insert cool batman quote here ❤️

It'd cheer me up every time I saw it tbh, anyone who can't appreciate how much these small things can affect people has both the luck not to go through it themselves and 0 empathy for other people. It doesn't take much to make things inclusive for people (and you can't be inclusive /for/ the dominant majority, they're already included by default ¬_¬;;; ). I do need to go cool off now though, since I'm incredibly angry on behalf of myself and my agender best friend who obviously needs to stop making gender so ridiculous, how dare they want to feel included and accepted and human, how rude to inflict that on people??? Don't they KNOW how hard it is to include one more pronoun into the vernacular?

I was going to comment on this thread but then it would have made me angry but I see that Shalashaska has effectively summed up what I would have liked to say.

Honestly, why are people so offended by this suggestion? It's simple and it really does not affect anyone other than to take the pressure off people.

Also yeah, to people who think it's silly to get upset over misgendering a character or not having these options on a website: people like having characters they can relate to, even if they're fictional. It's why books and movies are so important to people. It makes people feel less alone and don't you dare tell me that role models, fictional or not, aren't important. Fictional characters will always help shape someone's world, no matter how minutely.

: Don't get discouraged from suggesting things like this again. You have just as much right as everyone else to make suggestions about things and to stand by those suggestions and the fact that people are getting mad that you're making a suggestion regarding gender is astounding.

Perhaps the bodies could be called something similar to how body shapes are denoted in the real world? I don't have any useful suggestions just yet, though I will be thinking on them, but there are ways to add this in without making it so traumatic that everyone explodes lmao.

Yes they are body parts that exist in real life.

However, if I use the "Male" base that doesn't make my body parts male. It doesn't mean I have a penis, it is not akin to having a sex change.

Thus you using a base that is labeled "Female" does not mean your body parts are female.

This was brought up at least once before, with the suggestion of changing gender to sex... Would something like that even suffice ? I really, really don't see a problem with this being looked at and altered in some way. Cis-gendered people, don't have a real connection with the labels in negative ways. Say instead of male/female it was m/f (to match how the wearables are set up). We'd still pick what looked like us. Others wouldn't have to bother with the word that can cause them to feel bad about themselves. Same for "hey, human avatar 1 or 2" ... We wouldn't blink a damned eye and pick one. Others would be overly happy because hey look, it's neutral options and that is fucking amazing thank you. People just can't lighten up to help include others.

"I'm trans and I am going to go against something that would help people, and also missgender a character, effectively making it so others don't believe a single word I have to say." My fuck you make me sick.

I don't mind if this is changed, but I don't think it's needed at all either. They're just a way to difference the bases you can choose for your dress up doll on a pet site. I don't think there's need to look more into it than that. Plus, breasts aren't the only difference between bases. Naming them like "Breasts with slim abdomen and no package" isn't efficient if I want to quickly choose the base I want to use.

Yeah, M/F is a really good suggestion, actually.

But 1 and 2 are used for something else (skin colors), so I don't really like this.

if we're talking about new wardrobe (and i'm assuming we are) why not just go the same route as the eyes and show visual depictions of what are now the male/female bases rather than the words "male/female" themselves.

obviously it can be done (eyes are doing it right now, as we speak, as are the skin tones), so why not just take that route and avoid the issue entirely

just sayin

This is a bit of a silly suggestion, but as I haven't seen anything else pop up that people haven't immediately shot down, the base currently referred to as female could possibly be referred to as 'contoured' because it does have a bit more shape to it, and the base currently referred to as male could be referred to as 'streamlined'? Idk.

There's not really a good way to refer to these bases if people aren't interested in numbers, or just being abrupt with the breasts option. I personally would be fine with the breasts option, although I can understand some people's hesitance to this because breasts are unfairly sexualized.

EDIT: : This suggestion is also good and I'd be behind that.

I think you're misunderstanding. What I'm saying is that when you select the 'female' option, the avatar has boobs. When you choose the 'male' option, the boobs go away. Whether you believe me or not, that does send the message that bodies with boobs belong to females and bodies without boobs belong to males. It's just not true, and it is a harmful and hurtful message for some people.

The only thing I think is that the option might be hard to find (like most things on this site, heh), and of course the default option set would probably still be male/female. If done right, it could be a good option though.

!!! yes. this is something i was thinking of but i was scared to mention. i think depicting torso or fullbody pictures of the bases and allowing you to select based on that would be a great, great, great option. That way we don't have to deal with the awkward phrasing of 'boobs/no boobs' or the vagueness of 'body 1/body 2'.

No, I understand that fine. We just do not agree about how that translates to the real world and/or the message it sends.

10 second touchpad mockup of what i mentioned above:

I'm not english and I had to check what "contoured" mean.

Simple is always, always, always better than complex.

Also I like Satyr's suggestion. You go, man.

Understandable! Thank you for pointing out the flaw in that, I didn't think about it from that angle. That's what these boards are for though.

Satyr definitely has the best suggestion so far though, and I can imagine it would be simple to implement since they've already done it for the eyes and skintones. I would actually be really really happy with that option.

as a nonbinary person i wanted to deconstruct Mouse's comment because wow do I have a lot to say about this. but I also some how exceeded the character limit, so I will put this in a condensed, more important and relevant to the thread post. sorry if this doesn't make sense in some areas because of that!

I am well aware that the world does not cater to us as is, and honestly asking for something as simple as this isn't asking something as absurd as the world to bow down and let us walk over the backs of everyone else or some other ridiculous assumption that people for some reason think we're asking with this. asking for the "gender=male / female" option to something more inclusive and more apt with the two body types instead. honestly with having a nonbinary NPC, the option to have pets not have a gender, and the ability to not list your gender- I would have expected this or something like this to be already in place? seriously a "body type: boobs/ flat chest" as it is not listing gender (or sex as i see its been changed to) anymore. or another way to word that for being body type rather than a HA's sex/gender, I feel like there is likely another example that I could think of for body types but it is escaping me at the moment, plus it's listed under avatar traits, the fact that a HA has boobs or a flat chest is a body trait to begin with. these options would likely be as easy as changing "gender" to "sex", and presumably more inclusive that way too. it is simply removing the idea of gendering someone based on their body, it doesn't affect how your gender is listed on your user page so I don't see why people would be against that?

No one here is asking for a third HA base, really I'm pretty sure everyone here is aware of the fact that redrawing over 20k worth of wearables for that one base, and on top of that look at how many CWs are on site, would need to also add a third version for that base as well, that's way too much work and outside of the maybe small handful people who suggested a third base in the past which, while in theory was a good idea that way we could have the option of having neither a female or male base, the work that would have to be put in to doing that was daunting and quite frankly unfair to the artists over this site, and the idea of it just being listed as "other" was rather alienating if it kept with the male/female theme of the other two bases anyway.

In any case, this is a relatively simple thing, and honestly if it had been that way from the beginning or at least before some of you joined, I don't really think you would have a problem with it then. It is a simple thing, it removes the gendering bodies that are, quite frankly on the site nothing more than barbie dolls to dress up, really, but in that same regard having it listed as female/male enforces the idea of slimmer+boobs =female and flat chest+not really curvy=male outside of the site. and allows people to be more comfortable because then anyone who falls outside of the gender binary but want to pick a base relative to their own body off the site, are then not gendered because of that.

If at all possible you could make it optional as well, for those who prefer the current system I suppose, in settings for something like "Wardrobe bases(or avatar traits): o Male / Female | o [example replacement for male] / [example replacement for female] "

edit; I'm just now seeing the fourth page and Satyr had a good idea as well, changing it to the visual examples of the base itself is actually a lovely alternative to what is listed now!

No problem! I mean, I learned most of my english by talking about Digimon and playing Neopets, so yeah, I think we all agree visual aids are better than text.

I like their suggestion, because 1. It's not vague 2. doesn't reduce someone's body to boobs/no boobs.

Not pleased that people who disagreed with the original suggestion are being called disrespectful dicks. Very very respectful.

What.

100% behind s suggestion because it's perfect and I feel like it satisfies everyone.

Happy to be caught up on my reading considering my eyes glazed over and rolled back into my skull several times from reading a few posts on here. I'm now vibrating in my chair with being reminded people like this exist

I think it's because this is such a personal issue for some, and seeing people say that your gender is imaginary/ridiculous and implying that this suggestion is asking the world to cater to one specific person's ridiculous desires can make people get a bit defensive/hurt. My apologies.

I'm really glad that people came around to figure out a better idea for how to implement this, because there were some legitimate objections to my initial thoughts. I would love for it would get implemented in the way that Satyr suggested, because it'd really be fantastic.