Character Gender-Bending

Toddo said:
The rules about disguise are for IG trying to pass as another race. You are allowed IG to dress as a member of the opposite sex. The question here is about playing against your OOG gender.
If we take the Racial rule (you MUST look like your race) as a guideline, you MUST look like your gender. So, ¿what does it mean to 'look' like a woman? a man? Once upon a time, it was a matter of skirts and cosmetics - well, lotsa women wear britches, and lotsa men wear make-up. So, if Hengin the Barabarian is wearing a kilt (he does, by the way - it's way swank), is ¿he breaking the "no dressing up as something you're not rule"? If the system is designed so that any player can look and instantly know what they're looking at, ¿where does that leave the confused issue of PC/Character gender-bending? When I look at a person in pants and a loose shirt, my Character should instantly know their Race and Gender, but ¿what if the Player can't tell?

I'm not saying this is an issue. Most PCs are dressed in either a fairly androgenous or slightly Medieval-masculine manner; and the "No Sexism in Alliance" rule makes any difference basically moot. I'm just saying it's a sticky wicket.
 
My beloved is M to F TG and she is allmost completly "real", she is still pre op but the world knows her for her, not a him-her...
when i 1st got her to play alliance this question came up and i was told she could not play the opisit sex of that born of inless TG.
this did not afect her other then at that time she was still coming out of the closit to some people.
but let me throw this out there if she had been forced to play a man i can tell you this she would not of been playing the game and being a raguler sight at events as ether a NPC or PC for the last 2+ years....
limiting the freedomes of people is never a good way to avritize that they are wellcome.
I am happy thay had no problem with her, and evry one was wellcomeing, heck now we have female to male TG raguler NPC allso.
and, a staff mimber who likes his dresses for RP npcs... worlock...
he begin doing this because of the lack of female NPCs and i completely an glad for it its sucks being in a town where all you see are males.
the TG community is vary welcome in are chapter you can blame it on being in California if you want to, but the truth is its a lot more comen place now then people think.

As for for playing the opposite sex just for fun...do it with taste fis rep it so gender can be identify from 10 feet a way weather this means make up to look like you have suitable for females playing males or fake breasts under the clothing of men playing women, if you can do it respectful then HAVE FUN or that is my thoughts.

as for playing a woman pretending to be a man or the opposite, dress up so you look say female and then plaster a overly obvious cheesy mustache on poof a goo way of making you look like your pretending to dress as the opposite is for it to clash or lack realization.
 
:p
Heh, Mike, I already tried that - an ultra-feminine, aristocratic lady biata named Minah... After one event I couldn't handle it anymore and I killed off the character.
 
I have a problem with someone not being allowed to play their gender because of their sex. Biology doesn't have to determine gender in real life so why would we force biology to determine gender in game?

And we should ask the owners to make it official. There's really no good reason to tell people they have to play a certain gender because of their biology.

kittenpunk2 said:
My beloved is M to F TG and she is allmost completly "real", she is still pre op but the world knows her for her, not a him-her...
when i 1st got her to play alliance this question came up and i was told she could not play the opisit sex of that born of inless TG.
The wording here can get confusing. What sex you play should never be an issue since we don't run around naked. So if they said you can't play a certain sex I'd say that makes no sense - no one can play their biology. As I already mentioned if they try to tell you what gender to play, that's just wrong. Gender is too personal a choice to let others decide for you.


Ren Suzume said:
Would it be allowed for a player to play a character of the opposite gender?
Personally I would say play whatever gender you want. To me, at least, it's a basic human right. Now if your gender is X and you want to play Y (biological sex should have nothing to do with it) I say 'why not?' Every day I choose to act like a lady or a man or somewhere in between.
 
In our representative game, how do we distinguish between when Mike V wants to play a sassy black woman, and when he wants to play a white man dressed and made up like a sassy black woman?
 
TG, imo, falls under the non-discrimination policy.
 
That's all well and good (seriously), but we play a game where you can't grow out your sideburns to play a hobling, you have to have fake ones. You can't play a human suffering from liver failure, or a human with a beard unless you actually grow out a beard. The things we use to physrep being "not a dude in costume" have a technical meaning and value that informs other players what part of the consensual delusion they're looking at. Ergo, what technical requirements should exist in order to inform players what they're looking at (transvestite vs someone playing opposite their gender)?
 
I think there are three points going on here and should be clarified before anyone comes off as insensitive.

Should players be allowed to play characters who are one sex masquerading as another?

I say no. Way too much confusion from an OOG standpoint and with the gender equality of the world, this story doesn't really need to be told here.

Should players be allowed to play characters that are the opposite sex of the player on a whim/lark or to explore story?

Maybe. I can see where players may want to explore this, but it could lead to confusion as well.

Should transgendered players be allowed to play characters that are the sex/gender of what their gender is without the possibility of being offended by having a list of requirements that equate to them 'passing'?

Absolutely. Anything less is discrimination.
 
The differences between sexes have no meaning in a world with mandated sexual equality. That is, there shouldn't be any restriction on whether you play a man, a woman, anything in between, or anything outside - sex in Fortannis is irrellevant to anything besides determining which parent carries the offspring (and even that is up for grabs since Kin could, theoretically, have any number of procreative methods and ¿who knows how Dryads reproduce?). For all -social- intents and purposes, every character is neuter.

Furthermore, playing transvestites of any flavour shouldn't matter either. Gender is just as irrelevant as sex, since gender equality is also mandated. It doesn't matter whether this person walking up to me looks like a man, a woman, or parts of either - the Alliance rules will not allow me to change how I treat them because of their gender. In effect, there is no "gender" in Alliance - every person just is. While players might stumble over masculine or feminine pronouns, characters wouldn't - and any discomfort or confusion from distinguishing gender characteristics should just be ignored. So, for all -social- intents and purposes, every character is also androgynous.

But, Jim is right, no Chapter should exclude someone from playing whatever sex they desire. I don't think there's even a place on the character-sheet indicating sex; so, really, it's a moot issue.
 
As the previous posts states, it does not matter what the gender of someone's character is. I'll elaborate from a rules standpoint:

The rules on race and racial markers are specifically for in-game effects as part of the game rules (racial abilities, race-based plot, etc). There are no in-game effects that rely on gender in any way. Even the love effect is listed as "the appropriate sex," and that does not necessarily mean heterosexuality. As a Rules Marshal, I read that as appropriate to one's character.

Just as out-of-game religion is a personal choice that must be respected at all times in- and out-of-game, so are gender self-identifications. As Sarah pointed out, this goes under Non-Discrimination policy (ARB page 29):

There is no discrimination allowed against
players in our game. You cannot be denied a
position as a noble, a member of the army or
any other plot-sponsored group on the basis of
your out-of-game race, religion, gender, age (as
long as you’re old enough to play), handicap,
sexual orientation, or country of origin.

This is further clarified under the Sexual Harassment policy on ARB page 35:

Sexual Harassment or other forms of
Discrimination. This is pretty obvious, and is
a direct violation of the Code of Conduct. No
one in our game is to be harassed or discriminated
against based on race, sex, sexual orientation,
country of origin, or religion.
The bottom line is that we are trying to
run a fair, fun game for as many players as possible
and this requires PCs to respect other PCs.
 
I have the solution. All women who wish to play men must wear fake mustaches. All men who wish to play women must wear fake eyelashes. No one else may wear these costume items.

Brilliant!

In all seriousness, the question still stands, how do I distinguish otherwise? Using Amelia as an example (she started the thread and I am certain she'll be okay with the example... she can kick my butt later if she isn't), I have seen her wearing very masculine clothing. But, while she may occasionally look somewhat androgynous, there are certain features she can't hide. I am not talking hips or breasts here, I am talking the lines and curvature of her face. They are feminine lines and her face also doesn't have the slightest hint of facial hair. Furthermore, she is TINY in a way that men VERY rarely are. So, unless explicitly told otherwise, my initial impression of her in just about anything would be female.

The solution I started this post with was mostly tongue-in-cheek, but with a grain of truth. Without some identifier, cross-dressing is indistinguishable for opposite gender.

-MS
 
I don't see what the problem is. What does it matter what sex someone is? confused IG? ask... I regularly see scavvies and sarrs with such excellent makeup and armor... i can't tell OOG who is under there let alone what sex. And if they don't where pink ribbons in their fur, I can't tell if it's a girl kitty or a boy kitty. I'd have no issue IG playing it off (logically) that i don't know how to tell the difference between that races sexes.
 
I have no intention of being insensitive here and if I come off that way I apologize in advance.

This seems, to me, to be an argument simply for argument's sake. Granted I'm new to this game but have played other RP games such as D&D and WoW and have never run into a situation where I said to myself "I wish I was playing a chick/guy because that would have gone over so much better." I highly doubt the plot writers would create sexually discriminatory plot either. I understand the point of this game is to "be all that you can't be" and that is well and fine but ultimately what it comes down to, your character is still you and would not be who it was if it wasn't you. If you are gay, straight, bi, transgendered or a transvestite it really shouldn't matter as far as plot and definitely doesn't matter as far as combat. Even with a love potion or a spell of some sort that causes somebody to fall in love with you or you with them it shouldn't matter because love is about emotions not physical features. I understand if you want to be a girl playing a guy or a guy playing a girl, so why not be just that as your character, since what it really comes down to in the end is you are who you are and should be proud of it and screw anybody who tries to make you feel like crap about it.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong but I think being yourself should be a little more important to people than the storyline.
 
i think I'd file that under "you probably haven't wanted to do it so you don't exactly understand why anyone would" category. I am sure this is not a majority issue... not many people consider this idea, but when you see players performing great opposite gender roles as NPCs over and over, you start to wonder why they don't just make a PC like that.

I'd rather the player be happy playing the character they want to play than just playing themselves for who they are because that's how the real world works.
 
Robb Graves said:
I don't see what the problem is. What does it matter what sex someone is? confused IG? ask...
Because our rules don't allow for such confusion with races, and the logic that applies there applies equally to sex. I can't play a human with a big bushy beard unless I grow a big bushy beard because there's no way to distinguish between me in a fake beard as a dwarf vs me in a fake beard as a dude with a beard. By the same token, how do you distinguish between me wearing a dress to represent a girl vs me in a dress to represent a transvestite? How do you distinguish between me with bags of wet sand in a bra to rep a woman vs the same thing to rep a dude wearing bags of wet sand in a bra?

The rules do distinguish between men and women in two specific instances: Love and Love 9. Both require that I fall in love with someone "of the appropriate sex". I need to know whether or not I should be writing bad poetry to Kondrick when he's the first person I see and he's got on wig, extended eyelashes, and an inch thick of rouge.
 
A character is a character. When you roleplay, if you need clarification you ask. its not a big deal.

M, F, trans, a character is a character. We are all here to get away from our normal every day life and embrace the fantasy.

I dont think anyone should have an issue.

If you are a guy who wants to play a gal, go for it, more power to you.
If you are a gal who wants to play a guy , again - go for it, more power to you.
Have fun and enjoy yourself.
If you are a guy or a gal and want to play a tentacle monster.... go to monster camp. :funny:

My 2 cents
 
jpariury said:
The rules do distinguish between men and women in two specific instances: Love and Love 9. Both require that I fall in love with someone "of the appropriate sex". I need to know whether or not I should be writing bad poetry to Kondrick when he's the first person I see and he's got on wig, extended eyelashes, and an inch thick of rouge.


Easy answer... ask.
 
jpariury said:
Robb Graves said:
I don't see what the problem is. What does it matter what sex someone is? confused IG? ask...
Because our rules don't allow for such confusion with races, and the logic that applies there applies equally to sex. I can't play a human with a big bushy beard unless I grow a big bushy beard because there's no way to distinguish between me in a fake beard as a dwarf vs me in a fake beard as a dude with a beard. By the same token, how do you distinguish between me wearing a dress to represent a girl vs me in a dress to represent a transvestite? How do you distinguish between me with bags of wet sand in a bra to rep a woman vs the same thing to rep a dude wearing bags of wet sand in a bra?

The rules do distinguish between men and women in two specific instances: Love and Love 9. Both require that I fall in love with someone "of the appropriate sex". I need to know whether or not I should be writing bad poetry to Kondrick when he's the first person I see and he's got on wig, extended eyelashes, and an inch thick of rouge.

I'll address both points.

1) you're right about the rules and the way they address race. and as you point out... they don't address sex at all (other than your example) saying you cannot do what is being proposed. You're extrapolating that people should just assume that because the alliance ruling on disguising race is what it is, then IF there was a rule on sex, it would be the same. And yet.. there is no rule.

2) what's the exact working in the book? "appropriate sex" or "opposite sex"
 
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