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[smeeprocket]

Actually, I only think categorising something as a mental illness is harmful if society views mental illness as something to be feared and punished, as was true around much of the world until recently and still is to some extent today. A sizable fraction of people will have some kind of mental health problem in their lives and it is important that this is not treated as any more shameful as a physical disability. There are issues with being associated with very rare "psycho killers" that only make up a miniscule fraction of the mentally ill.

Genital dysmorphia is similar to manic depression in some ways - distressing to start with, made far worse by social rejection, can lead to suicide, and people would be much better without it.

1

you need to stop, you are wrong. The APA, which knows much more about psychological illness than you, does not label transgender as a disorder or mental illness. Your view is based on nothing but your own assumptions. And now you are making even more wild claims.

Like I said, this is effectively gaslighting a chunk of the populace, and it will have negative results. Up to and including the suicide of people gaslighted. It is irrelevant what connotations mental illness has, and it is also irrelevant because it is not a mental illness. I will take a the Amercan Psychiatry Association's word on this over your ignorance.

Okay, first, you are correct.

Second, you are going about saying this very wrongly.

I'm going to plug my headset in just to watch that because I am incredibly curious as to whether or not there is a productive way to tell someone they are a bigot.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Looking more into the origins of genital dysphoria, it does not seem to be a mental illness at all. I was wrong. However, you need to find out what gaslighting actually means, because I was not doing that. Gaslighting refers to deliberately lying for abuse. It is not the same as not knowing any better. If I was gaslighting, I would have been fairly stupid to do it on a discussion which I did not know had any transgender people in it.

[smeeprocket]

Looking more into the origins of genital dysphoria, it does not seem to be a mental illness at all. I was wrong. However, you need to find out what gaslighting actually means, because I was not doing that. Gaslighting refers to deliberately lying for abuse. It is not the same as not knowing any better. If I was gaslighting, I would have been fairly stupid to do it on a discussion which I did not know had any transgender people in it.

Please stop using that term. It is derogatory and implies a psychological illness.

You are saying things that are still problematic. I hope you can understand that using the term transgender, and referring to those people as the gender they identify with, is the civil, respectful way to handle it.

The thing is, there are transgender people on this forum, and they will read posts just like anyone else. All of these things add up and are very ugly and emotionally upsetting. This will not be the first or last place they hear how they are just "sick" or "mentally ill"

I think gaslighting is a good term for it, even though, yes you are right, one would really have to be intentionally convincing someone that they are insane for it to be 100% accurate. The results work out the same, though.

[Urist Tilaturist]

If I were as easily offended as you are I could pick up on your comment about things being "just" mental illness and how that could imply that these problems are not serious. However, I shall not pursue this path because I do not want to make things any worse than they already are. Personally I have never heard or seen "genital dysphoria" used anywhere other than a medical context, and never as an insult directed at anyone who has it.

Genital dysphoria and being transgender are not exactly the same thing. Transgender means changing gender identity, not necessarily the same as biological sex. Genital dysphoria is the condition of having genitals which do not match the person's sexual identity, and this may or may not be resolved by becoming transgender. Since dwarves do not have much of a concept of gender, I could more easily imagine them having genital dysphoria than changing gender identity, since this would have little effect on them.

[smeeprocket]

If I was as easily offended as you are I could pick up on your comment about things being "just" mental illness and how that could imply that these problems are not serious. However, I shall not pursue this path because I do not want to make things any worse than they already are.

Genital dysphoria and being transgender are not exactly the same thing. Transgender means changing gender identity, not necessarily the same as biological sex. Genital dysphoria is the condition of having genitals which do not match the person's sexual identity, and this may or may not be resolved by becoming transgender. Since dwarves do not have much of a concept of gender, I could more easily imagine them having genital dysphoria than changing gender identity, since this would have little effect on them.

one does not "become transgender" being transgender is having genitals that do not match your gender identity. Your gender identity is in fact your biological gender. You are biologically female if you are a transgender female, you just have male genitalia. You are, no offense, not speaking from a position of experience. You just now realized that this is not a psychological illness. I'm not saying I am the last word in gender identity, but I have spent some time on this to be more aware and empathetic. What I'm telling you is what I have learned from transgender individuals. Who are, generally, the ones you want to go to about this issue.

I assume you are under the impression that transgender involves surgery or hormone therapy, but that is not the case. It it simply a matter of your gender not matching your genitalia, although that could also be intersex, but that's an entirely different issue. (ambiguous or both genitalia being intersex.)

This is not an "easily offended" thing. Really, if you are using words or engaging in behavior that hurts someone, you should want to not do that. Ethical hedonism and all that.

BTW, please don't lecture me on psychological illness, I am on disability after a suicide attempt many years ago, I have schizo-effective bipolar disorder (that's bipolar with traits of schizophrenia.) While I sometimes use the term mental illness, psychological illness is a better term because it does not give the impression it is all in the person's head, made up and what have you. I realize sharing this exposes a weakness on my part, and it often leads to trouble for me, but I will just do it anyway, and hope I don't come to regret it.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Then on that basis I need to redefine what I think transgender means.

No, I am not going to make any comments or attacks on your psychological problems, that would be a cheap and unworthy move, not to mention plain bad argument (ad hominem is rarely a good idea). The only risk is that someone else will.

I still think that avoiding saying or doing something because it might offend someone is not a very good idea since out of the billions of people in the world there will usually be someone who will be upset about something. As long as I am not setting out of directly offend these people it is not my fault if they react badly to it.

Intersexuality has not really been mentioned here, but I would be happy to accept intersex dwarves in DF.

[smeeprocket]

Then on that basis I need to redefine what I think transgender means.

No, I am not going to make any comments or attacks on your psychological problems, that would be a cheap and unworthy move, not to mention plain bad argument (ad hominem is rarely a good idea). The only risk is that someone else will.

I still think that avoiding saying or doing something because it might offend someone is not a very good idea since out of the billions of people in the world there will usually be someone who will be upset about something. As long as I am not setting out of directly offend these people it is not my fault if they react badly to it.

Intersexuality has not really been mentioned here, but I would be happy to accept intersex dwarves in DF.

But you wouldn't use the N word and then blame anyone offended for being offended, and then claim it is not your fault if that is the case. Navigating the waters when trying not to offend people can be tough, but it is worthwhile. There are things that can be said that are outright hurtful and damaging to the people involved, and those should be avoided. Part of that is referring to people as they wish to be referred to.

It seems you are open to understanding this, and I appreciate that. It can mean a lot to a lot of people.

[Ogdibus]

I still think that avoiding saying or doing something because it might offend someone is not a very good idea since out of the billions of people in the world there will usually be someone who will be upset about something. As long as I am not setting out of directly offend these people it is not my fault if they react badly to it.

If you offend someone out of ignorance, but stop after being informed, you will likely be forgiven and respected.  If you use ignorance to justify offending people, you will likely not be forgiven.  This includes situations in which you do not realize that you are ignorant.  If you are willfully ignorant, and use ignorance to justify offending people, you're probably going to get yourself into trouble.

There is much more to this topic than you seem to realize.  You aren't really in a position to meaningfully discuss the details of it. 

Additionally, challenging the legitimacy of gender non-conformity is not even within the scope of this thread.  This thread was a suggestion to implement gender non-conforming identities in a way that reflected reality.  If you want to challenge that, keep in mind that all gender and sex features in this game are purely for atmosphere.  None of those things are core mechanics.  All beings could have been treated as asexual, and it wouldn't affect game play.  In DF, prioritizing some sexes or genders over others is purely arbitrary, so carefully consider the reason that you might exclude a particular group before you assume that you reasoning is without bigotry, (which it can be).

[Orange Wizard]

I think you ought to take this discussion to the General board. The derail is starting to get out of hand.

[Graknorke]

This thread was a suggestion to implement gender non-conforming identities in a way that reflected reality.

It wasn't even that, was it? It was just about adding gender-based societal rules, including but not particularly about things outside the male-female binary. So yeah, these derails are waaaaay out.

[friendguy13]

Tumblr, please go.

[Ogdibus]

Tumblr, please go.

This is the sort of thing that starts the derails in the first place.  We have people coming in here and saying what amounts to "I don't want queers in this game".  They get called out for it, and then try to convince everyone that what they said is justified, and that just digs the hole deeper.  Not only does this derail threads, it also creates an atmosphere in which extremist bigots feel that they can harass others and spread hatred.

This thread was a suggestion to implement gender non-conforming identities in a way that reflected reality.

It wasn't even that, was it? It was just about adding gender-based societal rules, including but not particularly about things outside the male-female binary. So yeah, these derails are waaaaay out.

It's about implementing gender in a way that generates gender roles that are uniquely defined for each civilization, because gender roles vary between real civilizations^*.  It explicitly includes non-binary ideas of gender and gender non-conformity.  That's why it's relevant that some people are saying they don't want dwarfs to have gender roles, and why there is discussion about gender non-conformity being moot without gender roles.  I think some of the opposition to implementing gender roles might be directly related to the players imagining of dwarf behavior.  They probably don't want it to be specified as different from what they have envisioned.  The suggestion on the other hand, is someone asking for what they envision to be implemented.  I like the .ini file option idea.  I tend to want different kinds of worlds for each fort or adventurer, depending on what I'm in the mood for.

In fortress mode it might not have a lot of use, but in Adventure and Legends mode, it could add a lot of flavor to exploration.  Right now there is little that distinguishes nations from each other, besides race.  Defining what people wear and do by gender is one way to give some character to each culture in a way that feels familiar to players.  It's probably complicated enough to require a cultural development arc, though.

^*I think.  I didn't read the whole thing at once.  I read different parts of it over the course of a few days, and read the thread backwards, after following a link in the Trans/Intersex mod thread.

[Orange Wizard]

Tumblr, please go.

This is the sort of thing that starts the derails in the first place.  We have people coming in here and saying what amounts to "I don't want queers in this game".  They get called out for it, and then try to convince everyone that what they said is justified, and that just digs the hole deeper.  Not only does this derail threads, it also creates an atmosphere in which extremist bigots feel that they can harass others and spread hatred.

I don't want queers in this game, either, and that's just as justified as someone who does want queers in the game. Fact of the matter remains that the queers are irrelevant. We're delving into a dangerous topic, and I'm trying to steer us out of it before someone gets banned.

[Dirst]

That's why I think it should be part of a larger re-write that doesn't focus on gender, such as defining several socially-constructed roles and/or stereotypes.  It should also be introduced at the same time that an explicit childcare labor is added, and we get the ability to mod modesty (that is, allow bare feet).

Any roles defined for vanilla Dwarves will not specify castes, but others might (particularly Humans, since they have a bunch of bad habits already).

The implementation detail is whether the roles have any influence in generating creatures.  In other words, do we want the randomly generated creature to be pulled a bit toward one of the roles?  Should the strength of that pull depend on how traditional the person is, or the traditional trait modified by how close he/she is to one of the roles?  Could just keep them independent of one another (notwithstanding any tradition-related traits within the role), which would allow for traditional oddballs who hate themselves.  That seems less fun.

[Urist Tilaturist]

The only reason why I opposed transgender dwarves is that I doubted whether such creatures would exist in a society which lacked any noticeable gender roles. Since I now know this is not the case, I have changed my position and am now prepared to accept transgender dwarves.

Making everybody asexual would result in no babies, unless all the males constantly ejaculated into the air like they did before the most recent update. Sexuality is an important feature for the gameplay as well as just being a background feature.