Gender Neutral PCs

Alright everyone, Greenman is convinced he is the greatest civil rights advocate since Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln were combined together in a secret government genetics experiment, and that he must play Jesus to the poor, unfortunate lepers that are the LGBT community.
He has offhandedly dismissed everything anyone who disagrees with him has said and who are we to argue? He went to college. He knows everything.

So you can argue with him all day long and he will just wittily retort with "You don't understand" or "Stop posting".
It's not like he has a job to go to with a BA in Culture.

 

I normally wouldn't reply to such threads with such polarizing opinions, but I think this is the first time I've seen a suggestion with so many negative votes. Does being less dichotomous with the character creator really affect cis people so much? In response to negative publicity, please tell me of a game that has gotten negative publicity over less gender dichotomy? Any news articles about it in Saints Row? Maybe even as far back as a game in '96, Blood and Magic, that allowed you to choose neutral as your gender. What's that? There's none? This is literally a non-issue. This affects cis people a null amount. This suggestion was meant to give more options for those who are vilified because they don't fit in the gender binary. A simple tweak that allows for there to be just one more place where they don't have to be either or.

In the vein of making the suggestion better. If there is gendered pronouns, maybe just have an option to replace them with a user inputed title at creation. This could be a simple or slightly difficult change, depending on how gender and pronouns are handled in code. Also, I totally agree on the allow all hair options. Makes for a larger range of characters.

 

I like what you are saying but if the change is difficult and involves changing alot of code it should not
be done. The devs should worry about improving the game for the general majority instead of taking time away from more important things to change this. Keeping the male and female options but adding an "other" section is good

 

Is that really all you can respond with now? 2 posts you've replied with nothing but that. Please. It's called criticism. You make a suggestion, expect criticism, whether it's good or not.

 

Please reread the two posts in question. Doesn't look like productive criticism to me...

 

How about you reread what I said? I never said it had to be productive criticism.
EDIT: hence the "Whether it's good or not". I was referencing the criticism. It doesn't have to be good criticism at all. Criticism is criticism.

 

Ok so, lemme see if I'm getting this right:
The people voting YES for this want it because it would help make a larger amount of people able to immerse themselves into the game, and be able to be called what they want to be called in game, correct?
While the people voting NO are saying that it would take time away from the bigger features of the game, and that those should have priority?
So, I don't know much (anything) about coding, but this seems to me that it would take a very small amount of time to add to the character creator. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.
So, if it would take very little time to add it, then if it even convinced ONE more person to buy the game, wouldn't it be worth it?
Now, let's say for some reason this requires a lot of time and coding to accomplish. There's no reason it couldn't be included in some post-release update, is there?

 

Part of the issue that I, and some others, have brought up, is that this is a suggestion about adding a gender option for those who do not claim to be a man or a woman. The issue is that currently there is only the biological sex options of male and female, there is no gender option. Since the idea of gender is psychological, the player is free to claim that they're whatever they want to be and roleplay that way. Absolutely nothing is stopping them from doing so and theyre at no more of a disadvantage in this way than someone who claims to be a man or a woman because currently there is no option for gender at all. The suggestion that an N/A option be added is also a bit odd considering that again, apart from the exceptionally rare person who is actually intersex, the two biological sexes are the only two options. You may not wish to specify, and that's your choice to do so, but either way, like it or not (unless you're one of those exceptionally rare intersex people), you are biologically either male or female. Also, to add to the N/A option as an idea for gender, why should it be a N/A option? is that not wronging the people who do wish to specify specifically (presumably the majority of those who would like to see this, would like to specify) and does not by having it be a specific N/A option, do them just as much harm as not having the N/A option at all and not including an option to register a gender at all? This is one of those situations where if you were to do it, you would need to include every gender that has been conceived, and to do so would be very time and manpower consuming and almost certainly impossible. If you failed to do so, you stand to offend someone for not including their gender, and once again, you're basically back at the start, except the start had no setting for gender at all, so no one had any sort of advantage over any one else.

 

I see. So what you're saying is that this isn't a question of what you identify yourself as, but rather what you biologically are? Makes sense.

Yes, that all makes sense.

Again, all making sense with the logical reasoning.
I'm not gonna bother quoting the rest of that because at this point I'm just repeating myself.
I agree with THIS PARTICULAR ARGUMENT, because if I am reading it correctly (which I hope I am) the point you are trying to make is that biology and psychology are two different things, and only biology is (and should be) represented in the character creator, correct? Therefore, adding a gender-neutral option would be stupid because it would be involving psychological aspects into a system that is, at this point, purely biological.
I hope that wasn't too confusing.
I guess I got caught up in what looked like people arguing over whether or not gender-neutral people should be allowed to have the same experience as, quote, "Normal" people.
However I do agree that all the clothing options should be available for either males or females.
Here's hoping I didn't contradict myself or look foolish.

 

Maybe not as rare as you assume. Where do hermaphrodites fit in? Why do glitch need to be biologically similar to humans?

No, I don't think adding an unspecified option to the character gen would be offensive to the majority. I think that's a weird assumption to make.

Do you remember when you registered for this site? There is a portion of registration that asks Male or Female or unspecified. Why do you suppose it is that they include the extra option? Were you offended? Did you specify?

Click the character gen. Tell me what the default/standard/Normal character looks like. Then remind me that there's no room for improvement. (yea, i know it isn't the final version.. just making a point).

 

I'm opposed to adding a "third" gender option because of the complications that it would cause (not having all the possible gender options) and because currently there is no first or second gender option as is. So yes, it's largely the difference between Biology and Psychology. Part of roleplaying in games like this is making your own character's psychology. You're a space pirate with a rather odd lisp who has a fancy for green things? HAVE AT IT! same thing with gender options. play that way, that's what it's supposed to be. Dont over complicate the game by saying the game should allow you to tick that off in a box that you want to do that, because then you have to do that for basically everything.

 

hermaphroditism is exceptionally rare and I don't believe a case of true hermaphroditism has ever actually been found.

A bit of data on intersexuality taken from wikipedia.

The Glitch are a synthetic (at least partially) race that was created as simulation of life and civilization. Biological sex is a big factor in life and civilization. to suggest they not simulate biological sex would invalidate the entire simulation.

I can't say I remember that specific part, no. I've never once said I was offended by a third option. I have said that regardless of whether or not you wish to specify (except in the exceptionally rare cases of intersex people) a person is by default one of the two biological genders.

The point that of asking if there is no room for improvement falls flat because you fail to give a specific example in which the creator would actually be improved that could be implemented without causing problems and without making the situation worse off than it currently is. Adding genders, unless you some how magically manage to add every single one, would make the situation worse, not better, because currently there is no gender option at all, the player is free to pick their own gender what ever they wish. Adding genders without adding all of them though would leave some people out, and you cannot seriously be suggesting that every single gender would not be left out?

 

Hate to break it to you man, but that article is supporting the idea of a gender spectrum, not a binary. It's also proposing evidence for 1.7% of the population as being sexually ambiguous.

So we go back to the popular suggestion: Remove male/female option, give users more freedom in selecting appearance.

 

whether or not it's meant to support a gender spectrum or not makes little difference. the data clearly shows that intersexuality is very rare. also, again, that is the difference between gender and sex. apart from the very rare abnormality, sex is binary. gender needs not be.

I still say that even this suggestion is just "pick your sex, just we're not calling it sex"

 

Sex is not binary. You just posted info on that exact topic.

It seems like you're making some assumptions about how people ought to view sex and gender. Even after you accept "rare abnormalities" exist you still oppose the idea of including them.

 

At least 98% (according to the aforementioned data) of people born are either male or female, and that's most likely using the definition which includes any type of intersexuality be included in the statistic. But, let's just high ball it and say its a flat 2%. 2% of whatever number of people do exist, but their condition is an abnormality. Their existence does not invalidate the idea of the male and female sex. It means that on the rare occasion, something weird that is not naturally supposed to happen, happens. That's it. There's nothing inherently bad about these people, and apart from the medical conditions that probably come with this genetic abnormality, there's probably nothing wrong with them. The suggestion that the game be made specifically to suit them because they exist, is not really much different from suggesting that the game be made where you can play with no limbs or other deformities. Why shouldn't it be by your argument? The chance of being born with a deformity or a genetic condition that makes you different from others is likely even higher than being born intersex. Yet, we do not petition that it be changed specifically to suit that rather than what the average player would be. The existence of an anamoly does not invalidate the fact that it is the anamoly and not the norm.

 

I'm just going to stop posting all together. After all, anyone who doesn't fully agree with your ideas have their opinions and ideas totally nullified in your mind, since you don't care about what anyone else has to say, which makes it near impossible for you to see it from any other perspective. You're trying to make yourself seem like a great person, yet you're perfectly fine with trying to offend the typical white male.

The amount of drama your idea has brought on has pretty much guaranteed it won't be added to the game. So you can go on all day about how your opinion is the only correct opinion and that your idea is the most important thing ever, I'll no longer reply.

Goodbye.

 

Neither is being black, asian, gay, female, transexual or Swedish. Being proud of something you had no choice in because you were born that way is stupid.
You can be proud you did well in school, you can be proud you painted a picture, you can even be proud you managed to dress yourself this morning, but being proud of inborn attributes you can't change is stupid no matter what group does it.

 

Well, after reading what you all posted again, I would like to put what greenman actually wanted to suggest plainly, because I, for example, wouldn't have understood if I wouldn't have read all those 10 pages of walls of text. And there are people don't like to read that much. So:

Let people pick their psychological gender and then let them choose out of every possible body, hair, face and any and all additional whatnots. The genders you can pick from shouldn't just be male and female, there should be an option for those who do not want to be either or want to be both. Basically, least offensive option would be "other"*.

*That's just my stupid opinion, because if my gender was necroflorafaunapedozoo I wouldn't have to have a go at the devs for not putting it up

Now, please guys, stop arguing because:
1. It's just a suggestion, devs may just ignore it because of the opposition it met.
2. If there will be enough people to approve of it but the developers refuse to put it in, there are lots of code-friendly people who will mod this into game.