60
irene
5y

Apple has programmed an avatar maker in iMessage that generates emoji that are supposed to resemble the person. However it does not have any setting for facial structure to represent a person’s sex. I’m pretty sure they did it because “gender is a construct”.

When I was growing up I had some issues with gender dysphoria. I am male genetically. I was mistaken as female my whole childhood because I was “pretty”, my best friends were girls, and I liked cooking, drawing, and dancing. Puberty happened and I started to look like a man. I considered transitioning because I felt female but I decided to let my body do what it wants and do the things I like to do without worrying about if they are gendered or not. I am married and male and I like what I like.

This stupid iMessage avatar. I have tried my hardest to make it look like me. I have long hair and keep my facial hair clean. They don’t have a switch to change some facial physiological traits so I have this Memoji that looks like a woman with a slight hormonal imbalance. It makes me feel conflicted like I felt when I was young. I haven’t thought about it in years and now I feel like I have an uncomfortable secret female avatar that i carry around on my phone and I feel like I’m carrying a secret.

A persons genetics result in differences in facial structures. Biological sex is more than the length of hair and whether a person wears makeup. I hate this “sex is a construct” trend. I’m fine living my life, but then companies push this software onto my phone like propaganda. I want it to look as masculine as I look IRL.

Comments
  • 32
    Wow, someone with legit gender dysphoria getting harmed by the gender movement. Kinda makes you wonder about all these crusades we have to be inclusive that are harming the people they intend to include. All the best. Thanks for sharing something very personal.
  • 6
    @Demolishun Also I wouldn't say that I'm dysphoric anymore. I pursue the things that I like. A lot of my experiences when I was growing up coloured my opinion on how men are. My peers were all girls because we were into the same things. I looked effeminate.

    Now I aim to be who I am right now. Not who I'm not. So to have an app represent me in a way that I'm not, and expect that I will proudly send those avatars to people? That is all kinds of conflicted.
  • 8
    @irene I think a lot of what society has thought "how men should be" has been kinda fucked up. You finding your own way is awesome.

    I used to cry a lot as a kid. I was told I need to not be a baby and be a man. Now I have issues expressing emotions to the point of zero emotion. Through counseling they have shown me this is harmful. So I have been going through the painful work of connecting to my emotions. It also makes it hard for me to understand other peoples emotions and empathize. So it looks like I don't care when I actually do.

    Again, props on sharing.
  • 3
    Irene, how come your Devrant avatar has a beard if you're clean shaven? I keep mine up to date so it changes whenever I do.

    Anyhow it's a brave post, wish I could give be you more ++

    Also I'm typing and reading without my reading glasses so if I've missed something I am sorry.
  • 3
    I've talked about this before but the whole gender hing is self-destructive, whether you believe in 2 or a million. We shouldn't categorize based on interests. We should all be individuals, independent of our genitals AND any labels.

    The true solution is just to forget about gender roles and genders entirely. Male and female are strictly biological, and neither sex should be associated with specific colors or interests.
  • 2
    @cervantes01 I don't use my devrant avatar to represent myself in text messages. So I'm not worried about it being recognizable.
  • 1
    @irene It is kind of interesting the whole cannot make the avatar manly enough. I remember in the game Oblivion you couldn't make women look like women very well. All the women had a manish look. Skyrim came along and fixed that though.
  • 2
    @Demolishun There is a point where a symbolic depiction of a face has enough detail that it starts losing symbolism and starts gaining realism. Then the system has to be able to do realism well otherwise it represents something that you can't identify with.

    For the record for any reading this thread I'm not brave talking about this. Internet forums are a great place to talk about things without fear of changing the way people relate to you. I talked about it in real life at one time and I had a SJW coworker start yelling at me about how I'm a privileged white male and I'm making things up to try make myself a victim. What I said didn't fit his narrative about gender issues. Nevertheless I had to work with him after that and I wished I had never said anything. So I'm way more chicken about this IRL.
  • 0
    @irene People like that are insufferable. I think that there's a special place in hell for them. They probably spawned there and will go back there when their evil deeds are done.
  • 0
    i think this is one of those problems where they made a feature without ever consulting the person that's gonna use. i don't think the problem is thinking "gender is a construct", quite the opposite. if they were thinking about that, they would let you change it, instead of saying "this is you, deal with it", that's just harmful. if they had included someone that understands this in the development, it would never go to prod like this
  • 1
    @darksideofyay I think that Apple tailored this to women knowing that if the faces are too masculine it won't be used. Then they avoided a gender binary toggle. Unless a man has stereotype gender features like short hair and a beard it doesn't work. What does that say about being a man?

    This is Apple we are talking about and they probably spent more money on this Memojii feature than the entire budget of my most expensive project. There is no way that a keynote highlighted feature for the face id sensor somehow was untested.

    If you search "memojii executive profiles" you can find a list of Apple executives done up as Memojii. Clearly they struggled to make them look like the males. They clearly just gave up trying to make one resemble Phil Schiller.
  • 0
    Phil Schiller and the Memojii they tried to make him.
  • 0
    @irene That is bad. It has a very strong anime look too. Not everyone is into that either.
  • 3
    @irene
    Are you the irene from one year ago or did you have the chance to hijack that name / account when it was deleted or lain off?
  • 1
    @scor I’m not the same Irene. The other Irene left DevRant and I snagged the handle thinking that I could switch back. Now I’m stuck with it for another 5 months.
  • 0
    @irene wait what??!!!! I’m soo confused about this when did the other Irene leave??? I WANT THE OTHER IRENE BACK! you are an imposter!!! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
  • 1
    @QuanticoCEO He left in the first part of September if I recall correctly. I was pretty new to devrant when I snagged the username. Username changes have a cool down period so I’m now Irene for a bit.
  • 0
    "looked feminine and all my friends were girls."

    I bet you ate a lot of pussy.

    Admit it.
  • 0
    Look masculine
    Apple emoji avatar

    Pick one
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