Hey, speaking of Dames... I have a Dame in my current session, a Dame of Light. He's a guy. And he kinda sucks. One of those conservative conspiracy theory types.
He has, shall we say, some OPINIONS on transgender people. We can mostly put up with it though- I'm agender, which is technically trans, and he's not tried to kill me for it or anything (gotten into heated arguments about it sure, but it's not gotten violent).
The issue of course is that he's totally convinced the game is trying to "turn him trans", and that's why he's been assigned Dame.
I've tried to tell him that the game just bugs out and gives supposedly gender-restricted classes out to just anyone sometimes, but...
Well, I think deep down, he's actually just fucking trans. I think he's using the game assigning him Dame as an excuse. "Oh no, I HAVE to act girly or it'll mess with my ARC levels!" that kinda thing.
Well, that all sounds fine, right? Just let him delude himself into thinking he's being forced into this, he'll (or rather, she'll, by then) probably come out of it a better person.
But like... I do have some concerns.
Firstly, he might just be right? Like, Sburb is not above doing fucked up shit to get people to mature. Forcibly transing a transphobe's gender doesn't feel like it's typical style, but like... how would I know, right?
This presents a problem. Maturity tends to go away at the end of a session. Is he gonna load into a new session, and just have a fuckton of trauma immediately from the game making him think he was trans, when he actually wasn't/isn't anymore/once more thinks he isn't?
Secondly, I consider myself a gender abolitionist. I try to be chill about it, I don't hassle people over having genders or anything, but when people ask why I'm agender, I will bring out my arguments about why I think the concept of gender is stupid. I'm sure there're people who'd find what I have to say upsetting. Is Sburb gonna decide one day that I'm a problem, and try and force a gender on me or something? I would assume not, but if it really doesn't care, why are classes ever gender biased at all?
Thirdly... IS HE FUCKING UP HIS ARC LEVELS IF HE DOESN'T ACT LIKE A GIRL??? I had assumed of course not, that the game doesn't give a fuck if Dame's "act girly" or whatever. But... why does the Dame class get assigned to girls more often? He's the Dame, and he's saying that's how this shit works, and it's not like I've ever rolled Dame, so is he actually right??? If I roll Dame one day, will I need to act girly for the stats?????
"Maturity goes away at the end of a session"? I don't know what you mean by that. Putting aside issues I'll get to in the next paragraph, the game doesn't mindwipe you or anything once you're done with a session. "Losing maturity" typically refers to the metaphorical slump in your soul that comes naturally when the game yoinks all your stats (and your powers and your items and your everything) when you begin a new session, which will naturally make anyone feel worse. Or like all that personal development they went through doesn't mean anything because now you gotta do it again. It's a figure of speech, not a literal construct, and you get used to it eventually.
That nitpick aside, no, SBURB doesn't forcetrans anyone. Another mistake is being made here, SBURB only assigns a meaningful title the first time. I was a native Sage of Mind because I needed that, all those years ago, and here I am now. Literally everything after that was purely randomly generated nonsense. Nonsense I had to "play the role" for, but nonsense nonetheless. If SBURB decided that you being agender was an issue, it would have done that in your first session. And I'm assuming it didn't, because the game is never that direct about stuff like that. If you're trans or genderqueer or whatever, any effect this has on your "maturity arc" is incidental at best. Some people have talked about how "SBURB made me realize I was trans", but that's flowery language, they went on their self discovery lovequest while playing the game and maybe they got some special insights they wouldn't have if they weren't a replayer. I couldn't imagine what that "special insight" is though, unless it's referring to the replayernet. Most people tend to realize they're queer through online communities, the replayernet is the only online community now (split into several sub-communities but still), and as we all know everyone who has ever touched a computer is gay and all the funniest shitposters are trans.
Now the elephant in the room. It is true that the game does sometimes bug out and give gender-restricted classes to people of the wrong gender. There's some debate that the "gender-restricted classes" just have a heavy gender bias but it's ultimately random (the dearth of female Knights supports this), but for all intents and purposes let's imagine that they ARE gender-locked. Dame is a female class, and it going towards this guy is a bug. However... Because SBURB does take data from your mind, it does mean that if you identify as female and your body isn't, the game registers you as female, and will assign classes accordingly. The "gender restriction bug" is extremely consistent in that manner. To the point where, let's not kid ourselves, it's not a fucking bug. Not to say that "every time you encounter this bug it's because the game knows", only that the game does recognize player gender, even if the player themselves is unaware. We're currently at a crossroads where it could be a sincere bug, or a sincere closet case, and there's not enough information to tell. If you're Weird and determined to get to the bottom of this transvestigation, you might want to check what gender their dreamself is. "Wrong gender dreamself" happens for the same reason "wrong gender class" does, but if BOTH happen then it's probably not a bug.
And no, the game doesn't count "acting girly" as part of the Dame's roleplay coefficient, that's stupid. The game hands out RP for acting as your title, not acting as your title's gender. I can't tell you why they made Dames a female class, because I didn't design the game, but it's probably an aesthetic flourish. Same reason why Princes are a predominately male class, it's called Prince, and Prince is the male form, ergo it's a male class. Except when it's not, but it's still called the Prince. If you're dead set on transvestigating, making up this obvious lie and then bemoaning the fact that "oh no, I have to act like a girl now or else the game will kill me, I hate that I have to act like a girl now but I have no choice" is either some MAJORLY sussy pantomiming, or he's cis and just very, very sexist.
My final note is that if you determine he's cis and don't want to hear him complaining about WOKE SKAIA'S plan to FORCIBLY TRANSITION these MINOR PLAYERS (with the brains of adults), think provocation might "pierce the veil and help bring her home", or just want to be very funny in a way that makes them not want to talk to you for a while, try busting out the classic "it's obvious that you're a woman because you're acting hysterical about this" line. Tactical Misogyny is a foolproof idea with no possible recourse or downsides.
