Femmes who feel connected to alicorns in some way, such as being otherkin, just liking alicorns, presenting/wanting to present as an alicorn, etc. This may mean that the user's femme and alicorn identity are intertwined.
Alicorn Butch
[PT : Alicorn Butch end pt]
Butches who feel connected to alicorns in some way, such as being otherkin, just liking alicorns, presenting/wanting to present as an alicorn, etc. This may mean that the user's butch and alicorn identity are intertwined.
a gender thats related to the sun, bees, fantasy, and worldhopping ⋆ 🌻
[ sol coming from the word for sun in italian (sole) , ape coming from the italian word for bee (ape) , hop coming from worldhopping , tasy coming from the word fantasy ]
< this gender was requested by @shadesofvermillionvoid and is free to use !! >
{ this gender’s flag was inspired by this flag ! }
(1/3) In my fantasy world, I have humans, elves, and dwarves. I’m trying to give them all a wide variety of races and cultures, though we only meet a few of them. They all have pretty different approaches to gender. The humans in the area I’m focusing on have I guess pretty Western conceptions of gender, but I have multiple trans characters, including some nonbinary ones later one (one of the main characters is a human trans man).
(2/3) The dwarf cultures we encounter have pretty set gender roles but they don’t care who fulfills them/their ideas of gender aren’t tied to biology like humans’ often are, so there’s a really large percentage of trans dwarves. The elves don’t really have gender at all. They don’t have gendered pronouns. They can also change their appearance at will, and obviously sex and gender are different and also both socially constructed, but the elves as a whole don’t really think about either one.
A lot of elves do prefer a certain presentation, but the only ones who ever really gender themselves are the ones who live among humans or dwarves and have to choose pronouns in those languages. Some of them choose pronouns that “match” their presentation, some deliberately don’t, and some ask that people just change it up, the way that a lot of humans also do. Is there anything I should avoid or anything I need to think through better in all of this?
(I submitted that before saying so but the elf pronouns ask was 3/3)
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Honestly, I have never come across an ask about fantasy gender stuff that was more evidently thought through or knowledgeable about gender and gender systems. You seem to have really gone through the work to make this a diverse and beautiful world. I think you’re doing great, but here’s some things I’m thinking.
I would keep in mind that the term ‘trans’ doesn’t necessarily translate across cultures. Using a different word or label doesn’t make it any less representation. It’s more in the portrayal and the way of getting across how different people relate to their own gender identity. Dwarves might be free to ID as trans in a translation, or maybe they have a similar or identical term but it just means something different. If there aren’t gender assignments the same way as in the cultures our contemporary definition of trans* had in mind, it might feel like a compromise for a dwarf who has grown up their entire life free of the same constraints to feel like trans (in our definition) is an accurate label. Or maybe not, or maybe it depends on the individual or the place they grew up or who they grew up around or their own specific culture.
In cases where terms/labels change, the key to making it actual representation is to focus on concepts of relatability. There’s no one way to be trans of course, but there are some things that I see in other cultures that I relate to because of my relationship with my gender.
Another idea on something you could use to add more depth - gender is seldom just gender. For some people, their gender identity is tied in with their sense of kinship. Like, someone might really love being a mother, and that’s a large part of how that particular person relates to their gender identity. There are also a lot of cultures (including most of western-colonial gender systems as perceived through most of written history) (subcultures can have this too) where things like orientation might be a big part of how someone relates to their gender identity. For example, I know a lot of people who identify their gender as lesbian. These kinds of things exist in pretty much every culture (that I know of). I think more people feel this way too than most of us really think about - we have our gender identity label in its simplified form and then we have other terms and ideas associated that we relate to; ways of interpreting our relationship with other ideas and feelings and social and societal ties. Or whatever else.
I would also think a bit about the third culture folks and how nomadic people may develop identities. (Nomadic cultures exist on nearly every continent in our world. Some of these cultures did the whole ethnogenesis thing within the past 300 years, though most of the nomadic peoples I am familiar with go back at least a thousand. Some nomadic people aren’t part of nomadic ethnic groups but may have a subculture, like military families and carnies. I’m mainly thinking about how the subculture folks would develop identities and what that would be influenced by because otherwise folks just have their own regular cultures.)
I’d also think about maybe making up pronouns that are meant to refer to someone with a dwarf or elf etc gender identity. I know some folks who want the pronouns they use in their ancestral or native languages to be the ones used in English as well. Maybe instead of choosing an English (or Common, idk your world) pronoun, some folks opt to just keep using the same pronouns as always, regardless of the language they are using.
All in all, most of my advice and tips are just, “here’s how you can get even more creative with it if you want to, and add more depth.” There’s a lot to read on these topics but it can be hard to research because people don’t typically get to this level of depth. (I definitely don’t mean to knock at anybody - there is not a soul out there who is not learning and growing in some way.)- mod nat* The definition of trans I’m referencing here is identifying differently (either wholly or in part) with a gender (or lack thereof) than what was assigned to you at birth. That kind of hinges on the idea of birth assignments being a thing. I do have a feeling this definition will change a bit once people stop gendering infants based on genitalia shape. But y’know, that’s something to think about. Maybe have a lore-based definition. Maybe it varies in different cultures. I dunno - go with the flow! Get creative with it.
I was inspired to write a little fiction. When I run D&D games, I like to give the different races different social constructions of gender dynamics, just to make the world more interesting (and to throw in some wish fulfillment). My favorite has always been the dwarves. I depict them in my games as having no sexual dimorphism whatsoever and no concept of gender within their society. So here’s a conversation between two dwarves, one recently arrived in human lands, and one who has been living among humans for a couple decades.
Dwarf 1: Okay explain male and female to me.
Dwarf 2: Right, so humans have this thing called "gender" where they categorize each other into a certain set of behaviors and preferences.
Dwarf 1: Oh, like those who prefer ale over lager and vice versa?
Dwarf 2: ... no, it's a little more ambiguous than that. It's not really a preference so much as an expectation they have of each other. And men and women have different rules for what's socially appropriate behavior and what isn't. Like usually women can't join the military, while men can't take up needlework and embroidery.
Dwarf 1: Ah, so a division between craftsmen and soldiers?
Dwarf 2: ... no, that's not it. And again, it's not a preference. Humans decide who is a man and who is a woman as soon as they are born.
Dwarf 1: Admirable that they show such leanings for their vocation so early!
Dwarf 2: Ugh, you're not getting it. It isn't at all about ability or skill. And humans can't change their minds about being a man or a woman, or at least, not easily, I think. I'm still figuring out that part.
Dwarf 1: Okay so it isn't about beer, and it isn't about craftsmanship, so who is a man and who is a woman?
Dwarf 2: Look, you're not going to believe this, but... [explains in a whisper]
Dwarf 1: Seriously? That's how they divide up their society? By minor anatomical differences?
Dwarf 2: I know, I know, but they are dead-set on doing it this way. And yes, they take it very seriously. When one of them finally explained to me how they decide who is which gender, I laughed for 15 minutes. By the way, don't do that, they don't take it well.
Dwarf 1: I need a beer and a nap, or maybe a whiskey. This is too much.
Imagine if the Mobian signifiers of gender are subtler than human dress codes and as a result they spend like a month roasting Eggman when like Tails trainsitions and he misgenders the fox
This is the second (or third, if you count a tangentially-related article) in a series about gender and sexuality in my game world. However, I recognize that not everyone wants to examine these issues in their games. As such, the article itself is behind the cut.
The only thing I’d established previously on boarfolk is that they had a mating season. This is something that’s potentially rich in story hooks. As with most fantasy ecologies, the ecology should be a means to an end. Namely, adventure!
With that goal in mind, let’s look at the boarfolk (and, by extension, the rest of the beastfolk). They’ve been established as a raiding culture previously, and the interaction between the raiding season and the mating season sounds like a good story vein to mine. Boars (the male animals) fatten themselves up just prior to the mating season, and fight for right to mate with the females throughout the season. Transposing those general ideas to a tool-using society, infighting in boarfolk culture occurs during the mating season, and raiding (for food, wealth and as a display of might) should occur just before mating season. When is mating season, though? Given a gestation time vaguely the same as a human, I’m going to eyeball it as being vaguely around fall harvest time. Which means that raiding (and birthing) season is during summer.
So what does this mean for boarfolk gender divisions? The men are out raiding and the women are giving birth at about the same time. I’m seeing this as resulting in fairly strong gender divisions in their culture.
Aside: One thing I should make clear is that there isn’t a single boarfolk (or dwarven, or elven) culture. There will always be interaction with the local culture, adjustments for history and geography, and so on. This is essentially a template that I can expand on and deviate from. And we shall call this template ‘Central Illian Mountain boarfolk culture.’ Which allows us to have variations, like Argonathi Highland boarfolk culture (with more bagpipes), Aurbeski Badlands boarfolk culture (mostly destroyed in the sinking of Aurbesk), Dharric boarfolk culture (remarkably well integrated/subsumed into Dharric culture in general), and so on.
I’m seeing these gender divisions manifest as male-only and female-only subgroupings within society. Cults, of a sort, with their own ritual practices, and possibly a connection to a particular Spirit of Beyond or ancestor of note. One of the big concerns of boarfolk cultural unifiers (and people who don’t want boarfolk hordes knocking on their doors), is how to get these cults all moving in the same direction. The White Mask Society wants to plunder that elven burial grove, the Cult of the One-Eared Bear wants to torch the human’s fields, the Troughbearers think more time needs to be spent gathering food for the winter, etc. Males joining a female society (and vice versa) is something that can happen, but the strength of the mating urges tends to limit such things.
Which brings me to shamans. Not just initiates of the Spirits of Beyond, but those especially marked out with their favor. A small but significant proportion of boarfolk are born sexless, in the manner of neuter dwarves. The most popular (non-boarfolk) theory on this is that this the influence of the hearth deities (Femta, Olanorn, Phoraduk and Waerdun), trying to mitigate the violent excesses of boarfolk culture. The contrary theories are that this is a manifestation of the beastfolk’s shoddy construction, or an attempt by Ashur (or Tykanria) to create longer-term thinkers among the boarfolk to cause greater destruction. Or, more mundanely, the result of interbreeding between dwarves and boarfolk, with this being a manifestation of the dwarven neuter gender.
On the subject of breeding with other folk: Most boarfolk women give birth to multiple children at once, so even within a single family, there may be a great many expressions of the boarfolk/x blend. Boarfolk are productive with most other folk, though boarfolk and elven combinations most frequently result in sterile offspring. Boarfolk are fertile with regard to wild boars, though their mating seasons do not align. Pairings of this kind are usually cited as the cause behind the more bestial forms of some boarfolk. However, these throwbacks can occur even between more human-looking boarfolk, lending credence to the fact that it is simply a function of their irregular creation.
