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[smeeprocket]

Unless there were some changes in version .40 I am now aware of, DF genders can be male, female or neuter. Males always parter with females and vice versa, only female can bear children, neuter cannot reproduce and is referred to ingame as 'it'. Gender icons are tied to this system, meaning adding new ones is not an option.

If you want to add transgenders, this is what you got to work with. All I can think of is giving them separate creature descriptions and possibly caste names. There is no way to separate the he-she-it text from the reproductive bits so this will always be somewhat inconsistent.

I wouldn't expect this to be expanded upon either. Toady has so far made a policy of abstracting sexuality and reproduction to a high degree, in order to keep the uh... emerging possibilities and inevitable bad publicity at bay (and away from bay12, heheh).

er males do not always partner with females, that was changed in the recent version. homosexuality etc is in the game.

bad publicity? You mean by being inclusive. I guess for the hate crowd that would be bad publicity, anyway that isn't something I wanted to discuss.

Guess there were some changes made then.

Also it's not about inclusivity, its well, Obok Meatgod. Adding one thing to DF causes a myriad of possibilities to open up so once Toady were to add poop and sex, some pretty nasty and vile possibilities come up (just read Obok Meatgod if you want an example) which will inevitably end up in the press in the worst way possible.

I can't really blame Toady for dodging this one.

how would including transgender persons open up the doorway to rape and poop and sex (reproduction already exists and marriage and lovers exist for homosexual relationships.)

To go off of that thought you'd have to perceive transsexuals as inherently corrupt or bad or something, so I am not getting this.

Obok Meatgod was someone modding in rape. That doesn't even relate to this at all.

It's like saying, "We can't have dwarves with brown skin because it could be used for all kinds of bad things."

Anyway, I don't really want to get into an argument where someone tells me people are evil or deranged for being transsexuals and such. This isn't the platform for hate, it's a thread about modding this in.

---

The problem with turning a male dwarf into a female dwarf is it changes them entirely and that isn't what I'm going for anyway.

What I was thinking maybe was male dwarves with no reproductive capabilities and no ability to grow a beard, so that the proper pronouns get used, no geldability, and a descriptor like with like "He is transgender." And do that for females also. Just a different caste. Is that possible, to remove reproduction. It seems like I can't do it in a way where the actual possible reproduction would happen so maybe just nixxing reproduction for the castes entirely.

I don't know how to do genderfluid or intersex. Since someone was saying it gets wonky if you add both the male and the female tags. And genderfluid is just not identifying with either gender or to some degree with both, so I would need to be able to get the game to use they, them, and their, because it is obviously not appropriate.

[Ladygolem]

On the technical side of things, I wonder if it would be an idea to see how gelding ends up affecting creatures once the full effects (i believe greater meat production and lessened territoriality were mentioned?) are implemented. If the changes aren't hardcoded and are instead customizable per creature/caste, it may be a way to easily implement physical gender transition without the complete overhaul that a transformation entails.

In the meantime, a workshop or reaction of some kind that uses some sort of unexplained *magic* to transform a dwarf into another gender with the side effect of change other characteristics of theirs.

Of course that only covers the physical side of things. Irl, there's also a very significant social aspect to transitioning that may or may not include the physical. However that'd be pretty hard to simulate in DF as there simply aren't any differing social behaviours between men and women in DF - female dwarves dress, look, behave the same as males; a dwarf's ability to wander into magma or throw a tantrum because their masterwork earring was destroyed is completely unaffected by their gender identity. The only example of gender differentiation among sentients that i can think of are elf princesses only being women.

[Meph]

To go off of that thought you'd have to perceive transsexuals as inherently corrupt or bad or something, so I am not getting this.

Obok Meatgod was someone modding in rape. That doesn't even relate to this at all.

It's like saying, "We can't have dwarves with brown skin because it could be used for all kinds of bad things."

Anyway, I don't really want to get into an argument where someone tells me people are evil or deranged for being transsexuals and such. This isn't the platform for hate, it's a thread about modding this in.

You are doing it again.

He just mentioned that Toady is dodging a bullet by leaving sex and pooping out, he didnt say anything about transgenders or changing sexes. Obok Meatgod was adding in sexual reproductive organs, which caused the problem, because people have lots of freedom in this game. If you want to portray gender changes realisticly with the addition and consequent changing of these organs, then you open up the same freedom that lead to Obok Meatgod.

The point was not that transgenders are a problem, but that adding sex-related things might be abused.

No reproduction for male dwarves is very easy, there is a tag called STERILE in the raws. Just give them a self-targetted interaction that adds STERILE when you want them to, and you are all set.

If you want genderfluid, you can keep the he and she articles. "He is slim. He likes rock. He identifies as X". Same with she. You dont need to change their biological sex to influence their perception of gender in their description. This is much easier to do than adding a new sex (the hermaphrodite, male and female at the same time).

Edit: Ladygolem: You can change behaviour for males and females if you like. You can assign different values for personalities etc in each caste. See: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Personality_trait. Higher BRAVERY for males and higher SWAYED_BY_EMOTIONS for females and the like. (that was obviously satire, please dont get upset)

[Ladygolem]

The point was not that transgenders are a problem, but that adding sex-related things might be abused.

Here's the thing though - why do you consider transgender people inherently sex-related? No-one is adding reproductive organs,  or the physical act of sexual intercourse. We're just discussing how to diversify what's already in the game. I'd really wish people would stop reducing transgender people to their genitals, or equating us with some strange, pornographic fantasy.

I'm just gonna ignore your 'satire' for now. (Pro tip: satire =/= saying something offensive and adding 'jk' at the end, no matter what trey Parker or Steven Colbert may tell you. But that is a discussion for another place and another time.)

Anyway, the issue is not simply making a trans woman unable to have children, it's making her able impregnate people with wombs the way a male would, without having the game refer to her as 'he'. And vice versa - a dwarf who's a trans man should be able to bear children without being misgendered.

PS. 'Transgender' and 'trans' are adjectives, not nouns. 'Transgender men', 'trans women', 'a person who is trans'.

[Orange Wizard]

Technically, trans is a prefix, meaning something along the lines of "between" or "across".

...

Anyway, gender has nothing to do with sex/organs. That's why it's not in the game. DF models (roughly) the sexes. The confusion stems from the word "gender" having two meanings: one being pussyfooting around the word "sex", and the other referring to a largely subjective topic that I will not attempt to describe in any detail lest I be reduced to straw and ashes.

[Meph]

English is not my first language and I have no personal experience with anything gender/sex related and I honestly don't care for the entire issue. The only person who does not keep this about modding is you. I didnt consider transgender people to be sex-related, neither did Grimlocke. He said that sex and pooping is bad. You attacked him. I told you, "The point was not that transgenders are a problem, but that adding sex-related things might be abused. " You attacked me.

Again, the point was: Sex and Pooping = Bad. Transgender people = No problem.

Anyway, the issue is not simply making a trans woman unable to have children, it's making her able impregnate people with wombs the way a male would, without having the game refer to her as 'he'. And vice versa - a dwarf who's a trans man should be able to bear children without being misgendered.

I solved that in the first post I made. The other suggestions with sex-changes and sterility as well. I'm happy to help with modding related things, especially when it comes to projects that have never been done with DF before. But please stop lashing out at people.

Edit:

no personal experience with anything gender/sex related

I just realize that this is poorly worded. Armok damn anyone who'd quote that without context. 

[Ladygolem]

Technically, trans is a prefix.

...

Anyway, gender has nothing to do with sex/organs. That's why it's not in the game. DF models (roughly) the sexes. The confusion stems from the word "gender" having two meanings: one being pussyfooting around the word "sex", and the other referring to a largely subjective topic that I will not attempt to describe in any detail lest I be reduced to straw and ashes.

Thank you for explaining to me, a trans woman, what gender is, and how I should use words to refer to myself. I really appreciate your input! 

@Meph: I'm not attacking or 'lashing out' at anyone. I mildly corrected some of the terminology you used, and challenged some of the extremely common misconceptions that are very common in our society. I recognize that many people don't have the opportunity to learn about gender outside of the very limited binary we are taught, and I am perfectly willing to help people learn; but you must understand that when you have to put up with this sort of thing every single day, both online and off, one's patience tends to wear a little thin.

While I agree the forum is for discussion of modding, in this specific case a discussion of gender terminology is relevant to the discussion at hand, much as a discussion of metallurgical techniques in the 14th century would be relevant when discussing a mod dealing with 14th century metallurgy.

I agree though, we all have better things to do than argue. I'm rather busy today, but when I get back I'll have a go at figuring out that string replacer technique and see if the result works at all satisfactorily.

[Meph]

Much appreciated.

For the string dump replacer, you need to download the .exe that insolor posted, and replace the template.lng with the one I posted in my dropbox. Then put both into the same folder as your Dwarf Fortress.exe. Open template.lng, and you find a long list of words and sentences, about 25 thousand.

They look like this: |he is doing|he is doing|. The first one is what the game says now. The second one is what the game says AFTER you ran the .exe. So you only need to change the second line to what you want it to say.

[Ladygolem]

Ah, so it's the same tool linked in the localization thread?

[Meph]

Yes, thats why I linked to it. When I said "string dump replacer" I did mean the "Dwarf Fortress localization patch". See http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=108721.msg4175521#msg4175521

[Orange Wizard]

Thank you for explaining to me, a trans woman, what gender is, and how I should use words to refer to myself. I really appreciate your input! 

@Meph: I'm not attacking or 'lashing out' at anyone.

I suppose it would be wise of me to refrain from pointing out the irony.

[smeeprocket]

Thank you for explaining to me, a trans woman, what gender is, and how I should use words to refer to myself. I really appreciate your input! 

@Meph: I'm not attacking or 'lashing out' at anyone.

I suppose it would be wise of me to refrain from pointing out the irony.

Let's stop, please.

I don't understand the string stuff, you are speaking a foreign language.

To add transgender persons, would I have to manually edit individual dwarves every time or is there a way to run a script to have a random element and have it work with that version of the game from then on.

I'm still not sure if reproduction as is appropriate to the person is or is out of the question. And if it is out of the question, how do you tag something as sterile?

Also, is there a way to turn the it pronoun into they?

So many questions and I feel like I'm not entirely understanding the answers.

Anyway, this isn't about the act of sex. I mean outside of body appropriate reproduction but that's not new to the game. There's no genitals being added, and I don't want to add in actual sex changes because it doesn't seem appropriate for the dwarves' technology level. I don't see hormones as possible either. But if you have a dwarf, that was born with male genitalia (in the abstract, obviously, I guess I need to say that again,) who identifies as female, they should be referred to as she and such, but if possible, still be able to reproduce as a male would (which, since there is no birth control in DF, would happen if they were transfemale and with a female. Once again, not modding in any actual sex.)

Intersex and genderfluid are also something I badly want. So being able to turn the it pronoun into they, if possible. I guess if it were to affect the whole game that would be acceptable (though they, them, and their drives me nuts for singular pronouns for anything but in these circumstances.)

I don't understand much about modding, so pretend you are explaining this to a child. Because this would be my first attempt at modding anything.

[smeeprocket]

Just to add to this, this started with a thread in the suggestions forum, and someone said one possibility is a third gender, such as hijra. But that is mostly, afaik, transwomen and excludes transmen. I am not sure if the feminine or the plural pronouns would be preferable for that. I would prefer a more inclusive selection of genders to run the full gamut, though.

[Meph]

I don't understand the string stuff, you are speaking a foreign language.

Read the thread I linked to, the author explains it quite well.

To add transgender persons, would I have to manually edit individual dwarves every time or is there a way to run a script to have a random element and have it work with that version of the game from then on.

You'd have to do it manually for every DF version, but since the creature_standard.txt barely changes, its not much work. Most of the time it will be just copying your modded file into the new version. You need to regen a new world then.

I'm still not sure if reproduction as is appropriate to the person is or is out of the question. And if it is out of the question, how do you tag something as sterile?

I dont fully understand the question, but to make someone sterile you write an interaction, http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Interaction_token , that targets themselves and adds the tag STERILE with CE_ADD_TAG:

Also, is there a way to turn the it pronoun into they?

Yes, but only with the string dump replacer I mentioned earlier. Otherwise its hardcoded.

But if you have a dwarf, that was born with male genitalia (in the abstract, obviously, I guess I need to say that again,) who identifies as female, they should be referred to as she and such, but if possible, still be able to reproduce as a male would (which, since there is no birth control in DF, would happen if they were transfemale and with a female. Once again, not modding in any actual sex.)

You can either replace all he/she with they and add the gender-specific custom descriptions that I mentioned (see how hair or skin color is done in creature_standard.txt) or you can change their actual gender (replacing MALE with FEMALE), but that would result in changes to childbirth etc.

There is no way to have the game refer to a MALE creature with she, except if it should refer to all MALE creatures with she, or if you add gender as BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER, like hair or eye color. "He likes rock. His gender is female-identified."

[smeeprocket]

   [CASTE:WORKER]
      [CASTE_NAME:worker ant woman:worker ant women:worker ant woman]
      Female, but non-breeding.
      [POP_RATIO:10000]
   [CASTE:SOLDIER]
      [CASTE_NAME:soldier ant woman:soldier ant women:soldier ant woman]
      Female, but non-breeding.
      [POP_RATIO:1000]
   [CASTE:DRONE]
      [MALE]
      [CASTE_NAME:drone ant man:drone ant men:drone ant man]
      [POP_RATIO:5]
   [CASTE:QUEEN]
      [FEMALE]
      [CASTE_NAME:queen ant woman:queen ant women:queen ant woman]
      [POP_RATIO:1]


This is the caste list for ant_man and someone was saying the females that aren't tagged as females still use the female pronouns.

I'm wondering if there is something we are missing, since apparently the it pronoun also exists. hmm

edit: would the sterile token go in the raws or would it have to be done within the game to each individual dwarf?