The Uncanny Valley and being Trans.

[Guest Risu]

Tonight I sat down to watch the new episode of a web show I watch regularly. No, not iCarly, it's about gaming and how the gaming industry and community can be improved. Tonight's episode was about "The Uncanny Valley Hypothesis". I had never heard of it before but as I sat there listening to their explanation of it a part of me wondered if it couldn't also apply to some of the extreme reactions we have against the trans community.

I sit here typing this as my dinner is getting cold... It is not my intent to offend anyone with this, it is simply something I began to wonder in the back of my mind. So please, if something I say here does happen to offend, I am sorry in advance. It is not my intent.

This post will be kind of long so my thanks in advance to those of you who make it all the way through and have their own opinions and input on the topic.

Anyways, here goes. So the story of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis goes like this: It all began in the 70s with a Japanese Roboticist named Masahiro Mori. The story goes that Mori liked to build robots a lot, and over time he began to build his robots increasingly human like and in time the more human like the robots became the more people liked them. Their vaguely human characteristics were charming. They looked like big bolted awkward children and everybody loved them. As Mori continued to improve his humanoid robots adding synthetic skin and rudimentary facial expressions he discovered a strange trend. Mori learned that people didn't respond to these new robots the same way they did the old ones. Other members of his field were impressed with his advances but just being around these robots made people uneasy. This observation lead Mori to come up with the theory of "The Uncanny Valley". The premise is simple. If something that is clearly not human is given human qualities we find those qualities endearing. But give something that is clearly not human too many human characteristics and it starts looking like an imperfect simulation which people find disquieting and even revolting. If you progress past that and make the object look and act almost like a perfect human reactions begin to become favorable again.

So why does this happen? The idea is that if an object is clearly not human then it's human like characteristics will stand out and appeal to us. But if the object is almost but not quite human, it's non human characteristics are all we're going to see. We know what a human looks like, we see them every day. So when something is off we know it and it's unsettling.

Now that we're on the same page I am going to steer back on topic here. How does this apply to the trans community? Some of you may have picked up on where this is going. I think the uncanny valley hypothesis can be applied to being trans in a very simple way and in some cases but not all it may be true.

If we have a MtF or FtM who is just beginning transition and tries to rush going full time we may (but not always) have a person who is trying to be their male or female self, but doesn't quite look fully male or female. The bigots in the world who have problems with this, probably more MtFs than FtMs but, the bigots in the world who have a problem with this will be unsettled and maybe even revolted. I myself have heard more extreme reactions to MtFs in this regard but I am sure there are those out there who hate on every body equally. Anyways, as we progress with our Transition and our HRT we begin to gain more male or female features, smells and maybe even our voice has changed. Suddenly people read us less and become more comfortable with us and as we begin to pass more and move into perfect mostly unreadable womanhood or manhood we stop having negative reactions all together. Suddenly we're no longer an "imperfect simulation" of a man or a woman but we're indistinguishable from all the rest and now people accept us.

This is how I feel the uncanny valley hypothesis applies to being trans, or more specifically to the process of transition. Fortunately we're slowly moving into a more accepting world and all of these worries and fears become less and less prevalent but it's safe to say at this point, the bigots are still out there, waiting to make comments and try to tear us down and invalidate our known identities.

Thoughts? Ideas? This is nothing new but just something that came into my mind while watching my weekly web show. I found the similarities between people's reactions to Robots and people's reactions to transition interesting. Maybe it says something about human nature, that when things are off, people are different we just have a natural feeling of unease. Maybe some people can't help their feelings because of human nature, or maybe it's all society's standards. Who knows. Hard to say.

Thanks for reading!

~Risu.

[Guest Donna_Marie]

WOOOOW a very interesting read and I believe you hit it right on the head reguarding the two.

I think it has to do with basic human nature to reject the things that don't fit into the social norms but the brain can accept and bypass this Human nature

when the effects match more closely to what is seen as social norm for a specific gender which brings more acceptance by society in general, But us being the way we are after we are accepted either just by HRT or SRS into the desired gender we rush to blend into the society that once rejected us instead of helping our Brothers and Sisters move foward and be accepted by standing up and saying guess what we were once there as well.

Sorry for rambling on a bit but just my opinion

Donna_Marie

[Guest Svenna]

Risu,

Even as a MTF, I have experienced this while looking at myself, so I must agree with your premise to some degree. My greatest fear with transitioning is that I might end up stranded somewhere lost in 'the uncanny valley' permanently.

Interestingly, when I first started communicating with other MTFs online, I never, ever thought of them as males in any way. My internal experience was indistinguishable from what I felt when I am communicating with bio-girls. Then I actually started looking at some pictures, and I sometimes got that same uneasy feeling that, visually, something was amiss, and it was reflexively unsettling. I have since become better adjusted and I rarely have the experience with trans folk anymore, but I recognize the tendency still exists...

Thanks for bring this to my attention. It illuminates an issue that is basic to all humanity and it behooves those of us that must traverse this 'uncanny valley' to be aware of the potential consequences to our actions.

Godspeed to the far side of this obstacle!

Love, Svenna

[VickySGV]

It is a model that has merit. I think YOU have done some thinking too and have a realistic general idea of what is happening. Its a continuing story, and fits a long list of prejudices that have cropped up in humans over the years. Xenophobia, fear of the strange or stranger goes back centuries. You hear about race hatred, and hatred based on different religious customs. The reason is that the other people do not fit exactly into the expectations of the central group they are flawed and transitional to the central groups thought. Indeed we are strange aliens, not just during early transition, but long after, sorry to say, but with our world communication pattern that is evolving, the strange may become the commonplace in time. Maybe not in my life time, but in some of you younger ones lives I really hope.

[Guest Lilith]

I think it has to do with basic human nature to reject the things that don't fit into the social norms but the brain can accept and bypass this Human nature

I don't think this Uncanny Valley thing is about social norms... I think its a self defense mechanism, somewhere

in the more primitive animal parts of our brain, meant to protect us from diseases and such, something that have

evolved over millions of years... And this maybe something we can't suppress for our selves... If its there, we can

pretend and act like nothing is wrong but we can't make the uneasiness we feel really go away...

Like if somebody points a gun to your head, you may act cool and pretend you're not concerned but you can't

turn off or learn away or bypass or accept or... It is going to keep on making you feel uneasy no matter what...

[Guest Svenna]

I agree that this hypothesis goes deeper than any societal or cultural norm. This is likely a pre-civilization mechanism that reflects some sort of deeply imbedded organic intuition. It is likely related to some sort of biological imperative that historically influenced normative socialization (and breeding) prerogatives in ancient mammals. It may even be a brain stem kind of instinctual distinction/reaction that dates back to our reptilian ancestors...

I bet there is more to this than meets the eye...Svenna

[Guest Donna_Marie]

I understand both of your opinions on this Lilih and Svenna but I also believe that people learn this through social norms such as family.friends and school and so forth pointing out certain aspects such as animals,food, race,religion and Gender even though I do believe that we are imbedded for survival reasons. Just an Example How did our ancestors learn that a certain berry would kill you did they just know or did they learn this from seeing somebody else die or get sick from eating it or that a gun could wound or kill you unless you saw it do this. So it seems even though we have strong survival instincts we have to learn how to survive by avoiding certain things. Could you imagine one of our Brotthers or Sisters accidently walking into a hate group meeting dressed as themselves do you think they would run or sit around and have coffee with them... They would run because they have learned from what has happened to others like themselves. In short we have imbedded survival instinct but we learn what to avoid through social contact. like I said just an opinion

Donna_Marie

[Guest TracieV3]

I also though of the possibly of the uncanny valley with transgender. I didn't say anything because I found the term uncanny valley to be dehumanizing.

[Guest Risu]

Well the uncanny valley is an idea used in the fields of robotics and video game design generally. I don't think anyone not trans would make the distinction in the similarities. It is entirely possible that something like this exists in psychology, an hypothesis like the uncanny valley and its just a term I am unfamiliar with.

Thanks all. So many great replies and great thoughts shared here. Humans are extremely complex creatures...