Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
I am trying to make my game / campaign setting more inclusive for various gender and sexual identities, but I don't really know how to go about it.

My setting is roughly equivalent to nineteenth century Earth, but far more egalitarian, without rigidly defined gender roles. In addition, alchemy makes seamlessly changing one's biological sex something which is, while not easy or commonplace, something that is achievable for most people.

I can't personally really see how many of the modern gender identities would fit into such a setting outside of very specific circumstances.


Likewise, when it comes to writing up specific setting NPCs, I don't generally mention family unless it is important for the setting (for example, a dynastic family) because I want to leave it open for other people to develop as they see fit, and because it would also feel forced / tokenist to simply insert a context less line about someone's sexuality or AGAB into their biography. Likewise, I prefer to leave NPCs sexuality ambiguous in my games in case a player wants to romance them.

So, while I have had trans, gender fluid, intersex, and homo/bi/pan sexual NPCs in games that I have run, very little of it comes across in the official NPC write-ups or setting design.
I hope these things haven't been said better by someone else already, but I don't think that the changes you suggest would necessarily lead to a society where trans or queer identities kind of even out and fade in the background, as there is more to gender and sexual identity than the single issues of transition and discrimination.

I think at this point the question becomes, how does your setting's conception of gender identity and expression change once the means to affirm that identity and the freedom to express it are more easily achieved? Are men and women still tied down to the signifiers of beard, blue, trousers and make up, pink, skirt, or is an amalgam of all those forms of expression more widespread (and are there new ones)? Are different pronouns and inclusive language more widespread? Non binary and gender-fluid people will still exist, and more people will be out probably.

It seems to me if you do want a more inclusive society, then you need to think about the history of that society and work a way for your trans characters' identities to be not only present and tolerated/permitted, but widespread and celebrated in how they differ as well as how they're the same as more rigid conceptions of gender.