Uaithne 543 Share Posted August 13, 2017 Hey guys, I've seen the RP community on this part of the internet move towards having characters and members provide "pronouns" rather than saying sex or gender. I understand that for the members, but I'm not sure about the characters. When I'm RPing with a member, pronouns are useful because then I know how to refer to that person. But when a character is interacting with another character, knowing gender/sex seems more intuitive to me. The last couple games I've played, the characters had to have biological sex stated for the sake of the RP, but in my new one, it's not going to be that big of an issue. This is a bit of a "new" topic for me. So I'm just a bit uncertain if I have characters state sex/gender instead of pronouns if it's going to throw everyone into a fit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freya 9 Share Posted August 13, 2017 For me I prefer pronouns, simply because sometimes it's not that easy to determine what sex or gender someone is. Some people are very androgynous by nature, or chooses to dress that way, other's may be transitioning or have not yet started or are finished. And it's also less confusing for those who might choose to play trans or other sort of genderqueer characters. For example a trans man's biological sex would be female, but his gender would be male, but whether his appearance is more masculine is feminine depends on whether he has chosen to be open about how he really feels and dresses like a man, uses a binder, etc. and whether he's started undergoing transitioning (not I'm not an expert on this area so forgive me if I make mistakes). Here pronouns are easier. And I'm not certain how gender is more intuitive than pronouns? As someone stating they're agender seems to be very similar as stating their preferred pronouns are e/eir or they/theirs. And I think maybe you're more referring to their appearance? Whether they look female or male. Which is more up to the avatar or the player's descriptions to communicate. I have a character that is agender, but through my descriptions and their avatar I've made it clear that they're slightly feminine in appearance, which means that most other characters refer to them by female pronouns IC until my character corrects them. But I've also played them on another site that due to the time period it was set in they went in for dressing masculine and looking like a man, or well boy, and I always made a point to describe that to players who hadn't interacted with them before and adding small hints like that they didn't have stubble and such. Players knowing that my character was biologically female there wouldn't have helped them much. In the end I don't think anyone is going to throw a fit, or maybe I'm fairly relaxed about it despite my preferences lying with pronouns. I just don't see how gender/sex would be more intuitive than pronouns. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icewolf 258 Share Posted August 13, 2017 I just stay away from sites which require me to choose pronouns over sex/gender because I know from experience that I will be unlikely to be happy there. I just want to write and like to avoid all the politics that surrounds the LGBTQ community, though I do recognize that they need a place where they (the writers) feel comfortable expressing themselves and explore the issues that matter to them. 2 2 1 Legends of Arda Character Archives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uaithne 543 Author Share Posted August 14, 2017 @Freya, the reason its more intuitive for me to go with sex/gender for characters is because the characters will find out through play what pronouns to use for people. If they refer to someone as the wrong pronoun because the person looks one way but uses an alternate pronoun, good for more in-character conflict. I see your point about the ones who don't distinctively fall into one category or another. What do you do on sites that request sex/gender? When it comes to using the avatar for appearance, I don't trust it 100%. There are times I use a PB, but my character doesn't look totally like that celebrity. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FriedKilamari 46 Share Posted August 16, 2017 On 8/13/2017 at 8:03 PM, Uaithne said: @Freya, the reason its more intuitive for me to go with sex/gender for characters is because the characters will find out through play what pronouns to use for people. If they refer to someone as the wrong pronoun because the person looks one way but uses an alternate pronoun, good for more in-character conflict. I see your point about the ones who don't distinctively fall into one category or another. What do you do on sites that request sex/gender? When it comes to using the avatar for appearance, I don't trust it 100%. There are times I use a PB, but my character doesn't look totally like that celebrity. This is something I agree with 100%, but there are a few things I'd like to add on, though this may be an unpopular opinion, so please take this with a grain of salt. I prefer the use of "standard" pronouns (she/her, he/him, they/them). These are universally understood, and a lot less complex than a lot of the "tumblr pronouns" (for lack of a better term). I'm personally turned off from roleplaying with characters that use complex pronouns (and refuse to allow other players to simply use they/them), simply because I don't have the time or energy to worry about messing them up. That and my own anxiety will eat at me in fear of getting it wrong. There's a lot more I could say on the topic, but I don't feel like opening the can of worms that is LGBTQ+ politics... 3 1 1 2 Antarsia | Guidebook When the Gods turn on their people, the tables turn. Where will you stand? Original High Medieval Fantasy || 3-3-3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post VirusZero 176 Popular Post Share Posted August 17, 2017 (edited) I don't care for the whole extra pronouns thing. (By that I mean beyond He/She/It or They.) Truth is I'm tired of this stuff and I'd rather it just go away. It seems like just attention seeking behaviour to me. A way for someone to attempt stand out and be special. And in the online world where things are, shall we say, easier to feign... It's not like they have to actually get any kind of diagnosis or prove anything to use whatever pronoun they want. It's instant special with no work. They can change at any time they want and use this to demand respect or even special treatment even in cases when it wouldn't be warranted. (EX- they are harassing someone, get called on it, use the excuse "they didn't use my pronouns". ) Plus there's really no risk to using it either since it's all online and they can say "well, you don't know" or "I can identify however I want". I've never seen/heard anyone use these extra ones in meatspace either. (Probably because any attempts to use them in real life would be met with people just refusing to humour this stuff. And I get the impression that most people, even those who try to push this extra pronoun stuff, realise this. Though I should also caution that I don't live in California nor do I attend university... so there may be simply fewer where I live that would even subscribe to this line of thinking.) About the only time I really would consider supporting alternative pronouns is in science fiction type games where aliens or other races exist that may not use a sexual dimorphic biology. (Maybe they have 4 sexes because that's how they evolved... Maybe they only have one like Mass Effect's Asari? Maybe they have 3?) But that's about the only case. I'm also tired of hearing about the hundred different genders. (Stop that please. I doubt my opinion here will be popular or really accepted at most other places... But at most there are 3 genders: Female, Intersex, Male.) Especially when you look at them and they're just some bullshit like "having properties of space"... Which means what exactly? No one really knows (I doubt the creator of that "gender" even knows what it means other than "hey, I want to be special too"). It's too nebulous and vague. Either that or people making these genders up are invoking Poe's law. (Poe's law, for those unfamiliar, is any sufficiently advanced sarcasm/parody is indistinguishable from actual extremism.) I actually kind of hope it's Poe's law at work... but regardless of whether it is or not there are people who buy it. Now relating this to the roleplay community as a whole. I think the rp community is too preoccupied with pronouns and catering to a relatively small sub sect of the population. I know this is going to sound cold... but the lbgt population is very small. I mean like less than 3% of the entire US population falls within the lgbt spectrum. Now sure when you scale that up to 330 million people means a fair few people... however, it's still only a small number compared to everyone else. And the amount of people that would use these special genders is a fraction of that at best. But whenever anyone talks about this, it gets blown way out of proportion. People think it's like 20% of people... not 3%. (Why does this happen? Because the more you talk about something the bigger an issue it seems like. People think "oh, well I keep hearing about this so it must affect a lot of people".) So as a result whenever they hear someone not going along with this kind of stuff they get extremely hostile over this in very short order. To make things worse there is often no reasoning with people on this kind of topic. The very fact there could be a dissenting/differing opinion is absurd to people. (It's like early on when it came to trigger warnings... people were truly shocked when others refused to use them.) It's either fall in line with my ideas or you're a sub-human/monster. (Very much the "social justice" influence at work.) Now let me be clear here: I'm not saying to hate on lgbt members, however I'm also not saying that just automatically entertaining crazy ideas like 300 new genders is a good idea either. (As mentioned previously, to me it seems like just attention seekers trying to ride the coattails of a movement/group/organization they otherwise have no part of.) No, there very much is a middle ground here where someone can not hate on lbgt yet still refuse to acknowledge something that people want to be part of the lbgt spectrum. (Kind of like how some lbgt people don't want to include straight allies as part of it. Others don't want to include transgender people.) Personally, if you want me to follow along then you need to get me some scientific proof that these exist before I'll believe you. But one crackpot on tumblr (because it seems like it's always tumblr where this stuff breeds) does not make a solid case/argument. Nor does it matter how many people claim they are some alternative gender. (If your argument starts with "I feel" then you have no argument. You have an anecdote. Anecdotes are not arguments. You typically cannot make an argument with feelings. If you want to prove something... Fuck your feelings, bring facts... Things that you can actually prove. ) Though I should also point out that my refusal to entertain these ideas is not an attack on anyone. My refusal to accept this does not invalidate them as a person, all it means is I'm not going along with their idea. They can still use it if they want, but don't expect me to. And I think that's perfectly fair. I don't expect anyone/everyone to go along with my ideas because different people and all that. If someone feels it is an attack then that's their problem (that they need to have everyone conform to their personal choices/ideas, we can't force them to accept things we want so why should they get to force us to accept what they want?). The issue is in their head. (Partly that: they even need these extra genders, they expect everyone to suddenly cater to them, any non-conformity is automatically an attack.) Which kind of leads me to my next point/contention with the roleplay community. Roleplayers tend to take minor issues and make huge ones out of them. A minor slight becomes a massive one. Hell, even a non-issue can be a slight. How many times have we seen roleplayers "reading between the lines" for situations and getting it completely wrong? For example someone signs off and they take it as though that person dislikes them even though there's no evidence of that and it could be a dozen things. Like they were on break at work and had to go back to work... Not all jobs let people chat/write during work. Which is part and parcel of another issue... that people can feel whatever they want. A person gets upset over a perceived slight (which is not a slight at all really) and lets it get to them, they hold onto that anger until it overflows. They also tend to play in zero sum situations... either it's completely and totally inclusive in all ways or it's a horribly restrictive Nazi war camp. (Because it's always Nazis.) Even when it's neither of those situations. The absence of love is not immediately hate... it's indifference. (Simply put, I may not love something but that doesn't automatically mean I hate it.) Edited September 14, 2017 by VirusZero Fixed up some of the sentences for clarity. 5 1 2 1 1 3 "There are three sides to every story... Your side, their side, and then somewhere in the middle is the truth." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hysteria 56 Share Posted August 17, 2017 (edited) When it comes to this sort of thing, I always thought mentioning the physical sex of the character was logically better than mentioning the pronouns of the character. Pronouns can be told in character or in a tracker-like thread that contains extra fun or interesting information, wheras the biological sex would be more important when concerning where the character stands in society, where it falls in a site gender/species chart (should your site have it) and whether or not another character would be sexually attracted to them. Since, you know romantic attraction is all well and good but parts still matter when pairing up two charries. So in short, Biological Sex (ie. gender) is good information in general, whereas pronouns seems like extra semi-helpful information that can be put somewhere else should people really care that much. Heck, it could even serve as just a thread subject or interesting mini-plot point. Real people in real life don't smear their pronouns all over themselves like honey, nor do they expect people to know them right off the bat. That's not how being social with a stranger works. People make mistakes with pronouns, but it's rare someone mistakes biological sex. Even with androgynous folks - very few can fully pass as the opposite gender, and those who do...well, that's a special case. A very sexy special case. ;) As far as gender goes...I'll try to keep this light: I believe that identity is important. What you believe in, what you don't believe in, and how you see yourself are all valid in some way, shape, or form. However, I do not believe that identity is worth bragging about nor do I believe one part of an identity (ie. gender identity) makes up an entire person's personality. So mentioning things like pronouns in a section that's supposed to sum up a character seems a bit...shallow to me. Why not make it like real life? Roleplays aren't dating sites. Heck, even when dating people don't find out I'm Genderflux --- most of my friends still don't know, because as important as my identity is to me (a real person in the real world) I don't think it's important to just tell people about it. People who identify as their biological sex don't tell folks, "Yo I'm a girl". It's just weird. I mean it's one thing to be prideful but it's another to be arrogant about it. Don't even get me started on the whole "Invalidating others opinions because they don't believe in the identity that you do" crap. Why does others opinions on how you see yourself and the world even matter...? I have one friend in particular who has flat out told me I'm crazy for my identity, and I STILL enjoy late night talks with them to this day. Even if we disagree on almost everything. It's just part of life. Keep in mind I say "you" as a general audience and not as a direct assault. Anyway... Oh look, I said I'd make it light and I rambled. Whoopsie ~ But hey, overall, that's just my "tiny" opinion. Edited August 17, 2017 by Hysteria Typo, clarity 3 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uaithne 543 Author Share Posted August 17, 2017 Thanks for the insight, all. I like seeing a variety of thoughts. For the time being on my site, I have it so that people can put sex or gender or pronouns. The only reason is because it's in the mini profile, and you can't do pronouns for members and sex for characters. Ah, well. But I'm still interested in hearing people's thoughts. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Morrigan 1,826 Admin Share Posted August 17, 2017 @Uaithne Actually you can. It requires some fun and creative mini-profiling javascript but it's definitely possible! I recently started tooling around with Jcinks stuff and am having fun putting together separate profiles. I have even successfully hidden unnecessary fields from character accounts and hidden character fields from OOC accounts. 2 Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Rune 1,099 Popular Post Share Posted August 17, 2017 I honestly find putting a place for pronouns for either IC or OOC absolutely ridiculous. IC, the other individual will write he/she so you can infer from that. OOC, they'll correct you and then it's set. How often do you talk about someone you don't know with pronouns? It's usually "Is Bob still around?" Or using "them" habitually. That and the vast majority of forum RPers seem to be female, so calling everyone "she" until corrected is probably not going to get you yelled at. And, honestly, if someone yells at you, we're on the Internet. We can't see you. We have no way of knowing what gender your text is. Unless your setting divides genders by roles or whatever, it shouldn't play that big a part in it. 2 1 2 2 Heart of the Community 2018 Cry Wolf - 18+ AU Mercy Thompson (Urban Fantasy) RP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Josie 198 Popular Post Share Posted August 18, 2017 (edited) This is a great topic, thank you for creating it @Uaithne! And thank you to everyone else for contributing your opinions; they have been enlightening to read. Lastly, thank you for submitting your responses calmly, and for not turning this thread into a screaming match. Unfortunately that happens all too often, and it is beautiful to see that it has not happened here. I am going to recount my experiences with using sex/gender/pronouns in roleplay, and then share what I have learned based on those experiences. When I made my first forum (five years ago), I had a "gender" field. This eventually became cause for some issue, as I did not understand what the word "gender" meant, and thought it was interchangeable with "sex"- which it is not, by their very definitions. I had members who corrected me on my ignorance, but this only exacerbated the situation. Due to the setting and types of characters involved, it was the biological sex of the character that mattered- and not their gender identity. This was because it would be readily apparent to all characters what the biological sex of another character was, no matter what measures the character might have taken in order to mask it. We had a talk about everything (admittedly not a very friendly one, from all sides), wherein the members that explained to me that gender =/= sex expressed that they felt that switching the field to "sex" instead of "gender" limited their character creation options. I said something that amounted to: "Fuck you, this is what I'm doing," and I did it. The "gender" field got corrected to the "sex" field, and those members wound up leaving because of it, and because of the lack of tact I had in dealing with the situation. I remain remorseful over how we parted to this day, for even if we disagreed and did not get along, it was not my intention to wound them. I wish I had had the experience and knowledge to deal with the situation with more respect and care. After this happened, I had read many a topic on other resource sites regarding this exact thing. I cannot say that anything I read there helped me form my opinion, since most things were shared in a toxic and hostile manner. But in going forward, my own personal experience was always at the forefront of my mind when creating my next new site and world to play in. I started using a 'pronouns' field, or used that in combination with the other two as well: preferred pronouns, sex, and gender. I still was not entirely happy with this method for a couple of reasons. (1) It created a lot of confusion. I was not the only person who had to learn that sex =/= gender, and I found that it had to be explained quite often, and it was annoying to have to repeat myself often even if the topic isn't one that upsets me. (2) This provoked players into considering something about their character that they hadn't known existed 7 seconds ago. If their gender identity is not their sex, then what is it? Do they line up, or not? What are the options? It was fun to see people think about their characters in a different light, however this also made me impatient- since I just wanted to roleplay with them already, damnit! (3) It boiled down to being too much work- for me, and for players. It happened plenty of times that instead of figuring out what their character was, they didn't make any decisions and simply left instead. Despite the fact that this did not work out as smoothly as I had expected it to, it also did not end in any hurt feelings (that I know of) and the only ill feelings I had myself were in regards to not having figured out a way to manage this to my satisfaction. I continued to read topics about this, and although I found most of it to be about as insightful as microwaved garbage, I decided through reading them that the next time I made a site, I would only use "pronouns." This is the method I feel I have had the most success with. I have had no complaints (to my face, anyway), and no hurt feelings (that I know of). I have used it on the last three sites I've created, all of which I consider to be successes and am happy with. Using "pronouns" instead of "sex" has led to some interesting characters and stories. Since then, I have encountered: a biological female from a strongly military culture. This character's gender identity, based on their culture, was "male" by default, and they were raised as such. This was the preferred pronoun selected for the character, and was also what the character referred to themselves as. Due to the strict culture this character came from, they could never share the fact with anyone else that they actually felt like a female- it was a secret they kept close to their hearts, and was afraid of anyone else finding out about; a biological male who made zero effort to portray themselves as their gender identity (female, also the preferred pronouns selected for them). They were often called "he/him" by others ICly, and whenever this happened they would correct the person but express that it was no trouble, they did look like a man after all; one of @SusieQ's terrifying spirit creatures, using the pronoun 'it,' as it had no gender; @Freya's aforementioned characters and the experiences following them; and, a few trans canon characters from certain fandoms. Each character was unique in the way it was presented, and each player has unique ways in which they present information on the character- which did not disallow confusion from other characters, and which did not assume that other characters would immediately know to refer to the character by their preferred pronouns. One of @Freya's characters in particular got called by female pronouns all the time even though the pronouns section on their profile said "they/them/their," because they looked female and there was no way in hell they would be correcting their superior officers on anything- who weren't likely to have obliged, either. In spite of using "pronouns" instead of "sex" or "gender," it still allowed players to lie, deceive, and be unreliable narrators in the best ways possible. These collective experiences have taught me the following: "Sex" is not the same as "gender." The character's preferred pronouns do not have to match with their gender identity. That means that a character can be called "he" in the posts written by that character's player, but the character can still feel that their gender is female. The same thing is true of using "sex" as well. Although a character may be anatomically female, there is nothing that stops the narrator from calling the character "he" in their posts. Sex, gender, pronouns, and the differences between them, are weapons in the arsenal of character creation and, when used effectively, tell compelling stories. When you use "pronouns," people might either seriously or jokingly confuse it for things like "Your Highness" and "handsome." This has happened a few times, and it's the only times when I felt like people were using "pronouns" to be special and receive extra attention. In all my time roleplaying on forums, I have crossed only seven characters whose gender identities do not match up with their biological sex (to my knowledge). They do not appear often. Out of those seven characters, I felt that only one was doing it to be "special" and for extra attention. Whether you use "sex," "gender," or "pronouns," you are not limiting the creation of these characters- only changing the way in which they are presented. Communication ICly and OOCly (or a lack of it) is the most important thing, as it is in all other areas of life. If you meet this topic with anger and resistance, then you will be met by others with anger and resistance. Everyone has a different way of approaching this topic and handling it ICly; some players will always use a character's preferred pronouns in the narration of their posts, even if their character might not in dialogue. The gender of my own characters does not matter to me, it matters to the character. I cannot say that I will always use "pronouns," going forward. Perhaps I will find something else which I am more comfortable with. But for now, I am happy with using "pronouns" instead of "sex" or "gender" on my games. I am happiest with the end result this way, of all the things I have tried. Edited August 18, 2017 by Josie 5 1 1 1 2 WANTED: flamboyantly rich & famous family members, workers for a creepy foundation, & an AI handler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CovertSphinx 710 Share Posted August 19, 2017 I opt to let the profile creator handle the Sex/Gender/Pronoun issue however they want. They can call the field whichever they prefer, and even list multiple ("Sex - Male, Gender - Female" ) if they want. Then again, this only comes up in the actual profiles on my site, as what people do with their personal miniprofiles isn't a concern there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinx 5 Share Posted September 13, 2017 I like the trend OOC since some aliases are harder to interpret than others, and I don't like misgendering people when I can help it. As far as IC goes, if you need to know their pronouns...you could read the narrative the player writes and use what they do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
featherstone 69 Share Posted September 14, 2017 On 17/08/2017 at 9:39 PM, Morrigan said: @Uaithne Actually you can. It requires some fun and creative mini-profiling javascript but it's definitely possible! I recently started tooling around with Jcinks stuff and am having fun putting together separate profiles. I have even successfully hidden unnecessary fields from character accounts and hidden character fields from OOC accounts. Not sure about jcink, but on MyBB you can absolutely have different fields for different usergroups. As for the original question. On my first board, I had (still have) "gender" as an app field. You could put whatever identity you deemed appropriate for your character. I never asked about one's physical attributes, for the same reason I didn't ask for other features that weren't immediately apparent. You tell me what you consider relevant, anyway. On my new board I have pronouns for both IC and OOC profiles. OOC, so that I know what I should call you. IC - same: I often write ST posts where I say "As he walked past x, he could see y", so knowing pronouns is practical for that. Other aspects of one's identity are covered by a char's description. If the point is how a character would appear IC, that goes under Appearance, not under sex or gender. When I meet you, I don't see your "gender", I see how you look, and that's what I need for RP purposes. 1 UNMASQUED Vampires are real. Now the world knows about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uaithne 543 Author Share Posted September 14, 2017 Now that we're talking about it, it occurred to me that I've only seen one site (not including sites with aliens) that had characters with atypical pronouns. I suppose so many of us fear we will exclude people or others will look unfavorably on us if we aren't "inclusive" even though no one seems to really need this option. (Some people do, but clearly a negligible number.) 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts