Writing good characters with marginalized identities

I disagree with you there. While I do agree that not every form of gender-nonconformity should be counted as being transgender, and it is certainly possible to be non-binary without being transgender, all of the non-binary people I actually know do identify as transgender.

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I think Characters as people. You can’t say “Lol, I need two non-binary Four woman Fifty male and maybe eleven inter sex in my story”
Well, you can say it but that would make your characters unrealistic and probably stereotypes, or/and preach propaganda. One of best games I ever experienced was Last of us. There are lesbians and gays, but there are treated as people, with respect and with their own personality. Their homosexuality is just one of the things they defined them but they are much more. I have seen homophobic people who changed when knew Ellie was lesbian. Like well, she is so great that maybe Lesbian people aren’t like I was thinking.

That’s how people should treat their characters not like just another number to fill to be inclusive. Just create a person and then think about gender and how could that affect them, without stereotypes.

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Honest to goodness: do you mind explaining that to me a bit? :open_mouth: I tried looking for it, but I don’t find it :disappointed:

Like, the transgender definition is used for when there’s a mismatch between the gender identity and the assigned sex, while the non binary describes any gender identity which does not fit within the binary of male and female. How different are those terms? :open_mouth:

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If we can’t write about people that are not ourselves, we would be shitty writers of very boring books.

Unless we have very awesome lives that is…

That being said, I sometimes feel that people are so afraid of the whole queer/gay/asexual/you name it minority thing that they just avoid it instead. I mean, unless your game specifically deals with those main themes, the thing you need to focus on is making interesting, well-written characters. Just be aware that some of them can have marginalized identities as well.

It’s the whole lack of minorities that causes this problem in the first place. If there’s only one, let’s say transgender, character, of course it’s going to be vitally important how they are depicted since. A shitty portrayal can easily be constructed as the author hating/not knowing anything about them. And that annoys me so much… white dudes gets to be assholes, cowards, annoying, overbearing or any other number of negative things without reaction because there are always a lot of counter examples. We need to get there with minorities as well.

I don’t want a special snowflake in my game/book/movie, I want a bloody snowstorm!

(I’m bisexual/genderqueer)

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In my humble and from Spanish language knowledge. A transgender could fit themselves in a traditional binary idea. I knew a girl who born as a boy , but didn’t want to suffer the bad problems of change sex therapy. But she is a girl so she is not non binary.

For those who asked about guidelines and info for writing about trans people, this might be a good place to start: Resources for Media Professionals | GLAAD
Here in particular.

While it is true that there are many social issues that must be
addressed before transgender people are treated equally – it is also
true that transgender people live day-to-day lives just like everyone
else.

And as has been stated by many before me, you can replace “transgender” in that sentence with any other identity and the statement will still hold. Meaning the focus shouldn’t be solely on that and the character should be built on something other than that particular identity.

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But how can you be non binary and not transgender?

On one hand, there’s the mismatch between your assigned sex at birth and your gender identity; on the other one, non binary are genders like agender/neutrois/genderfluid/genderflux/etc.

Since humans have a designed sex at birth, the binary ones (or intersex in some cases), being non binary would mean that there’s a mismatch: thus meaning that they are also transgender. I know that in Spain (I’m Spanish too, @poison_mara! :smile:) we usually think of the binary ones, mtf or ftm (the transgender without being non binary bit), but the question is how is it possible to be non binary and not transgender? :open_mouth:

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I’m going to phone a friend :telephone_receiver: :grin: on this one because I’m stumbling over my words and trying to explain it. I’ve a friend who’s generally a lot more articulate on this sort of topics than I am, who I’ve just emailed. So expect your answer tomorrow.

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Sorry for the bother @FairyGodfeather :disappointed_relieved:

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Great, another Spanish! Well, my friend is woman legally in the DNI but she consider herself a Trans Transexual like we said in Spain. Legally though, she is a woman now and all the civil data say woman. I don’t know all of this is so complex. Sadly non binary aren’t legally recognized. The fact you have to be or a Male or A woman (doesn’t care physical sex for us) But is unfair why if you don’t want be a boy or a girl? Legally you can’t.

I’m not an expert but maybe I can help here. This is my understanding.

Non-binary means that the person is on a spectrum of identity. A transgendered just means the binary point of reference has been switched.

A male non-binary may identify primarily as male but in certain aspects he may be “non-gendered” or female.

A non-binary may primarily identify as the opposite binary point (transgendered) primarily but in certain aspects that person may be non-gendered or opposite of what they primarily identify as.

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Right, because our language is very very very gendered :persevere:

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Our language is Pure GENDER but romans had a neutral so why in hell we can’t? We need created one

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I’m very lazy so copy/paste is my friend:

Transgender/Trans: An umbrella term for people whose gender
identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The term
transgender is not indicative of gender expression, sexual orientation,
hormonal makeup, physical anatomy, or how one is perceived in daily
life. Note that transgender does not have an “ed” at the end.

Binary: Used as an adjective to describe the genders
female/male or woman/man. Since the binary genders are the only ones
recognized by general society as being legitimate, they enjoy an
(unfairly) privileged status.

Nonbinary (Also Non-Binary): Preferred umbrella term for all
genders other than female/male or woman/man, used as an adjective (e.g.
Jesse is a nonbinary person). Not all nonbinary people identify as trans and not all trans people identify as nonbinary. Sometimes (though
rarely), nonbinary can be used to describe the
aesthetic/presentation/expression of a cisgender person.

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This is so complex, but in a good way. Until few years ago all were simply just because they treated as mad or heretics everyone not installed in the spectrum authority consider “Normal” A term as bad as stupid. We humans transcent purd biology, and biological live is inclusive as hell, it even includes clones.

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My friends do Latin, and it’s… kinda gendered too :sweat_smile: Like, the daughters had different titles than the sons and so on.

But that’s kinda mixing some nb genders: for example, agender is the lack of gender (no female, male, bigender… naught, nothing), while this example could be genderfluid. I do understand that the “direct” difference between transgender and non binary is that the former is binary, while the latter is obviously not. But how can’t you be non binary and not transgender?

@LtRipley thanks for the help! :smile:

But:

This is the hardest part:

I understand that you can be transgender and non binary (i.e: myself, for example: I am genderfluid: I don’t identify with my assigned sex at birth and I’m non binary), but as I said to @Zolataya, how can someone be non binary and not transgender? Or does the transgender term only apply to the binary spectrum, then? :open_mouth:

@Lycoris - Well, being genderqueer and non-binary is not exactly the same thing (don’t ask me about the difference though, terminology is weird and sometimes very local.), but being genderqueer I’ll attempt to answer your question.

My assigned gender at birth was girl.¨

I grew up thinking of myself as a boy, acting like a boy, having male friends and never understanding how girls work at all, up to the point of adopting a male name for myself. It helped that I was always one of the tallest people in my class, and didn’t look feminine at all.

However, since nobody ever challenged my identity as a boy, I never really felt the need to assert my gender. I was an introvert who liked books most of all, and just thought of myself as me, not as a gendered individual really.

As I grew older, I tried on a girl identity because I thought I was a lesbian (didn’t know bisexuality was a thing back then), but it chafed and felt awkward and never fit. I changed careers because I couldn’t stand to have one where I had to do gender presentation. Now I work as a machinist and we all have the same work clothes regardless of gender and it is the best thing.

I see myself as male. I’ve always done. Sometimes I go the whole nine yards with suits and ties (no binding, I’ve got asthma and needs to breathe), but most of the time I just go utilitarian. And sometimes, very much sometimes, I play around with being a girl, even though it often makes me feel very awkward and filled with angst.

However, in all this time I have never been bothered to actually go through a transition process. Why? Probably because I don’t have dysmorphia. I mean if I could do it magically with a snap of my fingers I’d do it in a heartbeat, but right now the cost is not worth the payoff. And for me, personally, that is because I don’t have any problems with how I am being treated right now. Like I said, I am lucky that my body is pretty ungirly, I have a hard time imagining how I would react if people actually treated me as a girl.

For me, I call myself non-binary (or genderqueer) because I identify as male, but not strongly enough to change my name or my body for it. If I changed my name, then I would call myself transgender. That’s where the line is drawn for me personally.

Maybe my gender identification is ‘don’t give a f*ck’

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I think the key point here is that [quote]
people identify
[/quote]
It’s an identity and a political term, not an exact definition that is the be all and end all of gender terminology.
Language evolves and also not everyone is comfortable or recognizes themselves in each every term embraced by a community.

So yeah, to conclude: someone can be NB and not identify as trans. There’s nothing to understand, it’s not math.

Ah yes, the good old days! Still a lot of road to go though, so many countries where “deviating from the norm” is illegal etc.

Yup, and that terminology is probably gonna tend to expand some more to try to be more inclusive.

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Well, I found easier my not labels approach I look at person and how actually he or she or they feel and then support the person.Why I have to assume that someone is X and with Y sexual attractions? Maybe is because my best friend since childhood was clearly gay, so I don’t assume that if I saw a guy he has to be a heterosexual loving football. Or he even have to have male genitalia. I mean is stupid, It was fun when my friend said me I am gay. at 12 . No, you are Diego. The fact you like man it was clear since kindergarten. He even asked me Why I didn’t say anything. I clearly said to him Why He doesn’t ask me why I like boys being a girl? It is the same, both are natural emotions. So yeah, that’s my approach to this mess, and just asking what the person prefer. I never had any problems except with biggots bullies.

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This topic made me take one long look at Fallen Hero and think… ‘no wonder I am writing a game all about identities and bodies’.

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