Sociopath Community

This (real) phenomenon is called sequential hermaphroditism, and most often occurs in fish and gastropods (mollusks, such as snails and slugs) in the animal kingdom.  Specifically, it is protogyny when the animal begins female and later changes to male.  The different reasons and strategies behind this are interesting.  However, in human society, what the fish do would probably promote alpha-male-ism.

Also, same-sex relationships would likely be the norm for romantic relationships.  Changing sex would likely be focused on reproduction in a more perfunctory way.  A stage in life everyone would go through, a part in society they would play according to their culture, etc.

Buttered Toast said: 

...like our world, except every human begins life as female and changes to male around the age of 35 to 40, remaining so until death.  (Leading to the mutations of those being born male or changing early/late.)

There'd be a ton of grooming. 😬

How do you imagine abortion laws would change?  It wouldn't be as though the men wouldn't be able to understand pregnancy or other difficulties facing women and their bodies.  But then, if the government operated the way it does here at all, it would be a lot of old men in office making decisions (still).  Do you think it would all be grooming, when they had all lived their lives as women until a more mature age's wisdom would develop them into different men?  Or would this end up doubling-down on men's control?  We have to change how they would have different thinking than we do now, based on a lot of culture changes.

Telling someone to "be a man" would maybe be synonymous with telling someone to "grow up".  Feminizing someone in a denigrating way would probably then be like calling someone a child, immature.

Buttered Toast said: 

How do you imagine abortion laws would change? 

Just the context, I could see it happening over how it more links to people's misconceptions about what's worth counting as alive. 

It wouldn't be as though the men wouldn't be able to understand pregnancy or other difficulties facing women and their bodies.  But then, if the government operated the way it does here at all, it would be a lot of old men in office making decisions (still). 

---

Or would this end up doubling-down on men's control? 

The biggest change there is what constitutes an 'old man'. 

You still end up with a 'he knows best' sort of model, but now more akin to ageism. 

Do you think it would all be grooming, when they had all lived their lives as women until a more mature age's wisdom would develop them into different men? 

Most definitely, even notions like pedophilia stand to normalize when breeding is about a difference in age, rather than pairing with one closer to your own. 

Teacher-Student relationships for instance would have an entirely different connotation, and with gender swapping it's implied they would not stay with their same partners for their entire lives purely over a stages of maturity model. If closer in age between both partners, they'd only be able to breed for so long, as viability would become over the difference in age. Past a point it stops resembling 'humanity' quite as closely and instead becomes a bunch of old farts farming children out of children. 

Buttered Toast said: 

Telling someone to "be a man" would maybe be synonymous with telling someone to "grow up".  Feminizing someone in a denigrating way would probably then be like calling someone a child, immature.

They're already trying to infantilize women now, it might not be that different actually. 


Now other way around, what if they began as men and became women? 

The only consideration I'll posit for now, in the case of a reverse -- men age into being women -- is that the window of reproduction might be a lot tighter.  It might be a better evolutionary strategy in terms of survival to frontload the cycle with males, and if they survive to an age, they are then able to procreate.  It might adjust menopause and other reproductive processes though, otherwise that could either turn the females as another caged resource, or a special and privileged class.

If women are aged into the political/government structure, if it is at all similar here, that might make the leadership more in women's favor, but it all depends if the culture(s) would naturally evolve that way, given the new path.

Buttered Toast said: 

The only consideration I'll posit for now, in the case of a reverse -- men age into being women -- is that the window of reproduction might be a lot tighter. 

We're adding gender changing as a natural phenomenon in this hypothetical humanity, there'd obviously need to be longevity to how long they have eggs via that being what would produce the most offspring. 

If women are aged into the political/government structure, if it is at all similar here, that might make the leadership more in women's favor, but it all depends if the culture(s) would naturally evolve that way, given the new path.

It'd still become an ageism situation, but maturing into egg carriers at least has less odds of a harem of teenagers with a teacher-like figure collecting them. 🤢

A lot depends on how the culture sways on the direction of age+sex (change) and leadership.

If humans began as males, we could consider aggressive youths overpowering elderly women, conforming to reproduction as necessity, whilst going largely unchecked until "Swap Day".  You might wonder why such a society doesn't live their life in preparation and honor of that change, for the betterment of humanity and its continuation.  One might wonder that about our world already, no?

If humans began as females, we could degrade into the grooming situation you are suggesting.  Age of consent, threatened by looser pedophilic guidelines, etc.

Those are the critiques and the negative ways it could go -- and arguably more realistic -- but I guess we have to understand ourselves more as animals and what the evolution from a different starting point would look like.  Set aside what obvious cynical ("realistic") reactions might be, and think of possible positive outcomes or changes.

Of course, I am also interrogating various LLMs for their thoughts on the matter, and here are a few takeaways:

This one seems a very sanitized and nebulous proposition, parallel to your pedagogic exploitation scenario (female age to male):

Claude 4 said:

Knowledge transfer would follow different patterns, with life experience flowing from the older male population to younger females. This could create mentorship systems very different from our current ones.

 This also seems woefully naive (male age to female):

Claude 4 said:

Power dynamics would shift dramatically. Traditional patriarchal structures couldn't persist when all leaders eventually become women. We might see cyclical power transfers or age-stratified governance systems.