What I really need is a questionnaire, not a poll. I am serious about this, about the whole research bit I'm trying to do. My goal, as I've said, is to better understand you (me, us). I want to get a realistic view of the t-community, something I can share with my readers and maybe the general public.
My questionnaire would start with:
my birth sex is ______.
My current sex is _____.
My gender is _____ ___% of the time and ______ ___% of the time (and you can add more if you want to).
I don't think I'd offer choices at all here. I might offer suggestions, so if a term is unclear, the suggestions may clarify it. Fill in the blanks!
It would have questions such as:
I consider myself {straight/gay} with respect to my current sex, {straight/gay} with respect to my current gender image.
This might be followed with questions about whether you consider t-people male or female with respect to your personal gender identity/identities.
I'd have a section on gender expression. I really have no idea how that will play out ~ there are so many options.
I think it would be about 100 questions long. I'd like to get at least 1,000 responses. I have far fewer than 1,000 readers, so it would have to be distributed way beyond this blog. In a perfect world, I'd have at least a hundred others filled out by male and female civilians.
This week's poll is a metapoll. I think it would take a lot of time and energy to put it together and interpret the results.
My dating poll was pretty straightforward. I'm leaving the results up until I have time to write a couple of posts about the results. I hope you enjoy the polls. I find you all fascinating. I mean that sincerely.
Oh... if you pick the last answer, please leave me a comment with an explanation.
Thank you all!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
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I can help spread the word. I'm active in the imaginary world of Second Life where I hang out with a bunch of transfolk of various flavors, so I'll make sure they all hear about the poll/survey/whatever when it's done.
ReplyDeleteOne suggestion I have on content: In addition to "I consider myself ___ for ___% of the time", you might look at a question something along the lines of "I consider myself a blend of ___% male and ___% female".
See, I don't have any kind of binary existence where I flip a switch and one minute I'm male and the next minute I'm female. I understand a *lot* of crossdressers do that, kind of part time transsexuals, and that's fine... but not all of us do.
I'm always Ralph, all the time, and I consider myself male. And yet... I'm overly sensitive about feelings, I cry easily, I indulge far more in works of creativity and imagination than most of my male friends, I couldn't throw a ball straight or perform any other athletic feat to save my life, and of course there's the whole "I'm more comfortable wearing a dress" thing. And yet... I'm ridiculously aggressive and competitive in games, I care little to nothing about my personal appearance, and I share my son's fondness for idiotic violent movies full of car chases and explosions. Just ask my wife if I'm a typical guy when it comes to remembering names and faces, or remembering for more than three minutes what she asked me to pick up at the store.
So... while I'm "male" in most senses of the word all the time, there are obvious parts of my personality that make me inclined to say I'm more like a select blend of 90% male, 10% female (just picking random numbers out of some orifice), and I'm like that 100% of the time.