January 2, 2002

12:28 PM

Speaking of Apple, it might be a niche market for a niche platform (Mac), but the president of Westlake Interactive (the company who's ported such titles as The Sims, Deus Ex and Unreal Tournament to the Mac) is having a sex change, and discusses it in a public forum. Mark Adams becomes Glenda Adams, and it doesn't appear that April is for another few months.
posted by robbie01 (23 comments total)

sex changes are so twentieth century. is it even news anymore? bring out the clones!
posted by tsarfan at 12:40 PM on January 2, 2002

Some pics of Glenda from her website.
posted by xiffix at 12:43 PM on January 2, 2002

What's pretty amazing is that her female spouse seems to be very supportive in all this. It's one thing for friends and acquaintances to understand, but a woman who stands by her (ahem) man through something like this really deserves a lot of credit.

Stories like this make me feel all warm inside...
posted by jpoulos at 12:49 PM on January 2, 2002

Glenda? Are you kidding me?
posted by machaus at 12:54 PM on January 2, 2002

Apparently no, machaus. From the Gender section of the site --
My favorite movies are Tim Burton's Ed Wood...

Of course that's one of my favorite movies, too. Whoa! How about those Cubs!
posted by luser at 1:02 PM on January 2, 2002

No Machaus, it's much worse than that (from the web interview):

Tuncer: How did you come up with Glenda Marie?

Glenda: Glenda was just a name I always liked. I think the first time I remember hearing it was watching the Wizard of Oz as a kid. Glinda the Good Witch must have made an impression on me :)
posted by robbie01 at 1:04 PM on January 2, 2002

Old hat. Dan/Dani Bunten got there a decades (?) earlier.

As Dan, the now departed Dani created M*U*L*E, still considered one of the best computer games you've never played.
posted by NortonDC at 1:04 PM on January 2, 2002

It get's better, check out the old Glenda with the love of his life!
posted by demannu at 1:10 PM on January 2, 2002

Shit, now I'm confused. Which one is which? Before or after?
posted by robbie01 at 1:17 PM on January 2, 2002

I don't get it. What "gets better" there?

I think Lynn Conway might have pride of place for this is the computer world.
posted by rodii at 1:22 PM on January 2, 2002

Ah, the utter self centeredness of it all - the individual is just the center of the freakin world as usual - someone's sex change (who cares, really?) is news, once again. hey guess what? i'm picking my nose right now. check out my webcam for the details.
posted by luriete at 1:23 PM on January 2, 2002

I suspect it the kind of digs that are being thrown out here that kept the guy from doing this years ago.

I'm pretty amazed about the spouse thing, though. The interview does say somewhere that she's known since they met, so I guess it wasn't like "Uh, honey.. I know we've been married twenty years and have 3 kids.. but I'm really a woman" kind of thing.
posted by rich at 1:35 PM on January 2, 2002

rodii, you silly rabbit, she's not exceptionally attractive! (or something) Get it now? It's funny! Geez!
posted by jpoulos at 1:42 PM on January 2, 2002

Re xiffix's first link: Boggles J.Bunny is clearly suspicious of something.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:23 PM on January 2, 2002

Perhaps the wife:

1) loves her and doesn't really care about Glenda's genitals
2) is bisexual
3) doesn't feel sex is an important part of their relationship

Perhaps Glenda is talking about this:

1) because of the kind of reactions that folks are having here
2) to help others who feel the same way to feel more comfortable about coming out
3) to finally be able to declare how she feels after so many years of denying it

Everyone who is not interested is free to ignore her site.
posted by Red58 at 2:53 PM on January 2, 2002

I'm not about to seize the moral high-ground here (as if :D) and condemn everyone who finds this in the slightest bit funny-peculiar and/or funny-haha because I thought it was both. I guess that stems from not really understanding why exactly having your genitalia surgically-altered (a thought which provokes wincing and schoolboy-sniggers in equal amounts in me) should change who you are or the course of your life. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge him/her for doing it, I just find it hard to understand the mindset - something which, as we all know, often leads to fear/scorn.
How good are procedures nowadays? Is it, you know, convincing? Just curious.
posted by RokkitNite at 4:34 PM on January 2, 2002

What part of this MF link is news? The fact that someone is having a sex change? The attached story certainly isn't interesting, as it basically reads like "Wow, I was shocked, someone's having a sex change! Will (s)he still be married to the wife? Now let's talk about games!" An interesting link would have delved into the fact that they have children -- how do they kids feel about this?
posted by milnak at 4:38 PM on January 2, 2002

Ahh, I think this crap they talk about is funny:

For a long time I've dealt with a condition known as Gender Dysphoria. When I was born, my body's outward gender appearance didn't match my internal gender identity. Over the last few years I've been under treatments to bring my outside and inside congruent. Today I'm completing a major step in the process by beginning to live full time outwardly as a woman, including legally changing my name to Glenda Marie Adams.

So basically this person doesn't have cancer, HIV or AIDS, or any other nasty disease so it decides to carve it's penis into a vagina.

Oh reading on it hasn't had the surgery yet, but it plans to. I just think its weird that even though doctors can't cure cancer or AIDS they can carve you new genitals.
posted by Keen at 4:46 PM on January 2, 2002

from not really understanding why exactly having your genitalia surgically-altered...should change who you are or the course of your life

People who transition don't think they're changing "who they are" either. But along with surgery, there are hormone treatments, which may well impact one's actions and personality - FTMs are known to find themselves with a shorter temper and higher sex drive once on Testosterone, for instance.

anyway, yeah, I can't exactly relate to feeling like my gender is central to my personality either; I don't think I would have to be surgically modified if I'd been born the other way - but everybody's different.
posted by mdn at 4:49 PM on January 2, 2002

check out the old Glenda with the love of his life!

Is that an angora sweater she's wearing?
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:50 PM on January 2, 2002

So basically this person doesn't have cancer, HIV or AIDS, or any other nasty disease so it decides to carve it's penis into a vagina.

Whoa, non-sequitur alert!

Are you positing that Glenda is doing this because she wants medical attention?
posted by pudders at 5:00 PM on January 2, 2002

She sure as hell better want medical attention. It would really SUCK if something went wrong during the operation. Give her the doctors she/he deserves.
posted by bloggboy at 6:47 PM on January 2, 2002

...yet no one's mentioned Westlake Interactive's stellar contributions to the Mac gaming market. Software previously thought to be "un-portable" was brought to the Mac by Glenda. Games like we'd never seen before! I remember playing "Unreal" on my Mac for the first time -- it really made me sit up and take notice of a fundamental shift. Not to mention that Westlake continued to ship free updates and patches to the game long after it stopped shipping and they'd received their last check.

The long and short of it is, I don't care what gender this person is, there is appreciated talent within. Bring on "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" ASAP. Oh and thanks, Glenda... nice to meet you.
posted by Fofer at 6:11 AM on January 3, 2002