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Grand Lodge

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Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Jurassic Pratt wrote:
Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

I could *also* see it as a form of punishment for egregious sex offenders for a given length of sentence.

Ummmm.....Why?
If an individual could not comport themselves in a properly respectful fashion and is actively assaulting members of a different gender/sex/inclination, then a perhaps few years in the position of having to share those life experiences and probable dysphoria could be a very vicious punishment?

Definitely cruel and unsual punishment, bordering on torture depending on how bad the dysphoria is. Of course, maybe cruel and unusal punishment is legal in the Pact Worlds.

Regardless, it is worth noting that just because they're a different sex doesn't mean they'll stop sexually assaulting people, as that's far from a biological sex dependent thing. So it does seems to be a very strange form of "punishment".


LittleMissNaga wrote:

I must admit, I'm torn between really liking these options being... well, being clear and available options for our characters, and worrying about my WBL, and what might happen to it in the hands of a character who drinks these serums particularly regularly. I don't think the "I'm saving up for an elixir" goal works too well anymore (they're too cheap for that), but it is pretty reasonable to have done it already and afforded one (or more) in one's backstory now.

Mostly, I feel good for all the space-commoners out there. Many can actually afford this option now. I felt bad in Pathfinder, thinking about poor commoners whose bodies weren't right for them, but who definitely couldn't afford low-to-mid-level adventurer-priced potential solutions.

If you haven't read the adventurer's guide yet, you might like to know the Rivethun have developed a form of alchemical HRT (I think it was first mentioned in Shardra's backstory). Not as powerful as magical alternatives, but at only 5 gp a dose, it's much more affordable.


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I could see the Elixir of Appearance being used in punishment on some planets. Or at least a variant of it with a set appearance.

Having all convicted criminals looking exactly the same as a particularly dehumanising (For a lack of a better term) punishment. A sci-fi (And more extreme) version of branding a convicted criminal.

Grand Lodge

Wikrin wrote:
I'm curious to see how the drow will handle it, given they are traditionally a strict matriarchy. Out of anyone, I could see them keeping detailed birth records so that people born male don't try to escape their station.

That may have been true pre-Gap but I imagine that unless the tradition was rebuilt that it doesn't exist post-Gap.


Balancer wrote:
Wikrin wrote:
I'm curious to see how the drow will handle it, given they are traditionally a strict matriarchy. Out of anyone, I could see them keeping detailed birth records so that people born male don't try to escape their station.
That may have been true pre-Gap but I imagine that unless the tradition was rebuilt that it doesn't exist post-Gap.

Why are you assuming that it went away during the Gap? That's a super weird assumption to make.


Ikiry0 wrote:

I could see the Elixir of Appearance being used in punishment on some planets. Or at least a variant of it with a set appearance.

Having all convicted criminals looking exactly the same as a particularly dehumanising (For a lack of a better term) punishment. A sci-fi (And more extreme) version of branding a convicted criminal.

In the more recent Transformer comics, criminals/victims of the govt had their hands removed for claws/weapons and their heads replaced with cyclops heads with no mouths. Elixir of appearance could be very interesting for bad guys punishment.

Grand Lodge

Wikrin wrote:


Why are you assuming that it went away during the Gap? That's a super weird assumption to make.

Mostly assuming because the gap wiped away alot of societal traditions and forced people to rebuild. If no one recalls why men and woman were to be separate casts then it makes no sense to keep it that way.


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It's pretty normal for traditions to continue on even after no one remembers why they're the way they are. Hell, that's a major part of what makes it "tradition" instead of just "sensible things to do".


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Brew Bird wrote:
If you haven't read the adventurer's guide yet, you might like to know the Rivethun have developed a form of alchemical HRT (I think it was first mentioned in Shardra's backstory). Not as powerful as magical alternatives, but at only 5 gp a dose, it's much more affordable.

I have read it! Am actually playing a dwarven rivethun stone shaman (geez, she's such a Shardra clone that it hurts) in Crimson Throne. Her wife's a hedge witch who learned some alchemy to make the stuff for her own transition, while my shaman found an elixir in her backstory and did the one-drink instant transition.

I was definitely pleased to see the rivethun's method as an option in PF. That 5 gp per dose does add up to a fair bit of cash as the months wear on, though. Rough on a poorer peasant's budget (especially if they don't have friend or family support). It's why my shaman's wife learned to craft it herself.

I could easily see a "Money's tight, so we can't afford your weekly extract" situation causing problems for a poor commoner trying to get through the... I think it was 6 months in which you need to keep continually taking doses.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Andy Brown wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Lashuntas- If I am reading between the lines correctly, roughly half of all lashuntas are now explicitly trans, and there is specific language differentiating a given lashunta's actual gender vs. their dimorphic body type. I am absolutely delighted to see that, even if I don't necessarily think the designers meant to do it. A+

I'm not sure which lines you're reading between here.

Any gender can become either body type. Historically, the stresses to go one way or the other were generally forced to a specific gender, now they aren't.
I don't see how that makes half of the Lashunta trans when body type has nothing to do with gender.

Pre-Starfinder, lashuntas had certain societal expectations and enforced gender presentation forms strictly tied in with certain easily readable physiological features, which largely became noticeable at puberty when certain epigenetic changes begin to occur.

Now, due to a combination of society becoming less sexist and caste-based, and advances in controlling those epigenetic changes, there is a new emphasis on allowing lashunta children to decide for themselves which sort of changes they'd prefer to go through at puberty.

If that isn't something you can read as "lashuntas are all kinds of trans positive" I don't know how to make it any clearer.


Violet Hargrave wrote:
Andy Brown wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Lashuntas- If I am reading between the lines correctly, roughly half of all lashuntas are now explicitly trans, and there is specific language differentiating a given lashunta's actual gender vs. their dimorphic body type. I am absolutely delighted to see that, even if I don't necessarily think the designers meant to do it. A+

I'm not sure which lines you're reading between here.

Any gender can become either body type. Historically, the stresses to go one way or the other were generally forced to a specific gender, now they aren't.
I don't see how that makes half of the Lashunta trans when body type has nothing to do with gender.

Pre-Starfinder, lashuntas had certain societal expectations and enforced gender presentation forms strictly tied in with certain easily readable physiological features, which largely became noticeable at puberty when certain epigenetic changes begin to occur.

Now, due to a combination of society becoming less sexist and caste-based, and advances in controlling those epigenetic changes, there is a new emphasis on allowing lashunta children to decide for themselves which sort of changes they'd prefer to go through at puberty.

If that isn't something you can read as "lashuntas are all kinds of trans positive" I don't know how to make it any clearer.

Pre-Gap Lashunta had gender biased notions of who was supposed to develop into which form. Wipe out three thousand years of memories and social structure and no one knew why it was so biased in the existing generation when each child could choose which ever form they wanted and from that point onwards they did. They do not associate either form as being gender related and it is unlikely that they would even think of their adult forms as relevant to a conversation about gender identity?


TheGoofyGE3K wrote:
In the more recent Transformer comics, criminals/victims of the govt had their hands removed for claws/weapons and their heads replaced with cyclops heads with no mouths. Elixir of appearance could be very interesting for bad guys punishment.

Stuff like that, yeah. Or making them all look the same to remove any sense of 'This is an individual person' and go full into 'It's just another criminal'.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Wikrin wrote:
I'm curious to see how the drow will handle it, given they are traditionally a strict matriarchy. Out of anyone, I could see them keeping detailed birth records so that people born male don't try to escape their station.

...and now I *really* wanna play a drow-anarchocapitalist who goes to egregious lengths to cover up the fact that she was born a man.


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I just had another thought. On the issue of sexuality, what orientation is someone if their reproductive processes aren't binary? Like, maybe the assumption is that they're interested in both sexes that they aren't currently representing, but even that assumption doesn't make a lot of sense. Not to mention, it does nothing for the folks that don't fit into that neat little box.

That isn't even addressing how the hetero/homosexual dynamic needs to change when people's physical form becomes morphic. I've been saying for years now that if sexuality is based on who/what you're physically attracted to, it doesn't make sense to include references to your own sex/gender in that. I think some variation of andro/gynosexual makes more sense, but I'll admit, I don't really understand most people's sexuality. (Largely demi, so most folks just seem gross. Sorry.)

I wonder if Starfinder will just go the route of Eclipse Phase and declare universally that "people are into some weird stuff, yo. It's complicated."

(Edit: "Andro/Gyno" might be exclusionary toward non-binary folks. That wasn't my intent and if I've caused any offense, I apologize. I just mean that if a person's sex shifts, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to say that all of a sudden, their sexuality has shifted. They likely are attracted to the same folks they always were. I'm just not sure how to divorce the notion of a person's sex from their sexual orientation in a way that doesn't exclude anyone.)


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Wikrin wrote:


I wonder if Starfinder will just go the route of Eclipse Phase and declare universally that "people are into some weird stuff, yo. It's complicated."

However, for the entities in question it is not any more weird than any other 'normative' gender or sexuality.

The feeble understanding I have is that gender is one aspect, sexuality is another, and the two may or may not interact with one another at any given point, or they may be directly tied to one another based on how one views themselves?


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Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Wikrin wrote:


I wonder if Starfinder will just go the route of Eclipse Phase and declare universally that "people are into some weird stuff, yo. It's complicated."

However, for the entities in question it is not any more weird than any other 'normative' gender or sexuality.

The feeble understanding I have is that gender is one aspect, sexuality is another, and the two may or may not interact with one another at any given point, or they may be directly tied to one another based on how one views themselves?

Dawg, one of the short stories in the Eclipse Phase anthology is about a dude that gets off on creating forks of their personality and sending them to horrible deaths in "extreme" game scenarios. One of the forks makes it out, seduces them, then kills 'em by subjecting them to the same.

That's one of the more extreme examples, but it is not the weirdest. When I say people in Eclipse Phase's setting are into weird stuff, I'm talking "been alive for a hundred years and got bored fifty years ago"-weird, with a teenager's libido. I'm pretty sure one of the books talks about an "adult entertainer" that took the form of a suitcase (or some similarly benign object) for several hours' worth of a client's, uh... "Purchased time." It's a setting in which bonobos got uplifted, and aren't the freakiest people in the room.

(Sorry, tangent for emphasis.)


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Ikiry0 wrote:

I could see the Elixir of Appearance being used in punishment on some planets. Or at least a variant of it with a set appearance.

Having all convicted criminals looking exactly the same as a particularly dehumanising (For a lack of a better term) punishment. A sci-fi (And more extreme) version of branding a convicted criminal.

There's a pretty good John Varley short story whose plot could be a very good detective-y adventure:

Spoiler:
"The Barbie Murders", collected in Picnic on Nearside (check your local library) and in the newer The John Varley Reader (still in book stores).

It's a great short story with plenty of hooks and details, but it's difficult to even describe without spoiling it. If you go googling, be warned the Wikipedia page totally gives it all away.

Actually, all of Varley's sci-fi (I haven't read any of the Thunder and Lightning series yet) is chock full of Starfinder ideas. His Eight Worlds setting [spoilers ahoy] is pretty good reading and great worldbuilding. Body-sculpting and readily-available sex changing are a core elements.


doctor_wu wrote:

With all the sexual dimormorpism of lashunta I think a transgender lashunta might have quite a bad case of gender dyphoria.

Eggs for reptilian races give a different approach to have parents for same sex couples.

Perhaps like a lot of lizards, a female Vesk can engage in parthogenesis and reproduce without a male.


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The Drunken Dragon wrote:
Wikrin wrote:
I'm curious to see how the drow will handle it, given they are traditionally a strict matriarchy. Out of anyone, I could see them keeping detailed birth records so that people born male don't try to escape their station.
...and now I *really* wanna play a drow-anarchocapitalist who goes to egregious lengths to cover up the fact that she was born a man.

The drow matriarchal society as a whole would likely have a much harder time understanding why a drow trans man would transition to a male presentation. I imagine drow trans and agender folk would likely be much more inclined to start questioning all of their society's oppressive roles and strictures, and thus, more likely to seek their destinies outside of drow society.

Although, they aren't cartoonishly dumb, especially with Wis being the cleric primary stat. It could be that drow matriarchs are aware of AMAB drow and keep an eye out for them, seeing such drow women as specifically chosen by their deities to endure a more difficult path to temper and hammer them into the most ruthless of matriarchs. They'd likely put them through a cruel gauntlet of tests and trials to weed out the "weaker" (aka less evil) ones before rewarding the toughest with transition to womanhood and social acceptance. (Trans and agender drow men would still be especially screwed over.)


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sir RicHunt Attenwampi wrote:


Although, they aren't cartoonishly dumb, especially with Wis being the cleric primary stat. It could be that drow matriarchs are aware of AMAB drow and keep an eye out for them, seeing such drow women as specifically chosen by their deities to endure a more difficult path to temper and hammer them into the most ruthless of matriarchs. They'd likely put them through a cruel gauntlet of tests and trials to weed out the "weaker" (aka less evil) ones before rewarding the toughest with transition to womanhood and social acceptance. (Trans and agender drow men would still be especially screwed over.)

It could *also* be used as a dire punishment to those who fail.

"Fail, and you be male-d."


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Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Sir RicHunt Attenwampi wrote:


Although, they aren't cartoonishly dumb, especially with Wis being the cleric primary stat. It could be that drow matriarchs are aware of AMAB drow and keep an eye out for them, seeing such drow women as specifically chosen by their deities to endure a more difficult path to temper and hammer them into the most ruthless of matriarchs. They'd likely put them through a cruel gauntlet of tests and trials to weed out the "weaker" (aka less evil) ones before rewarding the toughest with transition to womanhood and social acceptance. (Trans and agender drow men would still be especially screwed over.)

It could *also* be used as a dire punishment to those who fail.

"Fail, and you be male-d."

Yeah, that'd be horrifying to have your identity, your very core sense of self, altered like that against your will. But drow are also responsible for horrifying fleshwarps like halsoras and irnakurses, so such violations of self would seem to be inline with their society's idea of more severe punishments.

This would also be one of those game areas where the GM would really need to know their players before deciding to include such themes in the game.


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Ikiry0 wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Serum of Sex Shift- This is the one thing in the book explicitly created with trans characters in mind. It's right here in the core book, comes across as the latest in a line of similar items (to the point where I'm 95% sure Amber Scott wrote this entry), and it is very carefully worded to avoid any awful garbage like "biological sex," language that excludes non-binary people, or you know, the core race with three genders. So, definite A for effort, although there is a definite cis-writer's-take-on-being-trans, come to a decision, hop into a building, tada, one-and-done angle here which is arguably dismissive of what we have to deal with in reality.

I don't think it ever actually mentions trans once when talking about it. While very much useful for that purpose, it also has a lot of other useful ones and it's a bit limiting to see it as exclusively such. In a sci-fi game the spy genre becomes a lot more notable and it's non-detectable with magic that it's been used on you so it would make an excellent emergency disguise option or for an actor who wants to get a role they are not biologically lining up with.

There is also the idea of fashion. With how cheap the two elixirs (Sex Shift and Appearance) are, you could very easily have biological fashion go interesting places as it's very easy for people to (relatively cheaply) follow the fashion even if it involves very dramatic changes.

I also see it more as 'Technological progress' rather than being dismissive. Things can get better in the future, rather than being shackled to the present after all.

This kind of tech sort of edges into the eclipse phase morph territory. When it becomes that fluid and easy to change it really becomes more about being in love with the person for that person rather than what dangly bits they may or may not have at the moment. Also given how easy it is to switch back and forth there likely is minimal to no stigma for doing so it would hopefully be a lot less traumatic for somebody to have the body they want to have and are comfortable with than what people currently have to go through.


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Wikrin wrote:
Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Wikrin wrote:


I wonder if Starfinder will just go the route of Eclipse Phase and declare universally that "people are into some weird stuff, yo. It's complicated."

However, for the entities in question it is not any more weird than any other 'normative' gender or sexuality.

The feeble understanding I have is that gender is one aspect, sexuality is another, and the two may or may not interact with one another at any given point, or they may be directly tied to one another based on how one views themselves?

Dawg, one of the short stories in the Eclipse Phase anthology is about a dude that gets off on creating forks of their personality and sending them to horrible deaths in "extreme" game scenarios. One of the forks makes it out, seduces them, then kills 'em by subjecting them to the same.

That's one of the more extreme examples, but it is not the weirdest. When I say people in Eclipse Phase's setting are into weird stuff, I'm talking "been alive for a hundred years and got bored fifty years ago"-weird, with a teenager's libido. I'm pretty sure one of the books talks about an "adult entertainer" that took the form of a suitcase (or some similarly benign object) for several hours' worth of a client's, uh... "Purchased time." It's a setting in which bonobos got uplifted, and aren't the freakiest people in the room.

(Sorry, tangent for emphasis.)

Or the fun colony that is all clones of one guy but with male and female morphs. I don't even know what you would go about calling that kind of setup but I figure he/they are consenting adults or adult whatever floats their boat I guess.


kaid wrote:
Or the fun colony that is all clones of one guy but with male and female morphs. I don't even know what you would go about calling that kind of setup but I figure he/they are consenting adults or adult whatever floats their boat I guess.

I'd dub them Folders (spoilers for 1973 sci-fi novel).


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Violet Hargrave wrote:
So, definite A for effort, although there is a definite cis-writer's-take-on-being-trans, come to a decision, hop into a building, tada, one-and-done angle here which is arguably dismissive of what we have to deal with in reality.

I'm not sure that's fair. This isn't reality and in a universe where gender doesn't really matter and can easily be changed its possible that "what we have to deal with" doesn't apply.


Wikrin wrote:

I just had another thought. On the issue of sexuality, what orientation is someone if their reproductive processes aren't binary? Like, maybe the assumption is that they're interested in both sexes that they aren't currently representing, but even that assumption doesn't make a lot of sense. Not to mention, it does nothing for the folks that don't fit into that neat little box.

That isn't even addressing how the hetero/homosexual dynamic needs to change when people's physical form becomes morphic. I've been saying for years now that if sexuality is based on who/what you're physically attracted to, it doesn't make sense to include references to your own sex/gender in that. I think some variation of andro/gynosexual makes more sense, but I'll admit, I don't really understand most people's sexuality. (Largely demi, so most folks just seem gross. Sorry.)

I wonder if Starfinder will just go the route of Eclipse Phase and declare universally that "people are into some weird stuff, yo. It's complicated."

(Edit: "Andro/Gyno" might be exclusionary toward non-binary folks. That wasn't my intent and if I've caused any offense, I apologize. I just mean that if a person's sex shifts, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to say that all of a sudden, their sexuality has shifted. They likely are attracted to the same folks they always were. I'm just not sure how to divorce the notion of a person's sex from their sexual orientation in a way that doesn't exclude anyone.)

Yes I can see the whole hormones causing part of it and transitioning for lashunta. There might be blockers to delay puberty for those not sure.

Then again puberty for most of the races is not even that well set in cannon in pathfinder or at least I can't find it. I don't know if there are cannon pictures of lashunta children.


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Violet Hargrave wrote:
Andy Brown wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Lashuntas- If I am reading between the lines correctly, roughly half of all lashuntas are now explicitly trans, and there is specific language differentiating a given lashunta's actual gender vs. their dimorphic body type. I am absolutely delighted to see that, even if I don't necessarily think the designers meant to do it. A+

I'm not sure which lines you're reading between here.

Any gender can become either body type. Historically, the stresses to go one way or the other were generally forced to a specific gender, now they aren't.
I don't see how that makes half of the Lashunta trans when body type has nothing to do with gender.

Pre-Starfinder, lashuntas had certain societal expectations and enforced gender presentation forms strictly tied in with certain easily readable physiological features, which largely became noticeable at puberty when certain epigenetic changes begin to occur.

Now, due to a combination of society becoming less sexist and caste-based, and advances in controlling those epigenetic changes, there is a new emphasis on allowing lashunta children to decide for themselves which sort of changes they'd prefer to go through at puberty.

If that isn't something you can read as "lashuntas are all kinds of trans positive" I don't know how to make it any clearer.

I see what you're saying, but I definitely disagree with it. If I can throw out a (somewhat simplified) comparison...

100(ish) years ago, nurses where all women, and combat soldiers were all men (there's the simplification).
Now, both men and women can be nurses, and both women and men can be combat soldiers (in some countries, anyway).
Whether you're a nurse or a combat soldier has nothing to do with your gender, so a woman deciding to be a combat soldier isn't automatically trans, and neither is a man deciding to be a nurse.

The changes that a Lashunta goes through at puberty affect physical development, but don't change the Lashunta's gender.


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Andy Brown wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Andy Brown wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Lashuntas- If I am reading between the lines correctly, roughly half of all lashuntas are now explicitly trans, and there is specific language differentiating a given lashunta's actual gender vs. their dimorphic body type. I am absolutely delighted to see that, even if I don't necessarily think the designers meant to do it. A+

I'm not sure which lines you're reading between here.

Any gender can become either body type. Historically, the stresses to go one way or the other were generally forced to a specific gender, now they aren't.
I don't see how that makes half of the Lashunta trans when body type has nothing to do with gender.

Pre-Starfinder, lashuntas had certain societal expectations and enforced gender presentation forms strictly tied in with certain easily readable physiological features, which largely became noticeable at puberty when certain epigenetic changes begin to occur.

Now, due to a combination of society becoming less sexist and caste-based, and advances in controlling those epigenetic changes, there is a new emphasis on allowing lashunta children to decide for themselves which sort of changes they'd prefer to go through at puberty.

If that isn't something you can read as "lashuntas are all kinds of trans positive" I don't know how to make it any clearer.

I see what you're saying, but I definitely disagree with it. If I can throw out a (somewhat simplified) comparison...

100(ish) years ago, nurses where all women, and combat soldiers were all men (there's the simplification).
Now, both men and women can be nurses, and both women and men can be combat soldiers (in some countries, anyway).
Whether you're a nurse or a combat soldier has nothing to do with your gender, so a woman deciding to be a combat soldier isn't automatically trans, and neither is a man deciding to be a nurse.

The changes that a Lashunta goes through at puberty affect physical development, but don't...

But the Lashunta's two forms aren't jobs either. Being a nurse doesn't entail drastic physical changes. You can be a combat soldier and then later train to be a nurse. No physical changes required at all.

I'll agree that Lashunta aren't exactly trans, but they're a nice positive trans analogy in away that changing jobs, even if they're jobs that are linked to gender roles, isn't.


thejeff wrote:

But the Lashunta's two forms aren't jobs either. Being a nurse doesn't entail drastic physical changes. You can be a combat soldier and then later train to be a nurse. No physical changes required at all.

I'll agree that Lashunta aren't exactly trans, but they're a nice positive trans analogy in away that changing jobs, even if they're jobs that are linked to gender roles, isn't.

I see the changes as closer to choosing a job than choosing a gender, because the Lashunta's gender doesn't change, whichever choice they make.

It's the trans analogy bit I disagree with (and it's something I do have a bit of experience with, so this isn't just some random person disagreeing to be difficult).
I think my problem with it is that making that link feels like it's reinforcing "Damaya are female, Korasha are male"

I'm starting to feel that we're talking at cross-purposes, so it's probably best to accept that different people will see it differently, and both ways are valid from personal interpretation.


something else to consider with the Lashunta, the Pathfinder era ones had very strong masculine/feminine traits attached to their respective sub types. Males were once "compact, muscular, and hirsute" while females were the only ones that were explicitly labeled as "beautiful and commanding" now both genders are always "hawt like elves but better" ... ok, that last quote is more of a paraphrase but the SFCRB states pretty much everything finds all Lashunta to be super attractive and the new depictions of Korasha are pretty tall, muscular and extremely smooth skinned to fit their new found beauty. the depictions of both sub species could easily fit to the standard ideals of attractive to either gender in modern society. its kind of a let down since even a female korasha wouldnt look like anything other than an attractive athelete whereas under the old break outs they would actually look different from a sci-fi trope space amazon.

Liberty's Edge

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Violet Hargrave wrote:

Shirrens- Between having 3 genders, and a culture explicitly based around celebrating individualism, this is hands down the race I'm most excited about in the specific context of making queer as hell characters, but also the one with the greatest need to clarify a hell of a lot of things first. Like, what is the whole pronoun situation here? If I had to guess, I'd say males go he/him, hosts go she/her (specific reference in the stat block to 'queens' and all), and females have their own pronoun set going on. This is something that really needs to be sorted out officially before anyone can really properly write about any non-male shirren NPCs.

Also having 3 genders calls for a lot of specialized terminology for attraction. If you're straight, or ace, that's fine. A certain percentage of them being trisexual is a given. If you're specifically only interested in others of your own gender, that's manageable. But, what if you're, say, a host who's...

I am considering using one pronoun, perhaps varied by speaker (independent of speaker's or subject's gender) to represent having a difficulty transitioning from telepathic communication (which may involve transmission of ideas rather than words) to verbal or written use pronouns. If I do, I will probably have them tend to avoid singular pronouns.

Another interesting piece of kit is the holoskin. It's superficial only, but still offers some options. I was surprised that there was no other alter self/change self/shapechange equivalents.


Torbyne wrote:
something else to consider with the Lashunta, the Pathfinder era ones had very strong masculine/feminine traits attached to their respective sub types. Males were once "compact, muscular, and hirsute" while females were the only ones that were explicitly labeled as "beautiful and commanding" now both genders are always "hawt like elves but better" ... ok, that last quote is more of a paraphrase but the SFCRB states pretty much everything finds all Lashunta to be super attractive and the new depictions of Korasha are pretty tall, muscular and extremely smooth skinned to fit their new found beauty. the depictions of both sub species could easily fit to the standard ideals of attractive to either gender in modern society. its kind of a let down since even a female korasha wouldnt look like anything other than an attractive athelete whereas under the old break outs they would actually look different from a sci-fi trope space amazon.

I don't think the Korasha are going to be the sci-fi trope space amazon. Looking at their height range, I'm imagining most Korasha are going to hover just under or just over the 5' mark with the odd-duck ones pushing the 6' mark. The Damaya are probably the ones hovering around the 7' range.

So effectively you have (beautiful, and less hairy) space dwarves being the same race as the space elves.


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Kalindlara wrote:

*enters thread, ready to contribute*

*looks at replies*

*leaves*

Yeah I am kinda bummed out seeing where this went and how confrontational some people were when approaching the thread. I hope things got sorted out later, but it kinda killed my excitement, at least for now.

Also, the fact that people are still talking about drow like they exist in Starfinder (and still have the "evil matriarchy" that has plagued s&!$ty dude-written Sci-Fi for decades). Why did Paizo let me down on this? I asked Santa for one thing...


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It is definitely nice to see some non-binary options; been wanting to play a genderfluid character for a while, so having the option right there in the Android write-up at the start of the book was rather encouraging.

The inclusivity of the racial descriptions should help create a lot characters who were previously needlessly difficult to make.

Larger questions like 'what is queer in starfinder,' which I feel this thread has been hijacked into are less interesting to me, although probably important to consider in a larger campaign sense. I think it's important for us to remember that this is a game for real people, who want a certain fantasy experience, and that probably we should do as the OP has, and explore the options the book presents (or lacks), before delving into more... charged.. questions.

I for one simply want to play a genderfluid android operative, or perhaps an agender ysoki mechanic/technomancer with a penchant for body modification.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Also, the fact that people are still talking about drow like they exist in Starfinder (and still have the "evil matriarchy" that has plagued s&&%ty dude-written Sci-Fi for decades). Why did Paizo let me down on this? I asked Santa for one thing...

Per the SF corebook, drow do exist on Apostae as demon-worshipping, elf-haters who run their Houses alot like corporations. No mention of matriarchies, patriarchies, or any archies otherwise.

If you're interested KC (and everyone else), I would be pretty jazzed for discussion and ideas of Starfinder-era drow society, especially stuff that breaks radically with the ingrained TSR/WotC lore. Probably should start a new thread for it though...

Edit: New drow thread.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Androids seem to call it out explicitly:

CRB page 43 wrote:
as constructed beings they do not reproduce in the human fashion and have no biological need for gender—some identify strongly as male or female, while others shift fluidly or ignore it altogether, and still others actively reject it on philosophical grounds as a relic of their former slavery.


Recently read a series of fantasy/sci-fi books that included an insect like race that had a similar set up to the Shirren, the neuter sex was referred to as Ye, so you had He-She-Ye as the Pronouns. That's what I am going to use in our home campaign anyways, since it struck me as a pretty good way of handling it.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Jared Kincaid wrote:
Recently read a series of fantasy/sci-fi books that included an insect like race that had a similar set up to the Shirren, the neuter sex was referred to as Ye, so you had He-She-Ye as the Pronouns. That's what I am going to use in our home campaign anyways, since it struck me as a pretty good way of handling it.

There's a "who's on first" style joke in there somewhere off of the homonym nature of "yer" if that were the case...

...there's an Absalom station infosphere youtube "host-joke" (Shirren dad-joke) channel out there that probably does a comedy routine like that, so I am more than okay with this :)


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The Drunken Dragon wrote:
...there's an Absalom station infosphere youtube "host-joke" (Shirren dad-joke) channel out there that probably does a comedy routine like that, so I am more than okay with this :)

Now I want to start a new "Keskodai's 1001 Shirren Dad-Jokes to Win Friends and Annoy Offspring" thread.


So, very slight necro, but I notice that the Serum of sex shift doesn't say the set of characteristics you choose need to match the conventional combinations. Is there any particular reason a drinker can't choose some features from one sex and some from another? Say, the obvious primary characteristics of a male human, but with the rounded features, body mass distribution, and proportions of a female?


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Terrible Sex Change As Punishment Idea Tangent:
"Forced gender reassignment surgery" sounds...bad. Like, really bad. Wasn't there a s*&$ty action movie with this premise? The idea of "punishing" someone by giving them different genitalia or whatever is, like, with what we know now, so many different shades of wrong.

- Uneven punishment. Some people would get gender dysphoria, some wouldn't. Lots of people don't have a firm gender identity, for instance, so they wouldn't care. Others would be subject to horrible suffering from this misapplication of justice.

- Frankly, I don't think "in our RPG, [this culture] punishes offenders with gender dysphoria" is very queer-friendly at all.

- It kinda harks back to the "classic" male fragility humor about how horrible it would be to be turned into a woman. The belt was a s@%*ty cursed item for a lot of reasons, and not least that it was designed to funnel into that exact style of humor.

- Speaking realistically, wouldn't you be creating a...god, I can't even finish this thought. But linking "sex offender" with "gender dysphoria" in any sentence (aside from the obvious "people with gender dysphoria are often victims of sex offenders") is just...no. Stop it. Stop it.

- Changing someone's physical features wouldn't stop them from being sex offenders. So I want you to take a moment and really think: Why would you see this as an appropriate punishment? What wires are connecting in your head to make you see some sort of link?

"Temporary castration" is a good deal better, but to be honest, I'm amazed that the mods cut the political talk and left this weird, disturbing conversation intact. Am I in the well? Am I the only one getting terrible vibes from this?


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Clarification on sex change as punishment tangent:
I completely agree that forcing gender dysphoria on someone as capital punishment is obscenely cruel and not an option even in a setting like a tabletop game. The idea was to remove the urges of someone who is a criminal to curb those impulses. And yeah, this is getting into some clockwork Orange style of rehabilitation but all it would be doing is removing the biological "reward" for those actions not physically hurt them for having the thoughts.

In setting I'd imagine as part of a parole like system that would allow such criminals to continue to contributing to society (unlike America's prison system that just syphons off money for little practical use) and have a handler/therapist regularly check on them and make sure the system works for them otherwise undo the changes and send them back to prison.

Ultimately this would serve little purpose at the table and the idea would show up in no game of mine. It was simply a thought experiment that I probably shouldn't have posted about here, just wanted to clarify my thought process so the people here don't see me as some gender dysphoria torturer or something.


Tangent:
No, Descrud, your idea was okay. I mean, there might be issues with it, but they aren't the glaringly obvious ones I wanted to tackle above.


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I'd just like to point out how much less gender dysphoria there would even be in this setting. I have a couple trans friends, one of which hasn't transitioned yet for fear of surgery costs and other factors. But after a couple conversations with her it's pretty obvious that, at least for her, a lot of her anxiety and discomfort stem from the lack of easy availability to a solution to her problem. I imagine just knowing there is a quick, affordable, and most importantly completely functional sex change system in place keeps a lot of those anxieties at bay even if someone couldn't immediately attain them. And such easy availability would most definitely erase the stigma behind transgendered people.


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Of course, it's worth remembering that not everyone who's trans chooses a physical transition, and likewise, not everyone who's trans has gender dysphoria.


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Right. But I still applaud Paizo for making an item like the sex change serum so cheap. That coupled with the representation in the races really make the game feel like the cosmopolitan society they were going for. As someone who's tried their hand at designing a game from scratch I can attest to how hard it is to make a system feel like a setting.


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Yeah, stripping someone of their gender identity or forcing someone into a form counter to that identity is unambiguously Evil and vile. It's a fundamental violation of that someone's core self, even if only temporary. Any individuals or groups who would perform such acts are in a quick free-Fall to irredeemably Evil, if they aren't there already.

And having said that, I'm ashamed I helped flesh it out. My sincerest apologies if I've made anyone who read it uncomfortable or unwelcome.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Likewise, mistakes were made on my part and learned from.

Please accept my apologies on this as well.


Ok, hear me out and maybe help me out. I don't quite get it, I'm trying but I'm not there yet. That said, my games will typically take a "mind your own business" attitude on the matter until I feel I get it.

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