Gender. Is it offensive?

[Xigo]

Can we go back to the idea about letting people private discussion for these sort of things?

[Krent]

Wellp. My previous post is getting too much love and praise. So, I'm gonna argue against it.

Why? 'Cause.

One of the most important things to remember--and it is something that I forget myself, from time to time--is that COTH is a private community. More so, COTH is a private community set in the realm of the internet; meaning that it is a place that is not limited to any public sphere, or national constitution, or even cultural hegemony.

While North American ideals are dominant (this server and many who run/play it live in the US), it isn't necessarily bound to a social contract, system of governance, or anything of that sort.

We're kind of a mash-up of various communities, various cultures, nations, identities, and...stuff, colliding into one another. And even amongst our nations, we all fall into niche internet-cliques, with their own spiraling set of ideals, identities, beliefs, behaviors, and everything.

What am I getting at?

The sort of freedoms and protections that exist in our respective civilizations do not apply on COTH. COTH is a private enterprise, run and maintained by the hard work of volunteers.

Volunteers. Every GM, forum helper, admin and other authority figure does all of this without any real obligation to. They're not paid an hourly wage, nor are they bound by any legal contract; it's something that they do because they want to.

We, as players, are not entitled to anything, really. If we were paying customers, or if COTH was a government agency bound by a constitution or something similar, we would. But, as it stands now--COTH is entirely a private enterprise, and we are free to participate or not participate in it according to our own volition.

Taking all of that into consideration, "because we (the collective 'we' being the Administration) said so" is a perfectly valid reason for any ruling here, really. And I don't say this with any snarky sarcasm, or irony, or subversion; I earnestly believe that it's a logical conclusion.

If the collective administration decides to divvy things up into what's "acceptable" and "not acceptable," and enforce things to that degree--they can. The Administration's say is final, and the nature of COTH makes it legitimate.

That's partially why I've stayed here for so long. Even when I've disagreed with GM decisions, rulings, and policy (and believe me, I've made maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany posts disagreeing with everything and everyone, at one point or another), I recognize the fact that COTH is a private enterprise run by volunteers who are under no obligation or contract to service my needs.


And, all things considered, the fact that--despite the private agency of COTH--topics are still open to discussion and debate is pretty great.

Even if we ritualistically drag out the same dead horses for another round of shooting, burning, bludgeoning, beating, and detonation--the fact that we're still allowed to reasonably do it is kind of great.

Plus I like getting the chance to sound smart in front of an audience. I'm addicted to it. It validates me.

So...yes. Let's all take that into consideration, regardless of how you fall on this--or any other--issue. Remain civil, calm, and collected. Even if you disagree things, don't despair. I've seen many things change on this server. Sometimes for the worse, but mostly for the better.

Edit: I forgot to post a youtube music video. People go crazy for that, for some reason.

Have some meditative trance. And think about things.

Spoiler:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBK2xImmIB8

[Grakor456]

So, after sleeping on it and giving it some more thought, I've a few more things to add to this discussion.

First of all, I agree with something Krent said but with a different interpretation: while no one can speak for everyone, -because- you don't really know everything about any one person they should be free to speak about social issues with their own opinions. You don't know: maybe X is Y, or maybe X knows someone who is Y and that person is important to them, or X deals with people who are Y professionally or through volunteer work, or or or...

Point being, people should be free to offer their opinions, regardless of what community they readily ascribe to or not. Now, we are free to disagree with said opinions (and I'm about to disagree with some opinions here in a minute), but there should be no stifling of people's opinions about whether or not they find something offensive. We're all friends here.

THAT SAID, I'm going to table the argument about trans* characters for the moment because that is a different thing than what the original posters were talking about. To my understanding, the reason this rule is being challenged is because of the particular case that it was constructed around (100% male that happens to be feminine) and therefore I will be addressing that.

Now, to my understanding of why this is being brought up, we're not dealing with a case where a character's gender or sexual identity is not being properly represented. The characters are male and identify as male. At best, one might argue that it stifles gender expression, but what this seems to ultimately come down to is character aesthetic. Someone asked if this would hurt anything if we simply allowed people to choose for themselves without oversight, and to answer that I want to diverge a moment and talk about another situation we found ourselves in not that long ago.

We had an argument that, effectively, was also about a strong dislike of a particular aesthetic. I will not name names and I would appreciate if no one else did either, but ultimately the argument came down to "I want to play a forest troll, but I don't want to use the forest troll model because I hate it aesthetically. I want to use the jungle troll model instead." The staff answer to this was effectively "No," but our reasons are often the same here as they were then.

First of all, the biggest issue here is readability. It is precisely because not everyone has TRP2 that it's important that everyone's model accurately reflects (or as close to it as possible) what that person is. "I don't care how thin your forest troll is, he is a forest troll and therefore should use the forest troll model." In the case of the trolls, there are more differences between forest and jungle trolls than just build: there's also skin tone and other small tell-tale signs that can be seen ICly. In the case of sex, males are still built in particular ways different from females, so regardless of how thin and non-muscular your male is, he is still going to be built as a man, or at best be androgynous. This is why the "trade one extreme for another" argument comes up: your man, no matter how feminine he looks or how nice he looks in a dress, isn't going to look like the female model either. The lack of breasts is a big part of that. Barring some pretty extreme cases, generally a man has to go through a fair bit of work to actually look like a woman.

Model readability is a big part of a number of our past rulings, and is part of why there is hesitation to change this rule. While the "slippery slope" argument is a fallacy, it is nonetheless one that people are afraid of having to argue about because we inherently don't want people playing one race and claiming they are another (barring obvious exceptions like disguised demons). Similarly, I don't think anyone wants to deal with "X is a man but with a feminine build" characters that identify as male and make a point of not showing any feminine gender expression. This rule was formed largely because of characters that were effectively "Idiot, I'm a man, and I'm insulted you think otherwise! STOP POINTING OUT THAT I'M WEARING FEMALE CLOTHES FOR KAWAII CUTENESS, I'M A MAN ARGHGLGRLGRLG!"

So then the question that follows is "Why not offer exceptions for characters where this is more valid?" And the answer is "Man, do you know how hard that is to do fairly?" As it is, CotH is already a place that receives heavy criticism for the massive amounts of red tape, applications, applications for applications, special profiles, and generally too many instances of attempted quality control that end up resulting in spending more time on the forums trying to get your character passed than actually playing the character. Now, that's not to say we can't add more to it, but we really don't want to unless we have to. (Really, I'm of the opinion we should probably be cutting down on some of this red tape where possible, but that's a discussion for another thread.)

The fairness problem is also hard. If special profiles have taught me anything, it's that we sometimes have a really hard time just saying "No." It just leads to edit after edit until the profile looks somewhat okay and we're tired of arguing about it...and then the player ends up playing the character in a way we didn't want anyway the moment he/she thinks we aren't looking. And, ultimately, how do you tell someone "I think this character is offensive/only-here-for-the-fetish and it's never going to pass"?

(And let me clarify: I'm not against fetish in general. Wave your freak flag high, man, we've all got them and I'm the last person to judge you for what you like. But, we do want characters to be more than just fetish vehicles.)

Now, it may just be that I'm having a harder time empathizing with this particular problem: I'm a gay male that's perfectly secure in his sexuality and gender identity, and likes playing the big, blocky man types, so I'm perfectly happy with things as they are. However, I'm not a stranger to having problems with an aesthetic and that getting in the way of a character I'd like to play: I actually do like troll lore, but I have extreme difficulty actually playing them because I find the jungle troll model painfully anorexic to look at. In that case, I just either deal with it or play something else (as my large number of orcs attests to.)

Can this all change? Maybe, but it seems to me that it'd be really hard to get all of these problems fixed. I'm not discounting the possibility, but it'd take a lot of effort.

[SachikoMaeda]

Plenty of sleep and a new day. For this, I bring evidence from this thread Scout shared earlier in which, essentially, the exact same thing was asked for and got plenty of support.

Edit: Darnit, Grak, stop sniping me.

Edit edit: Medical conditions do exist that can cause males to develop breasts just as some that cause males to develop female secondary traits. There are also some that cause women to gain male-like secondary traits.

[Wuvvums]

That old thread I made still emphasizes gender identity and characters that focus on trying to present themselves a certain way. This thread has not been about gender presentation, but wanting to play a particular body type.

[Grakor456]

Edit edit: Medical conditions do exist that can cause males to develop breasts just as some that cause males to develop female secondary traits. There are also some that cause women to gain male-like secondary traits.

While true, I wasn't dealing with exceptional cases like this. Is this relevant to any of the characters in question?

[SachikoMaeda]

It could be relevant. However, I'm going to step away from the thread again. Getting points down now to me feels a lot like....

[Harmonic]

Honestly, if it really hurts people bad enough, maybe we should implement it. Obviously the main points people are trying to convey is that unless we've gone through it... we can't really empathize. Along with that, they'd like us to consider it because really... we don't have much a foundation to go on.

I just say as long as they handle it like any other description to there character, fine. It's up to others if they exclude them from RP or not... which goes hand in hand with communication and the idea you can't -force- people to RP with you. That's rather a non-issue, nor has it been in the past with the exclusion of a few incidents that had been handled in the long run.

If we get a flood of joke characters, or if someone is "offended" by that because it mimicks too closely their own real life instances... perhaps we should discuss it when or if that pops up, instead of assuming it will?

It's difficult, because it's not easy to assume how everyone will react. Krent also brought up how that there is a non-vocal group on these points... and he's very right. Do you oust yourself, or stay silent and feel crappy for doing so? The problem is... that can go both ways.

You could have people that desperately want this to happen, but don't want to talk about it... or people that are offended, that also don't... for the reasons that this mimicks too close to life.

Hard... hard stuff. And I agree Sachi... but we also have a rule against RPing psychological medical conditions that could be seen as harmful... and gynocomastia can affect people mentally as well as physically. Again, I can't speak for people that -have- those problems, and it seems like no one wants those of us that don't have those issues to speak for them...

But not a darn person in here can speak for a group on a whole... even if they belong in it. So how the heck do we approach this? Sadly, I think the consensus of the GM team will remain "We do what we always have been doing", because honestly it's not as if there is a huge, overwhelming outcry for this to happen.

Though, I'll support it if it does. Just I'll be blantantly honest and say I have -not a clue- on what it could do.





Seems sleep was good for all of us.

[Rigley]

It could be relevant. However, I'm going to step away from the thread again. Getting points down now to me feels a lot like....

Personally I don't think anyone's been too unreasonable with the arguments thus far.

Referring to the conditions you posted though, I'm not certain that even with Klinefelter's you'd have a character that is -that- incidentally feminine. The key matter to me is thus:

If you're playing a male character who wishes to be a male, then they will most likely not pass as a woman. Really, without effort I doubt you could hit that mark. But that's just my gut feeling on that.

[Loxmardin]

The biggest issue for me when considering things like these is that as things go, exceptions generally stop being exceptions and someone's going to fall between the chairs no matter where we draw the line. And I think most of us can agree, on both sides, that even if this sort of thing was to be opened up with special applications and whatnot... a line would have to be drawn somewhere.

And it's extremely difficult to draw that line and be fair to everyone because instead of dealing with a situation like the one we have now (where it just isn't happening), we'd be dealing with "but why were they allowed and I wasn't?". Like Grakor touched upon earlier, we already seem to have difficulty saying "no", and an especially delicate issue like this one where it quickly gets very personal (as we've seen)... How could we draw a line anywhere?

EDIT: Believe me, if you have a good suggestion on how to regulate this from a moderator standpoint, feel free to shoot it our way and we will most definitely consider it. While we can go in circles arguing for the morality of the rule's existance and the experiences of people going through this in RL... There is still the issue of realizing this in a way that not only doesn't hurt people but also restricts this to protect both sides of this discussion.

[SachikoMaeda]

It's not unreasonable, it's just absolutely frustrating.

I have my breakfast now, so I'm a bit more calm. So, I'll come across a few points.

Once again I feel as though I'm having to justify my character. I've been doing that for years, so please try to understand my frustration. I shouldn't have to publicly say "yes, I do have a character that is gender-queer and wish to change models". I shouldn't have to post links to real medical conditions. I shouldn't have to defend my designs. I shouldn't have to defend or justify my character and no one should have to defend or justify their character.

This thread has not been about gender presentation, but wanting to play a particular body type.

This was my original intention with said character. Playing a specific body type. I shouldn't have to drag in gender identity when defining my own character, but yes. The character in question is indeed gender-queer. He doesn't identify with any gender whatsoever.

However. I simply choose to have a body type that closely resembles what the character appears. Others may wish to have a model that represents how their characters wish to identify. That is up to them. Maybe, just maybe, it could help the player come to terms with their own personal struggles.

I've spent my life RPing. It helped me learn a lot about myself. It helped me realize that maybe I did need help for my own problems. It helped me realize I'm not alone in this world and I can actually go for help. RP can possibly have that effect on others. I simply don't feel it right to have to constantly defend a character's appearance, gender, or anything, just as we shouldn't have to defend our own gender, appearance, or anything.

[Esthrunil]

The point is that there are people with natural body-types that do not reflect their sex or gender identity. These people also, in some cases, do not decide to compensate with particular behavior or manners of dress. There are people who are easily seen as women who identify as men, and were assigned so at birth.

Gender Identity and Sex are not particularly black-and-white subjects. I do not feel that pushing a character who is regularly read as a woman to be made with a man's character model - even when that character identifies as a man - is a good decision. It removes from a lot of the character's experiences, and yes, misgendering is one of those.

Furthermore, saying that these are exceptional cases as a reason to not address them feels somewhat out of place, when we've recognized that our characters can be exceptional - though not to a lore-figure's degree. It's not necessary for there to be a condition for a person to develop differently than what is typical of their sex - some men have naturally low testosterone and/or a predisposition for feminine development, and vice versa. It's not all that exceptional to be androgynous to the point where you are often read as a gender you don't identify as. Coming from someone assigned male at birth, I have a figure pre-hormones such that I usually only get read as a man in public because I do absolutely nothing re: make-up and because my voice is a bit heavy.

I understand the desire to prevent conflict and issues from unnecessary joke characters, I truly do. I feel I must reiterate, however, that I do not feel that barring people who use characters they have some measure of identity with through physical characteristics from being able to do so, is the way to go.

[Harmonic]

Speaking for myself, this can of worms is getting really difficult and confusing.

How on Earth can we cater to everyone in this scenario? Is it really as simple as letting people play male or female characters soley based on appearance and not gender? Because... it honestly is starting to sound more complicated than that.

[Scout]

Out of curiosity, how much prevalence has there been for the abuse of OOC gender being used to just portray a feminine man or masculine woman? I can think of one example, but only one, and I know there have been many more characters of this nature than that in CotH's history. Is it just the one, or is there more?

[Grakor456]

Once again I feel as though I'm having to justify my character. I've been doing that for years, so please try to understand my frustration. I shouldn't have to publicly say "yes, I do have a character that is gender-queer and wish to change models". I shouldn't have to post links to real medical conditions. I shouldn't have to defend my designs. I shouldn't have to defend or justify my character and no one should have to defend or justify their character.

I think you may need to dial back your personal frustration on this a little bit. This may sound bad, but trust me I don't mean it this way: I don't think anyone is currently really caring about Doran specifically. If you think I was targeting you in my past post, I apologize, but my comment was about a different character entirely.

Furthermore, saying that these are exceptional cases as a reason to not address them feels somewhat out of place, when we've recognized that our characters can be exceptional

No one is saying they can't be addressed, but exceptional circumstances involve different responses. I don't see why it is unreasonable to accept that an exceptional circumstance may have a different response than a usual circumstance. Frankly, if your character -does- have breasts, as an example, I think that changes a good number of things and the necessary response would be entirely different.

I would also suggest everyone read the post by @"Loxmardin" above. We're not saying "this will never change." We're saying "changing this involves some potentially negative side-effects and repercussions, and we don't know how to handle those yet." I think a productive way to continue this discussion, if you want to see change, is putting forth how you want to see the change conducted that would help allay the problems expressed in my and Loxy's posts.