Absolutely not! Choosing biological gender and have that be anything that relate to ro-preferences runs into so many problems, one being that it makes the ro-transphobic another being that you are essential saying that the MC is really their genitalia.
If you must choose gender then have it be gender presentation.
No, really. Choosing biogical gender and having it relate to the ro-preferences is a no go.
As @HomingPidgeon says a AFAB enby can stil be much closer to a trans-man than a woman, due to be trans-masc, you do not really have a way to know.
I think either I’m missing something or I’m being misunderstood. I’m saying allow the player to make a character that may be biologically female, but presents as male and prefers females. Or any combination of preferences. Then create the dialogue to support that so that it’s not being glossed over nor leaving people out.
That’s why I said it would support a fuller spectrum that’s not just male, female or non.
I am not saying restrict the reaction based off of biological gender, but rather the opposite. Which is to add more options and create more complexity.
And after that, what I meant is that if that’s too much work, then option 3 is the only way to preserve commenting on the players comfort with a same sex relationship.
I don’t know what I’m saying wrong 
The issue with what you’re saying is that biological gender, with regards to nonbinary characters, doesn’t need to come up at all.
If, as you say, the reaction isn’t restricted by biological gender, then there’s no reason for it to be addressed by the game at all. The only relevant aspects would be gender identity and gender presentation.
honestly, i’ve been staying away from responding to this topic, despite it being the kinda subject i’m usually all up in, because as a pansexual agender person, i’m seeing so much wrong-headed and hurtful (and yet for some reason strongly insistent) fundamental misunderstanding of non-binary gender, gender assignment, and gender presentation. so, i’m mainly dropping in finally to thank @theredwoman for nailing p much everything on my mind.
i’m also of the camp of absolutely not tying RO attraction to a genital selection for players. i am generally, genuinely so uncomfortable with the idea that some people are willing to tie genital selection (afab, amab) to locking certain ROs and call it a day in coding than they are apparently willing to write a short, straightforward conversation between the MC and the RO addressing the topic of gender. idk if i’m making complete points here, just like… (for games that bother to have a non-binary player option) if it’s really that important that you not just make your ROs accessible to all players, why is it not at all important to address the nuance of the kinds of real-life dynamics non-binary people dating binary folks go thru. i love dating sims and dating in choice games, but there’s more than a couple of reasons i almost never play as myself and pretty much only play as my binary OCs.
the published games and WIPs get a lot of praise for being LGBT+ inclusive and that is fair and I wouldn’t argue otherwise. but, possibly unpopular opinion time: I think they are, as a whole, getting a little too much credit for being representative. making ROs accessible to all genders is absolutely not the same as queer representation. the number of games where all MCs can date an RO, but simply do so with a pronoun swap far outnumber the games that bother to make any meaningful distinction through, y’know, story-telling. the only one i can think of that even bothers with this for non-binary players is Fallen Hero, but pls do let me know what any other ones might be. this is probably why it bothers me that people are cool with just locking non-b MCs out of certain romances–like just lock 'em out, problem resolved. yes, problem resolved for the writer/coder. non-b erasure and simplification/generalization, complete.
sometimes that matters a lot less, like games where romance is of secondary or tertiary importance, and when that’s the case, i care a lot less. but there’s a lot of romance-heavy and character interaction-heavy games out and in the works that really feel like they just pander to the idea of non-binary people–like they were covering their “inclusion bases” and were like, ok, coded the pronouns, finito.
this was probably a bit rambly? and i might end up editing it a bunch or being crucified for some poorly expressed opinions. but this is an important, complex subject and it’s one that kinda upsets me as it reminds me of my personal, real-life dating history and all the misinformed crap i’ve had to hear from binary (straight and queer) people for a long time. but i just woke up so… yeah, i’ll come back to this thread later
Thank you for this, and yeah, gonna have to write that discussion I guess (it is entirely the character you think). It’s been running in my head since yesterday, guess we’ll see where it ends up.
Also, may I just add that one: it’s been really interesting to see a thread like this not devolve into shouting, and two: see that there’s so many others out there also trying to work through this. Don’t have the mental space to write anything clever about it right now, but it’s been nice to see.
EDIT: Writing it now. Getting interesting.
I am agender myself, and if we are talking of real life, I guess you could say I can be “playersexual” (I don’t have any gender preferences when attracted to people) hehe. I’m saying this because to me, gender is a very confusing thing, and when I call myself agender what I am trying to achieve is to throw gender far far away from me 
.
I can’t say gender (or the lack of it) is particularly important to me, and I don’t really care about how others refer to me since their view doesn’t alter how I live and see myself.
With that said, it seems like your NPC considers their lack of gender to be a very important part of their identity, and with that being the case, I think it would be best if characters that are strictly attracted to males or females weren’t able to romance them (unless they are willing to accept that they are not as strictly gay/straight as they think they are).
If I said I am only attracted to men but then I found a nb person I am attracted to, referring/thinking of them as “he” would feel incredibly disrespectful. It would feel like I am trying to force them to fit what I am comfortable with instead of having some self evaluation to realise that, oh, I am attracted to more than men.
This would cause extra dialogue from MC realising that their sexuality is not as set in stone as they thought it was, but I think this is the only way of being fair towards nb folk.
I don’t know if all this rambling helps you, but I hope it makes some sense
Trying to write about this, yes. Is one of most deep and interesting things to explore at least in My Cyberpunk trans humanism setting. Another thing is doing it well. But I hope forum will help during the beta or I am screwed
Now I am scared again.
Superstition is a game made with twine and hosted on itch.io (the author also has a game published on HG (Dragon Racer), but if you are able to play it, the romance with one of the NPCs, Chris, a white, cis, and straight (or so does he think) guy is completely different as a nb, m!MC or trans MC.
I personally loved how this is being handled in game, and as an agender person I was specially in love with an extra patreon story that really addresses this when meeting his family, specially his dad (middle-high class white american family.)
The game is free to play (and you get the patreon stories with the lowest tier too), so if you feel like checking it out, I think you might enjoy it 
Being a writer is being terrified half of the time but doing it anyway.
The being terrified and the believe that all I write is crap, I am a pro on that. Thankfully, I am as stubborn as a mule so I keep doing it. Still, very good knowing we are all terrified together, also and the help
coincidentally enough, i actually started playing Superstition last Friday i first played it back when it was still a Dashingdon demo and I definitely remembered that romancing the male RO as my male OC had an actual gay storyline to it. replaying it now, i’m wondering if I somehow accidentally got off that romance path? but i’m not done with season 1 yet anyway. and i haven’t ever tried playing it as non-binary, I’ll make sure to take a run at it, thanks for pointing it out to me.
i had no idea that was the same writer as Dragon Racer?? I really liked that HG but when I think of gender-locked ROs that game comes to mind specifically because (iirc) the romance options weren’t just gone, they were greyed out. real weird, def stuck out to me. (esp since if anything straight cis dudes have been the bane of my agender dating experience 
)
I think there’s a lot of great discussion, because everyone’s right about the fact this is an incredibly tricky topic - CoG really is leading the way in terms of nonbinary representation, which is great, but it does mean most of us are trying to figure out (whether as players or authors) what boundaries are acceptable on this topic.
I would like to say though, I don’t think the idea of tying ROs’ availability based on a nonbinary character’s genitals is a good idea. I can only speak for myself, but it feels incredibly invalidating and ties into what I said earlier about nonbinary people being seen as “woman lite”, or occasionally “man lite”.
Also, the idea of an RO being attracted based on genitals, when there’s no way they can see them unless/until there’s a sex scene is… very odd, to say the least. I personally side-eye games when they ask what gender nonbinary MCs were assigned at birth because, unless you’re having very explicit sex scenes, there’s no reason to. I am not defined by my genitals, nor is any other nonbinary or trans person, and to be entirely honest I don’t think cisgender people are either. If you’re going to ask that question, you need to make it very clear to players what it’ll be used for - if it’s just for some more explicit scenes, then add a “skip” or “none of your business” option, and those people can get fade to black scenes or vaguer scenes. If it is, for whatever reason, absolutely required (potentially in darker stories), you can say it’s relevant for the story but be prepared for nonbinary players to avoid your game.
I also agree with @hotmess.exe that this ties into some romances for nonbinary characters in CoG essentially being pronoun swaps. And while I will absolutely argue for the need for escapist fantasies and romances for nonbinary people or just involving nonbinary characters, which don’t involve discussions of gender or making a big deal out of the fact the nonbinary character is nonbinary, there are times when this comes off as just including nonbinary characters without thinking about how this might affect gameplay. A frequent offender, at least for me, is when MCs are offered clothing choices, and nonbinary MCs just get both the options for male and female MCs, as opposed to any additional androgynous or neutral clothing - while some nonbinary people are closer aligned to binary genders, it’s not everyone and I think it’s a very minor thing to add which can make nonbinary players feel more included, especially as clothing choices are usually cosmetic only.
I do think this is an issue that will get easier to handle as more games include nonbinary characters, just because the sheer variety of approaches will create a lot of fuel for discussion, but CoG is definitely one of the front-runners on the topic. Feral Hearts is an WiP which looks pretty interesting to me on that front - I can’t say how much the romances will change based on gender because I don’t know, but I was pleasantly surprised and quite delighted when one of the choices during character creation was “do you prefer the term “chest” or “breast” for your MC?”. It’s a very minor thing, but it’s an issue I’ve run into a lot when players are asked what genitals their nonbinary characters have, and sometimes it’s assumed because the character is AFAB, the player is comfortable with the MC’s chest being referred to as breasts.
I can only imagine how scary it must be as an author who wants to get it right - but I also think making the effort is important in itself, and if I can tell as a player that the author has made a sincere and genuine effort to be respectful of nonbinary characters, I’d personally be a lot more understanding of any potential misunderstandings or issues that arised. Characters who are specifically nonbinary as opposed to gender neutral are as far as I’m aware very new in video games, and it’s natural there would be some issues starting out.
Also @Fujcog, thanks for pointing out Superstition, it looks very interesting and I’m definitely going to check it out later. I think it’s actually popped up on my radar a few times before, but I hadn’t realised it allowed the MC to be nonbinary.
That’s a very good question and at the end of the day, it’s your character and your decision, since you know the context of your character better than I do. But I wouldn’t say a nonbinary NPC flirting with all genders is invalidating the MC - maybe having said NPC do the flirting before entering a relationship with the MC, otherwise it might be seen as part of the “slutty bisexual” stereotype, but I wouldn’t see that as especially targeting gay MCs. Although ROs who are locked to bisexual MCs specifically aren’t something I think that’s popped up in CoG before, so that would be interesting if you did go down that avenue.
Then again, I’ve always thought it would be nice for bisexual ROs to make it clear that they are bisexual as opposed to “playersexual” (as much as I hate the term), particularly once they’ve entered a relationship. It could be as simple as the NPC pointing out a character the MC could be attracted to and making a joke about how attractive that other NPC is to both of them, or the MC meeting one of the NPC’s exes, who is of a different gender to the MC.
It’s up to you how you handle this, but I think there’s plenty of ways to deal with an agender bisexual NPC entering into a relationship with a potentially monosexual MC, including just a simple and brief in-game discussion between the NPC and the MC (if there’s the narrative space for it), without erasing your character’s identity.
Before mods say anything, this will be my last off topic comment! 
Chris romance plays entirely different with non-cis-female MC, and the romance pace is changed too. With cis-fem MC the romance advances faster because Chris doesn’t have any figuring out his sexuality to do, while with the rest of MCs he needs more time to come to terms with it (on top of everything else going on). If you do enjoy it, perhaps you could consider joining the discord server and then we can talk there to our hearts content without hijacking this thread
You are welcome @theredwoman! I hope you enjoy the game as much as I did! 
Thank you for your vote of confidence in this matter. I had planned that such a conversation take place between any RO and the MC, so this should be something that is executable.
Perhaps, when the time comes, I can talk to @malinryden on how this was finalized in their work.
The character is a flirt from the very beginning – they are more of an innocent-type of character, so I doubt the concept of “slutty flirting” would even occur to the reader – at least so far, my alpha readers do not say this.
The thrust of the game is not romance, but I do want the romance experienced to be a major component if undertaken.
The character is most definitely bi-sexual; the “player-sexual” aspect, only being used to describe the workings of the relationship mechanic with the MC in design docs, feedback sessions and design round tables.
I still have a lot to work out, but I also have a lot more to do before I reach the nexus between development and implementation. I figure this is enough for now; it would be better to spend my mental energy solving more immediate issues instead.
Thanks again for all your help everyone who chimed in on my thoughts.
For me, how much I want to deal with those topics directly correspond to how much identity is a theme.
And introspective work where the matter of who the MC is as a person are important, I do want to go into details.
A standard hero journey (aka most cogs and hosted) where there is some sort of external goal, I prefer I simple pronoun swap.
If my goal is to slay the dragon, I do not want to spent a whole lot of time going into my identiy - in fact I prefer as simple pronouns swap here because quite frankly I just want to get to the plot and nobody is ever going to get it exactly right anyway so I prefer a broad generalization I can read whatever I want into.
Romance focused games sort of straddle a middle ground between those two.
I thank you for your response here. The setting is historical fiction, meaning the historical record is a massive treasure trove for me to plunder for the game.
Gender roles and identity had a major impact on the main theme of the game historically, and my initial plans are to use my fiction powers to challenge the historical outcome, if the reader desires to do so through choices made and choices left unmade.
Who the MC and who the major NPCs are should (if the game is designed and executed properly) have major impact on the main theme as well.
Choices made should have impact, even in these specific areas on the final end-states experienced by the reader, with their specific outcome displaying this impact.
I am sorry I can’t go into further detail – you are welcome to PM me if you desire.
This sort of thing is my preference as well. Especially speaking as someone who definitely identifies as gay, but I’m also leaning toward demiguy as the best descriptor of my identity… some sort of option for a male-aligned nonbinary identity could represent that 
(Granted, I’m not entirely sure how that would play differently in game terms.)
Case-by-case can be really useful because there are people who are attracted to, say, (some) women and (some) nonbinary people but not men (I knew one such person, who identified as bi), and that’s worth representing too. That can be useful for balancing the number of available romances. It won’t really work with a small RO cast, granted, but I consider it worthwhile when the cast is larger. How the people involved identify could vary. People are complicated.
Hmm, might the variable one also be able to be a nonbinary person attracted to other nonbinary people? (Ceterosexual.) That gives you a fuller range of possibilities and keeps nonbinary people included there.
I take the point, but personally, I’d like just having all clothing options be available to everyone. People of any gender can wear any clothes.
That’s the first time I’ve heard that term before- I didn’t know it was a thing. But since, as we’ve discussed, the non-binary label encompasses a variety of different genders and presentations, ranging from “I look like a guy and use he/him pronouns but I’m agender” to “I am a being of mysterious and indistinct gender and created my own neopronouns”, I don’t think this is a viable solution for character in question.
I completely agree on this. I haven’t really given thought to clothing options, but gender-locking clothes just seems pointless unless there’s an existing in-universe reason (if you’re playing historical fiction, for instance, and don’t want to write about the reaction of the public to a female MC wearing pants in 1931- although now that I say that, that would be kind of fun to write…)
I apologise if i came off as offensive. Believe me while not being nonbinary myself i have no problem with nonbinary people. My intention was to try and come up with a solution that would make sense coding wise thus could actually be properly implemented. I never intended to invalidate nonbinary people.the idea was never intended to force non binary people to have to be more masculine or feminine. Im sorry if it came off that way.