I had a question in my world building a third gender and gender fluid is something normal and natural at least for the last 4,000 years. So they have titles, and the rest of typical social customs. So I think In my work build has no sense use they as nb pronoun. Because I really think in 4,000 years of total acceptance they have a proper pronoun.
For the flow of my game I can’t ask the pronouns you want to use. So what I should use ? I should explain it in stats or something else?
A few games also have ze/hir as an option, and I think it’s one of the more common ones I’ve heard for people who don’t like “they”.
But even if it’s totally accepted, different nonbinary people still prefer different pronouns based on their gender identity, so even if it’s well intentioned I think having a universal catch-all nb pronoun is the wrong way to go. Some nb people still use he/him and she/her even. I feel like stopping to ask a character’s pronouns isn’t something that CAN break the flow, since it’s something that’s so short for the player. I don’t use they/them because it’s my only option, I use it for a lot of personal reasons, and even if there was a commonly accepted nb pronoun that wasn’t they/them I’d still prefer to use it.
Other nb people can definitely jump in and disagree with me, this is just based on my own opinions and experiences.
This, pretty much. I use she/her and they/them and a nonbinary friend of mine uses he/him, another uses any pronoun, and someone else I know uses ze/zir. So I’m not sure assigning pronoun based on gender would be ideal–my he/him pronoun using friend specifically does not want to be referred to as they/them because he feels it’s too detached for him.
Edit: To maintain narrative flow, you could have a scene where the MC hears someone talking about them, and that person says something like “MC is an obstacle to our plans, let’s kill…”
Then give pronoun choices.
All of that is great but My world build is in other entire planet with different humanoid species magic… In a world where nb are not discriminate at all and are an essential part of society I think my world has a word that everyone uses. Same as he for masculine and She for feminine. My world has almost same amount of nb as nb. In fact there is no concept of Binary at all. Because third gender and gender fluid is a natural thing. So if I let choose the pronouns is like say That nb is different from binary and in my world is not.
What I could do is let choose pronouns to females and males too…
I think the misunderstanding here is that “nonbinary” isn’t inherently a gender identity.
So, binary genders, that encompasses “male” and “female”, and male has he/him and female has she/her.
Nonbinary is similar–it isn’t a gender identity itself, it’s just an umbrella term for a bunch of different identities, and the only thing they really have in common is that they aren’t male or female. Off the top of my head, there are people who identify as agender (no gender at all, that’s me), bigender (people who are multiple genders at once), genderfluid (people who’s gender identity changes from day to day), third gender (people who have a specific gender identity that isn’t male or female), people who are demi-gendered (identifies as a little bit like a boy or a girl, but not completely) … and I’m sure there are plenty that I’m forgetting.
So the issue isn’t that nonbinary people aren’t universally accepted, the issue is that saying there’s one pronoun for nonbinary is like making binary people choose only she/her or he/him, when there should be options.
I’m not sure how well I explained it–if someone more eloquent wants to jump in and patch up my explanation, feel free!
Ok, Still don’t understand what that means in my world build. I mean there is a real third gender identity and physical. It is not an umbrella. There is a real gender fluid too. So it has to be same level other genders. It has no sense discriminate because is something perceived as natural in my world.
What I could do is give the option to choose your preferred pronouns and In lore let that pronoun is that supposed universal one.
For instance as Title you have Master Mistress Merath an Meralth.
Edit: It is anything I could do to include other umbrella.? I got males females not binaries and gender fluids.
I think your best bet is to instead of having the player select their gender, have the player input their own pronouns and then select what titles they want to use, while explaining within the lore of the game what each title means. I think it’s asking too much for each gender identity to be individually included. But you should ditch the idea of a “universal pronoun,” it isn’t accurate to how actual nonbinary people identify themselves. Even in individual identities, people are going to prefer different pronouns.
Well I will think about it because I don’t want total destruction the flow of the game choosing a pronoun in a game where you star as binary. What I could do is use by default my world pronouns because it has a reason and a lore for them. However I will let people worried about pronouns a pronouns choice in stats. I won’t no let people choose titles.
Genders are part of the story and determined a lot of factors in my game like different scenes so You have to have one
In terms of nonbinary, where you’re neither but can look like both I’ve always loved the word Androgynous, in singular Androgyne or shorter Andro… BUT that’s just my favourite and likely not all that politically correct.
There are people using the term androgyn so no fear it is not as uncorrect as you think it is. (However how it’s exactly used can differ between people)
Hrm…
The Bem Sex-Role Inventory offers four different possible resulting categorizations: masculine, feminine, androgynous and undifferentiated. Previously, an androgynous score was thought to be the result of equal masculine and feminine traits, while a sex-typed masculine or feminine score is the result of more traits belonging in one or the other category.The fourth type of score, undifferentiated, was seen as the result of extremely low masculine and feminine traits. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bem_Sex-Role_Inventory
Heh there’s an online quiz for it too. http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/bsri.html Take it with a pinch of salt.
Why does your world have gender roles at all?
Why do you use gendered titles?
In our world Master and Mistress are not quite equivalent as it is. Mistress has certain baggage to it in a way that Master does not. Why not just use one title for everyone?
One of the fantasy worlds I really enjoyed was by Fiona Patton, which has a setting where men and women are considered completely equal. Both the men and women use what we’d call male titles, so King, Prince, Duke etc. Although mother/father still remained gendered if I remember rightly.
As for pronouns. I’ve seen the same pronouns used for everyone. Ursula Le Guin does it in Left Hand of Darkness, where she uses all male pronouns. (Although she flips it to all female pronouns in the short story she wrote in the same world, and has an essay about her choice of pronouns.)
In the Ancillary Justice series, which I’ve not read
The Radchaai do not distinguish people by gender, and Leckie conveys this by using female personal pronouns for everybody, and by having the Radchaai main character guess wrongly when she has to use languages with gender-specific pronouns.
I’m sure I’ve read other books with characters outside the gender binary, although I’m trying to remember what pronouns they used. I don’t recall any of them using nonstandard pronouns.
I think the one that stood out as really, really awkward was Dance of the Rings series just uses the characters name repeatedly. That got annoying really fast.
In my world Mistress Master Merath and Meralth is same word but declined in based the gender. It means Whom hold magic … Gender has no penalty and discrimination between mages at all. It serves to specific what gender identity has the noble. One world can serve to define that.
And about pronouns I achieve a compromise I would by default use The ones my world uses Thir Ther Thers and for gender fluid Thir-current gender. However for the player I would let decide that They prefer other But NPCs will notice that. And some would end asking Why you use Their instead Thir? And some teacher could try to make you fail in a exam for grammar issues.
Can you explain more about the lore of your world? I’m not quite understanding what you’re going for with your gender roles. If the gender doesn’t matter, why would you have different scenes for different genders? If your world has “they” pronouns anyway, why would your default pronoun need to be something else? If all genders are accepted, why would NPCs care what pronouns you’re using?
I DON’T SAY GENDERS NOT MATTER… I AM SAYING ARE TREATED WITH SAME RESPECT.
You born binary and with magical puberty your emotional will and feelings make you become finally or male or female or morpho gender fluid or not. Gender is important because is how you feel and perceived the world surrounding you.
In my world people don’t speak same English and the terms are different the terms In Arisian are He She Thir . THERE IS NOT THEIR OR ZE … same he is he… People would feel insulted if you call them Their or ze because they define themselves as Thir.
However like seems for few trans not choose their pronouns is important I Will let everyone select theirs. But in my world people won’t get why you don’t use Thir or He or She… Some people will find it funny others cool.
It is a cis woman like me is used to She is what I like Then suddenly someone says No What you called She you should be potato. Wnd everyone would be surprised.
Mara, I’m going to tell you slowly, and you’re going to have to take this in:
Non-binary is not one gender, or feeling “in-between the binary”, or “outside the binary”, or anything that you’re currently thinking. It is not androgynous. It is not expressed in one singular way.
Women are female. They are one gender, one shared experience of their own being. Non-binary people are not.
Non-binary people are not one gender. You cannot - CANNOT - group them under one pronoun, in a fantasy world or reality.
This would be preventing, or at least discouraging, the freedom to present individually as a non-binary person, by removing someone’s ability to use the pronouns, or be respected by the pronouns, that they have chosen.
To do that is non-binary erasure. It would be erasure in reality, it would be erasure in fiction, it would be erasure anywhere. You would be actively contributing to the erasure of non-binary people.
Non-binary people have been known to make up their own pronouns where the language does not help them express their identity.
One set of pronouns does not fit all people and all genders and never should, neither should one set be considered “correct”.
I’m warning you very politely, Mara, that you should not impose your cis experience of gender on non-binary people in your game when actual non-binary people are telling you that doing it would make them uncomfortable.
The problem with this is, I think, is that in our world, some people have a binary understanding of gender and nonbinary people have a gender that is not within the binary. You seem to be under the impression that your world has a label for all genders, but it is, in fact, a world with a trinary gender system that people are going to still exist outside because nonbinary people don’t all have the same gender.
You should not include this. Physical transition of a nonbinary person is something very sensitive and very different between nonbinary people. As well, I was nonbinary before puberty, and having this system implies that binary genders are still the default or more natural, if you can only express a nonbinary gender once puberty hits.
No You could be no binary before that you could express that you are no binary before. However you can’t physical change before puberty Just means that.
Any of you haven’t read my game at all not read my lore. So you don’t know how it goes . It is a world were emotions and feelings determine who you are. So there is no umbrella at all. If you are a gender you are agender. If you consider you X you are that simple as that .
All trans and nb I have talked about and actually read it were positive about it. I could let you read it if you want but I have been investigation and asking people. I am not assume things about anyone like you do with me.
I only saying how In A TOTALLY IMAGINARY UNIVERSE WITH DRAGONS TROLLS AND WATER ELVES. gender identity works. Hell Mages not reproduce sexualy at all.
ALSO THERE IS NOT PHYSICAL TRANSITION. IS MAGICAL WORLD AND FOR THEM IS HOW NATURE WORKS.
You are imaging a normal no magic society when people operate. Here be an agender a genderfluid male or women is natural
Here’s the problem, Mara. You create a world that explicitly has no people existing outside of the binary (or trinary) system, where one of the rules is that these genders are the only ones that exist.
Edit: Sorry @FairyGodfeather, I didn’t see your post before I posted.