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Is "Host" a gender though? Shirrens have 3 sexes, but maybe we're being overly anthropocentric if we think these insectoids use 3 different gendered pronouns in their language. They could have separate pronouns for "worker", "soldier", "babysitter" and "queen". They could also have no gendered pronouns at all, or maybe their language doesn't even have pronouns (since they're probably not as helpful when you're telepathic and communicate through abstract thought). Maybe the use of gendered pronouns in human language is just a novelty to them?
Based on the art, it's also hard to say If there's any real physiological difference between different Shirren sexes. Would a mammal even be able to tell a Host from a Female?
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The first installment of the dead suns AP has a host Sirren. Officially, the singular "they" is used.
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From the AP book.
You get to meet Chiskisk early on.
Chiskisk is neither male nor female, but host, the third shirren sex, and as such is referred to with the pronouns “they,” “them,” and “themself.”
Hmm. I just shared a few thoughts on this topic over here, and that really doesn't seem like a good precedent to run with. All well and good for a specific individual NPC, but if someone's setting up a writing guide for shirren going forward, I have a big long lecture to give someone.
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Hmm. I just shared a few thoughts on this topic over here, and that really doesn't seem like a good precedent to run with. All well and good for a specific individual NPC, but if someone's setting up a writing guide for shirren going forward, I have a big long lecture to give someone.
As non-human races, nothing requires any particular race to even use 'Male' and 'Female' beyond the fact that's the closest to what humans see it as. Which has issues with translating a third gender, as we don't really have a pronoun for such to translate it as. They likely have a term in their own language for it but that makes translation conventions something to wonder about. Do you use the racial term for every gender? Or just the third gender?
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Hmm. I just shared a few thoughts on this topic over here, and that really doesn't seem like a good precedent to run with. All well and good for a specific individual NPC, but if someone's setting up a writing guide for shirren going forward, I have a big long lecture to give someone.As non-human races, nothing requires any particular race to even use 'Male' and 'Female' beyond the fact that's the closest to what humans see it as. Which has issues with translating a third gender, as we don't really have a pronoun for such to translate it as. They likely have a term in their own language for it but that makes translation conventions something to wonder about. Do you use the racial term for every gender? Or just the third gender?
My bet is that most shirren get called "they;" there aren't a lot of recognizable differences between the three sexes, and unless someone's trying hard to present themselves as a member of a particular gender, most folks likely can't tell.
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I can recall having read anything that went into major detail on Shirren biology, but "host" sounds like the one who's capable of carrying a child, correct? In that case, "they" makes quite a bit of sense.
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Absolutely No to "it". Shirren are sentient humanoids with three genders. They are not things or constructs. "It" is insulting.
I'd actually think it better to come up with three entirely new pronouns for the shirren. Shirren have sperm donors, egg donors, and hosts that also donate additional genetic material. That doesn't really map well to human players' concepts, and so using he/she/they makes the shirren seem less alien. We as players shouldn't box/shorthand shirren neatly into masculine, feminine, and other which I think is what he/she/they puts in the minds of most players.
I think three entirely new pronouns works better. I think it also has the added bonus of letting the players attach their own concepts of personality and social/familial dynamics to individual shirren free of preconceptions and stereotypes based on 21st-century humanity.
My Vesk Soldier will refer to all Shirren sexes as simply Shirren. He will have no clue how to tell each of them apart and he will have no desire to learn.
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A word is only insulting if you let it be insulting. It is grammatically correct. If someone chooses to take it as an insult when the word is not intended as such, that's a personal issue. I don't think the Shirren would care since being insulted at the word It is entirely a human concept.
Its have no gender. The shirren canonically have three genders. Please respect the shirrens' gender representation as you would expect other players to respect the gender of your PC.
Since they are based on insects, how about Chtt, Klk, and Tchh?
That works. Although the completionist in me is niggling me to figure out if those words, or anything we come up with, can be produced with shirren mouthparts.
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Absolutely No to "it". Shirren are sentient humanoids with three genders. They are not things or constructs. "It" is insulting.
I'd actually think it better to come up with three entirely new pronouns for the shirren. Shirren have sperm donors, egg donors, and hosts that also donate additional genetic material. That doesn't really map well to human players' concepts, and so using he/she/they makes the shirren seem less alien. We as players shouldn't box/shorthand shirren neatly into masculine, feminine, and other which I think is what he/she/they puts in the minds of most players.
I think three entirely new pronouns works better. I think it also has the added bonus of letting the players attach their own concepts of personality and social/familial dynamics to individual shirren free of preconceptions and stereotypes based on 21st-century humanity.
They have three sexes. I don't think it mentions gender at all. They may have a singular gender, for all we know. Considering they were all part of the Swarm, I don't see that as particularly unlikely. It's possible they may have rank/role-based pronouns, rather than gender/sex-based ones. If hosts are held in high regard (as implied by their use of the word "queen"), it might also be that they get an honorific, or that their pronoun is seen as something special that others cannot gain access to without changing their sex. I wonder if they wouldn't then have problems with people trying to use the shift to gain station, or as a means of expressing individuality? Hm. Willing to bet that shirren are more likely to use sex and appearance shift serums as a means of self-expression than other races.
(Edit: If they are effectively "genderless," they may see the shift as primarily one of aesthetics. It's an interesting question that I think is over-simplified by just assigning their "other" sex with new pronouns. I think using three pronouns over-complicates the issue, though, and risks running into the trope where... I don't know what it's called. Like when everything in a setting has a new and different word to such an extent that it comes across as convoluted or self-obsessed. "My space elves are called Fashurls, and instead of men and women, they have Fibbles and Trinacks." Anyone know what that trope's called?)
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It's quite possible the shirren use something similar, but we're translating everything else into English/common, so it seems odd not to translate those as well.
Since they are based on insects, how about Chtt, Klk, and Tchh?That works. Although the completion in me is niggling me to figure out if those words, or anything we come up with, can be produced with shirren mouthparts.
We need an Adam Savage and/or Jamie Hyneman equivalent(s) to build working mouthparts models and test them. And then when they're done, blow them up with explosives.
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They have three sexes. I don't think it mentions gender at all. They may have a singular gender, for all we know. Considering they were all part of the Swarm, I don't see that as particularly unlikely.
Good point. I should be more careful and not conflate shirrens' sex and gender.
It's possible they may have rank/role-based pronouns, rather than gender/sex-based ones. If hosts are held in high regard (as implied by their use of the word "queen"), it might also be that they get an honorific, or that their pronoun is seen as something special that others cannot gain access to without changing their sex. I wonder if they wouldn't then have problems with people trying to use the shift to gain station, or as a means of expressing individuality? Hm. Willing to bet that shirren are more likely to use sex and appearance shift serums as a means of self-expression than other races.
It's also possible that some shirren also feel like they are a different sex and/or gender that what they were assigned at birth. E.g., a shirren sperm donor feels they should have instead been a shirren host.
Heck, maybe some shirren might use the sex shift serums to spend time in each of their sexes? Maybe all shirren do, and think the other humanoid races are weird for staying locked in only one sex and/or gender?
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It's also possible that some shirren also feel like they are a different sex and/or gender that what they were assigned at birth. IE, a shirren sperm donor feels they should have been a shirren host.
I never meant to dismiss the possibility that there are trans shirren. That's kind of the assumed baseline for me, so I didn't mention it, since I was talking about ways in which they might differ from humanity. Sorry; I shouldn't assume.
Heck, maybe some shirren might use the sex shift serums to spend time in each of their sexes? Maybe all shirren do, and think the other humanoid races are weird for staying locked in only one sex and/or gender?
I like the idea that they find androids more relatable in that regard.
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Whatever the Shirren language says for their pronoun because some words don't translate and, for all we know, they might not have a concept of gender pronouns or pronouns at all. For all we know, they think that is a human concept. So if you really must have a pronoun for them, just make one up. If you really must have something in English, It is a neutral singular pronoun."It" is however a pronoun used for objects, not people.
"They" is a perfectly good singular neutral pronoun, with long use in English, in slightly good context.
That's your opinion. Others differ. I don't see why "it" wouldn't be perfectly usable, generally. We need a singular pronoun that's neither male nor female. "It" is a singular pronoun that's neither male nor female. "They" seems like an odd choice to me, since it isn't singular. But then again, given the nomenclature "Host", it seems implicit that seeing themselves as more than a single entity is an important part of a host's worldview, so a plural pronoun seems like a workable option in this case.
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It is grammatically correct.
Not according to the Starfinder AP.
If you want to make up something different for your home games, of course you can do whatever you like. But if you're playing SFS, it's officially "they, their, themselves"
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A word is only insulting if you let it be insulting. It is grammatically correct. If someone chooses to take it as an insult when the word is not intended as such, that's a personal issue. I don't think the Shirren would care since being insulted at the word It is entirely a human concept.
When I play roleplaying games, I push that elves, dwarves, whatever are not humans at all. Putting them to human standards pushes the human superiority thing. I treat every species as just that. A totally different species. Said species would likely not even have the same synaptic patters since they evolved totally separately, in a totally different environment.
Since they are based on insects, how about Chtt, Klk, and Tchh?
There's an entire page on TV tropes called "It" is Dehumanizing, about how people use the pronoun "it" to deny that people are actually, well, people.
I don't see much of an issue with the current setup of he/she/they. Pronouns are usually considered closed-class nouns (it's a lot harder to create new ones than, say, nouns or verbs), and creating a new set of 3 would result in some difficult to understand sentences. I already have a bit of trouble with "they" since my brain keeps trying to tell me that needs to be plural, but English sadly lacks a good alternative.
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Considering how alien the shirren really are, my plan is just to use 'they' for all shirren.
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My concern here is twofold:
A- It's important to have a standard in place for how people write about one of the core 7 races in all upcoming official Starfinder material.
B- It's important to have that standard make sense, and not cause offense to any actual real world people.
What we have as established precedent here so far is one specific NPC whose gender is host, and whose pronouns are they/them/themself.
Without altering that, moving forward, the obvious standards to run with so as not to contradict that would be:
#1- "They" is the generally accepted pronoun for all host shirrens, with males using "he" and females using "she."
#2- "They" is the generally accepted pronoun for all shirrens regardless of gender when speaking in common because more accurate terms don't exist or don't translate well.
#3- That one particular shirren whose pronouns have been established does not fit within the typical shirren gender expressions and personally feels more comfortable going with "they" as a result.
#1 I have a serious serious problem with, because the singular they, in the real world, is used very specifically when referring to people whose gender is unknown (i.e. each player draws a card at the start of their turn), or for whom there otherwise aren't appropriate pronouns to use (i.e. my friend bought a binder so hopefully people will mistake them for a woman less often). In both these cases, the idea is that we are actively avoiding the use of a gendered pronoun because we don't want to use a gendered pronoun for someone not of that gender.
On the other side of that coin, as someone who is trans, and does fit nicely into the standard gender binary, I am acutely aware of how painful it is to have people actively avoid using gendered language when referring to me (usually in overtly bigoted terms like "it thinks it's a woman" but some people refer to all trans people as "they" to achieve the same effect). All three of the shirren genders are pretty explicitly referred to as being innately gendered, with all the societal expectations that entails, so it's rude and confusing to refer to any one of them in explicitly gender neutral terms.
#2 is better, although potentially insensitive towards shirrens if they do have gendered pronouns in their own language (although I can totally see a case where they wouldn't as the whole individual identity thing is relatively new to them).
#3 I like because it's always nice to see more non-binary representation, but doesn't help to establish a setting bible for other writers to use, and still leaves this as something I'd really hope gets pinned down before I ever end up needing to know this for professional reasons.
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Once again, unless I've missed something big, I don't think they ever discuss shirren gender dynamics. They discuss shirren sexes. These are not the same thing. (If I've overlooked this bit of info somewhere, please let me know.)
I agree that he/she/they is not a good set. If shirren are going to be gendered based on sex, "they" doesn't work. It only works if it's applied across the board, with individuals that choose gendered pronouns being the exception, rather than the assumption.
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So.
"They is" or "They are" for a single host Shirren?
I think I read somewhere that they use the pronouns "Sheila, Bruce, and Dingo" to refer to their three genders.
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It's important to have that standard make sense, and not cause offense to any actual real world people.
As long as you realize that is, actually, impossible. :)
My two cents: This is a cool conversation because it probably maps pretty well to a conversation humans (and other races) had to have in character when they first met the Shirren.
I wouldn't be surprised if in character, each race has its own way of dealing with the issue. Most likely, in Shirren appropriate pronouns exist. Even more likely, Shirren who learn other languages have to decide how to adapt that language to their unusual situation. Wouldn't be surprised if different Shirren settle on different solutions. And maybe, for example, Lashunta has an unused pronoun related to the whole dimorphism thing that's easy to appropriate, but in Vesk all the words are gendered based on the speaker and trying to learn Vesk gives host Shirren a massive headache.
I guess what I am saying is, I would address this problem case-by-case by talking it out with my players and resolving it in-character.
For official material, I wouldn't be surprised if they/them was chosen as the least-confusing standard, though.
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It's important to have that standard make sense, and not cause offense to any actual real world people.As long as you realize that is, actually, impossible. :)
My two cents: This is a cool conversation because it probably maps pretty well to a conversation humans (and other races) had to have in character when they first met the Shirren.
I wouldn't be surprised if in character, each race has its own way of dealing with the issue. Most likely, in Shirren appropriate pronouns exist. Even more likely, Shirren who learn other languages have to decide how to adapt that language to their unusual situation. Wouldn't be surprised if different Shirren settle on different solutions. And maybe, for example, Lashunta has an unused pronoun related to the whole dimorphism thing that's easy to appropriate, but in Vesk all the words are gendered based on the speaker and trying to learn Vesk gives host Shirren a massive headache.
I guess what I am saying is, I would address this problem case-by-case by talking it out with my players and resolving it in-character.
For official material, I wouldn't be surprised if they/them was chosen as the least-confusing standard, though.
I love the idea that Lashunta pronouns either include whether the person to whom they're referring is Korasha or Damaya as well as gender, or else are based entirely on sub-type. Like, instead of sticking to the genders, their pronouns stuck to the sub-types.
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Ah, English, never change with your fear of the neutral pronoun.
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I'm thinking slotting Shirren into male, female, and host is the result of dual-sexed races trying to translate a radically different reproductive biology into their own social construct. Since neither "male" nor "female" are hosting, the only reason to assign one of the mating types as male or female is the "female" has larger gametes - and since the cells aren't carrying half the genetic material to make a full life form, they wouldn't even be considered gametes.
I could get into a whole thing of how mating type doesn't necessarily mean male and female, but the point is, Shirren have a very alien reproduction cycle, and the human(oid) response to new concepts is to establish points of comparison with established concepts, and that a Shirren "male" doesn't correlate to a human male, or even an insect male.
"It's perfectly fine for me to misgender a fictional person because they're fictional." No, no it is not.
"It's perfectly fine for me to misgender a fictional person who is a fictional race because they're fictional." See above.
The original Shirren communication might had been completely genderless due to swarm culture.
"They" in this case could be translation of possibly modern adapted formal pronoun of the Host. I am not completely familiar how it goes in old english, but it is "Thou" yes? There must had been somekind of cultural mixing up when Shirren joined rest of the Pact world species. So this formal pronoun was adapted to "global language".
Just one theory.
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Ah, English, never change with your fear of the neutral pronoun.
The issue is that the grammatically old-fashioned believe that such a neutral pronoun still exists as it has for several hundred years. 'He' refers to a man, a person whose gender is not known at the time of speaking, or an animal whose gender is not known unless the speaker chooses to use 'it' for that animal.
In terms of shirren, that would mean:
sperm donor: he
egg donor: he (not female, but a 'person')
host: he (not female, but a 'person')
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we haven't even resolved the issue in English, so how can we expect ourselves to resolve it in an even more complicated fictional setting?
edit: This is speaking in the abstract, of course. If a particular shirren tells us a choice of pronouns, that should be respected for that particular shirren, even if that choice is a singular 'they' which makes me want to throw up every time I need to use it.
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If I play a Shirren, I'm going to insist on no pronouns. Everyone will refer to me in third person form only or not at all. EDIT: It actually works in-character, why would someone who values individuality on an almost religious level be comfortable with anyone using a generic pronoun? Tc'Charok is Tc'Charok! Tc'charok is not a "he", "she", or "they", do not use words to erase Tc'Charok's indiduality!
(Tc'Charok's chitin-deficient friends finds Tc'Charok hard to pronounce. Tc'Charok gives them permission to call Tc'Charok "Skippy" instead, as it is agreed upon that "Skippy only refers to Tc'Charok)
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Saying "They is" makes me want to slap someone and drag them back to elementary school.So.
"They is" or "They are" for a single host Shirren?
Me too. But we're referring to a single individual, and as such, "is" is a more proper term than "are."
And as long as we're going back to grade school, "they" would never be used for a single person. But here we are, with a single host Shirren, being referred to as "they."
Single individual: He is. She is. They is.
Multiple individuals: They are.
My preference? Shklee is. Or Shlkim or Shlker.
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We use "they," "they are," and "them" for a single unknown-gendered entity like all the time in common speaking. Rules of language are just as fictional as Shirren are, and largely decided based on what gets the point across and sounds ok.
I'd follow the AP's example myself; the best route possible for the soon-to-be beleaguered Paizo employees and any Starfinder Society GM/players worried about offending someone at their table would probably be to simply state that Shirren is canonically a genderless language regarding pronouns and Shirren go on a case by case basis depending on personal preferences when speaking in other languages.
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Well im willing to guess that you are not a shirren it would be silly to assert that it wpuld be insulting as no shirren exist irl if i get a chance to play and not only dm as im my play groups resident sci-fi fan i will make a bug humanoid character that will refer to itself in the 3rd person with the word itAbsolutely No to "it". Shirren are sentient humanoids with three genders. They are not things or constructs. "It" is insulting.
I'd actually think it better to come up with three entirely new pronouns for the shirren. Shirren have sperm donors, egg donors, and hosts that also donate additional genetic material. That doesn't really map well to human players' concepts, and so using he/she/they makes the shirren seem less alien. We as players shouldn't box/shorthand shirren neatly into masculine, feminine, and other which I think is what he/she/they puts in the minds of most players.
I think three entirely new pronouns works better. I think it also has the added bonus of letting the players attach their own concepts of personality and social/familial dynamics to individual shirren free of preconceptions and stereotypes based on 21st-century humanity.
You don't need my permission to play in or GM your home games as you see fit, or to change the setting canon to meet your and your groups preferences.
But if you play in PF Society or SF Society games, you shouldn't be surprised if you encounter pushback from other players or the GM. You might also take a moment to consider that many LGBTIQ+ players/GMs might make negative assumptions about players/GMs who deliberately attempt to misgender character's specified gender identity. Even people in your home game likely have LGBTIQ+ friends and family, or are perhaps LGBTIQ+ themselves. Please be as considerate of other people at the table and their characters as you would wish them to be considerate of you and your characters.
Well im willing to guess that you are not a shirren it would be silly to assert that it wpuld be insulting as no shirren exist irl if i get a chance to play and not only dm as im my play groups resident sci-fi fan i will make a bug humanoid character that will refer to itself in the 3rd person with the word itAbsolutely No to "it". Shirren are sentient humanoids with three genders. They are not things or constructs. "It" is insulting.
I'd actually think it better to come up with three entirely new pronouns for the shirren. Shirren have sperm donors, egg donors, and hosts that also donate additional genetic material. That doesn't really map well to human players' concepts, and so using he/she/they makes the shirren seem less alien. We as players shouldn't box/shorthand shirren neatly into masculine, feminine, and other which I think is what he/she/they puts in the minds of most players.
I think three entirely new pronouns works better. I think it also has the added bonus of letting the players attach their own concepts of personality and social/familial dynamics to individual shirren free of preconceptions and stereotypes based on 21st-century humanity.
You don't need my permission to play in or GM your home games as you see fit, or to change the setting canon to meet your and your groups preferences.
But if you play in PF Society or SF Society games, you shouldn't be surprised if you encounter pushback from other players or the GM. You might also take a moment to consider that many LGBTIQ+ players/GMs might make negative assumptions about players/GMs who deliberately attempt to misgender character's specified gender identity. Even people in your home game likely have LGBTIQ+ friends and family, or are perhaps LGBTIQ+ themselves. Please be as considerate of other people at the table and their characters as you would wish them to be considerate of you and your characters.
Damn straight. If someone tells me that they're playing a Shirren host who was born a Shirren male, and they prefer to not be referred to with pronouns at all, then I'm going to respect that. I'm not going to argue over what their character is, because that's *their* character, just like I would expect them to not insist my Lashunta is really an elf. I don't get to control another person's character or their identity, and they don't get to control mine.
Rule 1 of gaming is don't be a dick.
Now, I could play a *character* who misgenders others, whether because they're an Android who doesn't comprehend gender or a jerky Vesk who doesn't care to learn about other species, but only if everyone in my group was conformable with it, and I wouldn't even try in SFS, because getting permission at the start of every module isn't a great use of everyone's time.
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The OED on "singular they"
Is it grammatically correct?
Despite objections, there is a trend to use ‘singular they’. In fact, it is historically long established. It goes back at least to the 16th century, and writers such as Shakespeare, Sidney, Byron, and Ruskin used it:
There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend (Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors)