[MD] Virtually meaningful?

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ian]
it's about the constancy and consistency (or not) of many overlapping patterns

[Arlo]
Exactly. We value continuity and consistency across time. This is 
strong, learned social value. If we were all "different" people all 
the time, we'd never experience the satisfaction that can only come 
with long-term, stable social relationships. My question is, to what 
degree should we expect (nay, demand) continuity and consistency 
across "contexts"? To what degree must the "Arlo" you know here be 
consistent with the "Arlo" my mom knows, the biker known as "Jim", or 
the fiance known as "Jimmy", or even the shaman known as "Aenea"? 
Certainly, the stronger a particular value is to me, the more likely 
that value is to appear across contexts, but is this always evidence 
of dishonesty and deceit? I say, no it is not.

I also ask, to what degree does physiology play in assigning an 
"identity" to a person? I've been asking about gender, because I 
fully believe that "gender" is social and unrelated to "sex" which is 
physiological. Take "Mark/Julia", a good example illustrating the 
different ways we can think about "identity" as it relates to the 
biological organism. The person who believes she is "Julia", a female 
trapped inside a male body, would you say this is a "boy pretending 
to be a girl", or "a girl born with the body of a male"? And what 
changes with regard to the self "Julia" or "Mark" should their body 
undergo transformative surgery? Does the person only become "female" 
at the moment of transformation? Does that mean "Mark" dies? If 
"Mark" was "the real him" before, then why is "Julia" now "the real 
her"? This is problematic, and demonstrates the complexity of 
assigning identity to particular biological markers.

Also, consider with regards to "honesty" the studied plight of the 
overweight. Many, many studies have shown that overweight people's 
opinions are thought less of than their "thin" counterparts. In 
studies involving online forums, people who "self-revealed" as 
overweight saw a marked decrease in replies to their posts.. 
especially from opposite sex peers (this may be different in contexts 
specifically about overweightness, of course), their opinions became 
significantly more challenged, and they were often dismissed. So I 
ask, if an overweight person engages online and says they are "thin" 
in order to rid their posts of this social stigma, is that an example 
of dishonesty?

What about "Julia"? She really, truly feels that "this is who she 
is", a girl named Julia. In real life, given the discrepency between 
her body and her "self" she encounters outright hostility from both 
boys and girls in her class. She spoke of feeling alienated and 
alone, ridiculed by her classmates and looked down upon by adults in 
her community. Now, I ask you, if she was in an online forum about 
philosophy, and she presented herself as "Julia" and all your 
engagements with her were with the "Julia" personae, would you feel 
deceived to learn she has male genitalia "in real life"? Would you 
think "she is a girl pretending to be a boy"? What if she had an 
operation years ago? Would you still feel deceived to learn that 
"Julia" was many years ago a "boy"?

And let me take that one step further. WHY would her current or past 
biological body have any bearing on HER? WHY would you feel deceived 
if Julia didn't tell you she was born a boy? Of what value is such 
information? For me, it has no value. Julia would still be Julia to 
me, despite having (or having had) male parts. Marsha has said she 
would feel this would be an example of dishonesty, and would feel 
deceived. What do you think?