Women-Men relationships are fundamental in understanding society and are at the core of human interactions. They are at the center of any story, film, book and quite often are the source or resolution (or both) of the central conflict in the plot. So no wonder that imagining what it would feel like to swap gender is a fascinating topic for the majority of people. I must admit I haven’t tried on women’s underwear, but I’m still very interested in understanding what it would be like to be a woman. And I have had my share of experiences of personifying a woman through role-play and video games. These were… interesting adventures to say the least.

Comedy films have used changing genders (or variation along those lines) as the main theme of the movie. An example is It’s a Boy Girl Thing. The theme is: what would it feel like to wake up in the body of a person of the opposite sex?

This is what we are going to explore here, through the magic of Virtual Reality. The possible scenarios are embodying a:

1. Man
2. Woman
3. Transgender

The last one might surprise you, or not, in any case it should be part of the possible scenarios.

Being able to incarnate the opposite sex is a fascinating experience, that can challenge many aspects of your personality, especially if the immersion is complete. And it will improve your empathy for the other genders. Through role-playing, video games or cross-dressing, it can already be practised. However, Virtual Reality allows crafting scenarios and interactions in an offline or online world at a low cost in a very immersive way. And this without facing potentially difficult situations that can arise in real life.

Putting together clever scenarios is a task that shouldn’t be that hard, considering that there are many women and men on earth that can describe scenarios that make sense. Interaction in an online world also works well, since the physical appearance of each avatar shows clearly the gender of the person in the virtual world. Scenarios for transgenders can be more tricky to devise, and in an online world, it might not be obvious if the avatar is a transgender or not. People would tend to assume that the person is either a man or woman. So in that case, carefully crafted scenarios in an offline world look more relevant.

A VR experiment called The Machine to be Another has in fact been put together. It is an investigation on identity and empathy and it typically allows exploring gender swaps (see picture above). It has caused strong reactions and in particular discussions about transgender issues. You can read an article on it from the Verge here: Virtual reality made me believe I was someone else. This is a great demonstration of the power of VR for achieving extreme empathy!

To get an idea of the impact of running a VR gender changing experience, Second Life, video-games or role-playing games can already be used. In particular through persistence online world. Or even simply by impersonating a man or woman in chat rooms. The experience can make you uncomfortable (and generally will) when you are being seduced by a person who you think is of the same gender as the physical you, assuming you are heterosexual. It is also a challenge to try to impersonate the opposite gender without falling into clichés. I have experienced it in role-playing, gaming and chat-rooms and found it generally eye opening. It definitely helps you understand the perspective of the other gender and makes you challenge clichés. It gives you a big boost in empathy!

So a fully immersive experience in VR can greatly benefit everyone and help achieving extreme empathy.

In the next post, we will touch on changing your ethnic group, don’t miss it out!