THE SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY OF GENDER-SWITCHING IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS ON THE INTERNET

Abstract

The virtual social worlds of the internet give people unparalleled control over the construction and presentation of their identities. Gender-switching is perhaps the most dramatic example of how people exercise this control. It occurs when people present a gender that is different from their biological sex. While gender-switching figures prominently in academic commentaries and popular writings about on-line social life, there is little systematic research on the phenomenon. On-line surveys of two stratified random samples (N's=233 and 202) of MOO users were conducted. The majority of participants (60 per cent) in social MOOs (popular text-based internet social venues) had never engaged in gender-switching, while the majority in role-playing MOOs were either gender-switching currently (40 per cent) or had done so in the past (16.7 per cent). More than half of those who currently gender-switched did so for less than 10 per cent of their time on-line. In spite of the freedom to use indeterminate or even plural gender identities, most participants who switched genders (78.7 per cent) did so within traditional binary conventions (male to female, female to male). The primary reason for gender-switching was the desire to play roles of people different from one's self. The primary barrier to gender-switching was the belief that it is dishonest and manipulative. Attitudes toward gender-switching and on-line participation were better predictors of gender-switching than personal background demographics or personality measures. The images of gender-switching that emerge from this first systematic study of the phenomenon are considerably more benign than that usually portrayed in the literature. Gender-switching appears to be practised by a minority of MOO users for a small percentage of their time on-line. Gender-switching within MOOs of all kinds might best be understood as an experimental behaviour rather than as an enduring expression of sexuality, personality, or gender politics.

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