I don't know if it's worth making a topic about... hear me out.
Gender and gender identity issues can be RP issues, but the problem is how they're made to be issues. Â The fact is that, played right, 99% of characters won't even KNOW. Â We're around transex people all the time; you can't pick them out of a crowd. Â So, at most, it's going to be known by a short handful of people, and most of those won't honestly care any more than any of us do in real life. Â Even if I know that my cousin, for example, has any other gender or sexual identity issues, it's not like it affects me or my relationship with them in any way. Â About the only person who finding out about their gender might be something of what I'd call a dramatic story element might be my wife.
So, played right, it's rarely an external story element unless your character is consistently invited to weekly orgies, goes to prison, or has a severe cottonseed allergy and can't wear clothes.
The reason this thread might be important is because there's a way it could become a major external story element, and man is that the wrong way to play that angle. Â Being actually transgender is a daily struggle of dealing with ignorance and a world that doesn't acknowledge any grey area between heterosexual males and females, but in FFXIV? Â We don't have bathrooms in-game to even be gender-specific. Â We don't have to worry about actual undergarment support. Â Altering one's appearance isn't any more than a fantasia potion away.
So to make it an issue worth the mileage of actually putting in the development time on that single trait, you have to make your gender a major external issue. Â That generally entails some VERY gratuitous and aggravating RP on your part to make people care about your genitalia in a game that, mechanically and figuratively, does not care an awful lot about your genitalia.
So.... I guess the summation of my advice here is to do it if you want, but the best way to play it is to NOT make it a focal point of your RP. Â The only ways to make it a major issue to more than a few people are going to be the kind of RP some of us avoid like ebola.
Gender and gender identity issues can be RP issues, but the problem is how they're made to be issues. Â The fact is that, played right, 99% of characters won't even KNOW. Â We're around transex people all the time; you can't pick them out of a crowd. Â So, at most, it's going to be known by a short handful of people, and most of those won't honestly care any more than any of us do in real life. Â Even if I know that my cousin, for example, has any other gender or sexual identity issues, it's not like it affects me or my relationship with them in any way. Â About the only person who finding out about their gender might be something of what I'd call a dramatic story element might be my wife.
So, played right, it's rarely an external story element unless your character is consistently invited to weekly orgies, goes to prison, or has a severe cottonseed allergy and can't wear clothes.
The reason this thread might be important is because there's a way it could become a major external story element, and man is that the wrong way to play that angle. Â Being actually transgender is a daily struggle of dealing with ignorance and a world that doesn't acknowledge any grey area between heterosexual males and females, but in FFXIV? Â We don't have bathrooms in-game to even be gender-specific. Â We don't have to worry about actual undergarment support. Â Altering one's appearance isn't any more than a fantasia potion away.
So to make it an issue worth the mileage of actually putting in the development time on that single trait, you have to make your gender a major external issue. Â That generally entails some VERY gratuitous and aggravating RP on your part to make people care about your genitalia in a game that, mechanically and figuratively, does not care an awful lot about your genitalia.
So.... I guess the summation of my advice here is to do it if you want, but the best way to play it is to NOT make it a focal point of your RP. Â The only ways to make it a major issue to more than a few people are going to be the kind of RP some of us avoid like ebola.
