#nonhuman species

[sp--wn]

— FACSiMiLE

:: a species flag for shapeshifters who prefer to take on the form of other people, particularly those they admire / look up to. facsimiles may do this in an attempt to befriend or get closer to the person / people in question, or because they want to be more like this person / people and shapeshifting alleviates that desire. the person / people a facsimile shapeshifts into are referred to as the "original/s".

:: made for myself.

tags — @accessibilitea, @basilical, @spectrral, & @radiomogai

[pt] facsimile, a species flag for shapeshifters who prefer to take on the form of other people, particularly those they admire/look up to. facsimiles may do this in an attempt to befriend or get closer to the person/people in question, or because they want to be more like this person/people and shapeshifting alleviates that desire. the person/people a facsimile shapeshifts into are referred to as the "original/s". made for myself. tags: accessibilitea, basilical, spectrral, and radiomogai. [/end pt]

[scriptlgbt]

Hi, I'm a genderqueer writer who wants to write about transgender robots (a trans man and a trans woman) who consider each other twins because they were built/born the same day and they basically "grew up" together and endured abuse together. Now, transgender robots are an harmful/offensive thing? If so, is there anything I can do to fix it other than making the robots humans?

I'd already say as a genderqueer writer you're qualified to write all the trans robots you want without worrying about it too much.

Our go-to advice for worrying about all the trans rep being nonhuman is to add some references to trans humans as also being a thing. If all of your characters are robots I wouldn't worry about it though.

The issue we have with nonhuman trans characters being over-represented is only because they are over-represented in comparison to human trans characters.

Society as a whole is more keen on representing us as inhuman. But there's also the fact that a lot of us have taken refuge in identifying with the nonhuman characters because of that, along with queercoding.

- mod nat

[scriptlgbt]

Is it ok that the non human character who doesn't have genders doesn't understand or recognise gendered races, thus constantly mixes up anything gendered, cis and trans alike. Especially with so many gendered races/animals with different looks or sexual dimorphism. There are races where males get pregnant or have boobs, some races may have a normal bloated look that would be a pregnant (or fat) look in many races, races with more than 2 main sex chromosomes , etc.

This is something that a lot of people struggle with when speaking a new language - getting pronouns correctly. But it's generally kind of shitty to not make an effort for actual living people who have specific pronouns. This works as an explanation for why someone may struggle at first, but it is not an excuse.

It also doesn't make sense why you're working with biology as this indicator when biology does not indicate gender. Male humans can get pregnant and have boobs. This isn’t unique to fiction.

It overall makes more sense for someone struggling with this to make an effort to never gender at all until they specifically know and can note for different individuals how to refer to them.

- mod nat

[scriptlgbt]

I’m working on this extraterrestrial species that has a single-gender. Their biology also switches between being able to get pregnant and getting someone else pregnant. I’m worried of perpetuating the myth that sex equals gender. By that I mean I’m worried someone could interpret them as not needing specific genders because they can change their sex. There’s also the issue that they’re non-human. I do plan on having nonbinary human characters in the same universe, if that makes a difference.

Personally I think this is all totally fine. Different cultures and species have different ideas and physical arrangements when it comes to gender and sex, and I’m glad your extraterrestrials are included in that diversity. (Also: technically our ideas of sex are all socially defined, and thus are gender anyway.) 

Any concerns I would really have with this would probably be solved with the fact that you’re having nonbinary human characters in this universe.

- mod nat