Sherry Turkle's "Tinysex and Gender Trouble"

In the article, Tinysex and Gender Trouble, the author, Sherry Turkle, discusses how many people in the virtual world are changing their genders when MUDing to “see what it would be like”, because it might be impossible or very difficult for these people to change their gender in real life. Turkle states, “On one level, virtual gender swapping is easier that doing it in real life. For a man to present himself as a female in a chat room, on an IRC channel, or in a MUD, only requires writing a description. For a man to play a woman on the streets of an American city, he would have to shave various parts of his body; wear makeup, perhaps a wig, a dress, and high heels, perhaps change his voice, walk, and mannerisms”. One reason the author believes that this is occurring so frequently in MUDs is because people are intrigued by having the ability to change their gender without the fear of consequences in real life. Some of the other reasons people have stated that they are creating new gender identities is to experiment. In real life their is no way for a man to experience life through a woman’s shoes without the fear of what their friends, family or even life partner might think or say, but in the virtual world you can be whoever or whatever you want within the privacy of your own computer.

Turkle’s article is a very hard topic to relate to the real world. This is something that only happens in the virtual world because of people’s fear of the persecution that would occur if they decided to change their gender in real life. One example of this would be drag queens or cross-dressers. When a man who is dressed as a woman walks down the street, he is stared at, talked about or even laughed at behind his back, but if a man describes himself as a woman in a MUD no one knows who they actually are and therefore they do not have to fear any harassment from others and are more open to experiment with their gender identity.