selves and for one's body.
So, someone of the male sex could aknowledge themselves as such and refer to their body as a 'he', but still refer to themselves as a 'she' - or they could refer to both as 'she'.

And that's just with the 'normal' genders, before one even starts looking at anything in between.

Hm, at least from the tone it sounds like I got something wrong, so now I'm gonna try to figure out what! (:

At least, if I'm not just mixing up sex and gender here completely, and if the image above is cached correctly and matches the latest change to made ( http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m.....pj4o1_1280.jpg ), it seems like I might not have used some words correctly under Gender Identity 2.
I might not have a complete understanding. (I thought I did, but then I've heard people debate the explanation I thought most seemed to agree on.) Physical gender and mental gender might be weird phrasing, right? I probably should have said physical sex and mental gender (or just gender, probably)?

Thanks for any help!

I like your new layout a whole lot more! It's much easier to understand. uvu

I think Xergon was just adding to my point a little. Most socially aware people are good enough to understand the sex/gender difference. I don't think you did anything wrong Nishi. uvu

Yeah, that's about right.
To try to summarize and reword to try to clear up confusion:
Seems to me the reason people get upset when asked their gender is because they take it as being asked the 'sex' - essentially 'are you a man or are you a woman below the belt?', and I know plenty of normal people who'd be offended by that, and that's without their patience being worn out from other gender-related issues with people - or asked to label themselves according to society's standards rather than their own.

Mind you, they MIGHT just be honestly upset that someone DARED to asked them what they prefer to be called... In which case I don't think I'm being insensitive when I call them self-centered pricks; Going out of their way to ask which gender you identify as is about as 'understanding' you can expect any normal person to be (short of some news that the various types of Transgender is far more common than it appears currently, anyhow) so until the transgendered community starts releasing information on the 'proper' behavior, I for one would prefer they didn't get upset if someone asked them what gender they are, as long as they mean gender and not 'sex', and as long as they'll accept both 'strange' genders and just a 'I don't know' answer <.<

Oh! I think I see what you mean now. X3 That's true. Asking anyone, "Hey so are you a guy or a girl?" can come off kind of offensive, like you're not able to tell or you might be saying they look manly or effeminate and in some cases it's just people being rude and thoughtless.

Maybe the time or two I heard about people being offended, it was because they were asked about that (sex), and not necessarily their gender and what they prefer to be called and all? I guess that makes more sense! ...Though at the same time it sounded like it was coming from someone who was pretty sensitive and upset and said it should never be asked - which, at least to me, makes it kind of difficult because I'd think a great way for people to become a bit more emerged into society is by letting others know about them, who they are, and like you mentioned, how they prefer to be addressed. (:
...I had a feeling that'd all be one long sentence. X3 Thanks for clarifying!

Seems about right!

Goatily approved!

This is pretty cool - I myself have went down this road trying to figure out myself.
I'd like it if we were all just hermaphrodites and weren't so hung up on gender and sex identity. I consider myself genderless, the fact that my sex is easily identifiable as male bothers me a little as I don't like meaningless labels being hung on me for that. But while I don't understand why some people take gender so seriously, I do try to mind that they do. I've just started learning about this too! Did you discover things about yourself learning about this stuff?

Holy crap this is hardly sensible, I'm really tired lol

Don't worry, that made sense to me! (:
And I can agree with ya there - I think things would be nicer and interesting and maybe a bit more comfy for everyone if we weren't all so different from each other, or had such an easy time labelling and separating one another. I think it's great at least that people are becoming more sensitive to this stuff (though hopefully not too overly sensitive) and realizing that you should still treat people the same, or however they wanna be treated, regardless of how they were born, grew up, etc.
Hm! Well there's a lot about gender and sexuality I actually enjoy, so I think I'm pretty happy with how I am and how I feel. I've lately just been thinking about how some people might like me better as a girl, or if some people would like me less if I was one, just like some are more and less interested because I'm a guy. I know I've lied about my gender online a bit just so that people wouldn't completely ignore me, but I think I have to learn that if people are going to treat others so differently, I just shouldn't want to be around them anyway.
Maybe not exactly related, but something!

This chart and its design really help explain how different characters / people could feel in regards to their sexuality. It would make sense that you'd have outliers where some may teeter-totter between more than one distinction on each side. However, I feel it is a great way to help narrow down that which has barely, if at all, been narrowed down before.

What could be fun to do as Boxer Briefs evolves is have the characters themselves use the terminology mentioned here. When they do, you could have a quick link to this reference within your artist remarks so that readers can get a clearer picture of what is being shared. Lots of things make more sense when applied beyond the overview level.

Héhé interesting subjet Nishi... Note that I've never given attention to that about myself... I feel well as I am under my ''hive'' if we can say so... But it's really a good way to make a self introspection about ourselves...

Not bad so far. :)

Just be careful not to conflate gender *roles* with gender *identity*. Gender roles are the made up kind; gender identity is not. Gender dysphoria has everything to do with your gender identity not matching your body, and not much to do with the gender roles you fulfil not matching those expected of someone with your body. For instance, a tomboy doesn't conform to female gender *roles*, but is quite happy with their body as it is (society's expectations aside, the body itself isn't a problem). By contrast, a transsexual man doesn't have a female gender *identity*, hence he'll likely start taking testosterone. He'd likely do this even if there was no one around to see the difference. Hence you get some transsexual men who are effeminate as well as some transsexual men who are butch, and you get some transsexual women who are tomboys as well as some transsexual women who are femme. (And, of course, none of these are dichotomies either, but I don't want to get bogged down in details here!)

I will also point out that these are just my observations as a cisgendered male. Others' mileage may vary.

I saw this and thought of your project, so maybe this might be a helpful resource?

http://www.gaycenter.org/gip/transbasics/glossary

I'm a dude, I'm sure about that and want to keep it that way. I do not make differences between gender, and with how often people've thought I was a girl, I don't really care anymore.

I'm sure about my sexuality, I'm sure that I make no difference between genders.

Haha, hurray! :D I'm glad this can sorta work easily for ya too, it seems!
At least, I think it seems like most people are sure about their gender and are fine with what they are physically and usually know who they're into, so I wanted to keep it simple enough for where most people fit in too. (:

While still giving options for those who aren't very sure, or fall outside the default categories. I think this is all-involving enough for 99% of people, really.