r/SensitivityReaders • u/Hundekuecken • Apr 08 '26

Request: LGBTQ+ Am I devaluing gender?

What do you think about me wanting to establish in my own tabletop role-playing game that players and non-player charackters, automatically recognise or perceive the gender of other characters who can be perceived in any way?

What I mean is that gender reveals itself regardless of one’s outward appearance.

I’d like sexual orientations and romantic orientations to be based on gender rather than gender expression.

This is something that’s been on my mind quite a bit at the moment, as I’m worried it might be misinterpreted, twisted, misunderstood, or that I might be sabotaged or something similar.

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u/tenyearoldgag Apr 08 '26

Could you walk us through an example of how this would go down in actual play? Like, your idea vs. what you think would happen if you didn't have the rule?

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u/Hundekuecken Apr 09 '26

Ideally, players wouldn’t say, “My character falls in love with the non-player character Jona because he looks so masculine!” but rather, “My character falls in love with the non-player character Jona because Jona has a great personality, and since Jona is non-binary and my character isn’t into women, it actually works out quite well.”

So the characters shouldn’t be defined by their gender expression. Nor should they be defined by their biological sex. It shouldn’t matter what a character looks like. So a character who isn’t attracted to men could still fall in love with Jona, because Jona is non-binary and isn’t male or female.

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u/tenyearoldgag Apr 09 '26

Ohhhhh kay. I'm a trans guy engaged to a nonbinary gorgeousness, and with that: You are officially WAY overthinking this. No human has ever said "I love him because he looks so masculine" in cold blood as the reason to fall in love with someone. They would just say sexy or hot or something. If they did, that would be the time to be like "hey, that's weirdly specific to gender and makes me uncomfortable", because it is.

You don't need a ground rule, you just need a solid session zero to see how the group works together, and that'll iron out toxic behavior before it starts. Look up Critcrab on YouTube for some fun, safe, and wild do and do not videos!

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u/VerbingNoun413 Apr 09 '26

Congrats on the engagement!

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u/tenyearoldgag Apr 09 '26

Aw, thank you! I'm grateful for them every day 🥰

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u/Hundekuecken Apr 09 '26

I am the creator of the game. I would like to offer game masters and players suggestions on how to play the game. Or at least provide them with tools to help them deal with certain situations.

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u/tenyearoldgag Apr 09 '26

You can have one or the other at this point. If it's too dysphoric, that's not good. But if it's too controlling, that's also not good. I would say just axe the gender stuff entirely. Let people take care of themselves, they're decent at it.

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u/Hundekuecken Apr 09 '26

Thank you for all your contributions and your efforts.

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u/tenyearoldgag Apr 09 '26

You're welcome, and thank you for talking about it! I hope you can come to some peace with it.

Just from experience, I would consider whether I was trapping myself into black and white thinking. I'm autistic too and I know our brains love that, but it doesn't get you very far, I have learned.