Transgender in the Cosmere

[Quiver]

Disclaimer: First of all, I don't expect trouble- you guys have always struck me as measured and mature when it comes to debates- but I thought I'd best mention this as a re-enforcement:

This is a sensitive topic, dealing with a real-world issue. As such, personal opinions, views etcetera aside, be respectful, and keep on topic.

(And, as a bit of self-interested motives, if anyone has any information related to the issue of transgender, I would love if you could PM me a link- it's an issue I'm interested in, but am woefully ignorant of)

 

Now, on to the topic: would it be possible for someone using soul-stamps to change their sex?

 

Shai is able to change the windows because she says they remember what they used to look like; similarly, Shallan found it difficult to persuade the stick or boat to change because of their cognitive aspects.

 

Shai's essence marks are described as changing her physical and mental states; Shaizan doesn't know how to create soul stamps, the scholar has information which Shai doesn't, and the beggar form causes Shai to become emaciated and lose her hair.

 

Would it be possible for Shai to apply an essence mark to turn herself into a man?

 

On the opposite side of things, suppose there is a man who wants to be a woman and who identifies as a woman. Would that attitude make it easier for their body to be persuaded to change to match her cognitive state? We have examples in Way of Kings of bodies being turned into inanimate substances, but would the precision required to change a person's physical sex be far too complex for a soulcaster or a soulstamp?

[Swimmingly]

I don't know about Soulcasting - even delicate uses so far have been rather blunt (blood type, for example, comes down to turning the entirety of a liquid into a very similar liquid). Forgery (specifically modified ReSealing) might work better. It seems to be implied that a ReSealing doesn't require a lasting Mark, but the limits are set strangely. Because Forgery affects the perception of an object or person by others, a transgender Soul Forger that already self-identified, acted, and dressed as the gender they were mentally would probably have an easier Forgery then someone who concealed the gender they identified as for social or cultural reasons.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Interesting question, and one which we might get to see some more related to in future books, based on quotes like THIS from Brandon. 

 

There certainly seems to be ability with some of the magic systems to reshape a body (Returned/Royal Locks on Nalthis, Soulstamps on Sel, Elantrian physical change after the Shaod takes them), and I think the most likely ones to work for something like this would be the body shaping that we've seen from Nalthis, then Soulstamping. 

 

Based on the "how one sees oneself" portion of the Returned bodyshaping abilities, I think it would be very hard to change sex. It would be easier for someone is transgendered already, but still not very easy. Or maybe very easy if they were to Return since the initial Returned body is the "ideal of how they see themselves", so they may come back directly as the other sex. It takes some serious "mental gymnastics" to change shape as a returned, so once you've gone through the initial Return, I think it would still be very hard to do. 

 

With Soulstamping it might be possible, but I'm not sure... Shai had to spend time learning all the skills that she had with each new Soulstamp and then write a history where those skills were all she practiced and a life that supported those (i.e. tons of physical workouts to build muscles for Shaizhan). So it provided some body change, but really based on a history of training and workout. I don't remember it making her taller or altering the length of her arms to give her warrior a better reach or anything like that, so I think it would be almost impossible for a mortal to use Soulstamping to accomplish this... also Soulstamping like Shai did still wears off, it just takes a lot longer. She still had to keep applying her marks to maintain that state, so any gender change with Soulstamping would not be permanent. 

 

That said, I don't think it impossible. 

 

My other caveat would be that a Rosharian Lightweaver (especially Shallan) who could sell the "lie" to themselves or whatever she does with the drawing pre-lightweaving, could possibly combine that aspect of Lightweaving, the transformative aspect of it, in conjunction with a Return's bodyshaping or possibly even soulstamping to change sex for a time. 

 

EDIT: for clarification, when I say "lie" in the paragraph above, I'm talking strictly in the Lightweaving/Pattern sense, not trying to imply there is anything false related to transgender people and/or their orientations. 

Edited March 19, 2014 by Green Hoodie Mistborn

[Scriptorian]

Interesting idea...I think this would entirely depend on how Brandon defines gender in the Cosmere, whether it is intrinsic and integral to the individual (Spiritual?) or more transitory and a matter of perception (Cognitive?). Given he's LDS, I'd err on the side of the former, but anything is possible given our limited knowledge base.

[name_here]

I think Soulcasting could hypothetically do it, but you'd be more likely to wind up scattering them all over the wall instead of having it work if the strawberries incident is anything to go by.

 

Doing it with Forging would be a very lengthy endeavor, I think, because even if they perceive themselves as the other gender, the stamp would still need to create a history where they were born the other gender, and account for how being born the other gender would mean they don't feel like they were born the wrong gender. But it would probably be possible.

[Chaos]

I do not think Soulcasting could alter gender. Right now, all Soulcasting effects we have seen are entirely Physical in nature. Even if you were able to alter the right organs (which already seems very, very challenging for Soulcasting to do), your Spiritual would remain the same. Soulcasting effectively hacks the Cognitive to alter the Physical, whereas Forgery hacks things to alter the Spiritual Identity of an object. There's no evidence that Soulcasting could alter Identity in that way.

Forgery, though, I could definitely see having such abilities. Much more likely than Soulcasting, at least.

[bartbug]

Also, even if you alter the right organs, there still is DNA, so if you want it wholesale, I would think you would need Forgery.

 

Edit: Wrote Soulcasting, though I totally meant Forgery. I can't see how you would get Soulcasting to work.

Edited March 21, 2014 by bartbug

[FeatherWriter]

Like Chaos said, Soulcasting seems like it'd be reaaaaally difficult to accomplish. I mean, I'd figure that, as Serendipity suggested, gender perceptions are probably a more Spiritual thing. Soulcasting, as far as we've seen, doesn't touch the Spiritual realm at all. It's more... hacking the Cognitive realm to create a change in the Physical realm, if I'm understanding it correctly. That's going to be a pretty complex casting and there'd be a lot of difficulty in it.

 

I'd say something like Forgery would be far more suited to a transgender transition. I very much like the idea that the stamp would more easily take to transition because it would be bringing the Physical aspect more into line with the Spiritual. In a trans individual, we would have a disconnect between the Physical and Spiritual, and the stamp would be rectifying that and would probably be very easy to take. Disclaimer: I don't remember tons about TES and I'm probably getting stuff wrong with all that. Please ignore me if so.

 

Also interesting to consider though: Transgender Returned from Warbreaker. One of my friends actually ended up asking Brandon about this at the Portland signing about a week ago and this was his response:

 

 

"I would think that a transgendered person could definitely come back as how they identify.  Perception is very important in these sorts of things.  It would really depend on the person, but yes."

 

So that's fun to consider as well!

[Tempus]

I agree about this being possible with Forgery quite easily. It's already clear from Gold healing and Stormlight healing, as well as forgery, that how a thing sees itself is the most important part of the process. If an individual sees themselves cognitively as the wrong gender, it would be fairly easy to soulstamp them to be that gender. Much easier than say, creating an entire persona about a warrior monk or a beggar. As most transgendered people describes themselves as feeling exactly that sort of cognitive dissonance, I suspect that a gender forgery would be one that takes very easily and very strongly.

[GroundPetrel]

Appropriate use of AonDor ought to work for gender reassignment surgery.  

 

Feruchemical gold and Stormlight healing might work because of the cognitive aspect.  

 

Which makes me wonder; would using appropriate mind-altering magic on a Stormlight user to make them alter their gender perception cause them to accidentally gender-swap when healing?  It's a tall order, because gender perception is basically ingrained, but it's hypothetically possible if you can find some really good cognitive-alteration powers.  

[Tempus]

Such as feruchemical identity, perhaps?

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Also interesting to consider though: Transgender Returned from Warbreaker. One of my friends actually ended up asking Brandon about this at the Portland signing about a week ago and this was his response:

 

 

So that's fun to consider as well!

 

This is what I was saying earlier! Glad that there is some confirmation for my thoughts

 

Returning as a transgender person on Nalthis would be the "easiest" way to change sex, though still almost impossible since it depends on Endowment offering you the chance to be sent back...

 

For a mortal to get at that ability, I'm still saying a combo of Lightweaver (Rosharan) and Forger

[Acecool]

Disclaimer: First of all, I don't expect trouble- you guys have always struck me as measured and mature when it comes to debates- but I thought I'd best mention this as a re-enforcement:

This is a sensitive topic, dealing with a real-world issue. As such, personal opinions, views etcetera aside, be respectful, and keep on topic.

(And, as a bit of self-interested motives, if anyone has any information related to the issue of transgender, I would love if you could PM me a link- it's an issue I'm interested in, but am woefully ignorant of)

 

Now, on to the topic: would it be possible for someone using soul-stamps to change their sex?

 

Shai is able to change the windows because she says they remember what they used to look like; similarly, Shallan found it difficult to persuade the stick or boat to change because of their cognitive aspects.

 

Shai's essence marks are described as changing her physical and mental states; Shaizan doesn't know how to create soul stamps, the scholar has information which Shai doesn't, and the beggar form causes Shai to become emaciated and lose her hair.

 

Would it be possible for Shai to apply an essence mark to turn herself into a man?

 

On the opposite side of things, suppose there is a man who wants to be a woman and who identifies as a woman. Would that attitude make it easier for their body to be persuaded to change to match her cognitive state? We have examples in Way of Kings of bodies being turned into inanimate substances, but would the precision required to change a person's physical sex be far too complex for a soulcaster or a soulstamp?

I'd say definately. Each person is both male and female up to a certain point in the womb. I think it would be excedingly easy for some one to soul stamp themselves as a different sex. I do not think it would necessarily change their gender. It would be a congenital change and not a genetic change.

 

This means he or she would still probably identify as a man or woman, or some other LGBT, but simply be in the form of the sex chosen. This would just be a temporary alternative life path for the duration of the stamp.

[name_here]

I'm a bit dubious that (most) transgender people properly count as having a self-image of the opposite gender as far as Feruchemical gold and the like are concerned. I think having a cognitive self-image of your actual (as opposed to desired) physical body with a mismatch like that would manifest as something like phantom/alien limb syndrome.

 

Returned are another matter because they specifically look like how they want to look as opposed to what they would expect to see in a mirror.

Edited March 20, 2014 by name_here

[Rubix]

Hey everyone, just stepping in here to let everyone know that I'm going to be watching this thread. We've had a couple similar threads recently that got out of hand, and I'm really hoping that this one will stay civil (and many thanks to those of you who participated in those topics, and kept a reasonable tone, as I really do appreciate it). I really don't want to shut this thread down, as the majority of members of this site are very reasonable people, but I will if I have to.

If anyone has any problems, questions, jokes, or concerns, don't hesitate to pm me. I don't bite, I swear.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Vortaan]

Here's my question though: if it's possible, why doesn't Shai have a stamp that does it? Wouldn't a stamp that leaves most of her skills intact but changes her sex be a very effective disguise?

[PorridgeBrick]

Here's my question though: if it's possible, why doesn't Shai have a stamp that does it? Wouldn't a stamp that leaves most of her skills intact but changes her sex be a very effective disguise?

Because her Cognitive perception of herself, as well as other's perception of her, strongly identifies her as a woman. It wouldn't take properly.

[Vortaan]

Because her Cognitive perception of herself, as well as other's perception of her, strongly identifies her as a woman. It wouldn't take properly.

 

In which case I doubt that any transgendered self identity is going to be able to overcome the collective perception of others in a society without any experience of such a thing.

[FeatherWriter]

Yep, I'd go with PorridgeBrick onthat one. Shai isn't transgender. She's cis, in that she was Designated Female At Birth (DFAB) and identifies as female. It would be much more difficult -- though maybe not impossible -- for her to stamp herself to a masculine state.

 

And I don't know that we have evidence that there is no experience with transgender identity on Sel. Just because we haven't explicitly seen any doesn't mean that the society is wholly unrecognizing of them. And even if their society didn't recognize them, transgender people would still exist. I'd think in world with a magic system that has the ability to change people like that, you would have quite a few more transgender people around.

 

*salutes Rubix* Fret not, sir. I am also very closely watching this topic. People have been doing very well thus far, I think, but rest assured I'm keeping an eye out. This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, so I'll be making sure we're all staying civil.

[name_here]

It's also entirely possible that Shai has only a limited number of Essence Marks and simply has not actually wanted to make a male Soulstamp. It'd certainly have to be pretty lengthy, and might need to explicitly include things which could ordinarily be left out. It'd need at least twice as much history as her other stamps if not more, because the major divergence is so long ago.

[king of nowhere]

Well, first we must make the distinction beteeen gender orientation and body shape. It is not clear, at least to me, if the original question was "could we use magic to get a transgendered person and give him a different body" or "could we use magic to change sexual orientation of a person".

 

For the first, my take would be that it is possible hypotetically, but not at the current state of art. Soulcasting cannot replicate living flesh in such a good way it's not like making a crystal structure, or a solutiion with a complex but definite composition. it's about twisting atom by atom. it would be like firing bits of metals in the air with multiple cannons in a way that is calculated exactly so that they will collide midair and twist together to form a perfectly functioning airplane. theoretically possible, practically impossible.

Soulstamping would be better, but still it needs plausibility. shai could have become a warrior monk, if her life had taken a different path. Shai was born a woman, and there's no way she could have changed her body to that of a male. Stamping the instruction "when she was conceived, the sperm cell carried an Y chromosome instead of an X one" would probably not worked, as if she would have been conceived from a different sperm cell she would have been a different person. Stamping could turn people into transsexuals if they could become transsexuals by other means. so if on sel there was sex changing surgery, it would be possible to stamp people so that they took it. You could stamp them to have done the sex surgery with the best surgeons, with a perfectly succesful intervention, and having already recovered, so it would definitely be better than actually taking the surgery. But it would only work because it would be possible to do sex surgery. since on sel there isn't the technology for that, I'd say forgery would fail.

Now that I think about it, AonDor would have a reasonable chance of doing it. It's probably beyond the current level of knowledge, but if they can fix wounds, they may be able to also perform surgery with it. they may be able to figure out sex surgery (would be more difficult, because it's not about putting the body back together, but changing it). Once the elantrains manage that, forgery would become plausible.

 

As for the second part, it is possible to change the sexual orientation of somebody, that seems more difficult. I haven't yet read WoR, so I don't know much about lightweaving and I will leave that aside. And no one knows much about storing identity in aluminium. But I'm going to assume you can only store general identity, you can't store single personality traits. and even if you could, you can either recover them or get rid of them, so at most you could become asexual.

Again, forgery seem more likely. And here the question becomes controversial, because forgery can alter the story of your life, but probably not your dna. So, is homosexuality written in the dna, or is it something that people develop over time? Or, can a genetically homosexual person be influenced by stereotypes so much that he would consider himself eterosexual overcoming his genetic inclination (only maybe to discover one day that he never felt attracted to his wife in the first place)? People tend to feel strongly about the answer to that question, and they generally tend to support the option that lends wheight to their preconceived ideas, because people are more likely to believe what they already think to be truth. Those who think homosexuality is an illness will believe that it is "picked up" somehow, while homosexuals believe it is genetic and no one can ask them to change.

The only scientific truth is that we still have no proof either way. I find that when different causes are suspected, it's generally all of them to some extent. So for gender orientation it's likely a bit of both. I'd say there must be some genetical factor because otherwise homosexuality wouldn't be diffused in animals, or even in societies that are strongly against it. But there must also be some cultural influence, because in our western society -  who mostly stopped discriminating, but still carries some seeds from the older times when homosexuality was considered immoral - most men would find the idea of having sex with another man to be repulsive, while in ancient greece sex between men was commonplace. Note that this is just a working hypotesys, I'm sure there can be other explanation. there wouldn't be any argument about it if the solution was so simple.

If that hypotesys is correct, than some people would be genetically straight regardless of life experience, some would be genetically gay regardless of life experience, and some aren't well defined and could come either way as their life progress. In which case, those last group could be gender-changed with forging, while the other two groups not. If sexual orientation is completely genetic, instead, forging could do very little about it - at most putting a very strong prejudice in the forged person, along with an inner convinction that they must pretend to be the "correct" orientation. If sexual orientation is mostly cultural, then it would be possible to change the gender of all, or most, people.

As for AonDor, I don't think it could make it. all the effects I can think of so far have been purely physical, not cognitive.

 

Note: I'm using homosexual as synonim of transgender. I know there's a difference between them, but I'm not very experienced in what it exactly is, and I think you understand what I'm trying to say anyway. I mostly use homosexual because I know how to write homosexuality, but not "transgenderality"

 

EDIT: wow, I managed quite the wall of text

Edited March 21, 2014 by king of nowhere

[Quiver]

Thanks for the responses so far guys; this is a topic I find really interesting, and I do hope gets explored in a Word of Brandon if not in-book.

 

Well, first we must make the distinction beteeen gender orientation and body shape. It is not clear, at least to me, if the original question was "could we use magic to get a transgendered person and give him a different body" or "could we use magic to change sexual orientation of a person".

 

I meant the first one. Suppose I was born a man, but always identified as female; would that cognitive aspect be enough to, with the help of magic, turn me into a woman.

 

One thing that has occurred to me that might make this difficult is how sex and gender are divided into the various realms. I would have thought of someone's sex as being a physical attribute, whereas gender identity would be cognitive or spiritual. Would the fact that humans (like sticks) exist mostly in the physical realm make it more difficult to 'persuade' the body to change?

 

As for how relevant this is... Spren exist from the cognitive realm, correct? How does that relate the gender? Most of the spren of Roshar are just grouoped together as Windspren, Rainspren, etc with no gender pronoun applied to them. But then we have others such as Syl, Pattern or Wyndle who are described with gender pronouns... and the fact that the Stormfather calls Syl his daughter as opposed to just a child might be significant to the disucssion somehow? 

[Edgedancer]

As for how relevant this is... Spren exist from the cognitive realm, correct? How does that relate the gender? Most of the spren of Roshar are just grouoped together as Windspren, Rainspren, etc with no gender pronoun applied to them. But then we have others such as Syl, Pattern or Wyndle who are described with gender pronouns... and the fact that the Stormfather calls Syl his daughter as opposed to just a child might be significant to the disucssion somehow? 

On the matter of Spren gender. Doesn´t Kaladin identify the Windspren that gather around him in his fight with Szeth as male and female individuals?

 

For the posibility of this I´m going to join the camp maybe with forgery. In theory getting born another gender is a 50/50 chance and some of Shai´s Soulstamps have very different historys, that ought to be even less likely. So, I guess a lot of it comes down to the cognitive aspect. (I´m looking at you colored window.)

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Spren gender is an interesting thing, doesn't Syl appear as a man at one point to one of the side characters only briefly? She can take pretty much any form that she desires at the time, and yet "her" association with the Stormfather (another interesting name in context of this discussion, as he is very obviously male to those who interact with him), is that of father/daughter so they clearly have default genders even in the cognitive realm? 

 

The "over spren" who sent Wyndle, Nightwatcher I'm looking at you!, is referred to by Wyndle as "she" also, so it seems pretty clear to me at least that the "higher orders" of spren have both the gendered concept and self/identification with genders in the cognitive and physical realms both. 

 

I still think it will be impossible for a "mortal" magician to render themselves permanently another sex, either as a disguise or as a translation of their gender identity. 

 

The best someone can get, without Returning, IMO would be a combo Roshar Lightweaver/Sel Forger, someone who is able to "transform" through the power of lightweaving could probably combine that with the power of Forging to achieve some amazing soulstamps/Essence Marks 

 

Off topic: It is also interesting as I think about it, that they are called "Soulstamps" and not "cognitivestamps" or something. The Forgers clearly seem to think of the magic as effecting the soul rather than the mind/cognitive aspect to give it that name, since they have such an established theory of Realmatics at least..

[name_here]

Note: I'm using homosexual as synonim of transgender. I know there's a difference between them, but I'm not very experienced in what it exactly is, and I think you understand what I'm trying to say anyway. I mostly use homosexual because I know how to write homosexuality, but not "transgenderality"

 

The difference is that transgenders identify as something other than their biological sex (either the opposite gender or a nonstandard category) while homosexuals are attracted to people of the same gender. If a transgender individual is born as a biological male, identifies as female, and is attracted to women, that person* would be considered homosexual and transgender. Possibly.

 

I think a Soulstamp could be used to swap biological gender in much the same way that it can turn gold into lead. That would assume it works on the history of "the child of X and Y" instead of "Z, whose parents were X and Y". Even failing that, though, it should be possible, because as it turns out the biological/self-identification buisness wasn't confusing enough. See, it turns out that having two X chromosomes doesn't necessarily result in a female body, and having an X and a Y doesn't necessarily result in a male body, and some people have two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome. So a Soulstamp could swap the expressed gender without changing the chromosomes. That's not exactly optimal, though, since a mismatch like that comes with some side effects, usually including infertility.

 

As for spren genders, they're whatever gender people perceive them as.

 

*This is a standard translation for a gender-nonspecific Japanese pronoun, which I am using because gendered terminology in this sort of discussion always leaves me confused over whether that person is biologically male and self-identifies as female or the reverse. In other English contexts, use the gendered pronoun the specific individual prefers.