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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I am a brain in a jar: AMA

59 replies

theilltemperedqueenofspacetime · 18/12/2024 13:17

Now that I have your attention (hopefully), I have an AIBU. I come from the future, and, having lived as an Earth woman for many years in the 20th and 21st centuries, I then became a disembodied brain in a jar for the last one thousand years. Soon, medics will have perfected the technology to transplant me into a body, although I don't know yet whether it will be human, and, if so, whether it will be male or female.

My question is, am I a woman, or just a brain with some memories of being one? How is it possible to be female without a female body?

IABU - I will always be a woman, no matter what.

IANBU - I am a brain in a jar. If they give me a male human body, I will be a man.

OP posts:
popeydokey · 18/12/2024 13:42

Were you conscious for the last 1000 years? If so you've reached a state/experience that no human ever has...

I think you are whatever your body is but your characteristics, behaviours etc will have been shaped by the experience of having an XX body and being treated by society's expectations of that kind of body.

It would be more interesting to compare the exact same natal brain living (from birth) in the opposite sex body to see the effects of entrenched societal sexism (and testosterone-fuelled puberty, muscle mass etc).

LeaderBee · 18/12/2024 13:41

Sounds like a DAX from DS9 Situation.

AnneUulmelmahay · 18/12/2024 13:37

Hmmmmm.

<points at username>

GeneralPeter · 18/12/2024 13:37

If biological:

There's no way to say: our concepts don't extend that far. Your sex is written in every cell, so I'd be tempted to say you'd be both. There is a blurred line though, as grafting a single female cell into a man wouldn't make him 'both' in my view.

If digital:

Male. We define sex by reference to biology and all your biology would be male. You'd probably be a highly atypical male, psychologically speaking, but be a male nonetheless.

Happyinarcon · 18/12/2024 13:31

Did they still expect the brain to remember peoples birthdays and where to find the wrapping paper? And was the brain asking everyone to remember to check the cat litter tray?

FearOfTheDucks · 18/12/2024 13:29

You'd be a man. You'd be in the peculiar situation of being a man who genuinely used to be a woman, but once in that new body, you'd be a man.

If your brain was somehow put in a bear's body, you'd be a bear who used to be a woman.

It reminds me of the old gotcha from TRAs - but what if your brain was magically put in the wrong body? Sure, maybe I'd be confused and unhappy about it, but if it's a male body, I'm not taking it into female spaces no matter how I feel inside.

OrchardBlack · 18/12/2024 13:28

I'm too tired for this 😂

Original poster
theilltemperedqueenofspacetime · 18/12/2024 13:27

Fair point. I have XX and my brain has been steeped in Å“strogen. Damn!

Would it help if my mind had been electronically captured, rather than preserved by preserving the brain?

OP posts:
Dabralor · 18/12/2024 13:23

I don't know. I guess it depends on what chromosomes you have at a cellular level.