There’s a lot of things you’re overlooking here. Society, culture, chemistry, many things impact you differently depending on gender. I wouldn’t be the same person if I was a woman instead of a man, and I’m not talking about aesthetics.
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Steve, maybe you didn’t read up the thread or maybe you just don’t care, but the CoG forums are not a place to air anti-LGBT views.
Being trans is not a disability, and we don’t want our trans forum members to have to spend time arguing on that point.
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Being trans is pretty important to the development of one’s personality. By pretty important, I mean that being trans can very easily dictate the entirety of a person’s interactions with other people. If someone is used to a hostile environment all the time, you tend to become more closed off and less trusting. If someone has been accepted and loved for all of their life, they may be more open and maybe naive. Those are just two of any number of potential places being trans can take someone’s personality.
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You can just come out and say me, you know. 
There’s no shame in it! 
Back to other topics.
I don’t have anything to add to this discussion, but I’d like to say thank you to everyone that’s shared their thoughts, opinions, and life experiences 
I’ve learned a lot from this thread and am looking forward to implementing this stuff in future games.
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@Bagelthief
But you’re always so sweet to me, Bagel! 
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I am cis, but am VERY tight with certain trans individuals, which is why I have expressed support here as an ally but not made a comment yet, since I don’t want to speak on experiences I only know of second hand, no matter how up close. All my life, however, my expressions of my self have often been in contrast to how a female is “supposed” to act and I have definitely experienced discrimination not only based on my sex, but in how feminine or (more often) not I seem to behave. In what I admit is a narrow response to not only your statements, but to this thread in general, if eye color and hair color/length didn’t “really relate” to one’s personality, then we would all have the same style and there would be no market for colored contacts or dye. Like clothing or phrasing, they can definitely be a way in which people can express their personalities. Being trans is as significant and ingrained into one’s personality and life experiences as any other facet of sex and gender (and perceived gender) within society. Depending on the times and country in which you live, all these details can be a matter of life and death.
Also, I have never believed in framing personal pain or struggle as some kind of competition, whether closely related or not. There are no winners in that race. If you have a crappy week at work, the fact that there are starving orphans somewhere doesn’t make your own stress disappear or your tasks complete themselves. To imply that trans suffering somehow detracts from the struggles of deaf people or any other minority group–while also grouping it in with an illness or disability in general–comes off as disingenuous, fallacious, and unsympathetic.
*no LESS valid
As far as game choices go, human experience and variety is so nuanced, as are personal preferences, so I do agree it will never be possible to fully encapsulate every possible combination of traits that every person ever can directly relate to, nor do I think that is what every reader necessarily wants. But I do like the idea of writing to be as inclusive, rather than exclusive, as possible. Depending on the author and context, sometimes that means being extremely vague about the MC so a player can fill in the gaps, or trying to at least make an effort to codify more obvious choices than most underrepresented groups get in a lot of popular media. As a woman, I understand at least to some extent how disappointing it can be when you either can’t customize or the representation is less than flattering. What I love is when people are at least willing to try and learn, even if it sometimes falls flat.
At any rate, I appreciate this thread for the insights people have bravely shared. 
EDIT: updated to appropriate terminology. Thank you to those who pointed out my error! I sincerely hope it does not detract from the intended sentiment, though that is no excuse for my ignorance.
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trans* is an outdated term and is nowadays considered offensive
I always thought it was just outdated, not offensive. We stopped using it because of what it implied, but I’ve never seen trans* used as an insult.
For clarification, @MizArtist33, Trans* was replaced by just trans (no asterisk) because trans* was being thought to include cis people as well as those who are trans, instead of just trans people.
After it became apparent that was created by a cis guy who thought pedophilia was an oppressed sexual identity and created the asterisk to mean things like that, everyone jumped ship fast. It’s weird because in hindsight no one ever questioned who came up with the asterisk.
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Does it have something to do with how asterisks are used online for wildcard searches? That was my first assumption. It sounds like it would’ve clumped a lot of potentially unrelated issues together. Is this article (http://www.transstudent.org/asterisk) correct as to why it’s no longer used?
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Yup, there it is! Thanks!
Is it the guy who said that the LGBTA community was about celebrating taboo’s? I remember some big posts about this on tumblr and it was one of the most ridiculous thing I ever read.
There’s been a shitton of them, hon. A metric shitton. Maybe one of them? I don’t even know. There’s too many.
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Whilst on the internet I’ve learned to simply never use pronouns in regards to people, EVER. They change too often or don’t apply to the people I’m talking to anymore. You’ve bested me pronouns, you’ve finally won. Which is why I only use usernames at this point.
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Personaly unless I am certain of someone prefered pronouns I stick to singular they. I think its pretty universal.
As a general rule, a poll found about 90% of nb people were fine being referred to as “they”, “they” is used in English for male or female or an unknown gender, and generally, if you don’t know and usernames are weird, use “they”.
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That one’s worked the most successfully in my experience. Male and female pronouns are banned from my vocabulary whilst on the internet though. What I believed to be an innocent pronoun could be the pin on a grenade I’m pulling. The last thing I want is a war like there was earlier in this thread.
he/him and she/her, thanks. assigning gender to pronouns and clothing is a touchy thing
I can’t say that anymore either? Damn it I did it again, I had a feeling I shouldn’t have phrased it like that. As a white heterosexual cis male speaking out of turn on a forum like this could be the end of my account. My deepest apologies, Bagel.
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