Question Shifter Gender

I was annoyed at a post about the Greek deities one something occurred to me. All of the deities have the ability to shapeshift into any form they like, be it male, female, or otherwise.

Yet they are always accounted as their birth gender.

Given the number of shifters in the stories here (though very few main charaters, hurray for Reinforce) I thought the question of how to define such a gender would be a good one to pose.

Jarjaross wrote: I was annoyed at a post about the Greek deities one something occurred to me. All of the deities have the ability to shapeshift into any form they like, be it male, female, or otherwise.

Yet they are always accounted as their birth gender.

Possibly that's because very few of the Greek deities actually do crossgender shapeshifting, and so they are accounted as the gender they present in the stories that have survived to the present, which happens to be the one they were born as. In some cases, such as Athena or Artemis, they are female, full stop. Hermaphroditus may or may not be an aspect of Aphrodite, but it's a bit of a stretch to extrapolate from there to considering all deities gender-fluid shapeshifters.

It's been done TO Tiresias, but he was not a deity. The fact that they were asked which gender enjoys sex more by the Olympian gods suggests that crossgendering themselves was not something they did on a regular basis.

null0trooper wrote:

Jarjaross wrote: I was annoyed at a post about the Greek deities one something occurred to me. All of the deities have the ability to shapeshift into any form they like, be it male, female, or otherwise.

Yet they are always accounted as their birth gender.

Possibly that's because very few of the Greek deities actually do crossgender shapeshifting, and so they are accounted as the gender they present in the stories that have survived to the present, which happens to be the one they were born as. In some cases, such as Athena or Artemis, they are female, full stop. Hermaphroditus may or may not be an aspect of Aphrodite, but it's a bit of a stretch to extrapolate from there to considering all deities gender-fluid shapeshifters.

It's been done TO Tiresias, but he was not a deity. The fact that they were asked which gender enjoys sex more by the Olympian gods suggests that crossgendering themselves was not something they did on a regular basis.

Now NORSE gods on the other hand, Loki got pregnant at least once and Thor is known to have cross-dressed (in a wedding gown no less)

First of all: Loki gets pregant at least twice possibly three times because the of the beasts of ragnarok are "born of Loki's flesh" and I know one is the eldest brother.

Secondly: Zeus gets pregnant five or six times. Usually as an animal but at least once as a human woman.

Jarjaross wrote: First of all: Loki gets pregant at least twice possibly three times because the of the beasts of ragnarok are "born of Loki's flesh" and I know one is the eldest brother.

Loki gets pregnant once, and the child of that union is Sleipnir.

Angrboða is the mother of Jörmungandr, Fenris, and Hela.

Vali's parentage is ... complicated, because of contradictions among the stories. In one, he's Loki's son, in another, Odin's son by a Jotun who's never heard from again. With those two involved, Loki could be the mother and not Sigyn.

Jarjaross wrote: Secondly: Zeus gets pregnant five or six times. Usually as an animal but at least once as a human woman.

Depending on the myths, he gives birth - sort of - as a man, to Dionysus and Athena.

If I recall, Athena was because he literally ate Athena's mother, and so she gave birth from inside Zeus.

Iwasforger03 wrote: If I recall, Athena was because he literally ate Athena's mother, and so she gave birth from inside Zeus.

Yeah I wasn't counting that. (Okay I was for the pregnancy but not for the sex/shapeshifting, that is one of the cases that makes it hard to tell)

I know there is one story where he has to hide from Hera for a year because he got pregnant as a woman.

Then there's the time he was a swan and laid some eggs.

There are a couple of others I don't remember off the top of my head.

Also none of this helps us define someone whose body changes but gender doesn't. I get that not everyone is into definitions for this kind of thing but many people find it useful and empowering. I know no realistic person will ever use this definition but it is useful in an LGBT fantasy sense.