Non-Binary?

[Kinjo]

Anyway what it comes down to on this subject for me is this. If *you* don't like non-binary as a term, don't use it to describe yourself. If genderqueer is a better descriptor of who you are, then use that. However, there are people for whom non-binary is a term that best describes who they are. When you crap on that term, you are also crapping on people for whom that term is an important part of their identity. And these people are not powerful people who are the hegemony. By crapping on them, you are punching down, not up. Is that what you want to do?

But that's not necessarily "crapping on them", it's just looking at terminology with skepticism. It's all semantics and word games. Maybe there could be a better word? Does it really matter either way?

And I think for an entire person's identity to revolve around one word, that if changed, collapses... that's a pretty unstable foundation isn't it?

Why do people even need to place labels on themselves? I don't understand the point, if the labels and their meanings can be changed so easily.

[trooper6]

Oh...to add some value to the OP. If you haven't read the book The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin, you should. The people of the planet the book takes place on are non-binary. To be specific, they are agender most of the time until they go into heat and then they develop gender...it could be male one time or female another. Then when they are no longer in heat, they go back to being agender. One of the main characters, is a human man sent to the planet on a diplomatic mission. The book deals interestingly with his attempts to deal with this society and their attempts to deal with him. It might give you tips!

[Kinjo]

You know what, I'm going to treat these kind of statements (as in, the one above me) with the dignity they deserve:

So instead of educating me, you think that belittling and dismissing my point of view is somehow a better idea?

I'm not entirely sure what you were trying to say but if only one opinion is acceptable here then I've lost interest in this topic.

[Katy133]

For non-binary representation strategies (for lack of a better term) in fiction, I'll once again note Beemo from Adventure Time (since, really, she's one of the few canonally non-binary characters I can list).

His gender is stated pretty matter-of-factly. Characters throughout the series refer to Beemo as a him, a her, a boy, and a lady. None of the characters really question it, and it got to the point where fans wondered at first if the pronoun switches were just a continuity error...

... And now she has her own display in the British Science Museum.

One participant said: ‘BMO is important because she shows that you can have a character whose gender fluctuates without it being presented as a problem. The other characters all accept BMO’s varying gender without questioning him and without reacting as if she’s in any way unusual.’”

On the opposite end of the scale, another strategy writers have used is to highlight the fact that a character is androgynous.

I remember in the 90s, the educational video game series, Super Solvers had a noticeably-androgynous protagonist. It got to the point where this was listed as a feature on the box art of the CD Rom case. And whenever anyone decides to mention this nostalgia-inducing game, there's always someone who mentions the gender ambiguity of the player character.

From the TV Tropes page for Featureless Protagonist, under "Edutainment Games"

The hero of the Super Solvers series wears a giant hat, a giant coat with the collar turned up, Bermuda shorts and tennis shoes.

[Mad Harlequin]

And I think for an entire person's identity to revolve around one word, that if changed, collapses... that's a pretty unstable foundation isn't it?

You'd be right if identity were just about one element. But that's never the case. A term of address is one element.

Why do people even need to place labels on themselves? I don't understand the point, if the labels and their meanings can be changed so easily.

I think for me it boils down to this: individual aspects of identity are always going to be very important in some respects. If we hope to get along better, we have to respect and celebrate these differences. Labels can either undermine or empower a person. It's easy to think that we'd all get along better without them, but sticking our fingers in our ears and shutting our eyes and going "Lalalala! You don't exist! Your experiences don't matter!" to individual differences won't bring us closer.

[PyTom]

Can we focus this thread a little more closely on developing visual novels and story-based games? It strikes me that these are huge issues, and unlikely to be solved here - and as they fail to be solved, threads like this can start to get heated.

For a forum like LSF, it's probably best to accept that people here - and players outside this forum - are going to have multiple perspectives on things like gender identity issues. And in many cases, we don't _have_ to - on a forum like this, it's easy enough to avoid pronouns entirely when their use would cause distress.

To bring it back to making visual novels: Representation doesn't have to be an in-your-face sort of thing, and in many cases, the more defined a character is, the less the readers will identify with them. It may be better to have a character the player likes and identifies with in a story that has little to do with representation (an adventure, for example) and only then talk about representaion - or don't talk about it directly, but merely imply it.

Tunnel in the Sky is a good example of this in Science Fiction: http://www.heinleinprize.com/2011/07/ro ... -intended/

[Mad Harlequin]

Can we focus this thread a little more closely on developing visual novels and story-based games? It strikes me that these are huge issues, and unlikely to be solved here - and as they fail to be solved, threads like this can start to get heated.

I'm definitely not disagreeing with you here or trying to step over authority, but I've noticed that there's a trend of apparently innocuous discussion threads being locked or otherwise shut down because they're not necessarily related to visual novels or making them, and to me that's a damn shame. Should there be knock-down drag-out fights over larger issues we can't hope to solve within the bounds of the forum? Of course not. But I don't think totally clamping down on discourse about subjects that aren't game-related is the way to go.

Just my two cents' worth.

[Katy133]

Oh! I just remembered PAL from Annedroids. An educational children's show about a girl who becomes a scientist and builds inventions (including an agender robot) in a junkyard.

This clip is a good example of how PAL's gender identity is addressed:



PAL's androgyny is mentioned and questioned, but it always ends with the people discussing it being okay with PAL's identity by the end of the conversation.

For some reason, works of fiction that either a) have robot characters, or b) are aimed at children's education, seem to favor androgynous character representation.

[PyTom]

Should there be knock-down drag-out fights over larger issues we can't hope to solve within the bounds of the forum? Of course not. But I don't think totally clamping down on discourse about subjects that aren't game-related is the way to go.

Honestly, I get a little sensitive when I see people trying to create or enforce orthodoxy on the forum. That's because I want the LSF to be a welcoming place for all creators of visual novels - and that means accepting that people will disagree on many less-related issues. Trying to coming up with a forum-wide consensus on controversial issues means excluding people who do not subscribe to that consensus - and so threads that do so tend to get reined in or shut down.

Poll-like or "What's your favorite x" topics also get shut down, because they usually are people talking past each other, which isn't healthy for a forum.

[Caveat Lector]

@ PyTom

Uh...what? The more defined a character is...the less people will identify with them? Well, as someone who is Jewish and female, if I came across a protagonist who was Jewish and female, I'd be ecstatic to see myself represented (in fact, when I went to New York at the age of eighteen, one of the places I went to was the American Girls store because I'd always wanted to go, and I was beyond thrilled to see a series of books about "Rebecca", a Jewish girl growing up in New York in the early 1900's--and it was surprisingly accurate, though some details were a bit off, but not enough so to ruin my enjoyment of the series). And there'd be elements of that character that even non-Jewish people could identify with (like, for example, feeling outcast because of dietary restrictions...Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, misc. religious groups with dietary restrictions, and even non-religious people who have food allergies or health conditions where they CAN'T eat certain foods could identify with that aspect very easily, I think). Not every character is going to be relatable to everyone, of course, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with a character who has a firmly set defined sense of identity. If some people can relate to them, great; if not, oh well.

Representation IS important. It always is. Not every group can be represented in a single story, but when certain groups can be, they can contain a powerful impact on the right audience. I find your argument to be quite demeaning and dismissive of a need for representation, and I also find it very odd you'd feel the need to make such a statement in a topic that's supposed to be about and for non-binary users and characters. Just a tad odd. I mean, in a topic about, say, cooking, that'd be one thing. But not every single thing NEEDS to revolve back around Visual Novels and games. There are plenty of forums that are specifically about one thing (like, say, sports) but also contain other subsection forums for other topics as well that don't necessarily need to be about THE main topic (like, say, on a sports forum, a subforum about "general discussion" about other things, like cooking). Hell, we have "off topic" forum topics about ranting about having a bad day or cheering over a good day. Why are those allowed, yet a topic about non-binary people should not be? And if you'll notice, the topic up until now was actually quite peaceful, and when someone said "hey, I don't really understand being non-binary", they phrased it in a manner that was polite and had their questions answered. It only started to get heated when someone else jumped in with a misinformed and hurtful viewpoint*. I may have stepped over the line in trying to circumvent it back to the original point of the topic, yes, but otherwise, people were trying their hardest to educate and inform on the topic of being non-binary.

Honestly, silencing any topic that MIGHT veer into "omg DRAMA" territory but then quickly gets nipped in the bud before it CAN, strikes me as trying to reinforce "Cloud Cuckooland".

*And on that topic, PLEASE stop referring to hurtful views as "just another opinion/viewpoint" or whatever--if someone's opinion was "hey, you're ugly!", how would you like it if the person you complained about it to went "well, beauty is subjective, and everyone makes a perfectly valid point, you're the one who's in the wrong because you're just trying to force your views down people's throats"?

[Mad Harlequin]

Honestly, I get a little sensitive when I see people trying to create or enforce orthodoxy on the forum. That's because I want the LSF to be a welcoming place for all creators of visual novels - and that means accepting that people will disagree on many less-related issues. Trying to coming up with a forum-wide consensus on controversial issues means excluding people who do not subscribe to that consensus - and so threads that do so tend to get reined in or shut down.

Oh, I get that we can't expect consensus on certain issues. Trust me. I've been caught up in my share of debates here and elsewhere.

In this particular case, I believe you stepped in at the correct time. Nobody wants shouting matches, and this thread's had moments of toeing the line between civility and incivility. But I really don't think discouraging discussion in general is the right way to contribute to a stable forum environment. Moderators should step in when necessary, yes, but we shouldn't be afraid to talk things out---even messy stuff like this.

I used to be a member of another forum that banned discussions on sensitive topics such as politics and religion because they often got too heated and too personal. (We were a passionate bunch.) But the topics continued to come up anyway. What does that tell you? Immediately closing down discussions you deem irrelevant or toxic to the forum isn't necessarily going to be a solution to any problems that arise.

(I was banned from that place for speaking out against its tacit support of piracy and continuing to express concern when the administrator didn't give a fig.)

Poll-like or "What's your favorite x" topics also get shut down, because they usually are people talking past each other, which isn't healthy for a forum.

"Talking past each other" means what, exactly? Contributing without replying to somebody else? Depending on the topic, that may or may not be an issue.

Also:

Not long ago, I wanted to contribute to an interesting-sounding thread in this section---it was a collection of users' general thoughts or something to that effect---but it was closed rather quickly. And yet there were no overheated arguments and no threats. Was the topic related to visual novels? No, but the posts were civil, and to all appearances, the contributors seemed to enjoy it.

It strikes me as rather hypocritical to profess a desire to make a forum welcoming when, in point of fact, it only welcomes certain kinds of discussion. I will also add that closing such a thread with what amounts to "I'm going to close this, but before I do, here's my post, etc." makes the act, and the reason for closing it, disingenuous. Those in positions of authority who are enforcing a rule should follow it themselves. But I've taken this thread off the rails on which it's apparently meant to be set for long enough.

[Jate]

@ PyTom

Uh...what? The more defined a character is...the less people will identify with them? Well, as someone who is Jewish and female, if I came across a protagonist who was Jewish and female, I'd be ecstatic to see myself represented...

I think you may have misinterpreted what he said. He meant fewer people will relate, not that the character is less relatable. Like we could both relate to a female character, but only you could relate to a female Jewish character.

Edit: Went back and read the post and now I'm not sure. If he did mean a defined character is less relatable, I don't get that either.

[Caveat Lector]

@ Jate

To that, we may agree to disagree. Even if I specifically can relate to a female Jewish character from personal experience (I think that's what you mean, correct?), I mean that there may be aspects of the character people can relate to elsewhere in other aspects. But I do see what you mean. I can relate to, say, Marty McFly grappling with the temptation to lose his cool when he's called names, but not to being male. That sort of thing?

And I may also admit, when talking about people being rude, I was referring more to the frustration of what it's like when you're trying to get a point across, but it feels like the other person just isn't listening, and then you start to feel a bit on-edge when it feels like (not necessarily is or is not, but feels like) someone else is contributing to that. I may have stepped over that line a bit, so I apologize to anyone who was coming from a place of not fully understanding it, rather than out of a genuine malice (such as Kinjo). Part of being a good ally is having the grace and humility to admit when you may have slightly stepped out of line and went off a kneejerk reaction. We're all human here.

(But I think we can agree Dr. Drakken's hair is fabulous, right? )

[trooper6]

@ PyTom

Uh...what? The more defined a character is...the less people will identify with them? Well, as someone who is Jewish and female, if I came across a protagonist who was Jewish and female, I'd be ecstatic to see myself represented...

I think you may have misinterpreted what he said. He meant fewer people will relate, not that the character is less relatable. Like we could both relate to a female character, but only you could relate to a female Jewish character.

Edit: Nevermind, went back and read his post again and that is the way he phrased it. I don't get that either, then.

There is also the problem that marginalized people have to learn to relate to dominant groups, but dominant groups don't have to learn to relate to marginalized groups. This results in "universal" stories, the ones that are "most relatable" being ones where it is only the dominant subject position represented. Anything else becomes something that is "less relatable." This is why if a movie/VN/book/etc has a white male protagonist, that is seen as a relatable piece of art...whereas if it has a female protagonist, with few exceptions it becomes only for women. If it has a black protagonist, it becomes only for black people, etc. If we stick with being "most relatable" we end up reinforcing the dominant power structure and enabling the continuing erasure of people who are not that dominant subject. Sony was freaking out that the game developers who made Horizon Zero Dawn decided to have a female protagonists. They spent all sorts of money win focus testing to make sure that "people" (and by that they men) would buy a game with a female protagonist. Game publishers spend less money marketing games with female protagonists and are generally less willing to make games like that because...women are seen as less relatable and universal. It is a problem that men aren't thought of as being able to relate to women. It is a problem for us as game makers and game consumers. The original post had to deal with the idea that the OP wanted have a game with a gender neutral options but decided not to because "it's really hard to justify doubling my character art for the small minority of players who will want to play an NB character." This is coming out of the pervasive idea in our industry that including non-dominant people makes something "niche" because dominant people will never be interested in the stories of non-dominant people.

This has heavy consequences for us all as game makers.

[Mad Harlequin]

There is also the problem that marginalized people have to learn to relate to dominant groups, but dominant groups don't have to learn to relate to marginalized groups [...] This has heavy consequences for us all as game makers.

This ought to be remembered as the "relevant" or "on-topic" summary of the thread, IMHO. (I put those words in quotes since it's apparently frowned upon to discuss things unrelated to games, or making them, beyond "How do you feel today?")