This is not to say that I wouldn't trade a few IQ points to be blonde, size 2, with a double D chest for a week or two!

As you implied perhaps, chemeng, the degree of personal control is the thing - the cruelest dictatorship is the rush to judgment imposed by others' preconceptions.

This is true of beauty, brains, gender, skin colour and a host of other attributes to which we all react, is it not?