My question now is genuine: What term SHOULD I be using to describe a man who is only attracted to another man, or a woman who is only attracted to another woman? I don't want to offend people, especially when I work in a subfield of science with strong LGBT representation.
generally I have just referred to them as gay or lesbian. I don't generally use homosexual for the same reason I don't use female or male in casual conversation.
I just want to know what way sexuality is done on Golarion, because that would determine how we do it in this thread. If there is a taxonomy of sexuality unique to Golarion, I would prefer to use it. If they use terms like "gay," "lesbian," "bisexual," etc, then I'll use that.
My original question was to get right at the heart of the problem you identify: words matter, and understanding what words (or actions) people use to organize sexuality matters when talking about sexual identity.
Annabel...your comment above was to long to quote, but I assume the sexuality of characters might not be construed as a big deal in Golarion because in general most cultures in the setting don't treat non-standard sexual orientations as unusual or worthy of persecution.
I think Paizo has tried pretty hard to include same-sex relationships in no different/special a light than heterosexual relationships, and has written them in such a way that you could replace the sex and gender of participants without changing the characterization of the NPC. For an NPC, class, level and race (species), and to a certain degree religion, are considered larger defining aspects of their personality than sexual orientation.
There doesn't have to be a single word. There's probably a word in every language, but then again, Golarion uses a language called "Common" which, when we're sitting around the table, sounds a lot like English. So, calling your gay/lesbian character "gay" or "lesbian" should do, shouldn't it? And if that's not enough, google translate the words into other languages (there's probably a Japanese word that could come close to that of the Minkaian language).
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@Annabel I have worked under the assumption that, for purposes of simplicity, Golarion uses the same terms as we use here and now for the description of gender identity and sexual orientation. Origins may be different as Golarion does not have a history of intolerance based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
Just as the term Apple is used for Apples in Golarion, if Paizo has not explicitly stated a specific term for something in Golarion I would assume that the current real-world nomenclature applies.
I am kinda in search of "proof" that homosexuality is in fact present on Golarion.
This is a non-flipant question. What form are you expecting this proof to take? At current there are several Homosexual relationships casually mentioned throughout the Campaign Setting. I don't remember names but there is a homosexual male couple in Sandpoint. Also The faction head for Qadira is in a homosexual relationship. I know there are others but I am not sure off the top of my head, the two I mentioned jump to mind immediately along with the couple from the Wrath of the Righteous adventure path.
*sigh* The stupid forum software ate my long post and I wasn't smart enough to copy the text into a separate file before hitting the submit button, so I'm not going to rewrite everything.
I responded to the effect of 'Well if you guys don't know, how the heck do you expect me to know?'
There's not a single term to use because there's not a single identity. People have different sexual and gender identities. There are different words that are valid in different contexts.
But for an umbrella term, the generally safe and accepted term is LGBT or LGBTQ. This isn't to say there are no criticisms of the acronym (note I've not been using it myself), but it's commonly used by news media and political organizations.
Also,
Offensive: "homosexual" (n. or adj.)
Preferred: "gay" (adj.); "gay man" or "lesbian" (n.); "gay person/people"
Please use "gay" or "lesbian" to describe people attracted to members of the same sex. Because of the clinical history of the word "homosexual," it is aggressively used by anti-gay extremists to suggest that gay people are somehow diseased or psychologically/emotionally disordered – notions discredited by the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association in the 1970s. Please avoid using "homosexual" except in direct quotes. Please also avoid using "homosexual" as a style variation simply to avoid repeated use of the word "gay." The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post restrict use of the term "homosexual" (see AP, New York Times & Washington Post Style).
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Perhaps that's an effect of straight privilege. But you'd have to elaborate on why you can't take the claim seriously before I'd beable to divine what you mean.
It's difficult because I won't validate your absurd premise.
Since your premise is, to say the least, false, it's incredibly difficult to discuss rationaly or take seriously.We just aren't going to agree on this.
But the fact is that it is a "big deal." That's been the entire point of the past 60 years of queer social formation and activism. Extracting sexuality from all social context doesn't have the magical effect of extracting queer people from the social world which marginalizes them.
For self-identified queer people, sexuality is far more than just "who they want to sleep with." reducing it to that is demeaning, plain and simple.
I could have used a better choice of words. How about "who they find themselves attracted to physically and emotionally"?
I understood equality to mean equal. If a heterosexual's sexuality isn't a big deal, logically it would follow that in order to be equal, a homosexual's sexuality must not be either. This idea is very simple.Making it happen obviously will not be.
Crafting baskets it's a big deal... until you want to craft baskets, and then there's text elaborating on that (i.e. crafting checks).
The political climate of Cheliax doesn't matter... until your party is in Cheliax, and then there's text elaborating on that (i.e. the pathfinder companion explains the vocabulary of Chelish social titles).
Sexuality is a big deal when you input queer people into you text... but then fail to provide anything to grasp when queer people interact with your work.
I see. So you want a sidebar detailing what it means to be queer in the various nations of Golarion?
You're the one who asserted she'd prefer to "be known as the heroine that did X, rather than the lesbian who amounted to something after all." I just want to understand why you think that way.
Because it's logical. I'd rather have a reputation based on the meaningful things I've done, than have any meaningful thing I've done framed in the context of my sexuality. Wouldn't you?
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Annabel...your comment above was to long to quote, but I assume the sexuality of characters might not be construed as a big deal in Golarion because in general most cultures in the setting don't treat non-standard sexual orientations as unusual or worthy of persecution.
I think Paizo has tried pretty hard to include same-sex relationships in no different/special a light than heterosexual relationships, and has written them in such a way that you could replace the sex and gender of participants without changing the characterization of the NPC. For an NPC, class, level and race (species), and to a certain degree religion, are considered larger defining aspects of their personality than sexual orientation.
People don't adopt sexual identities in the real world simply because they are "non-standard sexual orientations as unusual or worthy of persecution," if that was the case then all queer folk would have to do to escape these stigmatization would be to simply throw off identifying sexuality altogether.
And if things like "class, level and race (species), and to a certain degree religion," override sexuality in terms of determining NPC characteristics, then there are no queer people on Golarion because sexuality is inextricably tied into queer life. Which raises the larger questions: is there considerable distance between Paizo's claims to inclusivity and queer representation and the material they publish?
*sigh* The stupid forum software ate my long post and I wasn't smart enough to copy the text into a separate file before hitting the submit button, so I'm not going to rewrite everything.
I responded to the effect of 'Well if you guys don't know, how the heck do you expect me to know?'There's not a single term to use because there's not a single identity. People have different sexual and gender identities. There are different words that are valid in different contexts.
But for an umbrella term, the generally safe and accepted term is LGBT or LGBTQ. This isn't to say there are no criticisms of the acronym (note I've not been using it myself), but it's commonly used by news media and political organizations.
I have heard that used as an umbrella term, but not a specific one. As an example, my advisor and his partner are in a male same sex relationship, and I think use the label "gay", but are certainly not transgender/lesbian/bisexual.
I understood equality to mean equal. If a heterosexual's sexuality isn't a big deal, logically it would follow that in order to be equal, a homosexual's sexuality must not be either.
Or it could mean that straightness should be a big deal.
@MMCJawa Which is why in the context of talking about individuals, you use the words they identify as rather than umbrella terms. It would be weird if you said "My friend John is an LGBT". Like I said, different words should be used in different contexts.
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As the neutral party, I just want to point out two things:
1) *Kryzbyn*, you are saying that *queer* identity isn't a big deal to you. This is fantastic! I appreciate the fact that you aren't opposed to us and I really do understand your intentions :)
2) On the other hand, you must understand that saying "I don't care about it" IS dismissing a part of someone's identity, and that is offensive. I know you don't mean it to be, but it is.
Think of it as saying "I don't care if you're a woman! I think you're a really great scientist regardless!" This sounds very kind and progressive, but it also dismisses that woman's gender identity, which I'm sure is as important to her as your identity is to you.
You must also remember that "straight privilege" shares a boat with "white privilege" - you see your race and gender as non-issues...precisely because they largely are non-issues in this country.
You could also say that you "don't see colors, only people", and I would understand your intent, but it is an offensive statement to make as well - you're saying that portion of identity does not matter to you when it carries a heavy weight for that other person!
So let's scale back the hostility here, folks. Privilege is a hard concept to nail down for people who don't get it, but it's even harder to nail down when you let your anger overrun the conversation. You have every right to be angry - I'm not trying to police your tone - but yelling at an ally just because they're having trouble seeing their privilege .
It doesn't help those people help us, and it fuels the people who want proof that we're wrong!
I see. So you want a sidebar detailing what it means to be queer in the various nations of Golarion?Crafting baskets it's a big deal... until you want to craft baskets, and then there's text elaborating on that (i.e. crafting checks).
The political climate of Cheliax doesn't matter... until your party is in Cheliax, and then there's text elaborating on that (i.e. the pathfinder companion explains the vocabulary of Chelish social titles).
Sexuality is a big deal when you input queer people into you text... but then fail to provide anything to grasp when queer people interact with your work.
Yes, a sidebar would be most apt: they're very close to the margins.
You're the one who asserted she'd prefer to "be known as the heroine that did X, rather than the lesbian who amounted to something after all." I just want to understand why you think that way.Because it's logical. I'd rather have a reputation based on the meaningful things I've done, than have any meaningful thing I've done framed in the context of my sexuality. Wouldn't you?
Saying it's logical is appealing to the very thing I asked you to explain: Why is it that it is logical. Why is it that "doing X" is more meaningful than being a lesbian. Isn't being a lesbian, in part, doing whatever it is that is part of being a lesbian. In fact, isn't there more meaining in being and doing than just doing?
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@ Tirisfal: It's not that Kryzbyn has said that your sexuality doesn't matter. He's merely represented the idea that it doesn't (shouldn't) matter to other people (and why would you want it to?). Hell, most of the problems LGBT people face arise precisely because other people care about their sexuality! Homophobes care about what gay/lesbian people are up to in the privacy of their homes--the rest of us, not so much.
Being acknowledged and accepted for who you are is one thing, but for someone to truly care that you're LBGT? How could they? It doesn't really impact them; it's not really any of their concern, unless they're dating you or something.
People don't adopt sexual identities in the real world simply because they are "non-standard sexual orientations as unusual or worthy of persecution," if that was the case then all queer folk would have to do to escape these stigmatization would be to simply throw off identifying sexuality altogether.
And if things like "class, level and race (species), and to a certain degree religion," override sexuality in terms of determining NPC characteristics, then there are no queer people on Golarion because sexuality is inextricably tied into queer life. Which raises the larger questions: is there considerable distance between Paizo's claims to inclusivity and queer representation and the material they publish?
I think you are misreading my post (intentionally?). I never stated that people in Golarion adopt a sexuality: I assume gender orientation works the same way as it does on Earth, and that the vast majority are "born that way".
Rather, there appears to be zero history of persecution for those people who are LGBTQ people. Bob the Smith and Joe the guardsmen can go into any good-aligned (and probably many neutral and evil) church and get hitched, without a diety frowning on their relationship. The average person on the street wouldn't care about that aspect of their relationship, although they might cast weird glances at the couple if Joe was a nobleman and Bob a commoner, or if Bob followed the tenants of the Prophets of Kalistrade while Joe was a staunch Iomedian. And Heaven forbid Bob being a half-orc.
Yes Bob and Joe would probably identify themselves as LGBTQ, but would probably rank their identification as humans from Magnimar who follow Iomedae and belong to a specific house before that. And from an AP/module/game standpoint, there alignment, level, and class is going to be the most significant factor.
@MMCJawa Which is why in the context of talking about individuals, you use the words they identify as rather than umbrella terms. It would be weird if you said "My friend John is an LGBT". Like I said, different words should be used in different contexts.
Okay...gotcha...I think I was taking some of my confusion over other aspects and applying them to more specific terms. Thanks for the clarification
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cool stuff
Thank you!
I do want to clarify something though...
It's not that I do not care about a person's sexuality in the sense that I don't care about a person. I do care, it's just not a valid basis (for me) for deciding whether a person should or should not be considered a friend or not, or whether they are worthy of being treated with respect or not. For me, actions define those things.
Same with race or culture. Both are important to the make up of a person, has a big contribution to how they think about things, etc.
In and of itself though, it's no big deal, or at least it should not be.
I also think that mentioning supposed white or any other kind of priviledge in the same post one decries anyone being marginalized is irony incarnate.
People don't adopt sexual identities in the real world simply because they are "non-standard sexual orientations as unusual or worthy of persecution," if that was the case then all queer folk would have to do to escape these stigmatization would be to simply throw off identifying sexuality altogether.
And if things like "class, level and race (species), and to a certain degree religion," override sexuality in terms of determining NPC characteristics, then there are no queer people on Golarion because sexuality is inextricably tied into queer life. Which raises the larger questions: is there considerable distance between Paizo's claims to inclusivity and queer representation and the material they publish?
I think you are misreading my post (intentionally?). I never stated that people in Golarion adopt a sexuality: I assume gender orientation works the same way as it does on Earth, and that the vast majority are "born that way".
Rather, there appears to be zero history of persecution for those people who are LGBTQ people. Bob the Smith and Joe the guardsmen can go into any good-aligned (and probably many neutral and evil) church and get hitched, without a diety frowning on their relationship. The average person on the street wouldn't care about that aspect of their relationship, although they might cast weird glances at the couple if Joe was a nobleman and Bob a commoner, or if Bob followed the tenants of the Prophets of Kalistrade while Joe was a staunch Iomedian. And Heaven forbid Bob being a half-orc.
Yes Bob and Joe would probably identify themselves as LGBTQ, but would probably rank their identification as humans from Magnimar who follow Iomedae and belong to a specific house before that. And from an AP/module/game standpoint, there alignment, level, and class is going to be the most significant factor.
Maybe we're talking past each other.
Why is there the assumption that queer identities only gain meaning or importance because of a real world history of marginalization of queer people. I mean, to put bluntly: wouldn't queer people want to recognize their identities so as to better organize the world so they can find potential partners?
If they do identity themselves, I wanted to know how so that the discussion about "homosexuality in Golarion" can better accommodate these facts.
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I also think that mentioning supposed white or any other kind of priviledge in the same post one decries anyone being marginalized is irony incarnate.
Right?
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So on Golarion, what is it that people use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?And no, as far as I know (there are two or three of the older APs I haven't read) the APs don't identify anyone as "lesbian" or "gay" or "homosexual." They don't identify orientation at all -- they just identify NPCs' partners, former partners, love interests, etc.
I'd imagine, in terms of sexuality, the same thing we use to identify people's "types." I'm not sure, in a world with no history of viewing love and/or desire for same-gender partners as wrong or inferior, that there's as much of a need for strict categories. It's not something we've addressed, but my personal opinion is that most people in Golarion simply talk about it in terms of preference: "Oh, she usually falls in love with the tall, dark guys," and "Oh, he tends to go for blonde men," and "I think you're wasting your time there, dear -- none of her lovers have been men."
As far as gender, Golarion's still pretty binary, I think. I'd like to see us do more with androgyny (especially through Arshea), but it's hard to pull off characters that don't identify as male or female, both because of how we're taught to think about gender (it's one of the first things most people identify about other people), and just because we don't have good language for it. "It" reads as dehumanizing in English, and sentence structure gets convoluted in a hurry when you're trying to avoid gendered pronouns. I remember editing some text about Arshea and feeling like the sentence construction was awkward, but not being able to come up with a fix that didn't use a gendered pronoun.
I think it can be done, and even done well, but the more text there is about a character, the harder it is to do, and the more spotlighted some of those linguistic convolutions become. I'd love to slip at least some minor characters in where we just don't identify a gender, and see how people read them, because I think we could do that without lampshading it.
Yes, a sidebar would be most apt: they're very close to the margins.
Ha! Well played. I did not mean a literal sidebar, of course. A discertation of an appropriate length on the subject then.
Literal person is literal.Saying it's logical is appealing to the very thing I asked you to explain: Why is it that it is logical. Why is it that "doing X" is more meaningful than being a lesbian. Isn't being a lesbian, in part, doing whatever it is that is part of being a lesbian. In fact, isn't there more meaining in being and doing than just doing?
Ok, now we're getting somewhere.
Those things aren't mutually exclusive: Making a meaningful contribution to the world at large, or being a lesbian.That's not my point, at all. I'm sorry if it came accross that way.
Let me re-phrase (hopefully this will help):
I would think it would be easier for Kyra to do her job as a hero to help folks, if there were not cultural problems caused by any misperceived notions attached to her sexuality. Meaning, in a traditional or overly conservative culture with a major problem, she may be the best hero for the job, but, oops, she's a lesbian. Now we aren't going to take any offers of help seriously because of generations of cultural baggage, and may ask her to leave, perhaps violently, depending on how backwater they are.
Perception, is what I'm talking about. Is this better, or am I digging a deeper hole?
Folks, I've said it before in this thread and I'm saying it again: please take debates about real-world issues around sexuality and gender to an appropriate thread. This one is about such subjects within the campaign setting.
I'd imagine, in terms of sexuality, the same thing we use to identify people's "types." I'm not sure, in a world with no history of viewing love and/or desire for same-gender partners as wrong or inferior, that there's as much of a need for strict categories. It's not something we've addressed, but my personal opinion is that most people in Golarion simply talk about it in terms of preference: "Oh, she usually falls in love with the tall, dark guys," and "Oh, he tends to go for blonde men," and "I think you're wasting your time there, dear -- none of her lovers have been men."So on Golarion, what is it that people use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?And no, as far as I know (there are two or three of the older APs I haven't read) the APs don't identify anyone as "lesbian" or "gay" or "homosexual." They don't identify orientation at all -- they just identify NPCs' partners, former partners, love interests, etc.
So, is sexuality something that is just communicated about other people? Or is the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc something that Golarions use to identify themselves to others?
Maybe we're talking past each other.
Possibly.
As someone referenced...the dominant language in the Inner Sea Region is Common. Which isn't English. I assume everything in the AP's is "translated from common"
So yeah...there are probably distinct words for Gay/Lesbian/etc.
There are also probably distinct terms for Apple/Chair/Male/Female/etc.
However for simplicity sake...it's probably best not invent new words for things which can be described using existing language. If you did...how would you present the information in a manner that you could assume everyone would understand it. If you published as part of an AP or such, you would just have to define it again in every other product that used it. And I don't see Pathfinder publishing "LGBTQ of Golarion" anytime soon.
As someone referenced...the dominant language in the Inner Sea Region is Common. Which isn't English. I assume everything in the AP's is "translated from common"
So yeah...there are probably distinct words for Gay/Lesbian/etc.
Saying that people on Golarion use (the Common/Varisian/Orc/Necril/whatever word for) lesbian, transgender, bisexual, gay, etc. would be an answer to Annabel's question.
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So, is sexuality something that is just communicated about other people? Or is the terms lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc something that Golarions use to identify themselves to others?I'd imagine, in terms of sexuality, the same thing we use to identify people's "types." I'm not sure, in a world with no history of viewing love and/or desire for same-gender partners as wrong or inferior, that there's as much of a need for strict categories. It's not something we've addressed, but my personal opinion is that most people in Golarion simply talk about it in terms of preference: "Oh, she usually falls in love with the tall, dark guys," and "Oh, he tends to go for blonde men," and "I think you're wasting your time there, dear -- none of her lovers have been men."So on Golarion, what is it that people use to identify sexuality, gender, etc?And no, as far as I know (there are two or three of the older APs I haven't read) the APs don't identify anyone as "lesbian" or "gay" or "homosexual." They don't identify orientation at all -- they just identify NPCs' partners, former partners, love interests, etc.
If you want to get technical about it, those terms have heavy real-world cultural histories that aren't part of Golarion. So obviously no woman in Golarion, where there is no Isle of Lesbos, is going to refer to herself as a "lesbian."
As to whether there are terms that people use for self-identification, I'm not sure. I don't personally feel a need to self-identify as anything or even identify my preferences unless I'm explaining to someone that they don't fit them, but I recognize that others may feel differently.
The campaign setting is a world still under construction -- there are many details about it that aren't nailed down. We're not describing a preexisting world here.
A few weeks back I was in a discussion about how little we actually know about how the different faiths on Golarion interact on a daily basis; I'm not sure how your average person on Golarion refers to members of other faiths, for example, or how they talk about competing ideologies around what's a legitimate form of government. That sort of thing is obviously very important for making real-world communities work -- people kill each other over interfaith relations and political ideologies -- but it's a lot less central to community construction in an RPG world, where the focus tends to be on "How does this community serve the needs of or provide an obstacle to the goals of the PCs?"
Ultimately, it's a world designed around a game that centers, for the most part, around combat/exploration/questing. The priorities about which parts of the world to color in and which get sketched out reflect that. See, for example, how the religions are designed -- you'll find a lot more information about what weapons they use and what kind of spellcasting they do than personal spirituality or even ethics. The things that are most defining about people in real life -- sexuality, spirituality, ideologies and worldviews, psychology, etc. -- aren't, frankly, the focus of the campaign setting. They're something we're always working on building out, but they weren't the bones upon which the setting was built (as opposed to metallic vs. chromatic dragons or schools of magic), and a lot of that information isn't something that exists yet.
I know that various Paizo staff have different areas in which we're interested, and we are, of course, eager to know which of those areas are of interest to our audience. And there's plenty of worldbuilding tucked away inside various Paizo creatives' heads that simply hasn't made it into a book yet. But the answer to a lot of questions about daily life on Golarion and how people think of themselves there is, frankly, "We haven't worked that out yet."
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As far as gender, Golarion's still pretty binary, I think. I'd like to see us do more with androgyny (especially through Arshea), but it's hard to pull off characters that don't identify as male or female, both because of how we're taught to think about gender (it's one of the first things most people identify about other people), and just because we don't have good language for it. "It" reads as dehumanizing in English, and sentence structure gets convoluted in a hurry when you're trying to avoid gendered pronouns. I remember editing some text about Arshea and feeling like the sentence construction was awkward, but not being able to come up with a fix that didn't use a gendered pronoun.
I can confirm if nothing else that Wati has a genderqueer crimelord.
Was someone asking for in-setting terms? :)
Yes! This is what I'm talking about. Instead of cursing the darkness, we light a candle. This and more could round out a book/article about different facets of Golarin's society.