Production Specialist
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Ummm I have not read all the posts, but I have a serious question that might sound flippant. If my character undergoes a mandatory sex change, does she/he retain her original sexual orientation?
I won't wade into the discussion, but I am curious about the thoughts you all might have about my question.
Eros
All of the trans men and women I've met over the years have generally stayed attracted to the same sorts of people before and after, though most of them were more comfortable admitting their bisexuality after transitioning.
With magic, who knows. Depends on whatever makes the character more interesting for you as a player, I suppose.
Creative Director
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Ummm I have not read all the posts, but I have a serious question that might sound flippant. If my character undergoes a mandatory sex change, does she/he retain her original sexual orientation?
I won't wade into the discussion, but I am curious about the thoughts you all might have about my question.
Eros
That'd be 100% up to you as the one who decides how your character works.
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Gender/sex is not connected to sexual preference.That's not precisely true; while it's certainly the case that sexual preference and gender or physical sex can line up differently, it is overwhelmingly the case that if you are born physiologically male you will be sexually attracted to females, and that if you are born physiologically female you will be sexually attracted to males.
So it's not wholly correct to say that they always line up a certain way, but it's also not wholly correct to say that they have no relationship to one another.
Just a nitpick.
Correlation, causation, etc... :)
"Connected" is perhaps not the best word to use here. "Caused by" is better.
Ummm I have not read all the posts, but I have a serious question that might sound flippant. If my character undergoes a mandatory sex change, does she/he retain her original sexual orientation?
I won't wade into the discussion, but I am curious about the thoughts you all might have about my question.
Eros
In the real world at least, as far as we know from current research, gender identity and sexual orientation aren't responsible for one another. Different portions of the brain appear to be responsible for handling each one, on a broad continuum based on the scale of masculinization/feminization the neurons experience during specific periods of gestation in-utero. Hence you have people only attracted to one gender or the other, or both, in a sliding scale of attraction, and likewise people perfectly happy with their born gender, those who feel trapped in the wrong body from birth and desperately want to transition, and some people with lesser degrees of feeling that way that may or may not need or desire that transition. None of these are either or in the Mendelian sense; they're much more subtle and complex.
In-game how does this matter? Given the dissociation of gender identity and sexual orientation, there's no easy reply here. Does the magic reset your brain as to what would have developed if certain genes had turned on versus others, swapping out an X and a Y but otherwise not changing anything else? Would it account for hormone flux in the uterine environment? Would it account for methylation or not of specific genes?
It's such a complex and fascinating topic, it's best to handwave things and pick how you want it to occur for your character. :)
Gender/sex is not connected to sexual preference.Yep. True that. Looks like two separate hormonal cascades in utero are responsible for brain architecture and body architecture, gender-wise. Neither appear to be directly related to sexual orientation.
*chuckle* And you're posting from the coffee shop on the same thread as me while I'm at home. :D
Contributor
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Gender/sex is not connected to sexual preference.Yep. True that. Looks like two separate hormonal cascades in utero are responsible for brain architecture and body architecture, gender-wise. Neither appear to be directly related to sexual orientation.
So, if you change your sex from male to female, and you were attracted to women as a man, you're not going to stop being attracted to women just because your "bits" changed. Depending on the circumstance of the sex change (a magical curse for example) you might still identify as a heterosexual man trapped in a woman's body.In the case of an involuntary transformation, very likely this would be true. Anecdotally, though not enough data has been collected for a firm conclusion, a number of gender transitioning people do report that their orientation evolves or changes to some extent. Certainly not all, but enough that it's reasonably well understood in the trans community that your relationships can undergo some serious shakeups. I don't know the percentages, but they aren't trivial.
I don't think you can really apply much data from real world transgendered people who were gender dysphoric to begin with to someone caught by a girdle of sex change or whatnot. Their neural architecture is going to be markedly different to begin with from the self-selecting 'trans on purpose' group.
True.
Traditionally, in fantasy and folk tales (or Shakespeare, though we are talking about cross-dressing there), gender-swaps do not cause sexuality changes, however. This is usually either a source of humor, in which case the change is usually undone, or help reconcile a traditional audience to stories where the princess marries the harem girl (a fair number appear in the 1001 Nights tradition as I recall), and there does so by becoming the prince. I would imagine that things would be different in cases of reincarnation - in South Asian legend, being reborn as a woman or a man usually does involve a change in sexual orientation.So what the story and the player require...
Goodness, this isn't the nineteenth century. Gender and sexual preference, neither of which are binary but exist along continua, are separate aspects of the human experience, no matter what a particular individual's anecdotal experience or misapprehension of perceived "percentages" suggests.
There are people in this wide world who take an astonishingly broad variety of what they believe to be ethical and moral stances on various issues, and those differences are part of the human experience.
I kind of wish, though, that people on any side of an issue wouldn't use outdated, skewed, or just plain bad biology or statistics to support their positions.
As for the issue at hand, I celebrate Paizo's inclusiveness, and hope that our own world is brightening with regards to this particular "issue," which, after all, isn't about gender, sexual preference, or religion, but simple humanity.
Thanks for weighing in James. Jasper Korvaski is indeed a pretty clear message. I do think he should be moving towards marriage though, seems to fit with paladin-hood and Abadar's tenets.
Any insights you'd care to share on how homosexuality, and sexuality in general, are perceived in different parts of Golarion, or even different worlds in the system? Alas, I don't have Issien or Peoples of the North yet. People have hinted that there may be something there...
Anyway, Cheliaxians seem to have more aversion to alternate sexualities than Varisians. I can see followers of Kalistrade having some sort of bias as well, as it mentions they follow some sexual prohibitions, though I don't believe we've gotten anything specific on that.
The overall tone for pathfinder is tolerate and accepting. However, just as some areas have prejudices against particular faiths or ethnicities, it would make sense that some have sexual prejudices as well. Which areas, and what are their particular quirks?
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A character's sexual orientation has no bearing on how well they perform their role. Providing that type of information may not be necessary to tell the story, but having that information available does offer greater verisimilitude and allows me to provide a richer environment for my players. Sure, Paizo doesn't have to include this info (or any background info, for that matter) but I'm horrible at coming up with this kind of small-detailed information, and I'd much rather pay Paizo to do it.
Keep up the good work, Paizo!
Todd and TanithT, would either of you have links to any scientific papers discussing that? Seems quite interesting. (Paid journal links are fine, too, I can access a lot of journals via my university.)
Later tonight I'll post some links. There's a decent amount of synthesis on my part going on here, culling from a lot of different papers (not all of which are in humans). But as a biologist, that's my general read on the state of our understanding of the topic at the moment.
On the topic of homosexual characters in Golarion, the Irrisen campaign setting guide suggests that Cassisoche, Elvana's daughter, might be having an affair with the female director of Whitethrone's theater, or at least there is a lot of gossip to that effect
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Creative Director
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Any insights you'd care to share on how homosexuality, and sexuality in general, are perceived in different parts of Golarion, or even different worlds in the system? Alas, I don't have Issien or Peoples of the North yet. People have hinted that there may be something there...
Anyway, Cheliaxians seem to have more aversion to alternate sexualities than Varisians. I can see followers of Kalistrade having some sort of bias as well, as it mentions they follow some sexual prohibitions, though I don't believe we've gotten anything specific on that.
The overall tone for pathfinder is tolerate and accepting. However, just as some areas have prejudices against particular faiths or ethnicities, it would make sense that some have sexual prejudices as well. Which areas, and what are their particular quirks?
I don't actually have a big list about social and cultural and sexual perceptions for each part of Golarion, because that'd be an enormous list. Even if I just stuck to the regions around the Inner Sea, that's over forty entries, and I wouldn't want to do that because every region has sub regions. Attitudes in Magnimar, for example, are quite different from those in Riddleport, Kaer Maga, Korvosa, and Urglin.
So, for the most part, we just assume a generally tolerable and accepting attitude for sexuality pretty much across all regions of the Inner Sea. There are certainly areas that are more or less tolerant, but until we decide to set a story in such a region that actually involves sexuality, we're unlikely to set anything down in print.
Fair enough. Thank you.
If my PC, male or female, was initially straight, and was on the receiving end of sex/gender-changing magic, I'd definitely introduce a bisexual twist to my character.
Why? I don't really care about the science, I just think it would be too much of a good story/drama angle to ignore. As a straight guy, with few LGTB friends (and none that game with me), it doesn't often occur to me to explore these themes with my characters - but a girdle of masculinity/femininity would definitely remind me!
Yep. Too good an opportunity to pass up. There'd definitely be some readjusting going on in the characters's head. And I could see my PC changing back, but forever having their sexual outlook altered/broadened as well.
I'm definitely using that idea in the future. Perhaps make a big, rough and tough, womanising barbarian that has been changed into a pretty little lady :)
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Well, I'm not disagreeing with the difference between gender and sexuality.
Non-hetero-normative relationships, in either the 1001 Nights (the tale of Qamar al-Zaman and Princess Budur, which involves both male and female homosexual relationships) (for example) Lancelot and Galehaut in Arthurian romances, were more acceptable in medieval literature than they were in say, in 1950. This is the kind of fantasy pedigree that we can mine for ideas rather than avoiding the subject or suggesting it's been a constantly progressing improvement in cultural attitudes. Classical China was a better place to be queer than modern China. Other quality of life issues have changed for the better, but unfortunately gender and sexual prejudice shows fits and starts and steps back and forward throughout history. The general trend, thankfully, has been for the better, but it's uneven and requires effort, constant advocacy, and critical thought.
Unfortunately the notion that gender and sexuality are linked is ingrained in certain parts of the world. It's literally a matter of life and death to redefine one's self as trans rather than be a gay man in Iran. The same was true in India, though with less chance of death, and other cultures with a third gender.
Of course, gender changes are a big part of fantastic literature. It wouldn't surprise me if non-standard gender/sexuality pairings were less acceptable in the last century than in the pre-Victorian era. A lot of that was covered up, i.e., women living as men, or men as women, and hence was "in the closet." Conformity was required in one's outer life. But the trouble with involving gender reassignment surgery is it makes to a limited degree the private public, and hence the convoluted and arbitrary rules that doctors and the law use to restrict it.
Golarion, thankfully, has one's self-definition of identity basically limited by funds (for magic) rather than societal convention and law. But the same thing was true of pre-modern fantasy literature. There are a few stark ways in which a high fantasy world, no matter how shades of grey it is, is better than our own, and wish-type magic is one of them.
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Todd and TanithT, would either of you have links to any scientific papers discussing that? Seems quite interesting. (Paid journal links are fine, too, I can access a lot of journals via my university.)
This is a quick and dirty search. I haven't read all of the papers because of the whole paywall thing when they first came out. My current position though makes it not a problem, but less so a few years back.
Any further discussion on the real world topic though, let's take to another thread. :)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/668167 (The recent epigenetics theory that got a bunch of press)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18559854 ("The present study shows sex-atypical cerebral asymmetry and functional connections in homosexual subjects. The results cannot be primarily ascribed to learned effects, and they suggest a linkage to neurobiological entities.")
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10212421 (inner ear differences between homosexual women, heterosexual women, and heterosexual men. The first showing signs of developmental 'masculinization' in the structures of the inner ear)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9482952 (more ear differences in hetero, bisexual, homosexual women. No difference observed between hetero and homosexual men)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15361821 (brain differentiation/masculinization/feminization on a continuum, rather than discrete catagories)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16705035 (differences between hetero and homosexual women in how the brain processes human pheromones)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17712410 (male brain similarities in homosexual women compared to heterosexual women)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21334362 (discussion of the independant nature of changes in the developing brain for gender identity and sexual orientation)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21441904 (Nature paper on a specific neurotransmitter and associated neurons in the brain as responsible for heterosexual preference in male mice)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14525915 (structural differences in ram brains depending on sexual orientation)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19207819 (brain differences in homosexual and heterosexual male rams)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19446078 (another ram study)
Back to magical sex change:
Most forms of magical sex change would probably fall into polymorphy category. Polymorphy effects tends to not change the subject's personality traits (except for baleful polymorph but even that spell often fails to do it; additionally polymorph any object can grant personality to things that lack it in their natural form). So I would say that most sex changing magics won't change the subject's sexual orientation except for the most potent magics or those designated specifically to change it.
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Gotta say, some specific bits aside, this thread has ultimately been pretty damn heartwarming.
<3 Paizo community.
On the matter of gender identity in Golarion, the presence of magic could also make more fluid identities literally so. Imagining oracles and clerics of Arshea whose genders are as variable as their patron, with a common orientation of bisexuality* remaining unconnected with whatever equipment they've got.
Unfortunately, alter self is not on the cleric/oracle spell list. Still, it's such a perfect fit for those folks... Gotta be a workaround somewhere.
*Arshea is one of the few divine patrons in the setting for whom I'd probably attribute a sexual orientation to a higher percentage of their faithful than others. Still, it wouldn't be expected of them either, since an Empyreal Lord isn't going to ask their followers to be something they don't really feel.
@Lloyd Jackson, workan on it. Got some others I really should finish first, but upcoming vacation time will hopefully speed things up.
@Gaekub, I'm just glad there can't possibly be any confusion about my feelings on nagas now.
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Contributor
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Gotta say, some specific bits aside, this thread has ultimately been pretty damn heartwarming.
<3 Paizo community.
On the matter of gender identity in Golarion, the presence of magic could also make more fluid identities literally so. Imagining oracles and clerics of Arshea whose genders are as variable as their patron, with a common orientation of bisexuality* remaining unconnected with whatever equipment they've got.
Unfortunately, alter self is not on the cleric/oracle spell list. Still, it's such a perfect fit for those folks... Gotta be a workaround somewhere.
*Arshea is one of the few divine patrons in the setting for whom I'd probably attribute a sexual orientation to a higher percentage of their faithful than others. Still, it wouldn't be expected of them either, since an Empyreal Lord isn't going to ask their followers to be something they don't really feel.
@Lloyd Jackson, workan on it. Got some others I really should finish first, but upcoming vacation time will hopefully speed things up.
@Gaekub, I'm just glad there can't possibly be any confusion about my feelings on nagas now.
Nagas are a strangely common source of cross-species marriages and trysts in South Asian folklore. There's a whole category of Rajput lineages - the Nagavamshi - descended from various heroes (sadly, all male) with Naginis. Plus the Khmer kings claimed descent from a Brahmin and a Nagini.
Arshea is cool.
But you're right about alter self. Can't get it with any of the domains or subdomains...
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Nagas are a strangely common source of cross-species marriages and trysts in South Asian folklore. There's a whole category of Rajput lineages - the Nagavamshi - descended from various heroes (sadly, all male) with Naginis. Plus the Khmer kings claimed descent from a Brahmin and a Nagini.
YES.....I mean..cool. That's really neat.
You know, that plays perfectly into how Nagajor was set up as Golarion's Khmer Empire analogue. (and to the best of my knowledge, the Khmer didn't seem very shy on the matter of sexuality themselves, but I'm not exactly a scholar on that culture)
Speaking of Tien Xia and going back to gender identity and sexual orientation: Samsarans. Depending on how much carries over from one life to the next and whether or not certain things are "locked in", that could be a source of difficulty for "reincarnation romance"-style couples that might find themselves incompatible during certain incarnations. Then again, moving beyond such barriers might play into their theme as well.
Thanks Mikaze. Looking forward to it.
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Interestingly, there is fairly significant historical precedent in real-world anthropological literature to magic and spiritual power being directly associated with genderbending and non heteronormative identity and orientation. This is a recurring theme across more than one culture, in geographically disparate parts of the world.
While real world history does not always translate well or logically to fantasy nation history, especially if totally different historical events have shaped them, it may be worth noting.
My best guess is that shamanism, or rather the set of experiences interpreted by primitive cultures as contact with the spirit realm, is also related to neural architecture. There are certainly social factors at work, but it would be a very interesting theory to suggest that the differences in neural architecture that cause 'shamanic experience' could actually be related to the ones influencing gender identity and sexual orientation. There is an across the board expectation in more than one primitive culture that anyone who is LGBTQ is also a shaman or a magician and will be especially talented in the spirit realm.
This reminds me of the "Twin/Cross Soul" concept from certain Native American tribes(which turned up halfway in Orcs of Golarion).
Also, not to read too much into this, but after reading htat post and checking over my list of concepts I wanted to write up for this thread, all but one of the transgendered characters were casters(two oracles and a witch). Huh.
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Hijra in India are supposed to be able to curse people, but also are said to bring good luck to naming ceremonies and marriage celebrations, as well as tell the future. This is because they are brahmacharya - celibate - and hence, like holy men and women who abstain - have a great deal of stored-up tapas, or "heat."
Some of this may be the intensity of otherness as a source of magic power. The more different from the norm, the more unknowable and hence magical/sacred.
Shiva/Parvati also has a half-man/half-woman form where s/he merges with hir shakti/consort, Parvati/Shiva.
Both Shiva and Vishnu can take female form and Mohini is specifically a female avatar of Vishnu, and the lover of Shiva; they have a son, Shasta or Ayyapa or Aiyanar.
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One thing that seems to be odd to me, in the particular cause of negative views on homosexuality due religious beliefs, is why it would matter within a fantasy world?
In the fantasy world described, the individual's religion would not exist.
Even if you were to find it immoral, you could imagine a world where it was not so.
Refusing to even imagine a world where it was not immoral, seems like the epitome of intolerance, and close-mindedness.
In home games, one is welcome to edit such things out, but in things like PFS, you are interacting with people of all races/creeds/sexuality.
You would need to either tolerate it, even if you don't agree with it, or simply bow out, because PFS is simply not for you.
It all seems way simpler than some seem to make it.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Todd and TanithT, would either of you have links to any scientific papers discussing that? Seems quite interesting. (Paid journal links are fine, too, I can access a lot of journals via my university.)Later tonight I'll post some links. There's a decent amount of synthesis on my part going on here, culling from a lot of different papers (not all of which are in humans). But as a biologist, that's my general read on the state of our understanding of the topic at the moment.
I read something about that to, albiet from IO9, not a science source.
It *does* seem to match what we know about in utero cloning of cats (a cloned cat will not have the same fur patterns, because the 'soup' the baby develops in affects that.)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I don't actually have a big list about social and cultural and sexual perceptions for each part of Golarion, because that'd be an enormous list. Even if I just stuck to the regions around the Inner Sea, that's over forty entries, and I wouldn't want to do that because every region has sub regions. Attitudes in Magnimar, for example, are quite different from those in Riddleport, Kaer Maga, Korvosa, and Urglin.So, for the most part, we just assume a generally tolerable and accepting attitude for sexuality pretty much across all regions of the Inner Sea. There are certainly areas that are more or less tolerant, but until we decide to set a story in such a region that actually involves sexuality, we're unlikely to set anything down in print.
Might I suggest such things might be the province of blog posts?
(Or Wayfinders for the fan fic POV?)
Re: Trans. I know some of the concerns (from some of my LGB friends as well as Hetros) is that when you have a 'misaligned' body/mind paring, the question becomes 'what do you 'fix'? Body or mind?' In Golarion this could get very interesting with spells like modify memory. I could even picture factions of Erastil offering modified atonement spells.
"Bless me father, for I have loved another man."
"It's alright my son." *ping*
"Ah, now I'll go chase a barmaid!"
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Another same sex couple appears in the PFS Season 3 Scenario "The Midnight Mauler". Without posting spoilers, the players encounter a former Pathfinder who has finally settled down with his spouse. If the players fail in part of the mission and the GM does a good job, the final scenes of this scenario should move players to tears.
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It *does* seem to match what we know about in utero cloning of cats (a cloned cat will not have the same fur patterns, because the 'soup' the baby develops in affects that.)
Same with fingerprints and freckles and stuff. 'Identical' twins, despite effectively being clones of each other, have different patterns there.
I'm sure it's been mentioned upthread, or in one of the linked articles, but a woman's body reacts more and more to the presence of the testosterone of a male infant, producing more estrogen and producing it sooner during the pregnancy, as it's become 'immunized' to the (to her) stressful effects of having a male infant, resulting in the later male children having a significantly higher chance of being gay, despite not having the gene(s) most commonly associated to male homosexuality. This various with the health of the mother, etc. but by the time someone is on their third or fourth male child, the chances that the child will be gay are doubled or tripled, IIRC.
I also read somewhere recently that 'the gene' (found in about 70% of gay men, and associated with male homosexuality, even if it's never been proven one way or another to *cause* homosexuality) has been passing on because it's *also* a gene that shows up in the most attractive women, creating the ironic situation where the men who select for the hottest wives being the ones most likely to end up with the gayest sons.
Which, I suppose, is kind of intuitive. Pick the woman with the most attractive feminine qualities, and it is, in retrospect, perhaps obvious that she's gonna pass on those genes to your kids.
It's like God is conspiring against homophobes, arranging for the prettiest girls to pass on their prettiness to their sons!
The 'solution,' to find the manliest woman you can find, so that you have manlier sons, could lead to your fellow homophobes questioning why you only date chicks that look like dudes...
Oh, the humanity!
Exactly. It's fine to say "homophobes" (which is a misnomer since it's disgust not fear that is the relevant emotion) are evil. It's not okay to say "I believe homosexual behavior to be immoral." That is hypocritical and definitely not tolerant.
That is Paizo saying "Homosexual behavior is defintiely not evil, but disliking it is.".
I absolutely HATE this arguement.
"Man shall not lie with another man as a woman."
Then there are several references of Sodom that get misinterpreted constantly.
It is NOT immoral to be homosexual. It doesn't even fit the definition by half!
By the readings of the bible it is unethical, since it breaks a RULE, not immoral.
Golarion has a vastly different set of gender norms than we do. The game itself has no gender or preference based mechanics, so it only comes down to how Paizo incorporates this into Society Play.
As far as I can tell, gender nor sexuality plays a role in Society Play. As such if you disapprove of homosexuality then it need not be part of your game.
However, while it is not against any rules (unethical) to be against homosexuality, this community takes great offense from those who express such opinions.
That makes your behavior immoral.
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I've added a spoiler tag to an earlier post.
I also want to thank the participants in this thread for at least attempting to keep the thread on-topic, positive, and affirming to those members of the community for whom this is a very personal issue. The fact that we can keep this topic running for years with almost 2,000 posts says a lot about the paizo.com community and this thread's importance, even if there are occasional derailings and dissenters.
So thanks for making me proud to be a part of this community, folks!
I'm sure it's been mentioned upthread, or in one of the linked articles, but a woman's body reacts more and more to the presence of the testosterone of a male infant, producing more estrogen and producing it sooner during the pregnancy, as it's become 'immunized' to the (to her) stressful effects of having a male infant, resulting in the later male children having a significantly higher chance of being gay, despite not having the gene(s) most commonly associated to male homosexuality.
Actually, there are also studies (like the one mentioned here) showing that gay men may be exposed to more androgens, not less. Gay men were also found to have higher levels of testosterone than straight men, which, along with some other neurological and hormonal traits, has led to the theory that male homosexuality is actually hypermasculinity.
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Might I suggest such things might be the province of blog posts?
Blog posts aren't my favorite way to expand world lore. And posts like that generally require someone who's already pretty busy doing work on a print product to take a half day or more out of their schedule to write the post. So... that's not a great solution for me.
I'm sure it's been mentioned upthread, or in one of the linked articles, but a woman's body reacts more and more to the presence of the testosterone of a male infant, producing more estrogen and producing it sooner during the pregnancy, as it's become 'immunized' to the (to her) stressful effects of having a male infant, resulting in the later male children having a significantly higher chance of being gay, despite not having the gene(s) most commonly associated to male homosexuality.Actually, there are also studies (like the one mentioned here) showing that gay men may be exposed to more androgens, not less. Gay men were also found to have higher levels of testosterone than straight men, which, along with some other neurological and hormonal traits, has led to the theory that male homosexuality is actually hypermasculinity.
I remember watching a (gay-positive) documentary awhile back that claimed that homosexuality becomes more common the farther along a given person is in a birth cohort, possibly as a natural genetic killswitch for overpopulation.
Given that my father is the youngest of five children and a gay man himself, I found that proposition to be fascinating. (And hoo boy, my strict fundamentalist cousin with six male children and one more in the oven just might have himself a nasty wake-up call one day...)
EDIT: And, to keep this on-topic, now I'm wondering about those crazy Vancaskerkin kids!
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I would question the idea that homosexuality (at least in some cases) evolved as a way of preventing overpopulation. For one, it doesn't seem at all to be the case for most mammals...rabbits, deer and rats will breed and breed until every last bit of food is gone and the population crashes.
The second problem with it is that historically infant mortality rates were horrible. There were pretty good odds that a family would have to bury multiple children before the their youngest ever left the house.
It *does* seem to match what we know about in utero cloning of cats (a cloned cat will not have the same fur patterns, because the 'soup' the baby develops in affects that.)
Genes are interesting things, because like the pirate code, they're not a rule, they're more like guidelines. So to speak. A single given gene sequence can and often does have multiple expressions of the RNA produced from its DNA sequence, often with very different effects downstream.
Also what product that gene produces or if it is turned on or not varies on things like hormone levels, stress, even the temperature experienced on average (some reptile species have sex determined by temperature of the eggs, and siamese seal point cats have the dark patches on their fur determined by temperature as well), and so even between clones you may have lots of things going on differently, ranging from subtle to not so subtle.
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On the matter of gender identity in Golarion, the presence of magic could also make more fluid identities literally so. Imagining oracles and clerics of Arshea whose genders are as variable as their patron, with a common orientation of bisexuality* remaining unconnected with whatever equipment they've got.
Unfortunately, alter self is not on the cleric/oracle spell list. Still, it's such a perfect fit for those folks... Gotta be a workaround somewhere.
*Arshea is one of the few divine patrons in the setting for whom I'd probably attribute a sexual orientation to a higher percentage of their faithful than others. Still, it wouldn't be expected of them either, since an Empyreal Lord isn't going to ask their followers to be something they don't really feel.
Heh, Wes and I had a fun conversation about Arshea while Champions of Purity was getting outlined, and the hijras (and the magical associations of liminal-gendered people in mythology in general) did come up. :-) I don't want to spoil anything, though.
More broadly, conversations about the differences in male and female brains (not in a pop culture sense, but in a neurological/physical one) often make me nervous because of how the descriptive can too easily become prescriptive in our culture. ("Women generally think like X" can too easily become "Women should think like X," or "Women aren't qualified for jobs that require thinking like Y," just as "Men generally have a higher sex drive" can too easily be used as a justification for rape, cheating, etc. not to mention having medical implications that may not be healthy, such as assuming that any man without a high sex drive has something wrong with him that needs to be medicated, rather than that it might just be part of natural human variation.)
That said, there are some neurological and hormonal differences between men and women, and while I don't think we understand them well enough to be certain of what they mean for how men and women perceive the world differently, they are there and they do have real effects.
For that reason, I think there always will be some things that are largely untranslatable between us. Part of what causes women's lives to be different from men's is cultural, but there is a biological component as well.
As a woman with primarily male social and professional groups (and as someone who, for the tech/gaming industry, is pretty feminine), I've always been interested in what those differences are and how they affect us. I read a fascinating memoir by a woman who spent a year in drag to learn more about what it was like to be a man (Self-Made Man, by Norah Vincent). It highlighted a lot of the differences in the way society treats men, and in the ways that men treat each other versus how they treat women. And I also read a bunch of memoirs by transsexuals, both FTM and MTF, because I wondered what people who had physically (at least hormonally) been both sexes would have to say about how that affected how they saw the world. Those differences were interesting, and telling, as well. Jennifer Finney Boylan (She's Not There), talked about the "testosterone shield," how, as a man, her skin had felt like her armor, the thing that separated her from the world, and how after she transitioned to being a woman, it felt like the thing that connected her to the world, which was both empowering and vulnerable.
That insight is something that probably only people who have been on both sides of the sex divide can tell us about. Women trying to understand men otherwise have to turn to other women (who will always be speculating), or men (who will always be attempting to translate), and vice versa.
Ultimately, I wonder if it's that access to insight that gives rise to the idea, in many cultures, that a dual-gendered, or third gender, class (whether it's the hijras, Tiresias, the Native American Two-Spirited people, the Galli, etc.) has magical wisdom or powers.
And I've often thought that in a world (such as RPG worlds) where you have the ability to magically switch someone's physical sex, it made sense that at least one deity -- assuming that his/her clergy have a counseling role similar to that often taken on by clergy in the real world -- would require that, say, the highest levels of his/her priesthood spend time physically as both sexes so that they had full understanding of both and could counsel them accordingly, or that some order of monks seeking transcendent understanding would do so in order to ensure that they had access to both men's and women's wisdom.
Actually, there are also studies (like the one mentioned here) showing that gay men may be exposed to more androgens, not less. Gay men were also found to have higher levels of testosterone than straight men, which, along with some other neurological and hormonal traits, has led to the theory that male homosexuality is actually hypermasculinity.
Two papers by Breedlove from the first link in your post, including some more recent ones.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16807297
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10761903
I've added a spoiler tag to an earlier post.
I also want to thank the participants in this thread for at least attempting to keep the thread on-topic, positive, and affirming to those members of the community for whom this is a very personal issue. The fact that we can keep this topic running for years with almost 2,000 posts says a lot about the paizo.com community and this thread's importance, even if there are occasional derailings and dissenters.
So thanks for making me proud to be a part of this community, folks!
I'd be willing to add my voice to the congratulatory offerings being, um, offered about your tolerance and inclusiveness if you people weren't all sitting around plotting genocide against my kith and kin.
Down with Paizo!
Vive le Galt!
P.S.: Gay goblins do it in the street!