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Notes -
I was listening to a podcast with Michael Bailey, an OG researcher on trans issues and a guy who was at the front-lines of the conflict 20 years ago, long before this was a mainstream flashpoint.
Bailey talked about the autogynephilia model of male-to-female transexuals. I had heard some of it before: that many start off by having a fetish of being aroused by the idea of themselves as a woman. But historically since doctors would not prescribe sex reassignment for a sex fetish, they could only claim that they "were really a girl inside." Even though m-t-f's like McCloskey hit every male brained stereotype.
But then Bailey went to say that over years of cross-dressing to get off on themselves, many create an identity for themselves as a woman, an identity which may come to seem like the "real" them. Hence the eventual desire to transition and really become this character.
This got me thinking that to extent that something like "gender identity" exists in the brain separable from biological sex, I think wonder if it is really the matter of an entire personal identity that gets molded and created over time.
Question: are there documented examples of this kind of thing happening outside of sex/gender? Like an actor who becomes so caught up in role he thinks that role is the "real" him.
(Perhaps some of us can feel this way, our psued life can feel more like the real us...)
Comedians who adopt a long term on stage persona are know to end up becoming the character. Andrew Dice Clay started as one (the Diceman) of several characters Andrew Clay Silverstein played on stage in his act.
Dice was the breakout character and Silverstein had to act like him all of the time.
I was thinking about this a lot around when Gilbert Gottfried died. You sometimes hear comedians who knew him well light heartedly gloat in interviews about how they heard his normal speaking voice. And some young comedian who never knew him personally would predictably go "You mean he didn't talk like that normally?!"
But think about the world of showbusiness Gilbert Gottfried operated in. He put in his time doing standup, then moved onto acting and commercials. And it was easy to keep that mask on in public appearances, because there weren't many, and they were controlled environments. Press junkets, late night interviews, and his performances. He may have been "in character" 5% of his life or less?
With the modern entertainment landscape, of daily Youtube uploads, daily 8 to 12 hour long twitch streams, constant social media interactions, etc, I don't think it's crazy to assume people might be "in character" more than 50% of their time. And at that point, how much separation is there between the character you've crafted for the internet and you anymore? I mean theoretically there is some nugget of "you" rattling around in there. But I believe stronger that you are what you do, and that character is more the "real" you that whatever pre-character idealized self you've put up on the shelf, hoping to return to at some unknown time and place.
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