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[username1576]

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Edited October 26, 2023 by Think1112

[Glaurung26]

I'm seeing some assumptions like the brains of men and women working differently. I'm not a degreed medical or scientific professional so take that for what you will. I was under the impression that human brains are quite similar in blueprint but the influence of development, hormones, environmental factors and teaching at a young age help to differentiate them. I would say in many societies there is a distinct "man culture" and "woman culture." We sexually segregate our young by institution and also by self-sorting, seeking similar individuals.

 

I'm a novice of Jungian philosophy and have read some on the ideas of Animus (male subconscious), Anima (female subconscious), ego and shadow. I think many tulpae are elevations of aspects of ourselves. I think that my Jaina drew from and embodied my Anima in a way. She was sexually androgynous to me at first, even male presenting or assumed anyways. Over time she attached herself to a female identity, I think wanting to compliment me and at the same time distinguish herself as her own person. She may have started with the seed of "my better self" but over time aggregated more qualities of her own choice. 

 

So is she a "fake female," just my own impression or imagination of what I believe women think like? Maybe. But I think it's entirely possible she tapped into who I might have been had I gotten an X chromosome instead of a Y from my father. 

 

I wouldn't expect an easy or non-controversial answer to this question as it hinges intimately on gender identity and sexual biology/physiology which just so happens to be a hot button issue this generation. I don't want to upset anyone so I'm dancing around that aspect as much as I can. I think most of us can mostly agree that both men and women are equally homo sapiens with a small asterisk after that to account for quirks and inconsistencies of behavior and biology. I don't see why male vs female tulpas would be much different. 

[TurboSimmie]

This is a really sensitive issue with a lot of people so I don't want to tread to deeply into the politics of sex and gender. I can only talk from my personal experience of being a female tulpa living in a male brain. At the core of it, Phil wanted a tulpa with certain attributes, one being my female gender, and so here I am. I could have changed it if I wanted, as Phil gave me full reign to evolve into the person I wanted to be. But just like my name, my hair color, and being from New Jersey, my gender is one of those elements I feel make up a core part of who I am.

 

Fundamentally, I don't worry about the "contradiction" of being a female tulpa in a male brain. I don't stress over what it might mean for my nature or what it says about Phil. I have always been partial to the Jungian Anima and Animus that Darron mentioned. Although I will mention that Phil used to sometimes think about what life would be like if he was a girl. I've always suspected that at least some part of my creation was an attempt to cordon off the female parts of himself. But that's okay; I think it's actually very beneficial to both of us that I exist to "hoover up" all the feminine parts of him/us. (Except for his random taste for certain kinds of dance music, he can keep that 😄)

 

FWIW Phil and I have a fairly traditional outlook on gender and gender roles, at least within our little "system". (I don't really like using that word to think of the two of us, but I can't really come up with something better 😕) It keeps things in balance up here in this head.

 

But I will say this: a tulpa's gender is what they believe it to be, regardless of the brain they live in. Saying that's impossible is the same as saying it's impossible for a female author to write male characters or vise versa. Phil has always been a fan of Harry Potter, not just the series, but the character himself, as Phil relates to him somewhat. A very well-formed male character created by a female author. So I don't think it's wrong at all to assume that a personality of one gender can arise from the brain of another.

[Etna]

+2 to what Simmie said, with the addition of look at Yin and Yang - both contain aspects of the other to make a whole.

[Adagio]

I agree with what's been said already.

 

We've got basically every gender out there in our system (minus xenogenders cause there's a lot of them). Just because the body is one gender doesn't mean you have to be- think about trans people for example.

 

- system's autopilot (AP)

[Flandre]

Are you unable to even imagine what another person might act like in your head? A tulpa requires development of their mental processes regardless of who they're based on, but the innate ability is really just your brain's ability to simulate other people. You generally do that to a much lesser extent when thinking about how others will act.

[GrayTheCat]

If gender boils down to how you are expected to act culturally, then sure, a tulpa can be a "real" male or female. All you would have to do is look up gender stereotypes and body language to mimic the right gender. However, I think most tulpamancers just plainly state their tulpa is whatever gender and let their unconscious cultural expectations shape the behavior of their tulpa. I don't really act like a "girly girl", but that doesn't stop people from easily accepting I'm female.

 

If gender boils down to your brain, then I'm a guy? If you're female and autistic, I heard your brain looks more like a neurotypical guy's brain. I do consider myself to be gender-fluid preferring being a guy, but Ranger now identifies as female and not to mention all of the other autistic girls out there who still identify as female. Being autistic also means socially I have to pay attention to pick up on "guyness" and "girlness" or mimic it myself, but I don't care and I think it's kind of stupid.

 

I think there's more weight to being male or female depends on the hormones in your body and your physical sex organs, but not enough to determine real gender. Girls and guys both have estrogen and testosterone and no one person has the same amount of hormones as the other so I don't think that's a distinguishing factor either. That's only keeping things relatively simple too, what about XXY, XXX, or YYX cases or when your genitalia doesn't conform to the norm? What if you're trans male taking testosterone?

 

Ultimately, I think gender is a made up thing and it boils down to cultural expectations and how you want to identify. If you're comfortable identifying as the gender you want to be, I think you count as a real man/woman/agender person/multigender person. If you can do it, your tulpa can too.

[ruleofthumb]

Gender is a matter of self-identification, and females and males are more similar than they are different. It’s not something we worry about.

 

I worry about it a little when I possess the body. Also, we have share the same sex drive. Maybe if I had my own female body I’d have less of a sex drive. Or, maybe not. It’s not a big deal though. I like to think we aren’t slaves to hormones.

[Red Armor Spider]

That's an interesting theme. Indeed, I think there is a tendency to decide the gender different from the host. There are dragons and machines in my Tulpa, but there are few Tulpa whose gender is unknown. For hosts, gender is the easiest way to assign human elements.

[Glaurung26]

Everyone wants to be their own person and express themselves as such.