Androgyny

[daughterofauset]

Femme agender player, have wanted this for years.

Every mush I've ever played has had a gender neutral option for this, and I've never seen it be an issue, in or out of character, on any of them.


Additionally, they/them. It is a thing. Even if you maintain that they/them is terrible because grammar, why would you suggest a pronoun that explicitly refers to objects instead of people to replace a pronoun that at least addresses people rather than things. I don't get that at all.

[Nao]

'They' would be a nice option for characters where strangers can't quite tell the gender while that character is dressed, even if that character is simply male or female. I've seen players try to pull this off in game, but the pronouns in emotes sort of ruin it.

[Brytta Léofa]

The code needs to know your character's sex (your pronouns when nekkid and unconscious); it's up to you to depict your character's gender.

I'm completely in favor of characters being able to hide or disguise their sex (even though Fidelio makes almost no sense in Zalanthas), whether in accordance or discordance with their gender identities if they have them. But, on my prioritized list of stuff I'd like coders to work on, it's below coded restraints, blindfolds, riding with subdued persons, and necksnap.

I will grudgingly admit that "they" would be less jarring than "it" for PCs. I've only seen "it" used once, though.

[MeTekillot]

I think the reason people counter-react to the suggestion is that the suggestion is phrased in terms of "do this, or you totally suck." .

it is??

[Synthesis]

I think the reason people counter-react to the suggestion is that the suggestion is phrased in terms of "do this, or you totally suck." .

it is??

I was responding to Bebop, not you.  I didn't care one way or the other, until it got a tad nasty.

This is why the gaming community as a whole is stagnating, man.

"Do this, or you totally suck."

Now we're onto new horizon socially and we're fizzling out on getting ahead of the curve and that saddens me.

"Do this, or you totally suck."

...seeing people get squeamish about this topic is a little bizarre to me and also smacks of some kind of inward revulsion towards folks like myself.

"If you don't agree with me, you totally suck."

I submit that it is possible not to be bigoted -and- not to care one way or the other about gender pronouns.  Personally, I'm not any more revolted by LGBTQ people than I am by humanity in general.  I also still don't care about the pronoun thing.  I offered my opinion as a tactical suggestion:  you aren't going to win friends from the sidelines by casting aspersions on the fence-sitters.

[Harmless]

Tons of flavor features have been effortfully coded into the game. Things such as they/them coded for raised cloak hoods. Effort needed to code is and never was a reason to shoot down an idea. The idea itself can be discussed on its merits or flaws here and staff will as always prioritize what they code by importance, relevance, and difficulty.

Pros to including gender neutral pronouns:

1. It fits the setting and theme.
2. It will induce a new way of first impression reacting to someone's character.
3. It facilitates more variety in reading and greater distinctions in reading emotes.
4. It will help a concept to feel realistic to the main (large) description.

Non-cons:
1. The plural issue; please, just think of the last time you saw multiple characters emoting at once... oh wait, it has never happened. Also, we lack the ability to join multiple PC targets with our ~ ! % ^ + = # emote syntax. Therefore in armageddon they and them will not be ambiguous for plural vs singular for readability sake.

Cons:

1. It will take some getting used to, but how much really. How many of us will make gender nonbinary PCs all the time? Most likely we will mix it up and hes and shes will dominate.
2. The coding task of applying they when clothed and he or she when naked. However, this task has already been done with hooded cloaks. Therefore it need only be done with the now existant naked/clothed binary state... in other words we are already there. Finally, the gender neutral option can be added as a separate step to char making and will need to be carefully worded so that people only select it when they intend to.


...I welcome others to build or expand off this list.

[sleepyhead]

To me the biggest con is that while this would be a cool feature to make someone's sex ambiguous, it might very well end up with people talking and worrying about respecting pronouns IG in a very modern sort of way. Worse, there could be a backlash against it in the name of "anti-PC" that would further hurt gender non-conforming players, and I fear there would be a lot of player complaints passed around overall.

I predict that it'd just be a big mess. I think there would be arguments on the GDB about whether or not there should be rules about how non-binary characters should be treated and whether it should be against the rules not to use people's preferred pronouns IG and all that. And those debates get nasty. I don't think it'd make me feel more welcome, in the end.

Maybe when the whole non-binary issue cools down a bit, we will be ready for a feature like this to be added without it being seen as political. I honestly look forward to that day, because I'd love to play a gender-ambiguous character. But it's just too contentious right now IMO.

I hope people realize that I'm not saying this because I am bigoted or reactionary, but because I play this game to escape things like the unnecessary drama that I keep being thrown into because of my gender non-conformity, and I don't want it to follow me here. I mean I really, really don't want it to follow me here.

[MeTekillot]

There are already rules about how non-binary characters should be treated. The same way you treat everyone else. The only difference in treatment of the sexes in Zalanthas is who wants to fuck who.

[sleepyhead]

Sure, but I have a feeling that if I rolled up a char in Arm and had them start insisting on the use of highly specific neopronouns and took IC and OOC offense at being called a man or a woman, it would start a whoooole new conversation. Even the most progressive people have trouble navigating non-binary gender issues. It can be a real minefield, especially for people who haven't been exposed to the issue much. Which is most people.

While this proposed addition is just a 'they/them' feature and has little inherently to do with that, I fear it'd lead to the handling of situations like that being hotly debated, which I don't want brought here of all places. I'm sorry, but I just don't think we're ready for that can of worms. Hell, I don't trust even the people who are OOCly sensitive about such things to treat it in a non-jarring way IG that isn't a constant reminder that there's a lot of RL discrimination about this. I imagine there'd be a lot of "don't worry, that's so awesome and I totally respect that!" hand-wringing and such.

[Kankfly]

Let's take a step back and analyze this for a moment.

The emote pronouns are for OOC purposes. They tell you what is the gender of this person you are interacting with OOCly, so you know how to react to it ICly. It doesn't mean that just because this muscular, broad-shouldered human - with every single aspect defined as masculine and no other aspect defined as feminine and can only be defined as a female is if she takes off her pants and show you her lack of dingdong - your PC has to know immediately that she is a woman. You have every bit of flexibility for your PC to address this codedly-female-yet-male-looking human as a 'he'. Or it. Or they.

tell elf (jerking a thumb toward ~elven.woman) That sharp boy there tells me you can get me this fancy sword for a couple of smalls off. I'll take it.

tell elf (doing a double take as he takes another good look at ~elven.woman) That ain't a fella? Well, damn. How's I supposed to know? All you sharps look the same to me!

So this, to me, feels more like a RP thing that doesn't need any coded support, because it's entirely up to your PC which gender to address a person.

[MeTekillot]

Sure, but I have a feeling that if I rolled up a char in Arm and had them start insisting on the use of highly specific neopronouns and took IC and OOC offense at being called a man or a woman, it would start a whoooole new conversation.

Then don't do that.

While this proposed addition is just a 'they/them' feature and has little inherently to do with that, I fear it'd lead to the handling of situations like that being hotly debated, which I don't want brought here of all places. I'm sorry, but I just don't think we're ready for that can of worms.

I don't think being afraid of a little debate on the GDB is really enough justification for me, personally, to be convinced that this idea in particular would not add more to the game than it'd take away if it were added.

[sleepyhead]

I'm not going to, and whether or not I specifically am going to do that isn't really my point.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Fuck external neopronouns, fuck gender politics, fuck every other which thing about every string attached to this. My entire stance about why I support this (and the main firm solid reason) is:

"They" sounds better than "it". Everyone uses singular they whether they (see?) realise it or not. They (mhm) may not realise it at first, or state that they () don't, or that it's stupid, but I guarantee, it's still used by them. ()

"Yeah, they were in the bar a few minutes ago."

"Yeah, it was in the bar a few minutes ago."

Singular 'it' is dehumanising, and that's /fine/ in usage by those who are actively attempting to dehumanise someone (like a Templar), but it shouldn't be the staff-supported encoded default for genderless or androgynous sentient beings. It is stupid.

"It" still makes sense for /creatures/. Things that lack sentience. Rocks, maybe. But "they" should be applicable otherwise.

It's really just that simple. Nothing else attached to it (attachments and strings cut off by force if needs be).

And the thing is, even if you reaaaally REALLY couldn't code in 'they', you could just replace 'it' coding with 'they' and it would be FINE. They flows fine for non-sentient beings, even if it sounds a little bit personifying. But "it" is always wrong for sentient walking talking creatures. Not even just grammatically speaking, it just sounds horrible.

"Aww, what a cute dog, what's it's name?" - This is fine.
"Aww, what a cute kid you have, what's it's name?" - This reads as strange, does it not? And therein lies the issue.
"Aww, what a cute dog, what's their name?" - This is also fine. A bit anthropomorphising, philosophically speaking, but still fine English.
"Aww, what a cute kid you have, what's their name?" - This is fine.

"The human person is here.
It is wielding..."

VS:

"The human person is here.
They are wielding..."

So even if 'they' can't be separately coded in, it should still be considered as an outright replacement for 'it'.

I'm a trans woman and I don't give a single flying fuck for gender politics in my vibeo james. I purely want 'they' to be a supplement or outright replacement to 'it' because 'it' sounds like you're speaking about a squeaky pool toy, rather than an actual breathing being, and it's stupid.

"It" also disconnects from personage - if I see "it", I think 'npc creature', and I lose all care for actually treating the thing right. Whereas "they" SOUNDS LIKE A SENTIENT BEING, not a rock.

I can even update the emoting chart to reflect.

                   
Char.|Target Sees|Others See
----------------------------
  ~  |you        |<sdesc>
  %  |your       |<sdesc>'s
  !  |you        |him/her/them
  ^  |your       |his/her/their
  #  |you        |he/she/they
  &  |yourself   |himself/herself/themself
  =  |yours      |<sdesc>'s
  +  |yours      |his/hers/theirs
----------------------------
  @  | <your sdesc>

[sleepyhead]

Yeah, maybe I'm just paranoid. But I run in left leaning online circles and the topic of gender identity always ends up with people either screaming accusations at each other or freaking out being overly cautious. I get nervous when I catch the slightest whiff of it here. I'm afraid once we start down the path of addressing that issue, there is no going back and it is going to divide the playerbase in a really toxic way. I know this change wasn't intended to address this, but it's already been connected to it by several posters (yes, especially me, but I think with or without me, it's going to be seen that way.) And I just get nervous about it.

I've never seen a PC who was an 'it' though. I imagine if someone spec apped an 'it' it'd be because their char was some sort of crazy mutant, right? Usually androgynous chars just put "they" all over their mdesc or emphasize that it's hard to tell what sex they are.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Yeah, maybe I'm just paranoid. But I run in left leaning online circles and the topic of gender identity always ends up with people either screaming accusations at each other or freaking out being overly cautious. I get nervous when I catch the slightest whiff of it here. I'm afraid once we start down the path of addressing that issue, there is no going back and it is going to divide the playerbase in a really toxic way. I know this change wasn't intended to address this, but it's already been connected to it by several posters (yes, especially me, but I think with or without me, it's going to be seen that way.) And I just get nervous about it.

I've never seen a PC who was an 'it' though. I imagine if someone spec apped an 'it' it'd be because their char was some sort of crazy mutant, right? Usually androgynous chars just put "they" all over their mdesc or emphasize that it's hard to tell what sex they are.

I have seen approximately 2 genderless chars who were designated and coded as 'it'. One of whom had told me that they had to special-app for it to even be an option, and the other whom had told me that they would have preferred 'they', but it was not an option.

I have seen countless genderless and androgynous characters who still had a coded gender, probably because 'they' or 'it' wasn't even an option for them outside of special apping (and thus losing one of your 3-times-a-year special).

I have had probably three genderless or androgynous characters, none of which went through the process of special apping because I don't want to have to special app just to not be seen as overtly male or female. All of them had 'they' used all over their desc and [genderless race term] in their sdescs, but none of which were able to be codedly referred to as they. Even fully cloaked and even MORE indiscernible, they all either had he or she in their code, and even with formless fullbody cloaks, an emote would show he or she. And therein lies the issue.

I don't want to have to lose a special app just to not show my character as overtly male or female in coded emotes, and if I /do/, I don't want to have to be 'it'. 'It' doesn't even make sense.

EDIT, FORGOT TO CLARIFY MY POINT:

But even if you go to all the rigamarole of putting 'they' all over your sdesc, people will still inevitably just call you she or he in conversation, because that's what the code shows. Even fully masked, even fully they'd, even fully cloaked, that's what the code shows. And it's annoying to make a fully androgynous character you're passionate about, only to end up disinterested by their own personal growth because you're tired of being like... "Should I "OOC: Actually you can't tell they're a girl"? ...Egh, no, that's annoying them... I guess I just won't RP with them."


EDIT 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO:

Let's be honest. If you see someone in a fullbody cloak with a mask and blah de blah blah, and you "l masked" and see "She is carrying...", you're now eternally locked to perceiving that strange masked figure as a girl, even if you didn't see a single curve and all their features were heavily shrouded. Even if they were literally hiding and you "l shadow"ed. The code guides player perceptions.

A third option, thus, is to apply 'they' as a masking descriptor for folk who are both wearing a cloak/duster/robe AND a mask/hood/veil. (Around Body item and On Face item that masks SDesc). Thus allowing less metagaming, and still allowing the code to guide.

[sleepyhead]

I should probably stop posting in this thread and I probably will after this (if I can help myself).

Since this isn't an IC issue, I guess it's okay to talk about even though it happened within the last year (though we're nearing the mark). I had a rather feminine-looking male PC (we'll call him Steve) that was continually referred to as "they" in emotes and says by another PC (we'll call him Hank). I'm not sure why, exactly, but I think Hank actually did the "they" thing to everyone, or at least more than just Steve. I don't think it was intended to make any kind of statement, nor do I think it was connected to Steve's physical appearance in any way. It seemed to just be a habit that Hank's player had. My sdesc and mdesc referred to my PC as male, and I always used male pronouns in my own emotes.

When interacting with a 3rd char (we'll call her Jennifer), it was OOCly brought up to me. Jennifer, who was very thoughtful, told me OOCly that she (I'm saying 'she' because that was the gender of the character; I have no idea about the player's gender, but I'll call them female and Hank's player male for clarity's sake) noticed that Hank used 'they/them' pronouns for Steve, and asked me politely if those were Steve's preferred pronouns, because Jennifer respected that and wanted to be considerate. I told her that Steve was male and used 'he/him' pronouns, and that I wasn't sure why Hank did that but it wasn't because of anything I insisted upon. Jennifer told me that that's cool, as long as that's what I wanted.

It was really a very wholesome and kind interaction, and I have nothing but positive feelings towards the player for what she was trying to do. I think it's great that this player is so considerate of non-binary people and that she wanted to respect my wishes about the character. That said, it also felt a little strange because it was taken OOC as an intended OOC courtesy towards me, the player. That is what I am afraid of--that coded gender ambiguity is going to be seen as a delicate OOC issue to carefully take up with the player rather than an IC one to take up with the character, whether that's the intention of the change or not. I like playing androgynous characters and I do it all the time, and a 'they' option would be pretty sweet, but I don't want people to feel like they have to worry about screwing up or offending me on an OOC level. And I'm afraid that'd happen, because it has already happened to me even without this feature.

[MeTekillot]

With equally due respect, sleepyhead, your singular anecdote with one singular person does not present an extremely convincing argument.

[sleepyhead]

Okay, well I admitted that I'm probably just nervous/paranoid about it because I run in circles where this is such a contentious and often toxic issue, but that's just how I feel about it.

[valeria]

"If you don't do this, you totally suck," is in a different place on the spectrum from "If you did this, it would be more welcoming."  I fall more on the welcoming end, and I do think we should strive to be as welcoming to as many people who want to play as possible, because we're a pretty niche and geek gaming market.

I'm on the yes please let's be more welcoming spectrum.  I can tell you why I stuck with Armageddon after trying about twenty muds, and that was because my female characters were expected to not be treated any differently than my male characters.  This is the literal reason.  Because this mud was a welcoming place for something I was being discriminated against for IRL and in another mud. 

The percentage of gender-nonconforming and trans people I hang out with regularly who are geeks is 100%.  We pretty much all read a lot, enjoy video games, and love the Ren Fest.  There is a huge crossover between being gender-nonconforming or trans and geek culture.  I've advertised this mud to my polyamorous friends as being fully supportive of polyamory.  I can't say the same to my trans friends.  I do wish I could, since one of my trans polyamorous friends is a former MUDer.  I want more people to play with.

Yes, clearly this feature would require coding.  We've had some pretty cool features come out lately, though, and our coders are pretty awesome.

But as far as I can tell, the "naked" code has nothing to do with it.  It just lets people know if you're naked.  If your sdesc is "the brown-eyed human," you'd be "the naked brown-eyed human."  I suppose if a templar wanted to strip you down to naked in public, or you wanted to strip yourself down naked, others would be tell whether you had a penis, a vagina, or were somehow intersex.  (The proper term is "intersex" now, not hermaphrodite.)  I suspect people would be just as fine emoting this as they are about emoting breast or penis size when they take off their clothes... which people are already pretty fine about emoting, whether you care about that information or not.

I'm also pretty sure anyone depicted as androgynous would be be able to respond to the question, "So are you a man or a woman?"  And they would probably be able to answer that in whatever way is appropriate, including by possibly throwing an IC (!!!) fit at you because they're sick of being asked that.  We have a lot more complicated RP than that going on here.  It's not like the "limited use of OOC plzthx" rule would be going anywhere.

Here's my personal anecdote.  I've seen a couple characters exclusively described with gender neutral language in their mdesc, but they showed up as "he" (or once it was "her") when targeted with emotes.  Most people were good about ignoring that, or instead actively misgendered them from time to time.  Plenty of people asked them whether they were a man or a woman, and they responded accordingly.  Zero scenes ground to a halt.  I do wish that those players had been able to have an appropriate choice to flesh out their characters, though.

(Edit because I haven't had coffee and apparently can't spell or place commas.)

[Armaddict]

...I think the good fight is best fought in real life where it actually matters.

[MeTekillot]

You know entertainment is part of "real life", right?

[Armaddict]

You know entertainment is part of "real life", right?

...if you actually read this as some sort of zing or counterpoint, you're grasping at some really thin straws.

[Namino]

Here I go.

It has been an obvious fact for some time to me that the playerbases of many RPIs are significantly elevated related to average when it comes to densities of people adhering to alternative gender identities. I suspect it is because that here, on Armageddon, we can occupy the identity of whatever we choose effortlessly. For someone who has been forced to battle in real life to find personal comfort and societal acceptance of their identity, the ability to craft up a character and interact with many other people as that character must be an supremely satisfying experience. To those people, I say welcome and gladly accept their time and effort, and I am happy that you have found an outlet that provides creative control. We're all here to tell stories.

However.

I am against this proposal.

The reason I am against this proposal is because its motivation is not driven by in universe factors. It is motivated by the OOC desire for OOC acceptance. There is no major Zalanthan movement for the acceptance of alternative gender identities. I don't think a Zalanthan would even really understand the concept. Remember that on Zalanthas, the genders are entirely equal in every societal way. The concept of gender as spectrum wouldn't make sense to them because even the traditional genders aren't bimodal to them. They occupy a single point. How can you be fluid between two identical states? The idea of gender fluidity and alternative gender identities is too modern. It doesn't seem in place with an archaic, alien society on Zalanthas. Accounting for this stuff ICly would likely do quite a bit of damage to the ability for people to immerse themselves when it comes across as a jarringly out-of-place modern agenda slapped down like a spaceship in the middle of an alien planet.

And that's precisely what I feel like it is. It is an OOC agenda that people are arguing that should be represented ICly because it is an OOC agenda that they agree with. Well, I agree with it too. I think many people OOCly agree that it costs us nothing to accept people's pronouns and can be a source of great comfort and validation for people. OOCly, I will use whatever pronoun you want me to use. But just because I agree and defend this agenda OOCly does not in any way make it appropriate for it to shatteringly appear ICly as well.

I frequently joke on the discord that I'm going to start playing a conservation biologist ICly (based on my RL career). The crux of this joke is that I'm allowing an OOC philosophy to leak IC into a world where it would make little sense, and come across as jarring for people's immersion. What I am seeing here is people barefacedly arguing that we should be allowed to bring our OOC ideals to where they have IC bearing. I don't agree. I don't think immersion is something we should sacrifice on this altar.

[Brokkr]

After thinking on where the game generated pronouns (vs player input) occur, it seems they would be based on secondary sexual characteristics, not gender identity at all.  As this is what would be used by a neutral 3rd party in terms of describing someone with no knowledge of the gender identity of that someone.  In that case, male or female, even for highly androgynous, would seem appropriate.  I am not sure "they" would be appropriate for someone without secondary sexual characteristics, as everything I can find essentially relates this back to gender identity.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I'm not even focused on identity. I just think "they" sounds way better than "it" for a neutral term, plus makes sense relating to actual sentient beings and not a rock.