Transsexuals in Golarion - a question about logic


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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LazarX wrote:
Crystal Frasier wrote:
Well... I'll be having plenty of nightmares tonight

And we didn't even need Stephen Moffat, the man who's made millions across the world learn to fear...

Satutes,
Closets,
Old Hotel Rooms,
Snowmen,
Santa,
Clowns,
Shadows,

Am I missing anything? :)

Clowns?

Paizo Glitterati Robot

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Removed some derail/back and forth posts. Guys, let's keep this discussion centered on the Campaign Setting, rather than debating real world issues, and dial back the grar.

Liberty's Edge

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Crystal Frasier wrote:
an awesome, confidant, happy woman with a house and a dog and a legion of loyal fans (three counts as a legion, right?).

*raises hand*

Ahem, Four!

Grand Lodge

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JollyRoger wrote:
Crystal Frasier wrote:
an awesome, confidant, happy woman with a house and a dog and a legion of loyal fans (three counts as a legion, right?).

*raises hand*

Ahem, Four!

You have my sword.

(all of 'em, I've got a few)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Googleshng wrote:
Terquem wrote:
And you know this how, exactly? I mean, its a fantasy, so as far as we know everyone is conceived as a dragon, and the swirling eddies of magic that mysteriously swirl around unseen shape each being according to the will of the gods?

Pretty sure there's enough precedent to say that things play out pretty much just like the real world on that front.

That said, sorcerers (and now bloodragers) do totally provide the room play around with this sort of crisis of identity, changelings and the various half-human half-X types could potentially get away with it (particularly with the ARG having spells to permanently change them to the race of one parent or the other). Changelings also have some potential there. I have a character for a game that looks like it isn't going to happen now where a big part of the premise is that she didn't resist the calling to go meet her mother and become a hag, but didn't complete the ritual because someone killed mama hag before she got there.

And then of course you can play around with weirder concepts anywhere the polymorph subschool interacts with a pregnancy I suppose.

Still, none of this is going to be entirely comparable to being trans.

You might want to clarify that you are talking about Eberron changelings as opposed to Golarion changelings which are all female offspring of hag/human matings.


LazarX wrote:
You might want to clarify that you are talking about Eberron changelings as opposed to Golarion changelings which are all female offspring of hag/human matings.

No, I was absolutely talking about hag-daughter changelings.

The context here was rationalizing a character who had identity/self-image issues related to race. A changeling is a skinny little human-sized girl who has the potential to transform into a big hulking monstrous hag around puberty. If you want to get into extreme body image issues with a character, there's some pretty fertile ground there.

But again, that's still not really equatable to the trans experience, more of a regrets about a major life choice thing.

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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Not relly a life choice. Changelings hear the call and are pulled to the coven but honestly, that's built into their instinct and once there, they don't have much choice in the matter. When ARG came out, I wrote a little class called the hag-riven that was all about being in the middle. About those that heeded the call and either managed to get away or were rescued in the middle of the ritual. They didn't usually manage to be much better than their hag sisters but they retained a portion of their own sanity and personality though tended towards the chaotic. It was a fun advanced race and it specifically mirrored some of my feelings on being trans.


Lissa Guillet wrote:
Not relly a life choice. Changelings hear the call and are pulled to the coven but honestly, that's built into their instinct and once there, they don't have much choice in the matter. When ARG came out, I wrote a little class called the hag-riven that was all about being in the middle. About those that heeded the call and either managed to get away or were rescued in the middle of the ritual. They didn't usually manage to be much better than their hag sisters but they retained a portion of their own sanity and personality though tended towards the chaotic. It was a fun advanced race and it specifically mirrored some of my feelings on being trans.

Is there any way I could convince you to either post this race somewhere or send it to me in a PM? I have a player I think could be very interested in the class you describe. :)

Webstore Gninja Minion

Kudaku wrote:
Lissa Guillet wrote:
Not relly a life choice. Changelings hear the call and are pulled to the coven but honestly, that's built into their instinct and once there, they don't have much choice in the matter. When ARG came out, I wrote a little class called the hag-riven that was all about being in the middle. About those that heeded the call and either managed to get away or were rescued in the middle of the ritual. They didn't usually manage to be much better than their hag sisters but they retained a portion of their own sanity and personality though tended towards the chaotic. It was a fun advanced race and it specifically mirrored some of my feelings on being trans.
Is there any way I could convince you to either post this race somewhere or send it to me in a PM? I have a player I think could be very interested in the class you describe. :)

If she doesn't, I think I do (seeing as how I was the GM ever so briefly for that one). :D


As long as Lissa is OK with it, that'd be great. :D


When not speaking of Golarion specifically, a Changeling may be something else


Kudaku wrote:
Lissa Guillet wrote:
Not relly a life choice. Changelings hear the call and are pulled to the coven but honestly, that's built into their instinct and once there, they don't have much choice in the matter. When ARG came out, I wrote a little class called the hag-riven that was all about being in the middle. About those that heeded the call and either managed to get away or were rescued in the middle of the ritual. They didn't usually manage to be much better than their hag sisters but they retained a portion of their own sanity and personality though tended towards the chaotic. It was a fun advanced race and it specifically mirrored some of my feelings on being trans.
Is there any way I could convince you to either post this race somewhere or send it to me in a PM? I have a player I think could be very interested in the class you describe. :)

Sounds pretty much exactly the sort of character I was describing so, yeah, I'd like to see that too.

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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Sure. We got 20 points to build our races so it's pretty OP in a standard campaign.

Spoiler:

Sea Hag Riven
Very few changeling girls ever survive an encounter with the coven when she heeds the call. Those that do are often scarred in both body and spirit. For a changeling to become a full hag requires a long ceremony, but that ceremony is occasionally interrupted by some outside force or even the changeling herself. Those that escape before the ceremony is finished are the hag-riven. Their mind and body stay mostly intact but are often scarred in both. In addition they gain some of the powers associated with their hag-mother. In the case of a hag-mother who is a sea hag, she may find that she is more in tune with the rivers and seas and gains a portion of the hulking strength of her hag-mother.

0 RP | Humanoid(changeling/aquatic)
0 RP | Medium Size
0 RP | Normal Speed
0 RP | Standard
2 RP | Claws(1d4/1d4)
3 RP | Natural Armor +2
2 RP | Darkvision 60'
--- 7 RP
2 RP | Lesser Spell Resistance(6 + Character Level)
2 RP | Swim(30 Swim Speed, +8 swim checks)
4 RP | Advanced(+4 Str, -2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Wis, +2 Cha)
-- 15 RP
3 RP | Silver-Tongued(+2 to Bluff and Diplomacy, can shift up to three)
2 RP | Amphibious(Breathe both air and water)
-- 20 RP


Lissa Guillet wrote:

Sure. We got 20 points to build our races so it's pretty OP in a standard campaign.

** spoiler omitted **

This is great, thanks! Hmmm, a 20 point race is a bit much for most games, but the advanced abilities could make a really flavorful witch archetype, similar to how dragon disciple physiologically alters/upgrades spontaneous casters.

Liberty's Edge

It's also pretty easy to drop down several points. Drop Spell Resistance, and switch the stat-mods to a more standard +2 Str, -2 Con, +2 Cha, and you've got a 14 RP race, which is well within the normal range.


A trained laborer makes 3 silver/day. Assuming he works 7 days a week he earns 109.5 gold a year. Assuming not a penny of that goes for an kind of expense whatsoever it take 20.5 years to earn enough to buy a potion to alter sex. An unskilled laborer error earns 1 sp a day, so it takes 61.5 years. When you take in the fact very few people are working every day for 20+ years, and the fact that most of people's money goes to Survival I'd say it makes in world sense that someone may be Transgender rather than even bother.

Grand Lodge

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Under A Bleeding Sun wrote:
A trained laborer makes 3 silver/day. Assuming he works 7 days a week he earns 109.5 gold a year. Assuming not a penny of that goes for an kind of expense whatsoever it take 20.5 years to earn enough to buy a potion to alter sex. An unskilled laborer error earns 1 sp a day, so it takes 61.5 years. When you take in the fact very few people are working every day for 20+ years, and the fact that most of people's money goes to Survival I'd say it makes in world sense that someone may be Transgender rather than even bother.

That's the magical elixir, though - the herbal one is likely to be substantially less expensive; things like black cohosh and saw palmetto aren't that expensive (neither is drying and concentrating the estrogens in pregnant mare urine, for that matter).


Lissa Guillet wrote:

Sure. We got 20 points to build our races so it's pretty OP in a standard campaign.

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks for posting this. With a little tweaking to bring the RP down, this race is perfect! :D

Kittyburger wrote:
That's the magical elixir, though - the herbal one is likely to be substantially less expensive; things like black cohosh and saw palmetto aren't that expensive (neither is drying and concentrating the estrogens in pregnant mare urine, for that matter).

Crystal Frasier posted some herbal options in the Shaman iconic thread, Mulibrous Tincture and Anderos Salve. While not quite as dramatic or sudden a shift as the elixir of sex shift, they're much more affordable - a transformation would cost approximately 60 gp spread out over four months. Still expensive for anyone not adventuring, but infinitely more affordable than the magical alternative.


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Under A Bleeding Sun wrote:
A trained laborer makes 3 silver/day. Assuming he works 7 days a week he earns 109.5 gold a year. Assuming not a penny of that goes for an kind of expense whatsoever it take 20.5 years to earn enough to buy a potion to alter sex. An unskilled laborer error earns 1 sp a day, so it takes 61.5 years. When you take in the fact very few people are working every day for 20+ years, and the fact that most of people's money goes to Survival I'd say it makes in world sense that someone may be Transgender rather than even bother.

Oh Gods not this again:

Let me help you out here:

Joe the Farmer is a professional.

Now it's not going to be quickly but it still is not going to take him 20.5 years, even accounting for expenses.

Grand Lodge

I was thinking this morning about how an Erastilan might be trans-affirming (because Erastil is often portrayed as the conservative-stick-in-the-mud god) and came up with this line:

“’At’s ol’ Hulda the Milkmaid. Settled on the hillside twen’y years ago when her name was Hull. Had a sword wit' 'er broader'n a man's hand. She pulls four buckets o’ milk ever' mornin’ an' she’s caught more calves than any o’ us can count. We like Hulda, and iffen you’re meanin’ to start somethin’ with her ‘cos you think she looks funny, you’ve gotta go through us first.” - Verris Loran, High Priest of Erastil


Kittyburger wrote:

I was thinking this morning about how an Erastilan might be trans-affirming (because Erastil is often portrayed as the conservative-stick-in-the-mud god) and came up with this line:

“’At’s ol’ Hulda the Milkmaid. Settled on the hillside twen’y years ago when her name was Hull. Had a sword wit' 'er broader'n a man's hand. She pulls four buckets o’ milk ever' mornin’ an' she’s caught more calves than any o’ us can count. We like Hulda, and iffen you’re meanin’ to start somethin’ with her ‘cos you think she looks funny, you’ve gotta go through us first.” - Verris Loran, High Priest of Erastil

If they are good members of the community i don't think he could mind too much. Not everyone in the community needs to be a parent, and for that matter gay or trans folks adopting orphans or kids beyond the family can support would help the people as a whole. Even a stick in the mud god could see that


JurgenV wrote:
Kittyburger wrote:

I was thinking this morning about how an Erastilan might be trans-affirming (because Erastil is often portrayed as the conservative-stick-in-the-mud god) and came up with this line:

“’At’s ol’ Hulda the Milkmaid. Settled on the hillside twen’y years ago when her name was Hull. Had a sword wit' 'er broader'n a man's hand. She pulls four buckets o’ milk ever' mornin’ an' she’s caught more calves than any o’ us can count. We like Hulda, and iffen you’re meanin’ to start somethin’ with her ‘cos you think she looks funny, you’ve gotta go through us first.” - Verris Loran, High Priest of Erastil

If they are good members of the community i don't think he could mind too much. Not everyone in the community needs to be a parent, and for that matter gay or trans folks adopting orphans or kids beyond the family can support would help the people as a whole. Even a stick in the mud god could see that

Or with magic even having their own the old fashioned way.

Sovereign Court

Abraham spalding wrote:
Under A Bleeding Sun wrote:
A trained laborer makes 3 silver/day. Assuming he works 7 days a week he earns 109.5 gold a year. Assuming not a penny of that goes for an kind of expense whatsoever it take 20.5 years to earn enough to buy a potion to alter sex. An unskilled laborer error earns 1 sp a day, so it takes 61.5 years. When you take in the fact very few people are working every day for 20+ years, and the fact that most of people's money goes to Survival I'd say it makes in world sense that someone may be Transgender rather than even bother.

Oh Gods not this again:

Let me help you out here:

Joe the Farmer is a professional.

Now it's not going to be quickly but it still is not going to take him 20.5 years, even accounting for expenses.

I like your assessment on that other thread. My only disagreement, as shared by others on that thread, is that a farmer's kids multiplies the farmer's revenues, not the other way around. In the 40's and 50's rural families had 12 or 14 kids... it was impossible to run a farm without the farm hands.


Purple Dragon Knight wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
Under A Bleeding Sun wrote:
A trained laborer makes 3 silver/day. Assuming he works 7 days a week he earns 109.5 gold a year. Assuming not a penny of that goes for an kind of expense whatsoever it take 20.5 years to earn enough to buy a potion to alter sex. An unskilled laborer error earns 1 sp a day, so it takes 61.5 years. When you take in the fact very few people are working every day for 20+ years, and the fact that most of people's money goes to Survival I'd say it makes in world sense that someone may be Transgender rather than even bother.

Oh Gods not this again:

Let me help you out here:

Joe the Farmer is a professional.

Now it's not going to be quickly but it still is not going to take him 20.5 years, even accounting for expenses.

I like your assessment on that other thread. My only disagreement, as shared by others on that thread, is that a farmer's kids multiplies the farmer's revenues, not the other way around. In the 40's and 50's rural families had 12 or 14 kids... it was impossible to run a farm without the farm hands.

Thank you, without derailing here too much, I addressed later in the thread that I wanted to stack against the farmer to start with so that if he was going to be dirt poor so to speak it would be under what I saw as draconian conditions. With the help of a spouse the farmer would be looking to see more like 792.5 gp net a year.


Kittyburger wrote:

I was thinking this morning about how an Erastilan might be trans-affirming (because Erastil is often portrayed as the conservative-stick-in-the-mud god) and came up with this line:

“’At’s ol’ Hulda the Milkmaid. Settled on the hillside twen’y years ago when her name was Hull. Had a sword wit' 'er broader'n a man's hand. She pulls four buckets o’ milk ever' mornin’ an' she’s caught more calves than any o’ us can count. We like Hulda, and iffen you’re meanin’ to start somethin’ with her ‘cos you think she looks funny, you’ve gotta go through us first.” - Verris Loran, High Priest of Erastil

Well, if a culture has been trans-affirming long enough, then trans affirmation *is* conservative. I haven't really seen any indication that trans-affirmation is something new and unusual on Golarion, and given that there's a demigod who is often associated with trans folks (and has a long association with a major city), it seems a long-settled general thing, so... if trans-affirmation is status quo, conservatives would seem to tend toward support.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

This is a great conversation, and I hope I don't derail it.

OP's post revealed some misconceptions, and we've discussed those, but I'd like to resolve his/her original question.

So, assuming the following:

  • the % of persons born trans in Golarion is same as real-life
  • the % of oppressive societies vs supportive/inclusive societies in Golarion is same as real life

we can assume that trans persons in Golarion face roughly the same issues as trans persons in real-life at roughly the same rates.

Further assuming:

  • desire among trans persons in Golarion for gender reassignment also mirrors real-life
  • some real-life trans persons desire gender reassignment but do not pursue it due to the physical shortcomings of current medical options
  • some real-life trans persons desire gender reassignment but are reluctant to commit to it because current surgeries are irreversible

it would stand to reason that Golarion, with it's physically perfect and reversible magical gender reassignment options, would have a higher rate of "transsexed" persons than real-life.


The Mighty Khan wrote:

This is a great conversation, and I hope I don't derail it.

OP's post revealed some misconceptions, and we've discussed those, but I'd like to resolve his/her original question.

So, assuming the following:

  • the % of persons born trans in Golarion is same as real-life
  • the % of oppressive societies vs supportive/inclusive societies in Golarion is same as real life

we can assume that trans persons in Golarion face roughly the same issues as trans persons in real-life at roughly the same rates.

Further assuming:

  • desire among trans persons in Golarion for gender reassignment also mirrors real-life
  • some real-life trans persons desire gender reassignment but do not pursue it due to the physical shortcomings of current medical options
  • some real-life trans persons desire gender reassignment but are reluctant to commit to it because current surgeries are irreversible

it would stand to reason that Golarion, with it's physically perfect and reversible magical gender reassignment options, would have a higher rate of "transsexed" persons than real-life.

I think your second major assumption is incorrect. I'm not sure it's been explicitly stated, but judging by Paizo's general attitude and the precedent of of LGBTQ treatment in Golarion, I'd assume that Golarion has a lower % of oppressive societies vs supportive/inclusive societies in Golarion than real life.

I don't think that changes the conclusion though. Probably makes it even more so, as trans people can more openly seek out their options.


I'm inclined to agree with Jeff - I think Golarion is a good ways ahead of Earth when it comes to gender equality. I can't think of any country in Golarion that features cultural discrimination based on gender or sexual preference.

The original Erastil article had a fair bit of gender discrimination implied, but that was retconned beautifully in Inner Sea Gods.


I'm throwing in with thejeff and Kudaku, too. With actually, physical deities in the world like Arshea, Calistria, and Shelyn, I'm not sure it would actually make sense for Queer folk to actually face as much discrimination.

Dark Archive

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Kittyburger wrote:

I was thinking this morning about how an Erastilan might be trans-affirming (because Erastil is often portrayed as the conservative-stick-in-the-mud god) and came up with this line:

[SNIP]

Erastili doctrine could be *very* trans-affirming if a community has a bumper crop of one gender or the other, since it's pretty big on pairing people off to produce family units. If there are 17 marriageable young men and only 8 marriageable young women, that's a problem. Encouraging some of the 'extra' young men to hook up with each other and adopt, transition, and / or go off and adventure and come back with women they meet elsewhere are all options that might seem, on the face of it, 'non-traditional,' but Erastil's tenets are less about tab A's and slot B's than about family units settling down and stability and the long-term growth and health of the community (and, yes, sometimes 'selfish' or 'ungrateful' individual preferences being sacrificed for the good of the community, which can get dark fast, under the right circumstances...).

Similarly, depending on the culture, if you've got four sons and no daughters, you've got to divide up your land and inheritance among four sons, and there's no bride-prices coming in to help offset that. When son five pokes his head into the world, I could see a father wringing his hands and saying to the midwife, 'Does it *have* to be another boy? Is there something you could do about that...'

Grand Lodge

Set wrote:
Kittyburger wrote:

I was thinking this morning about how an Erastilan might be trans-affirming (because Erastil is often portrayed as the conservative-stick-in-the-mud god) and came up with this line:

[SNIP]

Erastili doctrine could be *very* trans-affirming if a community has a bumper crop of one gender or the other, since it's pretty big on pairing people off to produce family units. If there are 17 marriageable young men and only 8 marriageable young women, that's a problem. Encouraging some of the 'extra' young men to hook up with each other and adopt, transition, and / or go off and adventure and come back with women they meet elsewhere are all options that might seem, on the face of it, 'non-traditional,' but Erastil's tenets are less about tab A's and slot B's than about family units settling down and stability and the long-term growth and health of the community (and, yes, sometimes 'selfish' or 'ungrateful' individual preferences being sacrificed for the good of the community, which can get dark fast, under the right circumstances...).

Similarly, depending on the culture, if you've got four sons and no daughters, you've got to divide up your land and inheritance among four sons, and there's no bride-prices coming in to help offset that. When son five pokes his head into the world, I could see a father wringing his hands and saying to the midwife, 'Does it *have* to be another boy? Is there something you could do about that...'

Romanian "Sworn Virgins" might be of interest in a sense here.

My concept of a "wedding price" in Golarion is that the more well-off family is obligated to give the newlyweds a large gift to demonstrate that while marrying off a child, the family retains enough strength to take care of itself and its obligations with one fewer person in the household.


Set wrote:
When son five pokes his head into the world, I could see a father wringing his hands and saying to the midwife, 'Does it *have* to be another boy? Is there something you could do about that...'

That would be kind of awful, though, wouldn't it? Imposing a different gender on one's child?

Dark Archive

KSF wrote:
Set wrote:
When son five pokes his head into the world, I could see a father wringing his hands and saying to the midwife, 'Does it *have* to be another boy? Is there something you could do about that...'
That would be kind of awful, though, wouldn't it? Imposing a different gender on one's child?

Absolutely. Right up there with smothering kids of genders you don't want, or whatever.

And it might make an interesting backstory for a transitioning NPC or PC, who has always felt disconnected with their body/gender, and only upon a chance encounter with the old midwife from scene 24 finding out that they are not the same gender that they were born as... It becomes a strange sort of transition narrative, when the character has grown up one gender, and isn't entirely sure that they want to 'go back,' after all this time, and yet, there's the question of what have they been missing? Would all the things that seem out of place in their life magically 'fit' if they transitioned back? And what sort of relationship issues would this create with family and siblings, some of whom (the parents) know, others (the siblings) don't? Would perfectly normal gender-neutral behaviors (liking horseback riding, for instance) suddenly be described as 'suddenly making sense' by people who aren't entirely getting it? There's some storytelling potential there, but most of it would be pre-game backstory stuff, unless the GM and other players wanted to include that level of character of development in-game. (And many do not. I've played many a game where my two page backstory was glanced at by the GM and never mentioned again. Some times you're just there to kill orcs and collect your GPs and XPs, and it's as much a 'game' as a game of poker, with slightly less role-playing.)

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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Set wrote:

When son five pokes his head into the world, I could see a father wringing his hands and saying to the midwife, 'Does it *have* to be another boy? Is there something you could do about that...'

Well, I've got nightmare fuel for awhile.


Set wrote:
And it might make an interesting backstory for a transitioning NPC or PC, who has always felt disconnected with their body/gender, and only upon a chance encounter with the old midwife from scene 24 finding out that they are not the same gender that they were born as... It becomes a strange sort of transition narrative, when the character has grown up one gender, and isn't entirely sure that they want to 'go back,' after all this time, and yet, there's the question of what have they been missing? Would all the things that seem out of place in their life magically 'fit' if they transitioned back? And what sort of relationship issues would this create with family and siblings, some of whom (the parents) know, others (the siblings) don't? Would perfectly normal gender-neutral behaviors (liking horseback riding, for instance) suddenly be described as 'suddenly making sense' by people who aren't entirely getting it? There's some storytelling potential there, but most of it would be pre-game backstory stuff, unless the GM and other players wanted to include that level of character of development in-game. (And many do not. I've played many a game where my two page backstory was glanced at by the GM and never mentioned again. Some times you're just there to kill orcs and collect your GPs and XPs, and it's as much a 'game' as a game of poker, with slightly less role-playing.)

Basically, this action would make the child transgender (if they weren't already). Sooner or later, they're going to realize it, and then make decisions about transitioning to their proper gender. I'd imagine there'd be quite a bit of anger involved as well.

Not a backstory I'd want a character of mine to play, personally.

(Edit to add: If the intent behind that last line was unclear, obviously, I'm up for playing a trans character (since I play one in real life :P ) but given what I've gone through, I just find the idea of someone imposing this on someone to be horrific. Or as Lissa said, nightmare fuel. YMMV, I guess.)


Sounds like Ozma/Tip.

Grand Lodge

pres man wrote:
Sounds like Ozma/Tip.

Or Tobin/Tamir.

Dark Archive

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KSF wrote:
I just find the idea of someone imposing this on someone to be horrific. Or as Lissa said, nightmare fuel....

Yeah, I don't picture that being particularly fun for anyone. Just from the perspective of someone whose been one gender all his life, the idea of forced reassignment is body-horror-ific.

The potential of people in Absalom (where your *monthly rent* can range as high as 10,000 gp!) being able to run down to the Arcanamirium and plunk down 3200 gp. to have oneself changed via polymorph any object into a different gender, or an *entirely different species* opens up some potential for the rich and cosmopolitan folk of Absalom (or Nex, etc.) to be pretty blasé about folk changing their gender.

Thanks to polymorph spells and the reincarnation tables, D&D has flirted with this body/mind dysphoria discussion for decades, without actually having it.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Lissa Guillet wrote:
Set wrote:

When son five pokes his head into the world, I could see a father wringing his hands and saying to the midwife, 'Does it *have* to be another boy? Is there something you could do about that...'

Well, I've got nightmare fuel for awhile.

There's a certain episode of Masters of Sex, then you probably don't want to watch. Where Masters tries to persuade a father not to have an operation on their intersex newborn.

"I came here to leave home with a girl, not an It!"

Grand Lodge

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LazarX wrote:
Lissa Guillet wrote:
Set wrote:

When son five pokes his head into the world, I could see a father wringing his hands and saying to the midwife, 'Does it *have* to be another boy? Is there something you could do about that...'

Well, I've got nightmare fuel for awhile.

There's a certain episode of Masters of Sex, then you probably don't want to watch. Where Masters tries to persuade a father not to have an operation on their intersex newborn.

"I came here to leave home with a girl, not an It!"

Yeah, that is high octane nightmare fuel.


Just wanted to point out (and i'll edit this post as I have time to read through the preceeding pages.

1) Book of erotic fantasy (dnd) had a 2nd level change gender spell, and a similar change sexual orientation spell as a I recall.

2) 1st ed Dnd had a random table for what you reincarnated as which got dropped by 2nd edition as too nasty. I kept it, remember after one fight the party reincarnated a family of farmers who'd gotten caught up and killed in something they started. Father wound up as a dryad, mother as a fairy (small tinkerbell type) and the son became a female elf. Then they went on leaving a very confused group behind them.


Ahhh yes the old you can't edit a post after X amount of time I forgot the forum used that. Well carrying on . . .

3) It depends if the girdle changes physical attributes only or like the similar helm of opposite alignment also changes mental ones perhaps less markedly e.g. a man turned into a woman feels unhappy with her body as opposed to is happy as a woman but still finds other women attractive. Or alternatively if you really want nightmare fuel it turns you into the person you would be if your the opposite sex, EVERYTHING into the person you would be including the gender disphoria i.e. you turn from say a man who wants to be a woman to a woman who wants to be a man but still knows before putting on that belt she wanted to be a woman.

4) I recall one manga/anime where twins were believed to be bad luck so when a pair was born one was raised as a girl if magic existed like this I can easily see him as being physically tranformed into one even if the entire village had to pool together to pay for it. Not to mention the whole "Milord its a boy." "I see well retrieve the girdle as a girl she wont be able to cause any troubles by trying to claim the throne." in certain cultures. Safehold by david weber had one girl who because she wasn't a man couldn't inherit the throne even though her own father thought she'd make a better heir than the oldest son.

5)With regards to dispelling it that comes down to what kind of magical change it is. Is it an ongoing change that can be dispelled by antimagic fields, a remove curse and the like or is it an instantaneous transformation in that what once was A is now B and while it can be turned back into A that is a new transformation not the undoing of an existing one.

6) Clowns go back a bit further than Chris Moffet.

7) With regards to Golarion and its attitudes towards transexuals I think in any "realistic" fantasy world there's always going to be a bit of Terry Pratchets black and white get along fine when ganging up on green. Sure you'll never truly eliminate it but unlike our world where the unclean/unpure/unhuman has always come down to a different type of human (on a global scale rather than a specific werewolf ate my neighbour scale) you will have a different level of intolerance to another human of a different culture/skin colour/sexual orientation than you will to a neighbour in question may literally be not human. Who may in more extreme casese view humans as a perfectly natural self renewing food source.

Afterall when you have a choice of villifying the neighbouring village where everyone changes sex regularly throughout their teen years till deciding if they want to be male/female/variable depending on mood, the fire breathing, spell casting, dragon as big as your entire village or the group of primitive troglodytes inhabiting a cave system full of shiny, shiny gold who are you going to pick?

Scarab Sages

Solving a transsexual's dilemma in Golarion is, overall, probably not much more difficult than getting minor surgery in the here and now - no doubt the church of Arshea will provide the service for the asking - they probably expect compensation from those who can afford it, and provide it free or cheap as they can to those of lesser means (and some in either category might instead perform services for the church, or just "pay it forward" somehow). Most people aren't transsexuals, after all, so they can probably manage to adequately serve those in need while keeping their books balanced. The most prominent challenges would probably be political. In Andoran, it would might be almost as easy as going to a Planned Parenthood outpost for birth control pills, while it would not be so easy in Nidal or Cheliax, less out of objection to transsexualism as objection to anything to do with the Empyreal Lords. Razmiran would of course be even less tolerant of the benificence of other faiths, but the process would probably be quite accessible to those in the upper echelons of that society, especially since Razmir's "priests" are in fact twisted arcane spellcasters, and arcane magicians are generally more capable of tricks like this than divine mages. Druma, home base of the Prophets of Kalistrade, would probably be particularly unfriendly to the whole thing, both since they're not the most tolerant society anyways, and the Prophecies of Kalistrade are already inclined discourage "sexual liberty" - if people are dissatisfied with their bodies, so much the better, right? Rahadoum would not welcome Arshea's churches, but their abundance of local arcanists could provide the service - I could see them having a small but sufficient program of government subsidization for this sort of thing, in fact, since it's so consistent with their general vision of empowering mortals to decide their own fates no matter what the gods made them.


I wouldn't want to make it too easy or common. I enjoyed having my "First Daughter", in the campaign when the party had to infiltrate drow, actually been a male child who was obligated to present as female for the good of the family. Most of the elites of society knew the truth, but it was looked down as "inappropriate" to draw attention to it (and with drow, you really want to tend to avoid anything that is inappropriate as the response tends to be ... uncomfortable).


pres man wrote:
I wouldn't want to make it too easy or common. I enjoyed having my "First Daughter", in the campaign when the party had to infiltrate drow, actually been a male child who was obligated to present as female for the good of the family. Most of the elites of society knew the truth, but it was looked down as "inappropriate" to draw attention to it (and with drow, you really want to tend to avoid anything that is inappropriate as the response tends to be ... uncomfortable).

Those aren't necessarily the same thing though, for example take that 2nd level spell I mentioned earlier. At 2nd level any 3rd level wizard (4th level sorcerer/arcanist can cast it which makes it pretty easy to do all things considered (give or take the debate about how realistic X level is for a given world). However that doesn't mean its common since I imagine 99% of the worlds magic users (especially those who can't change their spells easily) would have other things they'd want to learn (cleaning spells, defense spells, attack spells, divination spells, purification spells, cleansing spells, healing spells, more profitable spells). So even though turning a person into the opposite sex is easy those who know the correct spell to do so (and have the interest in learning it) could still be fairly rare.

As for divine casters they don't have any spells that do this kind of thing which would mean your directly praying for a miracle from your god every time and there it butts up against can vs should. Yes a priest could pray for every transexual they encounter to be transformed but would they bother their god over something like that? This comes down to a personal taste for divine casters in a world. Personally I tend more towards NPC priest vary rarely cast spells not because they can't do it but because they have too much respect for their deity to bother them about things that can be done without their intervention. Saving the life of a child who will die from an otherwise incurable disease or to stop an epidemic sure they'll cast cure disease, healing the local lords cut from sword training they wont cast cure X wounds becasue it will heal naturally and hopefully teach him a lesson. Not to mention things like that in my world if you cure a disease magically the person doesn't build up antibodies to it and while they don't know the science they know letting a disease run its course reduces the odds of someone catching it a second time so they'll only cure it if there's going to be long term consequences from not stopping it.


Quote:

Girdle of Opposite Gender

Source: Advanced Player's Guide
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 10th
Slot belt; Weight 1 lb.
DESCRIPTION
When this magical belt is put on, the wearer must immediately make a DC 20 Fortitude saving throw or be transformed into a person of the opposite gender. The character's abilities, mind, and spirit remain unaffected; only the character's sex changes. If the character's saving throw is a natural 1, the item actually removes all gender from the wearer, giving him an androgynous, neutered appearance. The change is permanent unless undone with curse-removing magic. Once its magic takes effect, the belt can be removed without effort. A creature can only be affected by a particular girdle once, though other girdles of this type can cause another transformation.

Since this item exists and Golarion has many religions, why isn't there a shrine where this item kept as a religious relic free for anyone to use? Even the poor (the silver penny per day earners) can make a pilgrimage to a religious shrine somewhere as travel is relatively affordable.


Jeven wrote:
Since this item exists and Golarion has many religions, why isn't there a shrine where this item kept as a religious relic free for anyone to use? Even the poor (the silver penny per day earners) can make a pilgrimage to a religious shrine somewhere as travel is relatively affordable.

Probably because it hasn't been brought up in the context of a story yet. :)

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