[Closed] Non-Binary Gender Inclusion but with a Contradiction

[Thaboe]

Rysky wrote:

No, they are in act referring to one’s gender.

So they would be exclusionary to genderfluid PCs?

[Forseti]

I wish people wouldn't use the same terms for the biological distinction and the identity distinction. The world would be easier to navigate that way.

[Hmm]

Hello everyone —

I am hopeful that we can all be inclusionary and patient with one another. Remember that our society is in transition too. Sometimes posters are clueless rather than intentionally cruel. It takes time to unlearn the gender stereotypes and binary thinking we were taught as children.

Hmm

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

This conversation continues to be unproductive.

For people who need further education on gender identity, I recommend going other places on the internet.

[Yossarian]

When we get round to it, this will have an impact on ancestry abilities such as:

Quote:

KITSUNE (from Pathfinder 1):
Change Shape (Su) A kitsune can assume the appearance of a specific single human form of the same sex.

One thing to bear in mind: whilst playing pathfinder should be an inclusive space where all sorts of people can feel safe to role play and open up, that doesn't imply that every nation in Golarion is like that culturally. The attitude of some of the inhabitants of Kintargo towards tieflings comes to mind, for example.

Although I'd be curious, which nations in Golarion are less than progressive when it comes to either ancestries or gender roles? Or should all of Golarion be run as a prejudice-free world? With the proviso that, as per the playtest intro, forcing players to have role play experiences they don't want to have is unacceptable.

[Hmm]

Everyone —

Can we all take a deep breath, please? Ched, I understand that you were just simply asking a question. I enjoyed this article from National Geographic. If you become interested in the topic of non-binary genders, googling the term will lead you to tons of other educational resources on the topic.

Respectfully yours,
Hmm

[Vidmaster7]

I will say their is to much of a attack response when their should be an educate response. (some people did the right thing first and others reacted without knowing someones intent.)

[Sydney S.]

They probably just wanted to avoid using the word "sex" in the book.
Regardless of a person's particular conundrums of gender, they're going to fall under one of two generally blatantly obvious physical sexes.
Like, you can't even dream of disguising as a female if you have a beard (or your shaved beard starts creeping back in as stubble) and aren't a dwarf, y'know? There's a physical characteristic that's absolutely going to give you away.

I'd say the bigger problem is the feat isn't described as learned type of disguise like "If I wrap my chest just right it really flattens down, and then I add a bulky shirt on top..." and rather retcons in an aspect of your character: "What do you mean? I've always had slightly pointed ears, yeah. Got some... distant elven blood in me. Honest."
It should be either reworded entirely (to represent a learned benefit) or changed to a feat you can only take at 1st level. (to represent a physical, in-born characteristic)

[Ched Greyfell]

In fact. I've been excited about this playtest for months. And a few days of being on this board has got me not wanting to participate anymore.
People who had literally had the book a couple hours posted flaming posts about it being the Worst Thing Ever because their previous min-maxing power gaming schemes don't work as well on this new edition. Or mad the PF2 isn't still PF1. Instead of just trying to play it first.
People posting about how Paizo will die out soon because they hate the new game.
And now some sort of binary people wanting me to know how insensitive I am for not knowing what they're talking about. And they prove their point of what a bad person I supposedly am by calling me names and insulting me (except for Hmm).
When I expressed dismay at being insulted, some took that as a reason to call me a jerk some more.

I think I'm just going to wait and see what the book turns out to be next August. I don't need my hobby stressing me out too.
Sorry for whatever it was I did.

[Talonhawke]

Sorry If I came of as offensive but I am legitimately shocked that at this point there actually would be people who are completely unaware of Gender Ideology regardless of whether or not they believe it to be true.

If you truly weren't simply attempting to stir the pot Ched my humblest apologies to you for my attitude.

[Ched Greyfell]

Not everyone's story is the same.
I'm 43. I spent age 30 to 40 in lock-up for a non-violent offense. Pathfinder kept me sane in that awful place. I'm not on Facebook or Tinder or any of those.
When I left, I was young. When I got home, I was middle-aged.
I hear people on TV sometimes talking about being identifying as a non-specific binary gender-neutral unqueer pansexual. Or whatever. I don't know what any of it means. When I left home, there were men and women. I got home and everyone is whatever.
I appreciate the apology, Talonhawke.
I just need to stay out of discussions.

[Warped Savant]

Ched Greyfell wrote:

...I've been excited about this playtest for months. And a few days of being on this board has got me not wanting to participate anymore.

...flaming posts about it being the Worst Thing Ever...Instead of just trying to play it first.
People posting about how Paizo will die out soon because they hate the new game.

I agree with you on these specific points. The boards are difficult to look at sometimes because there's so much negativity.

As for you not being too aware about gender and how sensitive of a topic it is for some people:
It's a subject that people get fired up about and it's generally assumed that everyone is aware that it's a sensitive topic so people making the comment of "there's only two genders" are typically taken as trolls that are trying to cause an argument because they think it's funny to get random stranger riled up.
If you honestly want to understand please read the article that Hmm linked to. If you don't want to understand, well, I can't make you. But for your sake I would suggest not talking to people about gender unless you've made an effort to understand. Reactions like those demonstrated in this thread are typical (and usually the reactions are even worse than what has been demonstrated here).

[Hythlodeus]

Ched Greyfell wrote:

Not everyone's story is the same.

I'm 43. I spent age 30 to 40 in lock-up for a non-violent offense. Pathfinder kept me sane in that awful place. I'm not on Facebook or Tinder or any of those.
When I left, I was young. When I got home, I was middle-aged.
I hear people on TV sometimes talking about being identifying as a non-specific binary gender-neutral unqueer pansexual. Or whatever. I don't know what any of it means. When I left home, there were men and women. I got home and everyone is whatever.
I appreciate the apology, Talonhawke.
I just need to stay out of discussions.

13 years ago, when you were 30, public and academic discusussion about non-binary perception of what gender is already existed for decades. this didn't come out of nowhere

[Hmm]

Ched —

I am so glad that you found Pathfinder, and that it helped you transition, and that it gave you a community of gamers to be a part of when you got home. Thank you for sharing your story with us. The Playtest needs all sorts of different people to playtest the new system and try it out. The more different perspectives we have, the better.

Everyone, public and academic discussion about non-binary perception of gender may have existed for decades, but that does not mean that all of us were part of those discussions, or were aware that they were going on. Don’t lead with ‘ignorance is no excuse.’ The internet, while educational, often leads people to only find what they are searching for. Facebook mostly shows us friends and associates who think like we do. If you don’t know to ask a question, you don’t get exposed to new answers. It is easy to fall into a cultural bubble without even knowing that one has done so.

My child, and my children’s friends, shook me out of my cis-viewpoint bubble and opened up a whole new world. It took time for me to learn, and I am still learning as I go.

I want this playtest to be about all sorts of people testing this game, so that we can all have fun playing with one another while we give Paizo feedback. When we game together, we can bridge these cultural barriers and start to learn. We can see that we are all gamers and people. We can appreciate the diversity of our experiences and outlooks. I love that Paizo Celebrated International Transgender Day and includes non-binary genders in both Starfinder and Pathfinder.

Including all of us means welcoming people who are still learning. Asking questions is often an important first step to understanding.

Respectfully yours,
Hmm

[Warped Savant]

Very well said, Hmm. I had been trying to figure out how to word it but you've expressed it much better than I could've.

[pixierose]

One I want to thank Paizo for it's continue persistence in being inclusive and desire to the better even at times when it falters accidentally.

I want to thank Hmm for being such an open and understanding teacher of sorts. You very much seem to have the at air of an educator, you remind me of somebody who does teaching or perhaps a librarian.(As those are the types of fields I want to into whenever finances allow me to get my masters).

To those who popped up in defense of trans individuals, non-binary genders, and the like thank you.

To Chedd, as a trans-woman myself your initial comments were jarring to me and in fact made em uncomfortable but I know they have not come from a malicious place but from a lack of understanding. I hope giving the resources and chances of knowledge you'll take the time to learn. The world can be harsh and as I listened to your story to learn where you are coming from I hope you can and will do the same for us.

Now I will like to address the post as a whole.

1 trans is an adjective(well really it's a shortening of the word transgender which is an adjective), one is not a trans, one is a trans woman, or a trans man, or a trans person.

Some people say their are two clear and distinct sexes with obvious traits. That is simply false, binary sex biologically speaking is more like a series of check marks, but often time people don't have all those checkmarks checked, or they have checks across both sexes. These people are typically Intersex(The term hermaphrodite has gone out of use because that has a different meaning in science and many people with this lived experience don't really appreciate the term) but that is not always the case. Intersex people make up roughly the same percentage of people in the world with natural red hair. Intersex people can have genital configurations that resemble both, a place in between, or like one but lacking in certain forms between the two sex types that are considered to be the most common. And unfortunately invasive and unnecessary surgery is often done to children who portray these characteristics without consent of the parent, and more importantly without the consent of the child. Intersex can also refer to people who have different chromosomes. Some people who are considered to be female at birth are born with an xy chromosome pattern, some people are born with just x, and there are a wide variety of chromosome patterns people can have. Hormone levels are also an aspect of biological sex, but some people assigned male at birth may have what is considered to be unusually high levels of estrogen or vice versa. There have been multiple high profile investigations of women(specifically African American women) who have been tested to see if they we're really "male" for performing well in sports competitions. Then there are secondary sex characteristics, which I know of at least two women with a semi high profile on the internet with full beards they grew naturally. I know of cis women who have been harassed because they did not meet the expected standards of femininity and we're assumed to be trans women, and we're harassed for the perceived transness" for using the womans bathroom(something trans women shouldn't have to deal with either.
The idea that e have two rigid, distinct, unchanging biological sexes is a falsehood, and a oversimplification of the reality we live in.

There have been numerous trans and non-binary people throughout history. Many non-western cultures have had cultural roles for trans and nonbinary people, and continue to do so to this day. An And even in western society I can think of a few examples, one of my favorite being Chevalier D'eon, a soldier, a knight, a spy of the french and served as the maid of honor to Empress Elizabeth of Russia. She lived her life saying she was born female, and convinced the king of France, King Louis XVI for the french government to recognize her as a woman.

There have even been ways to medically transition since early history.

Both science and history are more open, and diverse if we are willing to open our eyes, listen, and take what we have been taught with a grain of salt and do exploring on our own.

I hope this isn't seen as tldr or a rant. But, thank you all for participating in this discussion

[Yossarian]

Ched Greyfell wrote:

Not everyone's story is the same.

I'm 43. I spent age 30 to 40 in lock-up for a non-violent offense. Pathfinder kept me sane in that awful place. I'm not on Facebook or Tinder or any of those.
When I left, I was young. When I got home, I was middle-aged.
I hear people on TV sometimes talking about being identifying as a non-specific binary gender-neutral unqueer pansexual. Or whatever. I don't know what any of it means. When I left home, there were men and women. I got home and everyone is whatever.
I appreciate the apology, Talonhawke.
I just need to stay out of discussions.

Thank you for sharing, and it's great that Pathfinder is this to you.

If you like sci-fi, I really recommend reading the book The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It's exactly about the sensation you are describing you experienced when you got home. Wrapped in a great sci fi story.

[Sam Phelan]

Removed some posts and their replies.

Please remember to follow forum guidelines at all times. Profanity is not allowed, and the substitution of alternative characters to bypass the profanity filter is not acceptable. If you view behavior which is in violation of community guidelines, please do not perpetuate the topic or tone, and do not engage in personal attacks. Flag and move on. It is best to keep threads in this forum on topic, and relevant to the game.

Regardless of the topic, when we are met with a conversation which invites dichotomized sides, it is important that we approach the conversation in a way which is appropriate for our boards. We should never personally attack anyone for their thoughts or ideas. A constant effort to understand the experiences and points of view of others, and to avoid blanket assumptions about groups of people, will go a long way in creating a welcoming atmosphere on our boards. As we have seen here, it's important that everyone contributes to a welcoming environment, and encourages informed and respectful discussion.

[ErichAD]

Drakhan Valane wrote:

ErichAD wrote:

Zaister wrote:

Maybe I'm being dense, but how does "Choose a different gender" force binary only? A non-binary selection can also be different gender, I think.

In a linguistic sense, gender is used to denote a binary typically with a "neuter" for things that opt out of the distinction. I imagine there's still some portion of that usage still floating around in its modern usage causing confusion.

You're right though, it doesn't really imply a male/female gender choice, but it does imply you could greatly alter your appearance by going along different gender distinctions. For instance, if you were to use the Basque animate/inanimate gender distinction, you could use this ability to appear to be a statue I suppose. Heck, you could use Tuyuca genders to disguise yourself as entirely hypothetical. That disguise would probably be tricky.

In a linguistic sense, gender has nothing to do with people and their genders at all. Grammatical gender is only binary in some languages, and some (like English) eschew gender altogether.

I'm curious how you came to any of your stated conclusions. Grammatical gender is used specifically for binaries. English has the fairly standard masculine/feminine/neuter that appear in most languages. English isn't like Hungarian with no gender as you seem to be saying, though it isn't like French where gender is unavoidable either, nor is it polysynthetic with all words being comprised of a series of gender like indicators.

Whether or not this has anything to do with owned genders, I really can't say. I don't know what that is at all.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like once we've reached the point of trying to torture "grammatical gender" to represent a person's identity, we're clearly better off putting pronouns on character sheets and leaving it at that.

[ErichAD]

It may be better to leave that sort of information entirely blank. For disguise purposes for example, would a member of a race other than the one you are emulating be familiar enough with another race's anatomy enough to accurately determine specific demographic determiners based on sight alone?

Setting disguise negatives based on how closely you are trying to match the demographic of the person you are attempting to deceive makes much more sense.

Disguise should be based on society checks rather than deception checks. Yes you are deceiving people, but if you know nothing of their culture you aren't going to have much luck in costuming. Maybe you should use society to appear to be a member of the group you are attempting to deceive, but deception to appear to be something unfamiliar to the group.

Perhaps infiltrate as a society action and disguise as a deception action?

Either way, gating character appearance behind feats is very strange.

[Jason Bulmahn]

Hey there all,

The feat in question has been brought to the teams attention. There is some unfortunate wording here and is not reflective of our values nor our intent.

We will be looking to change this in the final version of the game.

[shroudb]

i may be dense here, or because english is not my native language i'm missing something... but what's wrong with noting down on your sheet if you're a male or a female (physiologically, not what you identify as or what your preferences are)

and in that note, what's wrong with having abilities, magical or mundane ones, that are affected by that?

there has been "genderswapping" magical items as far as 2md ed AdnD as far as i remember. The good thing of this being a fantasy RPG, with abudant magic, is that you can do whatever the hell you want from the get go.

you can play as what you want to be from character creation, you can have "magic" change you to whatever you want if you prefer that flavor, you can disguise youself with perfect accuracy as what you want to look like, you can like whatever sex you want and etc.

But, as an example Graymaidens, a "woman only" organisation of a particular flavor of fighters has been a fantasy trope for as far back as Tolkien (shieldmaidens of Rohan).

Is it really offensive for people to note down if their fantastical, imaginary, character is woman or a man? Or living in a world where your perceived identity matters?

Really, forgive me if i misunderstood something, but i just don't "get it".

And if this is just for "political correctness", to put it somewhat differently:
I assume that all sane modern people find slavery repulsive and offensive. Should we eliminate all slavery and all tyrants and etc from Golarion?

[HWalsh]

I honestly don't know how I feel about this.

So, to preface this, I'm asexual and while not transgender I included a transgender character as a main character in my upcoming book series. I did a ton of research and spoke to dozens of transgender test readers and authors. I'm adding all of this simply to convey that I'm very sensitive to people in the transgender community.

That having been said...

It is a VERY common trope where a male has had to disguise himself as a woman, or a woman has had to disguise herself as a man.

There are a lot of people who have a higher degree of difficulty doing that convincingly.

Let's face it, a person with the body shape of the Terminator is going to have a hard time passing himself off as a contestant for the Miss America pageant.

So, maybe change the wording to something like, "You find it easier to disguise yourself as someone who is radically different from your normal appearance."

Then provide a DC bonus for that specific thing.

I dunno, because I do find it a bit silly that there aren't some people who are better at radical changes than others.

I mean... Take me for example. I'm not a very attractive man. Like, I look like a treasure troll that got stuck in a weed eater. I've got a large nose, my eyebrows are crazy, I grow a rather bushy, if haphazard beard, like straight grizzly adams.

So, like it or not... I do not make a very attractive woman.

I have a friend though. He's got the gift. He's a stunt double. He often stunt doubles for actresses. He's got this incredibly non-descript body. I can't even recognize him on camera when I know to look for him. He can slap on some prosthetics and he's a full blown master of disguise. To a point.

He can't pull off Grizzly Adams. He can pull off a "type" of body. He can't do muscular or imposing. He's not big or tall enough. He doesn't have the build ror it. He'll never pull off Conan the Barbarian.

He also can't pull off characters with curves. He lacks the build. So he can pass easily for male or female *if* the person he's passing as has that medium build.

I personally think to remove "build" from Pathfinder on disguise as a factor is flawed.

Maybe we should have "general build" be a character creation trait?

Something like:

Muscular, Athletic, Slight?

Then we can still have such feats, still keep that aspect, but avoid a potential minefield?

[HWalsh]

shroudb wrote:

And if this is just for "political correctness", to put it somewhat differently:

I assume that all sane modern people find slavery repulsive and offensive. Should we eliminate all slavery and all tyrants and etc from Golarion?

It gets... Wonky.

Ok - Real talk.

Golarion doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter if it is a combination of social views and opinions that don't notmally exist in this kind of setting, or technological advancements that should spread but somehow inexplicably don't. We sometimes just have to shove reality aside.

Yes, it is a setting where slavery is acceptable, but sexism isn't. It is a setting where firearms developed rapidly to almost 1800's levels, yet didnt cross the ocean. It is a setting where you have an all-women fighting force - But there is no all man fighting force (correct me if I'm wrong). It also has a culture that is very reminiscent of Earth feudal China and Japan (Tien Xia and Minkai.) and canonically its heroes have fought in WWI on Earth.

So - The best thing to do is smile, nod, and go with it.

Golarion is actually 3-5 different game settings all mashed together. It doesn't make total sense. Just do what I do, say "A wizard did it" and move on.

[shroudb]

HWalsh wrote:

shroudb wrote:

And if this is just for "political correctness", to put it somewhat differently:

I assume that all sane modern people find slavery repulsive and offensive. Should we eliminate all slavery and all tyrants and etc from Golarion?

It gets... Wonky.

Ok - Real talk.

Golarion doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter if it is a combination of social views and opinions that don't notmally exist in this kind of setting, or technological advancements that should spread but somehow inexplicably don't. We sometimes just have to shove reality aside.

Yes, it is a setting where slavery is acceptable, but sexism isn't. It is a setting where firearms developed rapidly to almost 1800's levels, yet didnt cross the ocean. It is a setting where you have an all-women fighting force - But there is no all man fighting force (correct me if I'm wrong). It also has a culture that is very reminiscent of Earth feudal China and Japan (Tien Xia and Minkai.) and canonically its heroes have fought in WWI on Earth.

So - The best thing to do is smile, nod, and go with it.

Golarion is actually 3-5 different game settings all mashed together. It doesn't make total sense. Just do what I do, say "A wizard did it" and move on.

i understand that Golarion is a garbled pile of mess Era wise. What I don't understand is (simple examples):

It's ok to have a villain that's basically a slave trade prince that you try to thwart, but it's not ok to have a woman-hating villain that massacres (or other bad things) to women?
It's ok to have places where non-humans (or non-elves, or whatever) have no rights, but it's not ok to have places where non-males (or females, doesn't matter which) have no rights?
and etc

It's a fantasy setting.

you can do whatever you want.

you can be whomever you want to be.

if anything, that gives more power to the people who identify as something other.

because you get to CHOOSE what you are and how you are.

Going back to the very first post about the "androgynous" feat:

There's nothing stopping you from having a whatever appearence or background you actually wish to have. There's nothing stopping you from saying that your character looks androgynous, and you don't have to pick up a feat to do so. That's your right from the start.
What the feat does is giving a mechanical benefit of +x to a roll.

To give (yet another) example:

Let's say that I want to play a wild elf, and I say in my background that I lived in the forest, alone, and survived by, for 30 years before coming out to civilization.
Am I allowed to? Ofc I am.
Will I get a bonus to my survival checks just because I said so? Ofc not.

Similary, you can say your character looks androgynous. Are you allowed to? Ofc yes.
Will you get mechanical benefits for looking like that? Ofc not.
If you pick the feat? Then yes, that's what the feat does it gives you bonuses.

[Warped Savant]

shroudb wrote:

Similary, you can say your character looks androgynous. Are you allowed to? Ofc yes.

Will you get mechanical benefits for looking like that? Ofc not.
If you pick the feat? Then yes, that's what the feat does it gives you bonuses.

Actually, the feat only negates a negative modifier that doesn't actually exist in the playtest rulebook.

[CrystalSeas]

shroudb wrote:

It's ok to have a villain that's basically a slave trade prince that you try to thwart, but it's not ok to have a woman-hating villain that massacres (or other bad things) to women?

It's ok to have places where non-humans (or non-elves, or whatever) have no rights, but it's not ok to have places where non-males (or females, doesn't matter which) have no rights?
and etc

In your home game, you can do whatever your players are comfortable with.

But in the official Paizo products, no those aren't OK. Here's what staff said earlier in the thread

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Hey there all,

The feat in question has been brought to the teams attention. There is some unfortunate wording here and is not reflective of our values nor our intent.

We will be looking to change this in the final version of the game.

[Dan.Lavigne]

As a gender fluid LGBT activist, I was originally impressed with the inclusion of nonbinary genders, and the reduction of male pronouns.
After reading the playtest book, I decided to ctrl-F and search for terms, "he" "she", "his" "hers", "male" and "female"

In 47 years of fighting in parades, (I'm 60 now) getting arrested for being gay, being beaten up for looking different, and otherwise being the dump-on of society, I can truly say that it has been and will continue to be, an uphill battle to gain recognition and true acceptance in society.

That being said.
Do the LGBT community a solid favour and either make the pronouns EQUAL instead of a ratio of 48/254 male/female, or replace all pronouns with a gender neutral "they".
Equality isn't about removing one gender, so the other can flourish. THat's what we're trying to get AWAY from.

I cannot possibly explain how difficult it is, to try to convince a town council to take you seriously, when all they see is an attempt at dominance, instead of inclusion.
Games, movies, and media, are all the same thing that way.
We are trying to move towards TRUE acceptance. Not what we have now, which is some corrupted sense of, "accept me or you're a bigot" mentality, which is just bullying people into accepting you, and pushing supporters further away each day.

Please strongly consider either replacing the pronouns with "they" "their" and "them" or using an equal amount of male/female pronouns. ("They" would be preferred, and simpler)

Number of times "she" is used: 185
Number of time "him" is used: 7 four times in one paragraph, and the other times, the male is a villain

Your hearts are in the right place, but you're doing more harm than good.
Please.
Please fix this.
Us old timers have worked too hard and come too far, to skip chances like this to see resolved into a manner where we can find true acceptance in a hobby that we all love.

Namaste
~Danielle

[shroudb]

CrystalSeas wrote:

shroudb wrote:

It's ok to have a villain that's basically a slave trade prince that you try to thwart, but it's not ok to have a woman-hating villain that massacres (or other bad things) to women?

It's ok to have places where non-humans (or non-elves, or whatever) have no rights, but it's not ok to have places where non-males (or females, doesn't matter which) have no rights?
and etc

In your home game, you can do whatever your players are comfortable with.

But in the official Paizo products, no those aren't OK. Here's what staff said earlier in the thread

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Hey there all,

The feat in question has been brought to the teams attention. There is some unfortunate wording here and is not reflective of our values nor our intent.

We will be looking to change this in the final version of the game.

Yes, I saw the answer, what I asked for, is that I truly don't find anything offensive about a feat that gives you bonuses (or negates penalries) when you disguise as something.

Again, would a feat that negates penalties for disguising as a different race be "racist"?

Don't get me wrong, I have no issues with gender identity of individuals." Who do you like? "is nowhere near the first questions I ask when I meet somebody, and my circle contains people from every flavor BUT

I DO find a PROBLEM with OVER-political correctness. There's a line that must be drawn about what's acceptable.

No one would want a game where you play a creature of "non-descript" race and "non-descript" appearance and "non-descript" morals (all of which ARE offensive to groups of people).

People do NOT look alike. Some are tall and muscular, others are thin, others are chubby, others are... Etc.

There ARE people that are androgynous, and there are people who aren't. That's a fact of life, despite said people's preferences and sexuality.

Having a feat negating penalties for disguising is as far away from being sexist as one can get. At that point you're just grasping at straws imo.

[CrystalSeas]

shroudb wrote:

Yes, I saw the answer, what I asked for, is that I truly don't find anything offensive about a feat that gives you bonuses (or negates penalries) when you disguise as something.

Paizo has made clear how they're going to handle this going forward. Whether or not you find that feat offensive, Paizo is changing it so that they themselves find it less offensive.

If you're uncomfortable with those rules, you houserule something else.

[shroudb]

CrystalSeas wrote:

shroudb wrote:

Yes, I saw the answer, what I asked for, is that I truly don't find anything offensive about a feat that gives you bonuses (or negates penalries) when you disguise as something.

Paizo has made clear how they're going to handle this going forward. Whether or not you find that feat offensive, Paizo is changing it so that they themselves find it less offensive.

If you're uncomfortable with those rules, you houserule something else.

I'm not uncomfortable with anything said so far in this thread, maybe I'm more thick skinned than others.

I'm merely stating my opinion on the matter as the OP did, and he changed Paizo's text by doing so (don't worry, it won't happen again by anything I say)

My opinion still remains that people are blowing stuff out of proportion and if we keep going forward this way we will end up with monopoly being the golden standard for RPGs (maybe, maybe that too will be offensive to some people)

I mean, we can have racism and slavery, those are fine, but God forbid we add sexism in it... (hint neither of those 3 are good, I just find it funny that 2 of them aren't "offensive enough" to be banned) (let alone that the feat in question isn't even sexist)

[Ambrosia Slaad]

As for "get(ting) stuff straight here," I think this 2015 article might help bring some posters up to speed on the (real world) scientific advances in understanding that have been made in this area:

[New Statesmen] "Sex isn’t chromosomes: the story of a century of misconceptions about X & Y"

People (players) who don't fit neatly into our society's need for binary checkboxes usually make a point of really digging deeply into the science going on in this area. For the rest of us, it would be wise to make good faith attempts to listen and understand what they are telling us.

---

Continued arguing about that specific feat seems pointless as the developers have already confirmed they recognized how it is problematic and they will be changing it in the final printing. It is likely best to let it go.

[WormysQueue]

shroudb wrote:

i understand that Golarion is a garbled pile of mess Era wise. What I don't understand is (simple examples):

It's ok to have a villain that's basically a slave trade prince that you try to thwart, but it's not ok to have a woman-hating villain that massacres (or other bad things) to women?
It's ok to have places where non-humans (or non-elves, or whatever) have no rights, but it's not ok to have places where non-males (or females, doesn't matter which) have no rights?
and etc

I guess the base assumption is that we're playing the game as free human beings, and while everyone of us understands that slavery is a bad thing, probably nobody who plays the game has ever had to endure being enslaved (at least I hope that's the case.) So including slavery into the game most probably won't hurt anybody on an emotional level.

Contrary to that, if you want to open the hobby to more diversity, you most certainly will get players that have suffered under traditional notions of sex and gender definitions and relationships. So putting things in your books that will probably open wounds is problematic even if you do your best to make clear that you don't condone those actions in any way.

I mean I have no qualms about integrating racism or sexism in my own games as long as everyone is clear about that those are things to be fought against. I'd never do so if I knew that one of my players had suffered under those things or if one of my players told me that they felt uncomfortable with this inclusion. But for my own games, I only have to take my own players into consideration, so everything, that is fine with them, goes.

Paizo as a publisher doesn't have this luxury and especially with PFS they have to consider situations where people are playing together who don't know their game partners. So to be inclusive, they need to limit their options ( only a little bit, because it's not very hard to come up with villains that have non-sexist motivations for their doings).

[Unicore]

TheMonkeyFish wrote:

...

Please understand that calling someone a genetic hiccup is incredibly hurtful. Variation occurs. There is no reason for any of us to tell each other that the person we are is a mistake or not the way it is supposed to work. The games of high fantasy we play certainly have no ground for needing to contribute to anyones painful experiences with being told who they are is wrong.

[Syndrous]

Outside of a few random effects, a prestige class and a spell the only other thing I've seen that requires anything close to this is the Lust Demon, which has an aura that requires anything that could be attracted to it to take a save penalty vs the Lust Demon. It doesn't specify the gender but rather what the character would be attracted to.

The real question is, is that something players are normally mindful of during creation lol.

[Rysky]

Syndrous wrote:

Outside of a few random effects, a prestige class and a spell the only other thing I've seen that requires anything close to this is the Lust Demon, which has an aura that requires anything that could be attracted to it to take a save penalty vs the Lust Demon. It doesn't specify the gender but rather what the character would be attracted to.

The real question is, is that something players are normally mindful of during creation lol.

For me and a whole host of other players? Yep. Sexuality is a very important part.