Stance on transgender animals gaining hate

[Anonymous 234]

I would first like to start out by saying that I am in no way 'transphobic.' Truly I am not.

I run a few animal roleplays. Dogs, cats, wolves, etc. In this one particular new roleplay, the animals are supposed to be very animalistic. We encourage our players to think and play more like an animal than a human. In that way, the animals make determinations of someone very strongly on smell rather than sight. If a character smells a biologically female character some distance away, they will know that she is biologically female. This, among other things, began to create (many) problems OOC because some players with transgender characters were getting upset that their characters weren't being determined correctly in character. Confusion was rampant, and quite honestly it was very awkward to handle in character and out. We lost players due to arguments.

We decided to ask all  players to refrain from creating transgendered animal characters to avoid confusion using 'realistic' senses such as smell. This rule has been in place since this particular site started. If you read the rules you know that the rule is there. And yet...one of my players joined, played for a bit, and then told one of my affiliates that we are discriminatory and transphobic, at which point we received a nasty public letter and were removed from the affiliates. The player joined their side and told us we were wrong and left us.

I don't think I'm being discriminatory. In truth, lacking the rule just created more confusion and contention than pleasantries. My players all seem to know this rule and be accepting of it, at least understanding the reason behind the transgender character ban. And yet...I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. I didn't ban it because I don't 'like' transgenders. I banned it because it was causing endless fights. I would have done it with a number of things had they caused the same issue. (Heck, we put a temporary filter block on the word 'yeet' once when kids wouldn't stop spamming it!)

The last thing I want to do is drive folks away. I don't know. What's your stance on realistic animals, transgenderism, and the struggles that come along with it?

Anonymous poster hash: bd282...054

[Huskerdust 625]

Honestly, I saw a transgender animal on an animal RP the other day and laughed aloud. Yes, I am a terrible person. 

 

I really don't think realistically that animals give a hoot about their gender or another animal's gender until it comes time to mating. Heck, my roommate's dog will try to get away with getting any of our cats when she's in heat and we have both male and female cats. It just seems unnecessary to make an animal transgender to me. They're not going to give a shit if they're a boy wearing a pink bow, they're going to act exactly the same as they would otherwise. Besides, what exactly are traditional "gender" norms in animals, anyway? It just seems... stupid to me. Sorry not sorry. 

 

I think you were right and I don't think you were discriminatory. If they want non-realistic fantasy transgender animals, they can make their own site. They don't have to ruin yours.

[Rune 1,099]

On one hand : who cares? If people are getting so upset about an animal smelling like they do (animals csnt have reassignment surgery, you are going to smell like what you physically are.)  then maybe they shouldn't be doing a 'realistic' rp and should go find something with antlers and peacock tails.

 

On the other: I get wanting to play it. But ffs, you have to make allowances. People get misgendered all the time irl. Fuck, I'm cis and get misgendered. You have to be prepared for that shit. 

 

If you hold onto the rule, maybe have an explanation ready for when the inevitable whiners pop in. 

 

If you ditch it, have one explaining that smell don't work that way. 

 

Also: fuck that affiliate. Join me in laughing at them. And maybe pm me who it is so I can make sure they stay away from me. 

[Byrn 102]

Honestly, I consider the whole thing a tad silly in regards too it being considered discriminatory. That's hogwash if you wanted my honest opinion. A role play's setting sporting homophobic themes (although I wouldn't consider a realistic approach to wolves as being homophobic) shouldn't necessarily reflect on the player community. Some settings are canon.  Just have to eyeball the site a little more to determine if that is a red flag and if having that sort of theme on an rp site simply milks the corroded ideals of the players. If you find yourself not caring for a setting then its a case of the RP just not being for you; it is not at all a time to grab a pitchfork and burn down someone's site. 

 

I will say, represent your idea of realistic the best you can, and stick to it. The whole idea of realism in regards to transgender can be speculative without studies. Hermaphrodites are possible so I would want to know how they would socially survive. Wolves I would recon have a very strong survival instinct so I am not entirely sure, beyond hormone issues, if they would cognitively have that sort of self-awareness or crisis. There are very critical gender roles in a wolf pack, and even a hermaphrodite wolf might run the risk of simply not surviving or being accepted in a pack in terms of smelling like one gender and acting like another. 

 

Be very clear in your rules concerning how important it is to stick to realism and address the issue specifically to either head it off, or serve as a reference for those who miss it. 

Edited March 2, 2019 by Tartle

[Zahhy 130]

I've had rules against trans animal characters on my sites before and I've had people leave about it too. I've also seen rules against trans human characters if the fictional world doesn't fit it right or have enough room to handle it properly and with the care it deserves. I've also had people leave because we allow trans characters at all and in their opinion they wouldn't fit into the society of what we're all writing. Sometimes people just don't like whatever rule is going on so they decide to throw a fit and take some people down with them.

 

I don't think it is discriminatory to have a type of lore that doesn't take into consideration our real-world societal baggage, particularly in a non-human fantasy setting. The rule obviously helps the game run smoother and it is clear that you're avoiding anthropomorphism in your game by having the animals react as animals would and this type of restriction helps cater to that setting. I'm certain there are other games that might fit that person a little better without them having to throw stones at you (apparently that lost affiliate. Good riddance, you didn't need either of them anyway).

 

Don't let this one instance cause you to back down on what you know has been a good thing for your game. 

[Josie 198]

I have been in this same boat, minus the nasty letter and lost affiliate. I also banned trans wolves (for the same reasons you did) and received no more fuss about it after the original complainers left. But I get the bad feeling it leaves behind, and the fear of being seen as something that you're not.

 

I didn't do what I'm about to propose because I didn't think of it at the time. But.

 

Consider removing the ban on transgender characters, but state that these characters may be misidentified ICly due to inescapable biological reasons (such as scent). State the expectation that a misidentification should not be treated as an OOC sleight or harassment, and that it is a great opportunity to plot and communicate with other players and characters. Turn something negative into a positive.

 

Because the fact of the matter is- no animal RP is ever going to be even halfway realistic. Humans are the creative force behind the animal characters, and therefore they will always be given human traits, skills, and abilities that real animals probably don't possess. 

Edited March 2, 2019 by Josie

[Brie 51]

That just seems like an unecessary rule to me. In real life, animals are gonna do what they do regardless of how we perceive them and a trans dog would be a problem/adventure for your players to navigate. They can post about it, write about it, build up your world along with you.

 

Considering I live on a farm and have seen all manner of sex/gender behavior from animals (including a male cat who couples with a rabbit...who is twice his size and she lets him even though she could literally kick the snot out of him, go figure), I don’t think any of us can say without a doubt that an animal can’t be trans in real life. I’ve seen two male cats who only coupled with each other even when female cats in heat were present, rabbits who had no interest in the opposite sex (had two bucks who would completely ignored a doe and instantly go at it with each other when put back together) rabbits who had interest in both, rats who coupled with each sex, goats who were literally both sexes and acted out both sexes, and, of course, animals only interested in the opposite sex. I mean, prairie dogs have an actual vocal language with verbs and nouns and sentences. They even name each other and individual predators. Studies are now looking to prove that rats have a language as well. Plus, you’re still talking about animals played by humans. It’s never going to be completely “realistic.”

 

so if you dont want trans animals, by all means, don’t allow them, but keep in mind it can absolutely be seen as offensive and it’s not actually realistic because animals aren’t constrained by the same “gender roles” we humans tend to block ourselves into.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Brie

[Rhindeer 217]

I don't think it really matters what is realistic or not, because animal RP is already unrealistic. So why can't folks have trans animals in their pretendy funtimes escapey place? Besides, animals in the animal kingdom don't all conform to a gender binary in the first place, and the gender binary is a very human concept in and of itself. There are female lions that are growing manes and behaving like male lions, for example. Sounds like a trans animal to me, even if the lion may have no idea (or care) about what that means. There are fish that change gender, hyenas LAUGH at the gender binary, some lizards change sex depending on the temperature, some birds are bi-sex...among many other things.

 

So banning it is kind of...ignorant of the actual real life animal kingdom.

 

Now, if the issue is people getting upset over stuff like misgendering and whatnot, I think the best way to handle that is by being empathetic and handling it OOCly, case by case, rather than banning it. I play some animal characters (like, say, a wolf) who don't really understand that sort of thing and have a very simplistic and apathetic regard for gender and don't really give a fuck unless it comes to mating. They may misgender someone. Hell, they may misgender cis characters, too. If that upset the player, I would just talk to them about it OOCly. Empathize with them, tell them the truth--I'm genderfluid myself, so I get it, but I'm not my character and it's just IC for this character to be ignorant. My character may try to grasp it, and will probably mess up. But I'm not here OOCly trying to kill your fun, you know?

 

And if they absolutely cannot handle IC mistakes like that, then maybe they should play somewhere else.

 

But I think playing gender non-conforming animals can be fun. We're already playing make believe, and we're already anthropomorphizing the heck out of them, so who cares? I care more about people having fun with their characters. If they want to play a trans animal, go for it. The animal kingdom has those. It could be interesting stuff to play with.

 

The issue in your case isn't that people played trans animals. It's that people were causing drama. So handle the drama. It's unfair to ban everything that a few bad eggs cause issue with. Just handle the bad eggs. And maybe make it very clear that IC and OOC is separate, and that while your community is accepting of trans folk, not all characters will be, and that if players can't handle characters that might be -phobic (whether maliciously or just from ignorance), then maybe your community isn't the right fit.

 

I know you don't intend to be -phobic, but any trans people looking for a community, who are also interested in playing pretend animals, are gonna feel pretty instantly alienated by such a rule.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Viscount Rhi-Rhi

[Dun 68]

This thread seems to have a lot of confusion about sex vs. gender, which is a pretty important distinction to make here. Sex is a matter of characteristics like sex organs, chromosomes, and hormones (not at all a binary). Gender is obviously not that. I know a lot of folks aren’t well-versed in these things, but if you aren’t— there are tons of resources online! It’s interesting and important stuff.

 

As for the issue of banning trans characters from an animal RPG: If you’re essentially anthropomorphizing animals, while maintaining some of the ways in which they interact and navigate through the world, you’re dealing with sex and gender. There’s no reason why you couldn’t have trans animals. They occur in nature. Subverting the gender binary in some way is going to come up even if someone doesn’t decide to label their non-human character “trans”. Never mind that you might also have intersex characters in this context. There’s a fine line between a wolf you’d expect to produce pups deviating a bit from the social expectations associated with her body and a wolf you’d decide to call “trans”— squares and rectangles.

 

Banning trans characters is going to be a bad look whether you have malicious intentions or not. People are going to raise eyebrows, because it’s not a necessity and it’s not realistic to suggest these characters couldn’t possibly exist (certainly not more of a stretch than anthropomorphic  animals). It’s a choice to keep people from stepping outside the gender binary in your story, because you don’t want to deal with the inconvenience. If you want to do that— you totally can! It’s just to be expected that a lot of people will be confused and bothered.

 

If I was in this situation, I’d skip the unnecessary ban and focus my attention on anyone who decides to be transphobic or a metagamimg fit-thrower when faced with a character that doesn’t adhere strictly to the gender binary as it relates to animals in the game. I’d rather keep the player who explores issues of gender and sex in the context of the story and get rid of the ones who can’t play nicely with others.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Dun

[Shieb 47]

Okay, immediate thoughts:

Among every community, there are people who are easily offended or do not ask for context concerning rules or boundaries. If you keep the rule, understand that this will likely happen again. What you CAN do is figure out your best response.

I've tried playing/running a realistic animal site, and there will inevitably have to be allowances. An easy example is most animals don't just sit around and vocalize at each other to hold conversation. You can explain natural animal behaviours until you turn blue, but your players will always filter that through what they've lived as humans. Along that line of thinking, gender is a human construct. We're the ones who turned male and female parts into social roles, stereotypes, and red and blue sides of the toy aisle.

 

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect your members to understand that animals lack the social context of male and female that humans have; if you smell female, you're assumed female. Neither do I think it's unreasonable to play a character who feels like their body is all wrong. I DO think it's unreasonable for creatures who lack a human's understanding of gender to wonder what gender the person in front of them is, or to treat the animal differently because they feel differently.

Okay, personal opinions aside, here's how I feel as an admin:

I hate making rules just to address one person's issue. There will always be someone throwing a fit about something, and so long as you promote communication and fair play, you can address pretty much anything with a 'respect' or a 'staff discretion' rule. Guaranteed, not every trans character OR player is going to get upset because animals perceive things differently, and I don't want to punish them because one person doesn't understand. I hate conflict, so understand how important to me this is when I say I'd rather talk down someone with a bad attitude so their personal issues didn't destroy my site. I say this knowing that animal RPs  tend to attract dramatic players.

That said, this doesn't mean your rule against trans characters is invalid. You want to keep it, then go ahead and put down a little explanation of the kinds of in-character conflict this created, and how staff no longer wish to entertain that. Everything else is left to every new player's perceptions, which - like above - are filtered through their human experience, and you can't really control.

If you're just looking through reassurance, look: you're not biased, you're just tired.