Understanding transgenderism.

[HappySkeptic]

I don't understand transgenderism, so I'm not qualified to discuss it.

If I were born a woman, that would be great. I just hope I'd be a lesbian

[Anomalocaris]

If I were born a woman, that would be great.  I just hope I'd be a lesbian

other women would certainly wish it were otherwise.

[John 6IX Breezy]

This did not originate with me, "But, is transgenderism hardware or software?  Or, perhaps, more appropriately, firmware?"  I would opt for the third option.

Every psychological trait is heritable, and as such, every trait is multivariate. Things are the result of interactions between many moving parts, therefore, thinking in terms of single causes usually leads to problems and inconsistencies. That said, to respond to your question, I would place it at the level of software. That is the level at which it seems to manifest itself, and the level at which identities of every sort are constructed by individuals.

(I don't know enough about firmware to use it as a metaphor.)

[Anomalocaris]

Software in the software, firm ware and hardware analogy is not inherited in the sense a computer is not made with it and require it to operate.  So software is not equivalent to anything heritable, which you deem psychological traits to be.   So you contradict yourself in asserting gender identity and transgenderism is equivalent to software.

[The Grand Nudger]

Heritability, in a computer analogy, would be machine code. An artifact of it's specific construction. Gender orientation is absolutely nothing like machine code, it's probably not even "software". It's a fucking user profile that references regional data, lol.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Every psychologist and neuroscientist since the 1950s has used the hardware/software metaphor to conceptualize the differences between brain and mind. It's not that difficult to understand.

[Anomalocaris]

Every psychologist and neuroscientist since the 1950s has used the hardware/software metaphor to conceptualize the differences between brain and mind. It's not that difficult to understand.

Thank you for the condescension.    It is so easy to understand that one could Instantly see beyond all doubt why it would be misleading.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Every metaphor has its limits. So I must assume that anyone who criticizes a metaphor on such grounds does so for the sake of argument rather than clarify.

[Anomalocaris]

Heritability, in a computer analogy, would be machine code.  An artifact of it's specific construction.  Gender orientation is absolutely nothing like machine code, it's probably not even "software".  It's a fucking user profile that references regional data, lol.

Humans are not machines intelligently designed with an eye towards ease of predicting its behavior and isolating fault elements.   It seems to me human elements analogous to hardware, software, firmware and data can all seriously impact behavior.   There is no intelligent computer designer or programmer deciding “well, it is stupid to put this in hardware!, it would be too hard to debug!”    where particular behavior is rooted, and whether it is rooted in several elements from hardware to data rather than just one element, depends really on the contingent circumstances of what element or combination of element presented the least resistance to facilitating this behavior when this behavior was evolutionarily selected.   So humans IMHO can be thought of as the product of multiple generation of very short sighted hackers who hacks everything from hardware to firmware to software to data, and each of who tried to achieve different goals, and none deigned to clean up after themselves.    So it seems to me gender orientation and sexual orientation, like most complex somewhat heritable behavioral traits, can both arise form combinations firmware, software and data, with firmware element more important than many cares to admit.    There can also be some subtle hardware element underlying the firmware element.    Subtle only because if it were obvious we would have identified it by now.

[The Grand Nudger]

Gender is cultural, not biological. It's a floating variable that contains no specific instructions. It's not firmware, or any other software. It's certainly not hardware. It's certainly not a heritable aspect of a machines architecture. It's not any one of the big three.

It's a construct. Manufactured. An idea or theory containing multiple various conceptual elements, typically considered to be subjective, not empirical.