Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

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Jetsetlemming
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by Jetsetlemming »

AEmer wrote:@ JSL

Not all fat people are unhealthy. Some are actually very healthy, and the fat makes no difference to their level of health.
No, not at all true. Where'd you get an idea like that? People can be HEAVY, yes, and people can LOOK bulky with a healthy body underneath- look at your average lumberjack competition participant. When I say "fat", I'm specifically referring to the obese- people significantly too heavy for their body size and muscle mass. This puts a strain on your heart and circulation, and the cholesterol that comes with a diet that makes people obese certainly doesn't help. This has fuck all to do with sexism. Eat your cheerios.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by AEmer »

You're not talking about anyone, you're not the one who decided the subject of the current line of discussion - gamer mentioned a practice by insurance companies, he was the one who brought it up, it's the meaning that he established that's the reference for what we're talking about. And last I looked, someone is medically fat when their BMI is over 30, which is probably what insurance companies go by, not "jet set lemmings fattie guestimate" scale.

You don't get to change the frame of reference to suit your purposes within a discussion when you get cornered. The context here is clear: Is it ok for an insurance company to charge more in health insurance if the person in question is unhealthy? Yes (apparently, but I'm just rolling with that). But is it then ok to assume that a person who is medically fat is less healthy than a person who isn't from that fact alone? Even though it'll only be true in, lets say, 90% of all cases? Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime was medically fat, for instance.

You know what it has to do with sexism? It's the fact that a number of people get prejudged due to their stereotype rather than their merits.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by DDL »

FWIW, AEmer is on the money here: bodyweight is only loosely correlated with actual health (which is important, since BMI is the metric used to determine obesity, and it's a shit metric). Body fat is slightly more closely correlated, but is not an a priori determinant of health. It's entirely possible to have significant levels of subcutaneous fat while being incredibly healthy: swimmers for instance tend to have high body fat percentages, since subcutaneous fat is both insulatory and buoyant. And of course, women have (on average) higher fat percentages while being (on average) marginally healthier than men (bringing us hilariously back to sexism, if you're going to call "being fat" unhealthy :P).

Organ fat is a far far better indicator of health, and can actually be quite high without any obvious external sign: the TOFI (Thin Outside, Fat Inside) phenotype, while slightly oversimplified and buzzwordy, has a lot of basis in medical reality.
In addition, there are a host of genetic factors that are not well understood yet (so groups like the Pima indians who have incredibly 'thrifty' genotypes can get type 2 diabetes pretty much just by looking at a western diet -exaggerated for comedic effect- whereas other people can chow down pizza every day with no negative consequences.

In other words:
Fat people can work to not be fat, and by being fat they incur negative effects on their health, especially their heart, as a result of their unhealthy weight. Women are born women, they cannot be anything but women.
This is simply not true.
"Some fat people can work to be less fat (though others cannot), and some people can incur negative effects on their health by being fat (though others do not), because the concept of 'an unhealthy weight' is a poorly-defined badly-implemented metric designed to save time." would be better.

Also, technically: "Women are born women, but thanks to the magic of gender reassignment they can now change this".

-This last point being: why is it ok for women to want to remain women but be treated fairly, but not ok for fat people to want to remain fat but be treated fairly?

You may, in other words, not be sexist, but you appear to be weightist.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by Jonas »

Jetsetlemming, I just want to thank you for continuing to stick up for your side of the debate even in light of pretty much everybody else challenging your opinions.

I want to underline that my disagreement with you is purely a question of degrees - I feel that we are pretty much on the same side (and I'm fairly sure that's true for DDL and Aemer as well) and we're really just arguing about the extent to which our views and opinions line up.

I'm not very happy with the direction the debate has taken over the previous two pages of posts. I'm not sure I want to continue along this line of discussion, mainly because I don't want to be associated with some of the opinions and arguments presented by VectorM and gamer0004.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by DDL »

Seconded: you're a trooper, JSL.

Also: I suspect I'm being a bit of a dick, quite often.

Which I unreservedly apologise for, if indeed my self-assessment is correct.

I personally agree with your intentions, on the whole, but disagree with (as Jonas notes) where one draws the lines, and what extent one takes one's personal outrage. I am also however a total sucker for arguments, and I like hearing myself speak (er..in text form?).

:/
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by Jetsetlemming »

DDL wrote: Also, technically: "Women are born women, but thanks to the magic of gender reassignment they can now change this".
I was really hoping for transwomen not to be brought up, because that's even worse trollbait than anything else brought up so far, but there you go. Transwomen ARE women, and have always been women, even if they were born in a male body. This is the official medical truth according to the modern medical and psychological community who have studied this issue and these patients for decades. A transwoman, even before any gender reassignment treatment has started, has far more in common with women then men in their brain chemistry and makeup. Same with transmen and other men. It's not really any different a situation for them than if somebody knocked you out, cut out your brain, and sewed you up inside an average woman's body. You're now attached to female physiology, but does that really define you now as female? No. You'd still think and act and function like a man, and the mismatch those thoughts have with the body they're controlling places significant psychological stress on you. Untreated gender dimorphism frequently leads to suicide, which is why they take it so seriously.


Also, as far as the discussion of degrees and outrage does: I feel something important hasn't been specifically defined: Not everything that is sexist or racist is outrageous. Or even offensive. It's all WRONG, but there are small wrongs and there are big wrongs, of course. I'm not outraged by that Gamestop ad, for example, or by Kingdom of Amalur's female models. I know some women who are, but then I'm not of the gender those things are negative towards. But just because things are only "a little bit" sexist, or "stereotyping but not sexist because I draw a mental line between those two things" etc doesn't mean you shouldn't point them out as wrong, even if they're not harmfully wrong in your opinion. Any little crack in the patriarchy you can make it a step towards progress, a step towards freedom from assigned gender roles and away from discrimination. Since we're all nerds here (I STEREOTYPICALLY ASSUME OF THE VIDEOGAME FORUM POSTERS) I'm sure we can all think of one or two examples of our masculinity or femininity being challenged as children for having interests that don't perhaps line up with what's expected. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just be yourself? Wouldn't it be nice to express disinterest in a sporting event without people looking at you crosseyed (this is one I get all the time. I DON'T CARE ABOUT AMERICAN FOOTBALL JESUS CHRIST I MUST BE THE WORST KIND OF GAY), or see an ad for a game that's actually about the game instead of some tits that are in the game, or have a company try to sell you some flowers for valentine's day without suggesting that the only reason you'd want to buy them is to get your SO out of your hair so you can play a violent car game?
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by bobby 55 »

DDL wrote:Seconded: you're a trooper, JSL.

Also: I suspect I'm being a bit of a dick, quite often.

Which I unreservedly apologise for, if indeed my self-assessment is correct.

I personally agree with your intentions, on the whole, but disagree with (as Jonas notes) where one draws the lines, and what extent one takes one's personal outrage. I am also however a total sucker for arguments, and I like hearing myself speak (er..in text form?).

:/

I don't think the discussion has been nasty. It's a good example of how people can basically agree on the wider subject, but from different angles. It's also a good example of how far off topic I can wander. :P

or see an ad for a game that's actually about the game instead of some tits that are in the game
Or to quote another forumite: Show us footage of some God-damn gameplay.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by gamer0004 »

Jonas wrote: I'm not very happy with the direction the debate has taken over the previous two pages of posts. I'm not sure I want to continue along this line of discussion, mainly because I don't want to be associated with some of the opinions and arguments presented by VectorM and gamer0004.
Wait my arguments are mentioned in the same sentence as VectorM's arguments which all boil down to "fuck you"?

Well, thanks for that :S

I'm quite amazed that people apparently don't think statistics should be used as a proxy for determining characteristics on a large scale (such as risk of reneging on loans, risk of needing medical aid &c.). Mind you, without it the insurance market could not exist (market of lemons) unless the government steps in. This has nothing to do with fairness (not being able to change a characteristic does not affect the risk of insuring). Such statistics/generalizations are bad for those to which they do not apply, but it's the only practical way to distinguish between different types (risks) of customers.
(BTW, statistics are just one way of determining characteristics. They're often combined with credit ratings, medical histories &c. Which might not be fair either, someone who defaulted a few years ago might be financially reliable right now.)

@JSL: I am perfectly aware of loan sharks and their detrimental effects. I believe I already pointed out that I was not talking about these short payday-loans, but about more regular loans. And it's not relevant to the point I was trying to make, which is the use of statistics in determining characteristics when it's impractical or impossible to determine characteristics on a case by case basis.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by Jonas »

gamer0004 wrote:Wait my arguments are mentioned in the same sentence as VectorM's arguments which all boil down to "fuck you"?
I meant no offense, merely that you've introduced a drastically different subcategory of discrimination to the discussion and if we were to discuss that, I would probably end up on the other side of the fence, which means it would now take twice as much effort for me to post because I have to argue two different sides of a larger discussion in each post, instead of just one side of a smaller subject. If that makes sense.

Jetset: perhaps it is the case that the closer we get to a society where harmful gender roles have been eliminated, the harder it gets to eliminate the last vestiges of the (sigh... fine, I'll say it) patriarchy. My experience growing up was that when I wanted to play with dolls, my parents got me dolls. When my favourite colour was purple, the parents got me purple boots. When I started playing with toy guns, the parents got me toy guns.

Sports were only a problem until we started getting graded on our school work in the 7th grade (age ~14). Until we got grades, sports were the only simple way to compare yourself to the other kids, and so the people who got picked last had fairly low social status in general. I had a pretty serious anger management problem until we started getting graded on stuff like writing and maths. When we got our first grade sheet, it was like everything clicked and I suddenly understood my role in the social structure of the class. I got in way less fights after that.

It may not be obvious what I'm getting at here. My point is that I've never had that big a problem with the patriarchy. Danish culture has a concept known as "the soft man" (den bløde mand) which is an ideal I think originated in the 70s where fathers were no longer expected to be strict and emotionally distant, but were allowed (and in fact in some circles preferred) to take on many of the "soft" values traditionally associated with the mother role. I'm sure such fathers are far from unique to Denmark, but here it's a whole thing. Ever since high school I've always been able to find plenty of friends who gave as few shits about sports as I do. You have to get quite far down the social ladder in Denmark to find yourself in a place where any degree of machismo is expected of men.

So... uh to try and wrangle this post back towards being more directly relevant to the subject: when overt sexism has more or less been eliminated, it's harder to take a proper stance against the last remains of gender discrimination - especially when it comes down to really basic stuff like "sex sells" or when it's all about high-level statistics like "women earn less". Of course it's good and necessary to still fight those things, but it's just so damn hard to get excited about...

tl;dr: I was a pretty gay 5-year-old.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by Jetsetlemming »

Danish culture certainly sounds pretty nice, and maybe a place where you could say "overt sexism is more or less eliminated". Me, I live in America. My dad flipped out when I told him I wanted to be a teacher in middle school. Most men I know are still of the opinion that women are this alien, inexplicable, irrational group that men just can't ever understand because they're so different. I hear 'faggot' used as a synonym for 'dumb' every single day. Half the country is foaming at the mouth for the chance to destroy Planned Parenthood, the biggest women's health organization in the country. They just lost one of the major funders for cancer screenings and treatment over people being terrible over abortion. Half the politicians are in favor of cutting WIC, a program for providing proper nutrition to mothers and young children. And that's not even getting into the racial issues, such as a major presidential candidate accusing the president of being a "Food stamp president" and saying that black people need to "demand paychecks, not food stamps". Basically America is to Denmark as Afghanistan is to America.
At least we don't stone rape victims for adultery, I guess.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by gamer0004 »

That's some sick shit. Seriously. Europeans kind of tend to make fun of American craziness, but I had no idea it was that bad.
I know that in Denmark, things like gaming are completely socially acceptable. Playing WoW is normal. Here in the Netherlands, it still has some social stigma, and sports and being fit are still considered somewhat important for men, but in general I think we're doing quite all right. I have lots of female friends (yes, I have friends; apparently I am much more sufferable IRL) as well as male friends, though activities with those friends tend to depend somewhat on the composition of the group. Last weak we had a 'bro night' which involved lots of drinking, but it also included one woman/girl (what do you call people around the age of 20?) because she wanted to join. The only reason why most people present that night were guys is because they tend to like getting drunk more than our female friends. But there are exceptions (one girl joined and some guys didn't) and that's just natural.
I think we're also getting to the "soft man" ideal: I'm studying economics, which is all about money and finance and stuff, yet almost everybody (70% males) wants to just get a nice job and have lots of free time to spend with friends and family. 10 years ago, most students wanted to get a well-payed job, working lots of hours a week and making a successful career.
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by DDL »

Jetsetlemming wrote:I was really hoping for transwomen not to be brought up, because that's even worse trollbait than anything else brought up so far, but there you go. Transwomen ARE women, and have always been women, even if they were born in a male body. This is the official medical truth according to the modern medical and psychological community who have studied this issue and these patients for decades. A transwoman, even before any gender reassignment treatment has started, has far more in common with women then men in their brain chemistry and makeup. Same with transmen and other men. It's not really any different a situation for them than if somebody knocked you out, cut out your brain, and sewed you up inside an average woman's body. You're now attached to female physiology, but does that really define you now as female? No. You'd still think and act and function like a man, and the mismatch those thoughts have with the body they're controlling places significant psychological stress on you. Untreated gender dimorphism frequently leads to suicide, which is why they take it so seriously.
See, the problem here is that you've responded vastly out of proportion, borderline accused me of trolling, AND made a ton of unsubstantiated claims that also manage to gloss over (some fairly pivotal) salient points. You actually do this quite often. It's frustrating.

Let's address some of these issues, in reverse order coz why not.

Yes, this can lead to suicide, but then conversely, it can also lead to irreversible genital surgery. Suicide is unarguably a serious issue, yes, but then (and I cannot stress this enough) so is IRREVERSIBLE GENITAL SURGERY. This is not a matter taken so seriously purely because there's a risk of suicide: that may be a serious problem in undiagnosed/untreated cases, but a vastly greater risk is the fact that in misdiagnosed cases you are giving someone irreversible genital surgery. You want to be damn sure you're doing the right thing before you do that, hence there's an awful lot of research into correctly identifying the condition.

Secondly, removing my brain and sticking it in a female body is not in the slightest bit analagous. I've spent my entire life stuck in this (admittedly magnificent) body. My entire neural network is (like most mens', I expect) based around my (also admittedly magnificent) penis. It has been since birth. Simply sticking me in a female body would lead to me going "OMG WHERE MAH DICK AT???!?1 :cry: :cry: :cry: ". This is in no way analagous to a woman who has obviously never had a penis (or coversely a man who has never had a vagina) -they may feel like they're trapped in a body of the wrong sex, but they cannot actually KNOW. There is simply zero basis for comparison. Again, this is a reason why there's an awful lot of research into correctly identifying the condition. It's not simply "you were born a woman but you have a man brain", because that flies in the face of biology, psychology and basic common sense. It's "you were born female but through intense study and questioning we are now confident that you are correct in feeling that you would feel happier if you were male". And even then, you can't know. There have been people who have flipflopped across the gender divide (and who now have basically nothing left re:genitals, coz of all that fucking irreversible genital surgery) -misdiagnosis is a huge risk, and even with masses of research it's not a 100% guarantee.

Also, saying they have more in common re:brain chemistry is meaningless. If they had been raised in total isolation and their brain chemistry was more similar to that of an opposite sex subject also raised in total isolation, THEN you might have a case, but what with synaptic plasticity and the fact that your brain develops over your life, totally NOT in isolation, it's incredibly difficult to dissect contributions from genetics, environment, peer group, language (yes, the language you speak has a significant role in determining your thought processes) and so on, let alone gender or perceived gender. You may think you're female in a male body because you simply failed to empathise with your male peers at a critical time in your mental development, and thus spent more time with females.

(though it's worth noting that there may be some semi-plausible suggestions for an evolutionary advantage in a low frequency of gender dysphoria, similar to genetic basis for homosexuality -note: I'm not saying LOL TRANSGENDERS AM GAY LOL, I'm saying there are similar potential selection criteria that would favour traits unlikely to lead to direct reproduction)

So anyway: it's not a 'genetic disease, corrected by surgery' as much as it's a hugely pleiotropic, poorly understood mental illness for which surgery is simply a fairly effective (albeit horrifyingly irreversible) treatment. It's a quality of life issue: there is absolutely no basis in genetics for "male brains in female bodies" or vice versa: brain development does not work that way. You simply have someone who, through no fault of their own, has got their wires crossed, and you just carefully (oh so fucking carefully) decide whether or not their quality of life would be better if they actually had reassignment.

And finally, "This is the official medical truth according to the modern medical and psychological community"...which medical community? There are many, and they don't all agree. Plus, let's be honest: if you're trying to improve the quality of someone's life by reassigning their gender, telling them "they were always supposed to be the other gender" is a much more helpful psychological crutch than telling them they're basically "mentally ill via who knows what stimuli", but you're happy to have a go at slicing their bits off in the hope that'll make them more content. And it's legally more convenient, too.

TL:DR version: SWEEPING STATEMENTS AM BAED. ALSO, IRREVERSIBLE GENITAL SURGERY OMG OMG. :shock: :shock: :shock:
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by DDL »

Also, JSL: which bit of the US? And which sources do you get most of your news from?

Coz before everyone assumes america is a third-world country, it's really nowhere near as bad as JSL makes out. It DOES have a huge divide in general level of education and ..for want of a better word, 'worldliness'. It's (basically -this is a gross oversimplification) a highly populated coastal ring of civilised, educated intelligent and relatively enlightened (albeit powerhungry) people, surrounding an inner core of lower population density mouthbreathing utter utter fucktardedness. I suspect JSL has the misfortune to be a smart person growing up in a generic middle-america fucktard town.

(also, holy fuck: for all my claims against them, can I do sweeping generalisations or what?)
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by Jetsetlemming »

No, I live in Philadelphia, which is all in all a fucking fantastic place to live. But that's fantastic by American standards.

And DDL, I wasn't accusing you of being a troll, just saying that the topic inspires trolling. I really don't want to see Aemer or Vector commenting on trans issues. As far as your own opinions on them, but sorry, you're wrong about it. I don't mean to be rude or harsh about it, most people are, misunderstandings and confusion about the issue are almost universal, because people find the subject so uncomfortable and icky. "Cut off my penis!? NEVAR!" is about as much thought as most people put into it. But it's a serious psychological condition that cannot be treated by therapy alone, and has actual physical effects on the brain and body, it's not just "I think I'm someone else" or anything like that. Here's a post from a transperson representative who spends a lot of their time talking about the issue and the many misconceptions non-transpeople have about it.
WPATH standards of care, widely accepted as the standard for treatment of trans people:

quote:
“Sex Reassignment is Effective and Medically Indicated in Severe GID. In
persons diagnosed with transsexualism or profound GID, sex reassignment
surgery, along with hormone therapy and real-life experience, is a treatment
that has proven to be effective. Such a therapeutic regimen, when prescribed
or recommended by qualified practitioners, is medically indicated and
medically necessary. Sex reassignment is not “experimental”, “investigative”,
“elective”, “cosmetic”, or optional in any meaningful sense. It constitutes very
effective and appropriate treatment for transsexualism or profound GID.”


Also, take note:

quote:
“Severe Gender Dysphoria cannot be alleviated by any conventional
psychiatric treatment, whether it be psychoanalytic therapy, eclectic
psychiatric treatment, aversion treatment, or by any standard psychiatric
drugs.”


That's from Green (1999); Report cited in Bellinger v Bellinger, Court of Appeal, Judgement, July 17th 2001

Or, how about :

quote:
Sex reassignment plays an undisputed role in
contributing toward favourable outcomes, and comprises Real Life
Experience, legal name and sex change on identity documents, as well as
medically necessary hormone treatment, counselling, psychotherapy, and
other medical procedures… Medically necessary sex reassignment
procedures also include complete hysterectomy, bilateral mastectomy, chest
reconstruction or augmentation as appropriate to each patient (including
breast prostheses if necessary), genital reconstruction (by various techniques
which must be appropriate to each patient, including, for example, skin flap
hair removal, penile and testicular prostheses, as necessary), facial hair
removal, and certain facial plastic reconstruction as appropriate to the
patient… These medical procedures and treatment protocols are not
experimental: decades of both clinical experience and medical research show
they are essential to achieving well-being for the transsexual patient


That's Whittle et al; WPATH Clarification on Medical Necessity of Treatment, Sex Reassignment, and Insurance Coverage in the USA (2008).

Or, try:

quote:
“To require the condition to go untreated until it had caused an additional
severe illness disregarded the duty on Health Authorities to prevent illnesses
and constituted inhuman or degrading treatment.”


(This refers to waiting until trans people are goddamn suicidal before treating.) That's from R v North West Lancashire Health Authority ex parte A, D & G (1998).


quote:
Sex reassignment can mean the difference between a life of frustration and despair and one of human fulfillment and happiness. In the past, transsexualism was often considered simply a bizarre and rare aberration of human sexual behavior. Whether or not one believes that transsexualism is a birth defect, the patient and his or her needs remain. One of the greatest needs is for help from professionals willing to accept them as human beings of worth with problems of enormous magnitude. Often the persons can work out most of their other problems by themselves if they are given a chance to express themselves in the sex role that is comfortable. In the past, transsexuals frequently met discouragement when they sought medical help. Indeed, one survey found that many physicians would not recommend surgery but would accept and help patients only after surgery. Recently, attention to gender identity problems has increased in the professional literature. Hopefully this growing interest means that eventually it will be easier for these people to find the competent and sympathetic treatment they so surely deserve.

"Transsexualism", Harry Benjamin and Charles L. Ihlenfeld, The American Journal of Nursing, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Mar., 1973), pp. 457-461


quote:
“GID, if left untreated, can result in clinically significant psychological distress, dysfunction, debilitating depression and, for some people without access to appropriate medical care and treatment, suicidality and death… Delaying treatment for GID can cause and/or aggravate additional serious and expensive health problems, such as stress-related physical illnesses, depression, and substance abuse problems, which further endanger patients’ health and strain the health care system.”

American Medical Association House of Delegates Resolution 122 (2008) http://www.tgender.net/taw/ama_resolutions.pdf
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Re: Sexism in games (Kingdoms of Amalur case study)

Post by bobby 55 »

Change takes time. I mean 20 years ago the stay-at-home-dad would have been accused of being a bludger here. Now people just accept that if the wife/mom is the bigger earner, then she should be the bread winner, and dad looks after the children.

The gender reassignmentthing as DDL points out is a complicated business. A guy at my place of employment two jobs ago started the procedure. He was taking hormones and wearing gender specific clothing. He didn't go through with it because he only thought he needed to be a woman because he couldn't accept that he was gay. Once he accepted that he was gay and that sky wasn't going to fall on him he stopped the procedure before it was too late.

The thing was everyone at work liked him for himself, he was a gentle soul with a whacky sense of humour. I don't like to think what state he would have been in if he'd gone through the whole shebang.
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