Transgender dragons

[LadyShadowHeart]

Hi. I finally decided to post this after seeing the breeding switch for gender BSA thread. I have thought about it for a long time and do not think it has been posted before. I hope this is not shot down right away.

 

What if we have a potion or could use the new shards to change our dragons gender? Not just for breeding but the actual gender on the view page. We already know that dragons in the game can use strong magic and have similar emotions to people. As someone who is lgbt I think it would be really cool to be able to change a dragons gender to reflect real life. The game can only benefit from more diversity. I love giving my dragons life stories and making them more than just pixels. Why can we only have cis hetero dragons? Dragoncave could make a big affect by thinking about the rest of the people that play that do not fit in that category. It does not make sense to exclude them and I wish for a change. Plus this would help us make new sprite combos that would look very nice in breeding.

 

I know this suggestion probably needs help because I have not worked out details so please discuss it here. Thank you.

[Fuzzbucket]

It could only apply to dragons with no offspring on anyone else's scroll. You can't have this messing up the linages of other players (whether or not I would want a trans dragon on my scroll, I certainly don't want anyone able to change the sex of a dragon that was already in one of my lineages.)

 

I suspect you would also need the permission of the creators. I think really the only way to deal with this would be to have a new breed that could be transgender.

 

But as far as I know, among wild animals, gay mountain goats (etc) don't actually breed.

[tjekan]

Why assume we only have cisgender dragons on our scrolls? In real life, you can't necessarily tell by looking at her whether a woman was born female or not. I assume it would be even harder to tell with a dragon. That information would have to go in the dragon's bio.

 

It would be cool to have a gender-fluid dragon who could magically shapeshift male or female as the mood struck them, or maybe cycled through them with the phases of the moon or something. I would want them to be a brand new dimorphic dragon, though, so that their shapeshifting wouldn't mess up any existing lineages. And I probably wouldn't use them in many lineages because there are already too many dragons that rely on complicated calendars and/or the memory of other players to breed adequately. Nonetheless, it would be a creative concept and I would like to see it.

[Moonwick]

Hey, pansexual nonbinary person here. 

 

I've thought about this same thing before and there are reasons other than favoring cisgender heterosexual dragons, I believe. Mainly, DC is unique in that you are able to even build a lineage. Lineages are likely supposed to take time and a little bit of strategy; it should also come with care and attention to our dragons. That's where making sure your dragon is the "correct" gender comes into play. If something genders "wrong", it can be looked at as an incentive to play more and try again.

 

That said, I think if this idea were to get shot down by people, it would be MOSTLY because it would going to take away from the game in certain aspects. We have a gender influence BSA and precognition BSA for the sake of building these lineages with more care, as well as other things like having both sprites if the dragon is dimorphic. 

 

I am not going to shoot this idea down, though. There are workarounds for things like this, but I feel it would need to be purely cosmetic because of the game's mechanics.

 

Let's also keep in mind that dragons are very intelligent and pretty much have full personalities and thoughts. It's not unlikely that a dragon could be LGBT, and I am 100% sure that there are others out there who describe their dragons as such. I'm a person who views dragons and other mythical beings to be without the concept of gender because... hey... they've got more important things to worry about I'd imagine. Not these weird, human concepts.

 

As I said before, I could see this working in a cosmetic way, so I will pitch something in respect to this topic and see where it goes from there.

 

Quote

 

My idea:

This, in my opinion, should be a free and optional change. If you're going to bring shards into this, there could be a cheap (10-25 shards), purchase-able item where you can apply a gender change to a dragon that appears only on its view page, where it could display its "birth gender" (aka, the gender it will breed with), and the "actual gender" in parenthesis OR the other way around.

 

So, like this:

Gender:Male (Female)

It could potentially work if displayed on the user's scroll, where it displays something similar to this format: (♂[♀]). 

 

 

Also, you should ONLY be able to change an ADULT dragon's gender so that it cannot be traded like this. People will not have to worry about "extra symbols" showing up on their scrolls this way, which doesn't particularly have anything to do with the dragon being trans, but more to do with how they like to keep their scroll. 

 

Anyway, I'm sure there is a less confusing way to do this, and a better way to word it, but this is simply something off the top of my head. I wouldn't mind some expansions on this particular idea.

 

Hopefully, you understand that doing it cosmetically like this doesn't mess with other people's lineages, like @Fuzzbucket said. It also allows you to add more character to your dragon on its page without having to change entire game mechanics, just like describing your dragon does. Personally, I'd love to have more customization options for our dragon's view pages. I have an adult Shimmer-scale who is transgender, and it says so in her description. (She cannot gain views, so I used a view code to easily see the description box, but if that's still not allowed please correct me.) 

 

Anything altering the sprites is going to be a no, even from me. People's lineages would definitely get messed up, even if unintentional, especially if you can apply these changes to already grown dragons. 

 

Okay so my eyes are very strained from trying to type all this up, sorry for any mistakes in trying to communicate what I was saying.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

My thoughts for this were posted in the other similar thread, but also consider;

 

Lineage is a pedigree, not a relationship chart. It doesn’t “favor” hetero pairings, it’s just the only biological way you’re getting the next generation. Also, both with people who undergo surgery and animals that display unusual sex characteristics (like hen feathered roosters), fertility is often very low, if not upright impossible.

 

Some of these things can be fiddled around, of course, but again my thoughts on that are in the other thread.l

[Mewtie]

6 hours ago, Shadowgirl123 said:

(...) Why can we only have cis hetero dragons? Dragoncave could make a big affect by thinking about the rest of the people that play that do not fit in that category. It does not make sense to exclude them and I wish for a change. (...)

I just don't think it's true that we can only have "cis hetero dragons". I'm pretty sure you can write something in the description of a dragon stating otherwise (and I assume that that is something you already do), and don't see why anything else would need to reflect it. "Excluding" variations in a game like this (in that they aren't reflected anywhere on-site but optionally in their description) also makes quite a lot of sense to me. We also don't have an albino version of every single dragon breed that exists, or versions for all the other mutations; it would make things way too complicated.

 

(I apologize if my wording is bad; English isn't my native language.)

Edited September 9, 2018 by Mewtie

[Setsu-P]

Maybe a species that acts like some animals (clownfish and a few others).  If the user has only males or only females on their scroll, one of the dragons of that species can swap genders for the purpose of breeding?

 

This is probably poorly worded =p

[Confused Cat]

9 hours ago, tjekan said:

Why assume we only have cisgender dragons on our scrolls? In real life, you can't necessarily tell by looking at her whether a woman was born female or not. I assume it would be even harder to tell with a dragon. That information would have to go in the dragon's bio.

 

This. As I wrote in the same-sex breeding thread, if I wanted a trans dragon I would just influence it to be its actual (i.e. self-identified) gender and then add a description saying it was mistakenly assumed to be the other gender when it was born. Bonus: trans dragons can automatically breed as the gender they identify as (because the database doesn't even know they're trans).

 

The only thing this doesn't solve is when you have a dragon that has already hatched or grown up and you want to change its gender because it was supposed to be the other one (to continue a checker or similar).

This is a problem we encounter in the game no matter if we want trans dragons or not. If we get a way to fix those accidents, we can of course imagine it as the dragon coming out as trans and telling us "I know the icon on your funny piece of paper says I'm female, but I'm actually male, so, maybe fix your notes?" and then we apply the "change gender" feature. But this feature would not have to be planned or announced as a "trans dragon feature" because it would technically be the same as a "fix gendering mistake" feature.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

As I’m sure we’re all aware, gender and sex are two very different things. And I’m relatively positive that humans are the only animals with a perception of gender. It’s not unlikely in nature for things to happen which change an animal’s sex - there are a few species of fish which are all born female and occasional adults will become male, and vice versa. It’s also been observed that some species will adopt traits of another sex due to increased or decreased hormone levels, such as female lions growing manes and adopting male behaviours due to increased testosterone and ovarian problems. Of course there have also been cases of homosexuality within almost all species observed, but no same-sex couples are able to reproduce. While dragons may be intelligent, I highly doubt they’d learn and adopt human ways of thinking about gender. While yes, Pinks may be able to influence whether an egg is going to be male or female, so can crocodiles, alligators, turtles etc where the temperature of the egg determines the sex of the baby. But that is biological sex, not gender.

 

That being said, I think the title of this thread is kinda misleading. As I say, gender is a human concept, with the dictionary stating it is defined by social and cultural concepts over biological ones. I feel like if you’re going to advocate for gender in DC, you’d have to incorporate some dragons not abiding by any binary, gender-fluid, and introducing intersex - but then how would those dragons breed? Would they breed at all? That might be kinda annoying for some people if they picked up an egg that resulted in being incapable of reproducing. And then surely another sprite would be necessary for all dimorphic breeds?

 

I would support a new dragon breed - maybe if you were to suggest it as a Dragon Request - where the adults are capable of changing their sex, but I don’t think it should be applicable to every dragon, because that would complicate the site and lineages a lot as a few people have explained, as well as that just because a few fish species can do it doesn’t mean that every fish can do it.

 

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m LGBT+ as all hell, I’m just thinking about this from a biological perspective)

[Fuzzbucket]

That's - quite brilliant, Cat. I have no "moral" objections to any gender options; it's only the implications for the lineages of others that troubles me. Full disclosure: I have a trans family member, and MANY of my best friends really ARE LGBTQ and have been since the 1960s. But for a game with thousands of users - many - probably most -  of whom would probably totally unaware of all this- it could be a lineage minefield.

 

ETA and THANK YOU, RWS for bringing up the difference between sex and gender. Since the day I started to use BSAs, I have never understood why we get to influence eggs to be a particular GENDER when we actually mean sex.

Edited September 9, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[olympe]

Gender roles in animals can be quite... complex. I own a female dog who tries to hump other females in or near their heat, and pretty much every dog during her own heat. (And she usually tries from the front end, for whatever reason...)

 

I also remember the four cockatiels my grandparents started with - two were sold them as a mated pair, which was in accord with their behavior, although both birds were female. They still nested with each other and laid eggs, which, of course, were unfertilized. The other two cockatiels were another female and a very young male. Eventually, the male not only mated with the unmated female, but also helped out the lesbian pair so they could raise youngs - but had to stay away from their nest. If he got too near, the girls would display warning behavior to make him leave. (I never saw them actually attack him, but, well, I wasn't there 24/7.) The boy certainly learned to stay away from their nest, and only help out with the actual act if summoned. 

 

My grandparents also had a whole flock of budgies. Two of them - grey-green show birds - were given to them as adult males. Both had the distinctive blue nose. But one of the birds... changed over time. At first, his nose looked like it had warts or something on it, and later it changed to a regular female's brown nose. The bird also displayed female behavior, claiming a nest of its own and trying to attract males. I guess it's safe to say that that bird was a trans female. (Just in case you want to ask: These two birds were the only grey-greens my grandparents had, and they were also the only birds of the buff type used for shows. As such, they were quite distinctive.)

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by olympe

[angelicdragonpuppy]

@Confused Cat I’ve actually done the very description thing you mentioned; froze a male and nicknamed it after me without realizing it was male until literal years later, and then for a pair of dragons who were called queen and king based on song lineage placement despite actual gender. All “explained” via description. So if it’s important enough to people, there’s that.

 

Of course others view the issue not as a story issue but as a “the male hellfire sprite would look so good with the male aria sprite” or whatever, which requires a different approach.

[Suzumiya]

Dragons aren't real and this world has magic, so I'm disregarding all the real-life stuff here. I'm just saying I would love to have this option, but it would mess up a lot of lineages if a dragon suddenly changed sex. Say, you have a perfect stair beautiful tinsel, and suddenly one of the tinsels is male. Now you have either a spiral or strange lineage, depending on what gen the tinsel is. I would definitely be peeved. 

 

I think a NEW dragon breed that can choose to be either male or female ever other week or so would be cool. Kinda like the Aegis dragons. You can say that it will be permanently male or female when you're doing the trade, just like people who have Aegis lineages. If they want the trade to be with an Aegis who stays pacified, they say so. These dragons could work that way. 

 

Or, a new dragon with a BSA that changes old dragons' genders, but they stay the same gender in the lineages of their OLD children?

[olympe]

It... wouldn't have to mess up existing lineages. Not at all. Simply put, the information on which dragon is father and which one is mother of a dragon needs to be stored with the offspring instead of assigned due to the parents' respective genders. (Totally using the G word to avoid the S word, which some people might feel offended by.) It's quite simple as that.

 

The only thing that needs to be discussed is this: Would a female alt nebula that became a trans male alt nebula turn green? (Sprite change due to being trans?) Because that might actually mess up things.

[Fuzzbucket]

This kind of thing, indeed. Change of appearance in a lineage could get quite nasty. Though someone did say the dragon would keep the original sprite but be listed as the other sex.

[tjekan]

The thing that bothers me about this is that magic can either handle these things or it can't. If magic is capable of transforming fully functioning biological males into fully functioning biological females at will, then why would any dragon suddenly decide to use it when they're already hundreds of years old and have raised families as the gender they evidently never felt like in the first place? They'd have used magic to transition ages ago (an option transgender humans in the real world don't have.)

 

What if Avatars of Change had a BSA called "Transition" which would change the gender of a hatchling? That would have both a practical value (in case somebody had a hatchling misgender) and a storyline value (in case a player wanted a dragon to be transgender for plot purposes), but since it applies only to hatchlings, it would not mess up anybody's lineages nor be illogical nor doom the transgender dragon to sterility.

Edited September 10, 2018 by tjekan

[olympe]

Why wouldn't a dragon decide to finally let go of their assigned sex and change to the sex they feel like? Why shouldn't they have children beforehand? (Even in real life, this is a possibility. Ever been blackout drunk? Been curious about what intercourse is like? Wanted to be like others and just do it?)

Why can't a dragon be genderfluid and feel male one (breeding) day and female another - and use available magic to change their body accordingly (and breed in accord with their current biology)?

Why should dragons have to become trans during puberty, when most humans do so later in their life?

I really don't see anything illogical here.

 

Changing a dragon's sex (without changing the sprite) won't mess up anybody's lineage if it's still displayed as the mother/father it was for the offspring. 

Also, because magic, a transgender dragon wouldn't have to be sterile, either. As a matter of fact, this suggestion came to be to allow them to be fertile.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

What if Avatars of Change had a BSA called "Transition" which would change the gender of a hatchling? That would have both a practical value (in case somebody had a hatchling misgender) and a storyline value (in case a player wanted a dragon to be transgender for plot purposes), but since it applies only to hatchlings, it would not mess up anybody's lineages nor be illogical nor doom the transgender dragon to sterility.

 

If anything of the sort were to happen, I think this would be quite reasonable, and actually quite useful. It kinda makes Influence redundant though? Maybe something that has been influenced (whether successful or not) cannot be “Transitioned”

 

But a new dragon breed with a BSA to change its gender is probably the only suggestion of this I would support. Having the sprite not change if the gender were to change doesn’t make sense. Like, if the gender changes, the appearance would. And having the sprite change if the gender changed would mess up lineages ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

[tjekan]

10 minutes ago, olympe said:

Why should dragons have to become trans during puberty, when most humans do so later in their life?

 

More like I can't see why they ever WOULDN'T, if they had the choice. In real life, I've never heard a transgender person say they were confused about their gender till late in life. They always say they knew when they were children. It's just that in real life, they didn't have magic wands to wave and change their bodies so they often ended up doing nothing till later in life.

 

The confusing part for me is the game mechanics. It seems like there would be dozens of equally valid ways to implement this. Like, say I have a male pink and I want to change it to be female.

1) The male pink's gender changes to female, but her sprite remains the male one. Now we can get the male pink sprite into a lineage with other male sprites, yay! Except... wouldn't a trans female dragon want to use the female sprite? This way just seems like a hack so people can get currently forbidden lineages.

2) The male pink's gender changes to female and so does her sprite. Now she's a female dragon like all the others. But now there's a female sprite in all the PREVIOUS lineages she was a part of. That's a nightmare for breeders.

3) The male pink's gender changes to female and so does her sprite, but her previous lineages just stay the way they were because they're a historical record of her former life. Fair to breeders and owners but seems like it would be really annoying to code.

4) The pink dragon is gender-fluid and can switch back and forth between male and female at will. That's the coolest concept of the four but would both suck for breeders AND be a nightmare to code.

 

I'd love to see a new gender-fluid dragon breed with the innate ability to transform back and forth at will. I just can't imagine that could possibly work retroactively applied to every dragon already in the cave. There would basically exist no more lineage trading at all at that point.

 

 

[olympe]

@tjekan:

1) I think that was part of the idea behind this?

2) The worst Nightmare. With a capital N. Although it may be bad enough to deserve all-caps.

3) Sounds good, too, although it looses the appeal of 1). And yet, it would make more sense from a roleplaying perspective.

4) Could work in conjunction with 3)...

 

Also, another thing to consider: Would a trans-male breed with a trans-female that he rejected when they were still both cis? (And related questions.)

 

[Alrexwolf]

The only problem I have with the solution of using descriptions for gender-based details is that the process for getting description approved is so archaic. Despite the site having numerous grammar problems, missing words, etc etc, lord help your soul if you miss some completely arbitrary grammar rule. 

 

I find it too difficult to get descriptions approved so I don't use them - I also feel like the approval process is a filter to creativity, and unnecessary. I understand the need to look for inappropriate words - but after having descriptions denied in the past for what were (to me) completely fine things, puts me off from using them at all. I feel like it's... complicated to get a set of lore for your dragons in, and it's too difficult to do on a large scale if you have lots of dragons you'd like to define as LGBT.

 

While I personally would love to have trans/nb/a full spectrum of dragons, I can also understand the argument that lineages/"gender" in this game are meant to be based purely on biological sex. 

 

In my dream DC which would never happen, you would be able to bond dragons of either sex together and they would show on their offspring page - it would also be cool if they could adopt offspring, but not as a lineage. For example if you paired two female dragons and they adopted an egg as their offspring, the normal lineage for the offspring would still display, but below that family tree would be an "Adoptive Parents" section - where the two dragons' lineage tiles would show up. I would love this for RPing purposes, lore purposes... everything. It wouldn't have to be just for same-sex pairs, either; I honestly think adoption would be a nice touch for any pair, especially for those who like to give their dragons lore. A prize and a gold never give offspring? You can fix that and make them awesome parents to some adopted AP eggs and imagine them as a happy little family. 

 

There would also be an option to switch genders at will if a dragon had no offspring in this dream DC. They're magical reptiles in a magical world. I know that's not likely to happen, though, so the next best thing to me would be having an adopt option where you could have the parents be trans. 

 

In this perfect dream DC world it would also allow different breeding classes to be lifelong partners but i know that would never happen

[Fuzzbucket]

9 hours ago, RealWilliamShakespeare said:

 

If anything of the sort were to happen, I think this would be quite reasonable, and actually quite useful. It kinda makes Influence redundant though? Maybe something that has been influenced (whether successful or not) cannot be “Transitioned”

 

But a new dragon breed with a BSA to change its gender is probably the only suggestion of this I would support. Having the sprite not change if the gender were to change doesn’t make sense. Like, if the gender changes, the appearance would. And having the sprite change if the gender changed would mess up lineages ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

 

This, very much. And make it non-dimorphic - lineage issues much reduced.

 

9 hours ago, tjekan said:

 

More like I can't see why they ever WOULDN'T, if they had the choice. In real life, I've never heard a transgender person say they were confused about their gender till late in life. They always say they knew when they were children. It's just that in real life, they didn't have magic wands to wave and change their bodies so they often ended up doing nothing till later in life.

 

The confusing part for me is the game mechanics. It seems like there would be dozens of equally valid ways to implement this. Like, say I have a male pink and I want to change it to be female.

1) The male pink's gender changes to female, but her sprite remains the male one. Now we can get the male pink sprite into a lineage with other male sprites, yay! Except... wouldn't a trans female dragon want to use the female sprite? This way just seems like a hack so people can get currently forbidden lineages.

2) The male pink's gender changes to female and so does her sprite. Now she's a female dragon like all the others. But now there's a female sprite in all the PREVIOUS lineages she was a part of. That's a nightmare for breeders.

3) The male pink's gender changes to female and so does her sprite, but her previous lineages just stay the way they were because they're a historical record of her former life. Fair to breeders and owners but seems like it would be really annoying to code.

4) The pink dragon is gender-fluid and can switch back and forth between male and female at will. That's the coolest concept of the four but would both suck for breeders AND be a nightmare to code.

 

I'd love to see a new gender-fluid dragon breed with the innate ability to transform back and forth at will. I just can't imagine that could possibly work retroactively applied to every dragon already in the cave. There would basically exist no more lineage trading at all at that point.

 

 

 

The bold - YES. I know a teenager who recently came out as trans. They always knew they were not the gender of their body, but until they read something about trans, thought it was only them,, and didn't know "it was a real thing". Trans is not a switch at will thing. I would very much object to any BSA that suggested it was.

 

Now, if you want to run with Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness and the ambisexual Gethenians, that's a whole different thing and WOULD need a new dragon designed that way.

 

Quote

The inhabitants of Gethen are ambisexual humans; for twenty-four days (somer) of each twenty-six-day lunar cycle, they are sexually latent androgynes. They only adopt sexual attributes once a month, during a period of sexual receptiveness and high fertility, called kemmer. During kemmer they become sexually male or female, with no predisposition towards either, although which sex they adopt can depend on context and relationships. Throughout the novel Gethenians are described as "he", whatever their role in kemmer.

 

 

I am NOT OK with anything that would change a dragon's sprite in any existing lineage. Or indeed in any lineage not on the dragon's owner's scroll.

[Taryn123]

Just.. Make another breed of dragon? With a BSA do switch genders like RWS stated.
That way the existing lineages cant be stuffed up due to the problem if they are breed able or not, and sprites do not need to go though and re do 216 breeds of dragons. Take into account that some breeds have two different adult sprites so... Let says 350 types of sprites to re do.
Uh.
I don't think people are willing to do that.

[Fuzzbucket]

None of the sprites need to be REDONE.

[VixenDra]

On 9/9/2018 at 12:49 PM, olympe said:

Gender roles in animals can be quite... complex. I own a female dog who tries to hump other females in or near their heat, and pretty much every dog during her own heat. (And she usually tries from the front end, for whatever reason...)

 

I also remember the four cockatiels my grandparents started with - two were sold them as a mated pair, which was in accord with their behavior, although both birds were female. They still nested with each other and laid eggs, which, of course, were unfertilized. The other two cockatiels were another female and a very young male. Eventually, the male not only mated with the unmated female, but also helped out the lesbian pair so they could raise youngs - but had to stay away from their nest. If he got too near, the girls would display warning behavior to make him leave. (I never saw them actually attack him, but, well, I wasn't there 24/7.) The boy certainly learned to stay away from their nest, and only help out with the actual act if summoned. 

 

My grandparents also had a whole flock of budgies. Two of them - grey-green show birds - were given to them as adult males. Both had the distinctive blue nose. But one of the birds... changed over time. At first, his nose looked like it had warts or something on it, and later it changed to a regular female's brown nose. The bird also displayed female behavior, claiming a nest of its own and trying to attract males. I guess it's safe to say that that bird was a trans female. (Just in case you want to ask: These two birds were the only grey-greens my grandparents had, and they were also the only birds of the buff type used for shows. As such, they were quite distinctive.)

 

 

I'll add my bearded dragon, she's a female sexwise but displays behaviours typical for males, when I described her behaviour and shown her colour change(beardies can change between bright and dark, whole body or just parts) in a reptile advice forum, people claimed I have a male until they saw her undertail and then the few who had the knowledge on that very aspect told me this is rare but confirmed possible... So I actually have a transsexual male. Happens to non-humans... the only difference is that they don't care how you call them and just do their thing as they feel like.

 

I see absolutly no harm in giving our adult dragons a magical transition surgery, at least before they have progeny(or if it's all wiped by killing). And just make them get the opposite gender's sign. In case of domorphic, change the sprite (like olympe's budgie changed appearance), in all other cases, just use the regular. I'd go with Shards as payment, probably 500 (more or less the price of uncommons). Also why not, keep a sign they used to be of another sex. Applicable once per dragon. Could even consume the breeding cooldown and require not being on breeding cooldown to apply (to give the body time to adjust lorewise, and to prevent abuse gameplaywise).

But only if that applies to ALL dragons on site. No exceptions. The game should be uniform on something so big... and no breed should be discrimined from joining LGBT and  from being allowed to use the potion, or that would be racist:v

 

adoptive lineages would also be good. But I'd place them on top, with the actual biological lineage needing a click/hover to reveal, the adoptive lineage should simply use a different font colour. That would keep things tidy and also correspond to how irl we say 'it doesnt' matter who bore you, it matters who raised you and whom you were calling your mom/dad", the pedigree is often lost for the adptive children, they often have no idea who 'made' them and there are cases when they can't even discover that, or need a lot of effort to finally find out who 'made' them... so the adoptive lineage taking priority and the biological lineage to take that addicional effort of a click both make sense. 
If that's too much tho, adoptive lineages could be potentially reserved to same sex pairs, but still, if the font colour is different, the lineage wouldn't be misleading anyways. It would be pretty analogical to deadlines not showing the generations before the tombstone until clicked, while being more prominent still. If everyone's afraid of abuse, why not limit this to CB pairs being only able to adopt CBs and 2gens, and 10th gen pairs to unly adopt from CBs to 11th gen (so highest gen parent generation +1) - to avoid lineage pseudo-shortening of the adoptant - though since deadlines are a thing, Idon't see it being any more of a problem.
 

Edited September 11, 2018 by VixenDra