Transgender dragons

[JavaTigress]

1 hour ago, VixenDra said:

 

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.
 

May I comment, however, that my concern over something like this would BE the very hugeness of it?

I don't KNOW how difficult this would be to even do if ALL dragons were included?

[VixenDra]

19 minutes ago, JavaTigress said:

May I comment, however, that my concern over something like this would BE the very hugeness of it?

I don't KNOW how difficult this would be to even do if ALL dragons were included?

I believe that if one dragon breed is coded for this, it would take just slight adjustments if any for all the rest of the type, spritewise there are only 2 variants: one adult sprite or 2 different sprites, the first is easy, the second would just need to include the sprite swap(which I consider the better idea if lack of progeny is a requirement for the swap to be applicable).

Also, I remember that TJ mentioned something that we shouldn't consider the coding difficulty part when making suggestions, that's his thing to judge. And what I suggest doesn't involve additional spritework, just coding alone.

Edited September 11, 2018 by VixenDra

[JavaTigress]

4 minutes ago, VixenDra said:

I believe that if one dragon breed is coded for this, it would take just slight adjustments if any for all the rest of the type, spritewise there are only 2 variants: shared sprite or 2 different sprites, the first is easy, the second would just need to include the sprite swap(which I consider the better idea if lack of progeny is a requirement for the swap to be appliable).

Also, I remember that TJ mentioned something that we shouldn't consider the coding difficulty part when making suggestions, that's his thing to judge. And what I suggest doesn't involve additional spritework, just coding alone.

Fair Enough.

And I would say that it is probably better if the dragon NOT having progeny already is a requirement for this to work for sake of existing lineages.

[Zeditha]

(I'll admit to not having read all of this thread, but just wanna add my 2c on the topic)

 

I have always been in favour of some way, whether a BSA or a potion or paying shards or just an action, to change the gender of any adult (or gendered hatchling) that does not have offspring.

 

I will only stop being 100% actively in favour of this is if Influence stops having a fail rate. If that happened, not getting a way to genderswap adults would be a shame for those that were correctly influenced and failed, or raised before influence (lookin' at you, Dorkface), and it also wouldn't fix future misgenders due to forgetting to influence, but it would take the frustration out of the issue.

 

But! Since we do still have a fail rate on Influence, misgenders cannot be completely avoided. (And you can bet that irreplaceable rare will misgender... for someone.) So some way to reclaim those dragons into usefulness would be a godsend for those with beautiful lineages that aren't quite possible because of an unavoidable (or avoidable!) misgender.

 

Dragons with offspring, though, should not be allowed to genderswap. (Unless said offspring can be entirely deleted in some way, but I don't think that is possible.)

 

Also to clarify: I would like either of no-fail Influence or a genderswap, or both, and I would prefer genderswap if we have to choose.

[Aurora-Silver]

If I remember right, transgender Dragons and being able to pair (and breed) them, has been already suggested and declined.

[Rainbeetle]

Okay, so, my opinion, even though it doesn't matter-

 

I will first off say, I have nothing against LGBT or transgender dragons. (I myself am lgbt)

However, I feel I cannot support this.

 

The problem is this: this is a collection and breeding game. Even more issue-causing, it's mainly lineage based, with sexual dimorphism included. The only other game I have seen with sex-switching available had absolutely no lineage system and sexual dimorphism. In that case, there was really no reason not to include it. This is much more difficult on DC due to the breaking of lineages.

 

I'm seeing some suggestions of "adopted progeny" as well as biological. For one, I feel this would be simply too complicated. And for second, these are dragons. As in, mythical reptiles. The vast majority of these dragon species most likely do not raise their young and abandon them early, often as eggs. This makes complete and total sense, as these creatures are definitely not human, should not be considered human, and this whole game takes place in a different setting than the modern world. Adoptive families also just doesn't really make sense, because how would a lineage be built with it then? Seems to me like it could be a way to make the dragon "CB" on a clean slate lineage, as it would then have no progeny, and how would it's offspring work? Where would they go?

 

Not to mention, a huge factor here- this is a breeding and collection game. What if someone wanted their dragon to be the opposite sex simply because that's what they need for breeding, or because they like the sprite more? This feature could easily be used for reasons other than its intended purpose. If it were that easy to get the sex you want of a species, even if it's already grown, then not only would Pink Influences become pointless in some cases, but the collection aspect of the game could be completely sidestepped and made easy. This is why I'm not a fan of this for dragons with no progeny/offspring either, because DC is ultimately about collection- not personal lore.

 

And unfortunately, I must say, not everyone wants transgender dragons on their scroll. I don't even mean people who disagree with the practice- there are some people who simply feel no need to make their dragons transgender. Some users want only a few transgender dragons. Other users completely do not care about the lore aspect of the game and ignore it, and care only about collection and lineages. So this feature would probably be either ignored by much of the userbase, or be used for other gains on scrolls. 

 

 

To put it frankly, I feel that when it comes to a breeding and mainly collection game, features like this would be better left out. It's much too complicated in most cases and many players may not even want it- it's pandering to a certain section of the players, possibly at the inconvenience of others.

The only way I would truly support this is if the dragon is not only caveborn, but also have no offspring and be completely sterile/infertile/unable to have children afterwards. Or, a new dragon breed with BSA to do this for only that dragon.

 

But hey, if it did become a thing, I wouldn't be upset. I would probably use it eventually. If it happened I would be completely fine with the change. Just from a factual view, this is my standpoint at the moment.

 

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

3 hours ago, LightningBug said:

Okay, so, my opinion, even though it doesn't matter-

 

I will first off say, I have nothing against LGBT or transgender dragons. (I myself am lgbt)

However, I feel I cannot support this.

 

The problem is this: this is a collection and breeding game. Even more issue-causing, it's mainly lineage based, with sexual dimorphism included. The only other game I have seen with sex-switching available had absolutely no lineage system and sexual dimorphism. In that case, there was really no reason not to include it. This is much more difficult on DC due to the breaking of lineages.

 

I'm seeing some suggestions of "adopted progeny" as well as biological. For one, I feel this would be simply too complicated. And for second, these are dragons. As in, mythical reptiles. The vast majority of these dragon species most likely do not raise their young and abandon them early, often as eggs. This makes complete and total sense, as these creatures are definitely not human, should not be considered human, and this whole game takes place in a different setting than the modern world. Adoptive families also just doesn't really make sense, because how would a lineage be built with it then? Seems to me like it could be a way to make the dragon "CB" on a clean slate lineage, as it would then have no progeny, and how would it's offspring work? Where would they go?

 

Not to mention, a huge factor here- this is a breeding and collection game. What if someone wanted their dragon to be the opposite sex simply because that's what they need for breeding, or because they like the sprite more? This feature could easily be used for reasons other than its intended purpose. If it were that easy to get the sex you want of a species, even if it's already grown, then not only would Pink Influences become pointless in some cases, but the collection aspect of the game could be completely sidestepped and made easy. This is why I'm not a fan of this for dragons with no progeny/offspring either, because DC is ultimately about collection- not personal lore.

 

And unfortunately, I must say, not everyone wants transgender dragons on their scroll. I don't even mean people who disagree with the practice- there are some people who simply feel no need to make their dragons transgender. Some users want only a few transgender dragons. Other users completely do not care about the lore aspect of the game and ignore it, and care only about collection and lineages. So this feature would probably be either ignored by much of the userbase, or be used for other gains on scrolls. 

 

 

To put it frankly, I feel that when it comes to a breeding and mainly collection game, features like this would be better left out. It's much too complicated in most cases and many players may not even want it- it's pandering to a certain section of the players, possibly at the inconvenience of others.

The only way I would truly support this is if the dragon is not only caveborn, but also have no offspring and be completely sterile/infertile/unable to have children afterwards. Or, a new dragon breed with BSA to do this for only that dragon.

 

But hey, if it did become a thing, I wouldn't be upset. I would probably use it eventually. If it happened I would be completely fine with the change. Just from a factual view, this is my standpoint at the moment.

 

 

Honestly, I really agree with all of this. No hate of course, just think it'd be complicated and isn't all that necessary. 

[olympe]

It isn't really that complicated, if implemented the easiest way possible.

Have an action (may be breed-specific or not) to switch a dragon's gender - and its sprite, if appropriate. But show the dragon in its original form in the lineage view of its already existing offspring. (Or, if more than one gender switch is desired, in the form in accord with the gender the dragon had when becoming a parent to the respective offspring...)

No extra rules ("only CB", "only dragons without offspring", "cannot breed after switching gender") necessary because no other lineages are getting changed.

 

Repeated gender switching would also be as close as it can get to true intersex dragons. Or genderfluid ones.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

1 hour ago, olympe said:

It isn't really that complicated, if implemented the easiest way possible.

Have an action (may be breed-specific or not) to switch a dragon's gender - and its sprite, if appropriate. But show the dragon in its original form in the lineage view of its already existing offspring. (Or, if more than one gender switch is desired, in the form in accord with the gender the dragon had when becoming a parent to the respective offspring...)

No extra rules ("only CB", "only dragons without offspring", "cannot breed after switching gender") necessary because no other lineages are getting changed.

 

Repeated gender switching would also be as close as it can get to true intersex dragons. Or genderfluid ones.

 

I know that one of the main reasons people want this - at least it was brought up a lot in the help thread where this discussion started - was wanted was because people wanted pretty lineages with two female sprites. So if the sprite didn’t change, that would ruin it for a lot of people. And if the sprite did change but didn’t in the lineage, that would a) again, make the reason a lot of people want it redundant, and b) not really make sense? Why would it look any different in lineage than in general?

[olympe]

I consider the lineage view as something of a family tree with portraits. And if this family tree goes back a couple of generations, you usually see how the people looked at a certain point in time - usually the time the portraits were created. You don't see the people like they look now. (Some of them are likely dead - and you see neither tombstones nor corpses.) *shrugs*

 

And, despite the fact that I'd love to have female purple nebulas and so on, someone made a good point about a transgender person changing their look to match their perceived gender, not look like what nature decreed. I'd assume that the same would be true for dragons.

[Aniia]

Sorry if I'm reviving and old and done topic. I just thought I'd add my two cents.

 

I think it would be too complicated to change ALL of the dragons to have a gender-switch option, for the reasons listed above BUT I do like the idea of a new dragon breed that is capable of this.

 

For a biological example, let me hold up the Komodo Dragon. Females can reproduce by mating with a male and laying eggs, or through parthenogenesis. Female Komodo Dragons have both male and female chromosomes, and have the ability to self-fertilize eggs. However, every egg produced in this way will hatch male. The theory behind why this evolved is that if a female Komodo cannot access a mate, she can produce offspring with 100% her own DNA, and one of those male offspring will become her mate. This satisfies the basic goal of evolution, to ensure one's own genes continue (despite the fact that mother-son mating is less than ideal). This parthenogenesis, however, is only triggered when there are no males in the region for the female, and so humans didn't know Komodo Dragons could do this until 2006. (Biology major here)

 

There's a lot of interesting stuff in that example, I think, for someone to design a pretty awesome dragon with transgender abilities.

[Sazandora]

Yeah, uh, this is much too complicated and frankly quite unnecessary to add into the game. There's no need to apply real world politics into Dragon Cave. If someone wants to make a dragon that can change genders on the fly, fine -- but don't force it down everyone else's throats.

[Fuzzbucket]

4 hours ago, Sazandora said:

Yeah, uh, this is much too complicated and frankly quite unnecessary to add into the game. There's no need to apply real world politics into Dragon Cave. If someone wants to make a dragon that can change genders on the fly, fine -- but don't force it down everyone else's throats.

 

As one with a transgender individual in the family - I agree - and so does he. Not least because of lineages. I'm not happy with the idea of having dragons in my lineages suddenly switch gender.

[tjekan]

What if we had a BSA that would change a HATCHLING'S gender to the opposite one? (Like, maybe the Avatar of Change?)

 

That wouldn't mess with any lineages. And the dragon would still be transgender, they would just have transitioned before reaching adulthood.

 

 

[themagiciansky]

I wouldn't be happy if dragons in my lineage suddenly turn into tombstones but if that dragon isnt on my scroll theres nothing I can do about it because its not my dragon, this is just something you have to keep in mind when you decide to build on or keep a lineage with other peoples dragons.

 

Personally I would LOVE it if you can make lineages with same gender dragons (theres so many sprite combo possibilities!!). I def could see this working like a BSA/potion you can buy with shards!

Plenty of other games already have options to change your pets gender so...  its not "political" or anything, and theres NO POINT in adding this if it DOESN'T change sprites in already existing lineages or only works on unbred CB dragons. That just defeats the whole purpose of using this to implement same gender lineages.

 

I'd love if I can make lineages using two same gender sprites and I think this would be an interesing way to do it. Everyone seems to just be focusing on "ruining" existing lineages and real world biology and I dont think thats fair  

DC is high fantasy setting game with magic so it wouldn't make sense if this would be dropped in favour of "realism" and people can already mess up their lineages by killing/zombifying their dragons (thats not even against the rules or anything,  AND you cant even tell someone not to do that cause its their dragon so this "its gonna mess up my lineage" argument seems entirely pointless) Is there any OTHER reason to not add this?

Edited November 11, 2019 by kirby

[tjekan]

5 minutes ago, kirby said:

Is there any OTHER reason to not add this? 

 

Well... it doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, say I have a male hellfire, Jan, and I use magic to turn them into a female hellfire, Janet. But that shouldn't result in a female red hellfire, which is what you want. The magic would REALLY turn them female, and they would turn blue like every other hellfire female. Why would they get a magical gender change yet stay looking like a male? Even real-life humans who don't have any access to magic change their appearance when they come out as transgender. How could a dragon change its gender enough to even be fertile as the new gender, yet still look the same as the old one?

[themagiciansky]

10 minutes ago, tjekan said:

 

Well... it doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, say I have a male hellfire, Jan, and I use magic to turn them into a female hellfire, Janet. But that shouldn't result in a female red hellfire, which is what you want. The magic would REALLY turn them female, and they would turn blue like every other hellfire female. Why would they get a magical gender change yet stay looking like a male? Even real-life humans who don't have any access to magic change their appearance when they come out as transgender. How could a dragon change its gender enough to even be fertile as the new gender, yet still look the same as the old one?

It would work like the male would turn into the female sprite so if its already bred in lineages it stays on the top, but with the female sprite. and if its bred again after the change it would appear on the bottom part

The floret was bred as male, so now after the change it turn into the female sprite but stays on the top of the lineage tree. Or thats how I'd like it to work.

Edit: and if it wasnt bred at all before the change to female and was bred with a male, it would stay on the bottom square. Magic!

Edited November 11, 2019 by kirby

[tjekan]

Oh, I see what you're saying now. Yes, that makes more sense than what I originally thought you meant.

[Pixxelation]

I really appreciate this thread. Representation is important, especially in places you don't expect it, and as a member of the LGBT community, I agree that it's vital to have these conversations.

 

As for the suggestion itself, however, I'm a little conflicted as to whether it makes sense to do something like this in the context of the game. Restrictions such as this ability no longer being an option after the dragon has bred could potentially lead to some problematic connotations regarding sex/sexuality and gender. However, there is potential for a gameplay benefit besides just the representation itself––things "misgender" all the time and this provides a solution to that––and I can see it being useful in those situations.

 

As an aside, I also want you to know that the art team is heavily LGBT+, and wanted to assure you that we do the best we can to be representative and diverse in our work.  Events are a good opportunity for this. In last year's Valentine's dating sim, for example, we made sure to include a nonbinary romantic option who used they/them pronouns, and in the Winter Holiday RPGs, the protagonist wears a parka and is not referred to with gendered pronouns, which allows anyone to see themselves in the character, a la Undertale. I know these things are not the same as seeing yourself represented in the normal day-to-day gameplay, but I personally want you to know that representation is an important issue to many of us who work on the site, and to thank you for continuing to seek diverse representation in media.

[olympe]

11 hours ago, Pixxelation said:

As for the suggestion itself, however, I'm a little conflicted as to whether it makes sense to do something like this in the context of the game. Restrictions such as this ability no longer being an option after the dragon has bred could potentially lead to some problematic connotations regarding sex/sexuality and gender.

To be honest, I'm not sure how important it is to not affect other people's lineages. I mean, we've got precedents with killing/zombiefying and with Aegises, although that's more of a niche thing thus far.

 

That being said, I totally got that many of the artists (and a good percentage of the general player base) are LGBT+, I totally went for the non-binary Neglected in the Valentine game as well as the ungendered look of the avatar in the Winter Holiday RPG. I guess I'm on the Q side of things, myself. I'm female in body, but often act (and perceive things) like a male, which often leads to confusion. People will just have to deal with me being me, I guess.

[Pixxelation]

12 hours ago, olympe said:

To be honest, I'm not sure how important it is to not affect other people's lineages. I mean, we've got precedents with killing/zombiefying and with Aegises, although that's more of a niche thing thus far.

I'm more concerned that, if a dragon can be transitioned after it has children, then we have the issue of its children's pages misgendering it, since links to its parents are labeled "father" and "mother." I'm not sure how complicated changing that for just trans dragons would be, and if it is changed for trans dragons, it would also potentially make things confusing (especially to new players) when looking at a dragon that either has one parent and a father or mother, or two fathers/mothers listed.

[tjekan]

I still think if this is a world with magical polymorphing and dragons are psychic, that they would probably communicate their gender and be successfully polymorphed before reaching adulthood. That would make more logical sense, but would not have the aesthetic effect people desire of putting dimorphic sprites in the opposite position in lineages than they currently are.

[Fuzzbucket]

12 hours ago, Pixxelation said:

I'm more concerned that, if a dragon can be transitioned after it has children, then we have the issue of its children's pages misgendering it, since links to its parents are labeled "father" and "mother." I'm not sure how complicated changing that for just trans dragons would be, and if it is changed for trans dragons, it would also potentially make things confusing (especially to new players) when looking at a dragon that either has one parent and a father or mother, or two fathers/mothers listed.

 

Exactly this.

 

10 hours ago, tjekan said:

I still think if this is a world with magical polymorphing and dragons are psychic, that they would probably communicate their gender and be successfully polymorphed before reaching adulthood. That would make more logical sense, but would not have the aesthetic effect people desire of putting dimorphic sprites in the opposite position in lineages than they currently are.

 

Which is why I totally agree with this.

[olympe]

13 hours ago, Pixxelation said:

I'm more concerned that, if a dragon can be transitioned after it has children, then we have the issue of its children's pages misgendering it, since links to its parents are labeled "father" and "mother." I'm not sure how complicated changing that for just trans dragons would be, and if it is changed for trans dragons, it would also potentially make things confusing (especially to new players) when looking at a dragon that either has one parent and a father or mother, or two fathers/mothers listed.

I'd say the easiest (or least messy) way to go about it is keeping "mother" and "father" as denomikers for "siring parent" and "conceiving parent". So, obviously, this would have to be an indicator of their biological sex at the time the egg was bred.

 

I also think that transgender dragons need to change their appearance, if applicable. Which means that, if you breed a female (blue-ish) Hellfire to a Heartseeker and later have the Hellfire revert to male, you'll actually have offspring (on your scroll) that's (male red/orange ) Hellfire x (male) Heartseeker.

 

Of course, we also run into another leetle problem: Male-only or female-only breeds. Should we be able to get female yulebucks this way? Personally, I think we should, even if the sprite doesn't change (because it's not there/there is no dimorphism) for obvious reasons. Because why should every dragon but the individuals from a few holiday breeds be able to change their gender?

[Pixxelation]

4 hours ago, olympe said:

I'd say the easiest (or least messy) way to go about it is keeping "mother" and "father" as denomikers for "siring parent" and "conceiving parent". So, obviously, this would have to be an indicator of their biological sex at the time the egg was bred.

 

 I also think that transgender dragons need to change their appearance, if applicable. Which means that, if you breed a female (blue-ish) Hellfire to a Heartseeker and later have the Hellfire revert to male, you'll actually have offspring (on your scroll) that's (male red/orange ) Hellfire x (male) Heartseeker.

  

Of course, we also run into another leetle problem: Male-only or female-only breeds. Should we be able to get female yulebucks this way? Personally, I think we should, even if the sprite doesn't change (because it's not there/there is no dimorphism) for obvious reasons. Because why should every dragon but the individuals from a few holiday breeds be able to change their gender?

The easiest way to do it is certainly what you mentioned, but then it comes across as misgendering the dragons which is a whole other can of worms.

 

As for holidays, I am opposed to single-gender holidays being able to have their gender changed. This goes for caveborn Mistletoes, which are exclusively female.