wi: humans can change sex biologicly

[Scarecrow]

wi: humans could chage sex? i know some fish and frogs can. what would the ramifications be of being male one month, female the next?
draft dodges become female?
etc, etc

[Thande]

It would be more interesting if this was a recent scientific development rather than something which has always been there, or human society would have developed radically differently anyway. It sounds like the instant painless 'surgical' alteration they have on Star Trek every week so one race can look like another.

[edvader]

Wasn't this done in Leguin's LEFT HANd OF DARKNESS?

[NapoleonXIV]

Gives a whole new meaning to autoeroticism, yes?

Ben Bova (I think) did a book whose protagonist changed sex several times in the course of the story, forget the name tho.

Ursula K LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness is about a race that changes sex with the seasons.

If it became easy and painless to change sex and change back again many of us would do it a lot, just for the novelty. Others would no doubt see it as the most perverted thing imaginable and campaign for a Constitutional Amendment forbidding it.

I don't see it as changing lots of opinions though. As things stand I believe God himself could come down and say 'sexual roles are bollocks and I approve of abortion" and the hidebound dolts (none of whom are on this board btw, all of us being of considered and ethically held opinions on all matters) who still believe different would say "I wonder who got to him?" and go back to planning how to overturn Roe v Wade.

(after they changed their underwear, like the rest of us)

[Count Dearborn]

F.M. Busby also wrote a novel about how a corporation, to stop a sterlity plague they had inadvertanly caused with a cure for HIV, created replacement chromosomes for X & Y. The resulting children turned into cyclical hermaphrodites in puberty.

[Scarecrow]

i read a story, dont know who by, where the protagonist by time travel, was his father, went forward in time, had a sex change, whent back in time, and was his own mother!!!

AND, that some children of Israli fighter pilots are girls until they hit pubity, and their family jews grow! or the other way aroud, not sure

[Grey Wolf]

wi: humans could chage sex? i know some fish and frogs can. what would the ramifications be of being male one month, female the next?
draft dodges become female?
etc, etc

There would be less forbiden mystery about the opposite sex. Porn would be less attractive as you can make your own (masturbation anyway) the next month. It would be confusing for marriages, unless they change in synch

Grey Wolf

[JoanneMerriam]

i read a story, dont know who by, where the protagonist by time travel, was his father, went forward in time, had a sex change, whent back in time, and was his own mother!!!
Robert Heinlein wrote that one.

[Nik]

IIRC, one quip was something like, 'A stitch in time saves nine billion', as their time-traveller's gadgets had mucked with Cuba's Soviet missiles' guidance systems thus calling bluff...

Nik

[Kit]

John Varley in 'Steel Beach' had a pretty good description of a society who's members changed sexes whenever they wanted to. They booked themselves into a sort of beauty salon/plastic surgery office for a day, and let the nanobots do the work.

[Grey Wolf]

John Varley in 'Steel Beach' had a pretty good description of a society who's members changed sexes whenever they wanted to. They booked themselves into a sort of beauty salon/plastic surgery office for a day, and let the nanobots do the work.

Can't people in Iain M Banks' 'Culture' do this ?

Grey Wolf

[Nik]

"wi: humans could change sex ??"

Can't remember source other than possibly called 'The Lost King' and far post-Nuclear scenario: Probably small-press / fan-fic / part-work...

Map had a lot of raw, circular Desolations where you would expect cities, ports etc...

Anyhow, there was a lot of genetic damage, almost to extent of human speciation, also lots of odd gene patterns. Medievalish technology. Political system much like Imperial Rome, with military dominated by near-sterile XYY men.

Current 'Kezr' has hacked his way to top in usual way, but is competent, even-handed and well liked. Then his mistress unexpectedly bears a live 'hem'. These rare crosses are sexually ambiguous until puberty, when may become male, making 'him' heir. Although church rails against such 'abominations', the loyal military could --cheerfully-- chew up the Arc-Bishop's despised Red Stewards. Besides, no-one wants another civil war-- or, at least, not just yet...

Unfortunately, the boss-guy, his mistress and a couple of faction-leaders are lost at sea just after negotiating equitable treaty to settle a simmering border squabble. When the dust settles, the Red Stewards have had a bloody nose, the fiercely loyal Army Chief is Regent, and there's a babe with a problem...

Regent sets up creche, brings in two more young 'hems' plus three young daughters of likely troublemakers as combination of hostages & companions. Hopefully, the girls will lose church-taught avulsion to 'hems', and having six so alike will make assassination harder...

Sadly, just as plot got *really* complicated, I had to put it back on shelf and never saw it again...

Nik

[Landshark]

i read a story, dont know who by, where the protagonist by time travel, was his father, went forward in time, had a sex change, whent back in time, and was his own mother!!!

I'm pretty sure that one's by Harry Harrison.

Robert Heinlein wrote that one.

That may be Fear No Evil which involves a male to female brain transplant.

[Thande]

Nik, you do mean XXY rather than XYY, don't you? It's XXY (Kleinfelter's Syndrome) males which are sterile, whereas XYY are (very!) fertile.

[Nik]

Sorry, my bad. Or, different rules some centuries after nuclear war ??

( Filling in gaps from memory is always fraught...)

I did not read much more of it, and the only other bit I remember was the finale with set-piece axe-man & block public execution.

Yes, the coup leaders are going to 'off' the now-teenage heir at high noon before loyalist forces can arrive. To prevent a massacre, agrees to go quietly, 'For the Lost King' but meekly asks for favourite floral umbrella to protect pale skin on way up scaffold. It is brought-- naturally, minus sword stick from stem. Climbs to top, turns to nearest guard, says something like, 'I do not need this now.' Under cover of lowered shade, snaps stem from shade, thrusts it through shade into guard's eye. Grabs knife from victim's belt, cuts up other guard, trips axe-man. Shouts, 'For the Lost King !' which starts riot. The crowd-control soldiers hesitate, some change sides, and the coup leaders are well lynched by the time the Regent's rescue force rides in...

All good fun, but more insight than I'd expected.

Lost, now...

Nik

[Kit]

Can't people in Iain M Banks' 'Culture' do this ?

Grey Wolf

Errr...don't know. I don't really like Iain M Banks' stuff.

[DruRZS]

i would love to be a really attractive female for one day...ohhh boy...

[bekosh]

F.M. Busby also wrote a novel about how a corporation, to stop a sterlity plague they had inadvertanly caused with a cure for HIV, created replacement chromosomes for X & Y. The resulting children turned into cyclical hermaphrodites in puberty.
It is called The Breeds of Man (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553270087/qid=1107792359/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-7952821-0130414?v=glance&s=books) . One of my favorite books.

[Ivan Druzhkov]

Well, biologically speaking, the species that do swap genders only do so when there isn't enough of the required gender (usually male, I believe) in the area. I'm not certain what the triggering mechanism is, but I think it might be pheremone-based.

Unfortunately, there do not appear to be any mammals (and I'm not too sure about birds and reptiles) who can do this. Perhaps we're too biologically complex to allow this kind of metamorphosis. Even so, most of the species that can do this can only do it once in their life, and even then are inferior when compared to those who were born into that gender.

However, if someone ever gets human-safe nanotechnology working, then this might become possible.

Or through the intervention of the ASBs, as depicted in this (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000YDGWK/qid=1107796777/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-8262572-6176926) novel.

[Thande]

Another way you could do this is the good old "Colanders-on-the-head-mind-switching-device."

[Count Dearborn]

John Varley in 'Steel Beach' had a pretty good description of a society who's members changed sexes whenever they wanted to. They booked themselves into a sort of beauty salon/plastic surgery office for a day, and let the nanobots do the work.

I think that this might have been the basis for an episode of an anthology show that was on the SCI-FI Channel a few years ago.

A woman finds out that her husband is cheating. She tells a group of her friends about this, and asks why men cheat. Somehow, the subject of people who undergo changes is brought up. She also finds out that one of her friends underwent the procedure, and used to be a man. She goes in one day, and just has her chest masculinzed, to shock her husband. A person, who has had the full transformation, tells her she is a wannbe, so she goes, and has the full procedure. The rest of the story is about her, now him, experiencing life as a man. In the very end, she decides to go and have the procedure reversed, and just as she is getting ready, her husband walks in, and tells her he has decided to become a woman.

[DuQuense]

I would love to be a really attractive female for one day...ohhh boy...

?But would you be? [/I]
If I were to just [I]change Sex- I would be a 6' 3" overweight fat woman, just as I am a Overweight Male. Just changing Sex wouldn't do anything for your Size and Mass.

The WI said nothing about Chameleon changes of Body shape.

[Scarecrow]

The WI said nothing about Chameleon changes of Body shape.
thats implied. read between the lines here