Concept on New Gender Settings, and Why the Pronoun Settings Are Non-Intuitive [ Edited ]

[SqueamishNerd]

Note: When I write "pronoun" in this post I specifically mean third person singular, unless I specify something else in a specific case. Also, when I say "gender" I mean gender identity and gendered language, and when I say "sex" i mean the body (things like full or flat chest, ability to become pregnant or get others pregnant etc). When I say "sim" I mean any sim, including occults BUT EXCLUDING ALIENS. When I say "alien" I mean only the alien life form.

I think the pronoun settings that we were shown in the stream yesterday are non-intuitive. I know it's a work in progress and that it might change, and that's exactly why I'm writing this, because I don't think the current state of the WIP is intuitive and I want to show how it could be more intuitive and why that would be more intuitive.

The reason I think it's not intuitive is because, as of what the WIP looked as right now, we first choose a sim's pronoun and then we'll be able to choose the sim's gender. The gender will still be binary, according to what SimGuruDuck said in the stream. That means that if I choose that the sim will have the pronoun "they" I then still have to choose if my sim is male or female. This means that my sim still has a gender and will be referred to by "mum", "daughter", "sister" etc, if they're set to female, and by "dad", "son", "brother" etc, it they're set to male.

I know SimGuruDuck said that this is a journey, that things will be changed further down the line, I just wanted to show how this will be a problem with how the WIP looked right now, and I want to suggest how it could be implemented instead, to avoid this problem.

So, I made a concept picture, which I will go through thoroughly below the picture.

Here we have a bunch of settings, and I don't mean that all this should necessarily be implemented at the same point, it can absolutely be a journey, it can absolutely be implemented bit by bit.

Let me explain all the settings I've added to this concept.

Symbols at the top:
I've added a ring-symbol to represent "Other", and it sits between the male and the female symbols. When one of these three symbols are picked there will be presets in the "Custom Gender Settings", more about that further down. You should be able to change which symbol you first picked without having the sim's genetics, clothes, hair, accessories etc randomised (right now it's randomised, and that's annoying from the players perspective), the only things that should change are the presets in the "Custom Gender Settings" and you should then be able to change those settings freely. Also, every sim should have the ability to have facial hair, regardless of the gender settings. (Edited part: ) I also suggest that sims start off in their underwear instead of in randomised outfits, and that the basic underwear is still tied to the 3D rig, so that if you change the preset before going into changing the sim's clothes you won't get male sims to appear in female clothes or vice verse. If it's "too much" to have sims start off in only their underwear I suggest that they start off in a towel. (End of edited part)

Body Type:
This is the 3D rig, this is where you pick the male rig or the female rig. The male rig is the one with a flat chest and the female rig is the one with a full chest.

Physical frame:
This is the shape of the rig, this is the same setting as before, where the rig is slightly altered to have a more masculine or feminine shape. This setting won't change the sim's full or flat chest, just the general shape of the body.

Pronoun:
So, I think pronouns should be in the "Custom Gender Settings", not up in the section where you write your sims name. It's more intuitive to have pronouns in the same place as the other settings for gender and sex. If pronouns are in the name-section it's weird that we then have to also pick a gender, and it's actually mostly the sex we're picking (with the current setting options) if pronouns are not in the gender settings. Note that I, in the picture, only wrote the subject form of the pronoun, the other forms are conjugations and therefore implied, so they don't need to be here, to avoid clutter. Custom pronouns, on the other hand, can show all three forms (subject form, object form, possessive form) to make it intuitive. This setting will be non-existing for languages where pronouns aren't gendered, for example Finnish. This means that sims created in Finnish and then uploaded to the gallery and then downloaded by someone who has their game in a language with gendered pronouns will have female, male, or neutral pronouns depending on what was picked in the "Gendered Language" setting (see below).

Gendered Language:
This is where you pick if your sim is going to be referred to by masculine words (for example "dad", "brother", "son", "actor", "groom" etc), feminine words (for example "mum", "sister", "daughter", "actress", "bride" etc), or neutral words (for example "parent", "sibling", "child", "actor", "marrier" etc). In languages where there aren't gender-neutral terms at all there shouldn't be a option for neutral, and if someone plays in a language where there aren't gender-neutral terms and downloads a sim having the neutral option the game should change it to the option that is the "most" neutral in that language (masculine in most languages).

Body Language:
The Sims 4 has gendered body language. Few people know this, but that's how it is. It's most prominent when a sim is idling or flirty, but it can also be seen in a few other situations, for example male and female sims jog differently, and male and female sims have different celebrity walk-style. There are two ways the neutral option could be implemented here, either the sim will have the repertoire of all animations, so that they sometimes use the female jogging animation and sometimes the male jogging animation, and so on, OR the devs pick which of the male and female animation looks most neutral for every single situation and every sim with neutral body language will always use FOR EXAMPLE the originally male idle animations and the originally female jogging animations etc.

Clothing Preference:
Here I just added the "No preference" option, which will randomise if a sim uses male or female clothing for situational outfits (for example wedding attire or career outfits), or it could possibly base it on the sim's body type (the 3D rig), depending on which way it's easier to implement (I assume the latter). It will also mean that when you customise your sim's outfits it will show all assets without you having to remove the gender tag every time. (Edited part: ) Thinking more about how the rigs with opposite frame work, when it comes to situational outfits for sims with "No preference", I suggest that BOTH male sims with the female frame and female sims with the male frame get female tops and full-body outfits, and female sims with the male frame get female bottoms, while male sims with the female frame can get either female or male bottoms. This is because these meshes actually work, without distorting the body, for sims with opposite frame. For the same reason I suggest that male sims with male frame get masculine clothes and female sims with female frame get feminine clothes, for the same reason. The "No preference" should be for the tags in CAS when you're customising the sim's outfit. (End of edited part)

Pregnancy settings:
Since sims and aliens as of now in The Sims 4 have compatible biology to start a pregnancy together, but aliens and sims have (more or less) the opposite biology when it comes to how the sexes work, I thought there should be separate pregnancy settings for if the sim/alien tries for baby with a sim or an alien, and this will be the same for who can get pregnant from alien abduction. (Side note: I think alien abductions should also be possible to turn off in save file settings.) This is also a good setting to avoid that in-game born male aliens get impregnated by their own mum if abducted, which is a current problem. It's also a way of avoiding pregnancy from abduction for specific sims. As of now any sim set to male can get impregnated by aliens, both via abduction and try for baby, and this does not change even if you pick that your sim is sterile.

Toilet settings:
This will be the same as before.

Servos should also have "Custom Gender Settings" but only the following options:
- Pronoun
- Gendered Language
- Body Language

So, now that I've explained all the parts of this concept I want to explain the presets.

The presets will be male, female, and other (the ring-symbol). If you pick Male you'll get a sim with male gender and sex, if you pick Female you'll get a sim with female gender and sex, and if you pick Other you'll get a sim that is as neutral as possible. No matter which one of these symbols you pick they'll only preset the "Custom Gender Settings", and you'll be able to fully change all the settings the way you want to. If you pick another preset after starting to change the "Custom Gender Settings" your sim will change accordingly but not be randomised, they'll keep their current genetics, outfits, hairstyle etc, but they might change body type, physical frame, pronouns etc.

If the male symbol is picked I suggest that the presets for "Custom Gender Settings" will be as follows (aliens would differ in the pregnancy settings, see parentheses):
Masculine
Masculine
He
Masculine
Masculine
Masculine
Get sims pregnant (Preset male alien: Neither)
Both (Preset male alien: Become pregnant by alien)
Yes

If the female symbol is picked I suggest that the presets for "Custom Gender Settings" will be as follows (aliens would differ in the pregnancy settings, see parentheses):
Feminine
Feminine
She
Feminine
Feminine
Feminine
Become pregnant by sims (Preset female alien: Both)
Neither (Preset female alien: Get aliens pregnant)
No

If the ring-symbol is picked I suggest that the presets for "Custom Gender Settings" will be:
Masculine (since we all start out without breasts I see this as the most neutral option in this case)
Feminine (since we all start out with "softer" frame I see this as the most neutral option in this case)
They
Neutral
Neutral
No preference
Neither
Neither
No

(Edited part: )
I realised that I forgot to write about gender settings on toddlers and children. As of now it's not possible to change the "Custom Gender Settings" for toddlers and children at all. I do understand why some of these settings aren't there, but I do think others should be there.

I think the presets in my concept should work on toddlers and children the way they work on teens and up, but that only some of the options are visible to the player until the sim ages up to teen.

The options that should be visible on toddlers:
- Pronoun
- Gendered Language
- (Maybe) Body Language (male and female toddlers have different animations when you put Styled Looks on them, I'm not sure if they have any other difference in animation)
- Clothing Preference

The options that should be visible on children:
- Pronoun
- Gendered Language
- Body Language
- Clothing Preference
- Toilet Setting
(End of edited part)

So, that's how I think it all should look, to be intuitive and easy to create exactly the sim you want to create, and keeping all the settings for sex and gender in one place instead of having pronouns in a separate place.

What do y'all think?

Edit:

I came to think of something. Now that gender/sex and sexuality are in separate tabs, I think gender and sex should also be separated into separate tabs. With my suggestions of settings above (plus the new "produce milk" setting), that would mean the following:

Gender:

- Pronoun
- Gendered language

- Body language

- Clothing preference

Body:

- Body type

- Physical frame

- Will be able to... (pregnancy settings)

- Will be able to... (alien pregnancy settings)

- Can this sim produce milk

- Can this sim use the toilet standing

Servos shouldn't have a tab for the body settings, but should have a tab for gender (without the "clothing preference" setting) and a tab for sexuality, which they don't have now.

[EA_Cade]

Hi @SqueamishNerd,

This is a VERY informative and well thought out post and I will make sure to include it in my report!

Thank you so much for taking the time to share this with us.

[Scobren]

I really love your ideas.  Makes a far more complex and detailed CAS tool which I enjoy a lot.  Honestly excited about having the custom option with learning Spanish and found out they use e or x at the end to make gender neutral pronouns like Latinx.

[SilverGrayce]

Hi, I’m Silver. I use ze/zir/zirs pronouns. I have noticed more problems with this update. For example, an article pronoun could be added to the pronoun box. For example, the neopronoun ze/zir/zirs, mimicks she/her/hers in both the possessive pronoun sense, and the possessive article sense, however Thon/thon/thons, mimicked he/him/his and both the possessive pronoun and the possessive article are the same. So I’m afraid if  we leave out a fourth pronoun on custom pronouns, the sims will default to “Zirs birthday is coming up! Throw zir a party.” Instead of “Zir birthday is coming up! Throw zir a party!”

I also think there could be more elaboration when it comes to body shape. I noticed that male and female faces are extremely different on the sims 4, and I think it would be cool if you could choose which facial features you prefer. (Also Even though my face is feminine as a male sim I have an Adam’s apple, which I love, but it doesn’t work for everyone.

Also something to consider for the Sims 5. I struggle with placing feminine shirts on sims because there is always padding underneath them, and the femininity is uncomfortable. I doubt that can be changed in the sims 4,  but it’s something to take note of for the future. 
Thank you for bringing this up.

[LeissaMyst]

I wasn't privy to the original broadcast; but this system you've thought up seems very well thought out, and I doubt most people could find flaw in it.

With regards to the plural possessive on Pronouns like "Zir"/"Zirs", maybe a simple option to toggle the S on the plural form (they do this in programming all the time, but you rarely notice it when you read the localized strings in English)

Edit: Also Let's be reasonable, with all the spinning they do on their parents backs, many Toddlers identify with "Helicopter" :P

[EmK714]

This is very well thought out and I would like to see your concept applied to the game! I hope they see this

[sulo_0]

@SqueamishNerd Thank you for posting this. I'm a trans boy myself and know many people that do not like to label themself or just arent female or male. Sometimes it feels like people really forget us but just a small update to get rid of the unneccacery labels and more options for genders would be really nice and could make people like me happy. I would really like to make a non-binary sims in the future without using any mods

[SqueamishNerd]

Now that we've been shown the new romantic and sexual orientation system in the latest stream I wanted to talk a little about it in this thread (the settings are in the gender section, therefore I thought it would fit here). We haven't yet been able to try it for ourselves, so I'm basing this solely on what we were shown on the stream.

First of all, I think it's great that this is introduced! I'm not at all against these settings in any way.

I just wanted to say that the settings aren't super intuitive, and I wanted to explain why. I also wanted to explain how not having an explore option for sexual orientation, only for romantic orientation, is both non-intuitive and a bit odd in general.

When a sim is created they will get a romantic orientation that is unticked for interest in male and female sims, and their romantic orientation is set to exploring. They also get a sexual orientation (woohoo / mess around) that is ticked to being interested in both male and female sims. This is how the game treats romance and woohoo right now, so there aren't any changes to how sims behave when they're first created.

The new settings makes it possible to change the sims romantic and sexual orientation. If the exploring option is set to "no" it means that their orientation won't change. So, if a sim has their exploring option set to "no" and has both male and female unticked for romantic orientation it means that the sim is aromantic, if they have one of the options ticked it means that they're only interested in that sex/gender, and if they have both options ticked it means that they're interested in any sim.

If the exploring option is set to "yes" it means that their romantic orientation will change over time, depending on which sims they interact with romantically.

So far, so good.

Then we come to the sexual orientation setting.

When a sim is created both options are ticked. Compare this to how the romantic options are unticked. This is how sims behave in the game right now, so there isn't an actual change here. But, what you pick here, in the sexual orientation (woohoo / mess around) setting, will never change unless you actively chose to change it. Sims can't explore their sexual orientation. They can only explore their romantic orientation. This means that when you untick both it means that the sim is asexual, if you untick one option it means that the sim is only interested in one sex/gender, and if you leave both ticked it means that the sim is interested in any other sim. So, we won't be able to play the story of a sim who explores their sexual orientation, we will only be able to play the story of a sim who explores their romantic orientation.

Also, it isn't very intuitive that both options are unticked for romantic orientation and both options are ticked for sexual orientation. Either everything should be unticked or everything should be ticked, when a sim is first created. I understand why it's set up this way, it's because sims can't explore their sexual orientation and therefore unticking both would mean that they would never be interested in woohoo with any sim. But I think what is going to happen is that a lot of simmers will tick both the romantic options on their new sims (meaning that the sim starts off with romantic interest rather than starting off just exploring), simply because they think their sim is aromanic otherwise, while this isn't actually what the sim is when the explore setting is set to "yes", and both options unticked actually means that the sim starts off as a blank sheet. But when it comes to sexual orientation, sims can't start off as blank sheets, they have interest in any sim and it will always stay like that unless you decide to change it yourself.

I think sims should be able to explore both romantic and sexual orientation, not only romantic orientation. This would also open up to have everything unticked, which is more intuitive than to have half of it unticked and half of it ticked.

Another thing I was thinking about is what counts as romantic and what counts as sexual.

Kissing, and especially deep kissing, like for example the "making out" option (that sims can only do while sitting on a sofa or similar), is very much a grey area when it comes to asexual and aromantic peoples' view on it. If we ask asexual people who aren't aromantic (talking about real people here, not sims) some would say that they absolutely can engage in it and that they don't see it as sexual, while others say it's sexual and they don't want to engage in it. If we ask aromantic people who aren't asexual, there would be big differences there too, some people think it's romantic, while others think it's sexual. For many people it also depends on what type of kiss.

I'm assuming that, in The Sims 4, all the kissing interaction count towards the romantic orientation, and not the sexual orientation. This would mean that a sim who has their explore option set to "no" and has both the romance orientation options unticked and both the sexual orientation options ticked, would not want to engage in kissing interactions at all.

I therefore think that kissing should be counting for both romantic orientation and sexual orientation.

Another thing I was thinking about is how "Try for baby" will work. There are many asexual people (talking real life again, not sims) who want to conceive children the "natural" way even though they would never engage in such an activity if it weren't to produce children. (Are all these terms family-friendly enough for this forum?)

I therefore think that "Try for baby" should be counting for both romantic orientation and sexual orientation.

There are probably other interactions that are also in the grey area, like "risque question" or whatever it's called.

To make it easier for us simmers to know which interactions count as romantic and which count as sexual there could, for example, be one pie menu for romantic interactions and one for woohoo-esque interactions. In the romantic pie menu there wouldn't be any woohoo options and only the regular "Try for baby" option, and not any of the other "Try for baby" spots (but the sims could still pick another "Try for baby" spot if there isn't a bed available, as usual). The woohoo-esque pie menu would have all the woohoo options and "Try for baby" options. Kissing options, and other "grey area" options, would be in both pie menus.

I was also thinking about the romance bar (in the relationship panel). I think we need two bars, one for romance and one for woohoo-interest. The woohoo one could be purple (like the woohoo icon).

TL;DR
I think:
- That sims should be able to explore their sexual orientation (not only their romantic orientation)
- That all romantic and sexual options should be unticked at the start (only if the statement above is true), meaning that sims start off as a blank sheets
- That kissing should count as both a romantic and sexual activity
- That "Try for baby" should count as both a romantic and sexual activity
- That other interactions in the "grey area" should count as both romantic and sexual activities
- That there should be separate pie menus for romantic and sexual interactions (kissing, "Try for baby", and other "grey area" options should be in both pie menus)
- That there should be separate relationship bars for romantic and sexual relationships (pink for romantic, purple for sexual)

[SqueamishNerd]

I'm back to give more feedback on gender in Sims 4.

A lot of people seem to have the idea that if you pick the "opposite" frame to rig it automatically means that the sim is trans, and if you pick the "same" frame to rig it automatically means that the sim is cis. (Side-note: Rig is the base body (female and male), frame is the slight alteration of the body (feminine and masculine))

The thing is that this is a very stereotypical view on gender and body types, and I think a lot of it has to do with the naming of the frames. I think the frames should be called something else than feminine and masculine. I'm not native in English, so I'm not sure what the perfect words would be, but maybe something like soft and hard, or smooth and rough, idk, but something that does not imply that cis women can't have "hard" features, trans women can't have "soft" features, cis men can't have "soft" features, and trans men can't have a "hard" features. Also, maybe it shouldn't be called frame but rather something like "features", if the names of the frames were changed.

I have seen so many people assuming that Lia Hauata is trans only because she has the masculine frame. Maybe she is trans, maybe she's non-binary, but we don't know that. To directly assume that she is trans only because she has the masculine frame implies that cis women can't have rougher features, which isn't true.