Ratte said:
user:name

I put it into your blacklist with the correct syntax now, just make sure you have the posts/comments/whatever checkbox ticked so that it works.

oh...ok, didn't think to add user: in front of it like that.

NotMeNotYou said:
That survey is not endorsed by us, and as long as we don't get to see the entire raw data it will go completely ignored by us admins.

It's too easy to skew the results one way or another, especially since you don't need a new log in, just write in yet another random username.

Edit: Read through the survey, it's actually well thought out, just open for abuse thanks to not requiring any form of authorization, and google survey doesn't record IPs so you can't even filter out basic duplicates.

I noticed that Immediately as people have put in at least three fake results with my username now.

Ill be giving you the form in its entirety without editing it. (Mainly cause I dont know how)

That said. Youre right. Do you know any better platforms to host this on?

GDelscribe said:
I noticed that Immediately as people have put in at least three fake results with my username now.

Ill be giving you the form in its entirety without editing it. (Mainly cause I dont know how)

That said. Youre right. Do you know any better platforms to host this on?

I could always write something, but the problem is e621 would need some sort of oauth or I'd need access to part of the backend(EG: a temporary API to get the current logged in user, eg: {"user":$name,"checksum":sha512($name+$secretkey)}, where secret key is only known between me and the implementor and set with CORS to only allow my domain for security reasons).
That or I could try to learn ruby on rails since e621 doesn't have python support.
If the staff are interested in this feel free to poke me about it, I'd be more than happy to write a script for this.

Chaser said:
I could always write something, but the problem is e621 would need some sort of oauth or I'd need access to part of the backend(EG: a temporary API to get the current logged in user, eg: {"user":$name,"checksum":sha512($name+$secretkey)}, where secret key is only known between me and the implementor and set with CORS to only allow my domain for security reasons).
That or I could try to learn ruby on rails since e621 doesn't have python support.
If the staff are interested in this feel free to poke me about it, I'd be more than happy to write a script for this.

It could be super useful for future sitewide polling things.

Recap of proposed terms/systems + more details on the latter

@GDelscribe:
Hahah that's fine, it's probably for the best at the moment, since the combined proposal looks really complex without enough documentation or explanation about how it relates to the current tagging system

-
+ @All:
Ok, updated the OP for forum #140749 - Physical Gender Name Standardization: aliases/discussion
somewhat, but didn't do any additional summarizing other than what was said here and here

What I did do though, is create a more detailed explanation of the combined tagging system proposed here

You can read all about it here

[tl;dr- there are about 20 self contained tags total with the proposed system, including the 4 basic sex-gender tags.
They all work with nested implications]

Here's a rather interesting comment that may be immediately relevant.

Note that it's purely for illustrative purposes to further constructive thought and discussion:

Honestly parts of the gender tagging system are so outdated. While I do understand the functionality of being able to search "female" and coming up with characters with breasts, feminine bodies, and pussies, this could become more inclusive by having an all and all tag such as vagina_and_breasts or penis_and_breasts or vagina_and_no_breasts.
[..]

The current tagging system is transphobic at the very least, and the fact that I can't even put the trans_character tag (which hurts noone, by the way.) onto my art without it getting removed shows an outdated admin system that they should look into and change.

As an aside, the pros and cons of first paragraph have already been discussed in forum #187706 - Advanced Policy Discussions: Implicative/Conjunctive/Redundant/Mutually-exclusive tag usage (Mar. 2016), so go there instead of here if you want to discuss that

(there's no link to the above comment for somewhat obvious reasons, but you can do a search to find it)

GDelscribe said:
I noticed that Immediately as people have put in at least three fake results with my username now.

Ill be giving you the form in its entirety without editing it. (Mainly cause I dont know how)

That said. Youre right. Do you know any better platforms to host this on?

All options I know of have their abuse prevention behind a pay wall. So sadly no.

I really appreciate all the work you've done on this @TitanMelon
And I kind of have to agree with the issue at hand here being partially part of the nature of the instituted tagging structure we use as is.

It is sorta frustrating that we can't tag such things, as well. I know this is partly irrelevant to the discussion but, TWYS is flawed.

After all If I want to look up incest for example. What defines incest? I remember an argument over a picture involving Nasus_(lol) and Renekton.

post #225523 has the incest tag.

In fact

post #926497
post #225643 post #393885 post #415517 post #829960
All also have the tag.

Now when post #828410 was tagged with incest, people got in an uproar despite the characters being obviously brothers according to lore. And its a generally accepted tag by the community for these two.

But Ratte ruled in the end that "If there is no indication of relation that can be seen in the image, the incest tag does not apply. Lore is outside information and is not used when tagging images."

Which means there's either a fundamental flaw in TWYS because if I'm turned on by incest and I want to search for that, then how am I supposed to find pairings like this one with /different/ families.

Lets say the incest is father and son but the father is a different species? How am I supposed to tag that?

I could probably tell it was, but then it could be argued its just some daddy fetish with some unrelated characters.

Im not saying we need to change everything. Far from it. But it is an issue.

Either affordances have to be made for artists/copyright owners and lore is respected, or TWYS is enforced even harder and everything that is even remotely subjective needs to be classed as a mistag and we need to strip a lot of images.

Tags like incest are fundamentally subjective when blood isn't involved. After all a character could be adopted or legally the child/brother in law etc through marriage. Is that still incest?

As our language evolves and things like the basic "boy" and "girl" get expanded upon it becomes more important to clarify so in honesty a retagging structured system where we strip things down to "this character has these parts" seems like the most useful answer. Especially considering as furries we HAVE characters outside the existing male and female archetypes. Its what started this thread.

NotMeNotYou said:
All options I know of have their abuse prevention behind a pay wall. So sadly no.

I'll see what I can do maybe. So far the results have been pretty obviously against the current tags so far but no real clear winner on the new tags.

I'm gonna find an option for us. And @chaser has offered some assistance.

I agree more explicit tagging is clearly more TWYS (easier for people to find exactly what they want, prevents tag wars) in this case.

Titanmelon's update is great (although it certainly takes some digesting). One thing that should be noted that isn't currently in it AFAICS, is that plain {male} and {female} are still valid for some posts (per titanmelon's reply to me) but are not currently marked as valid in the list.

Lore generally cannot be respected AFAICS, for the same reasons stated in my first sentence.

Lets say the incest is father and son but the father is a different species? How am I supposed to tag that?

Based on dialog or not at all, usually ;)

(of course in some cases , species isn't even indicative, and I guess if series canon affects non-character tagging then lore is creeping in..)

savageorange said:
I agree more explicit tagging is clearly more TWYS (easier for people to find exactly what they want, prevents tag wars) in this case.

Titanmelon's update is great (although it certainly takes some digesting). One thing that should be noted that isn't currently in it AFAICS, is that plain {male} and {female} are still valid for some posts (per titanmelon's reply to me) but are not currently marked as valid in the list.

Lore generally cannot be respected AFAICS, for the same reasons stated in my first sentence.

Based on dialog or not at all, usually ;)

(of course in some cases , species isn't even indicative, and I guess if series canon affects non-character tagging then lore is creeping in..)

I really agree with Titanmelon's proposal honestly.

GDelscribe said:
To be honest chessax to answer your question if its porn yeah people are going to use it for that purpose. Thats kind of the point. But calling my characters by slur names isnt something I'm comfortable woth. And Im never going to be comfortable with it. [...]

Thanks, I really appreciate the answer.

The only one thing I disagree with (which I guess has been nagged about already?), is that the words are not fundamentally harmful, no words are fundamentally harmful. It is everything else that is piled on top of that, that makes them harmful. I'm not saying these terms aren't harmful, just that words are words, it's when you give meaning to the words they become harmful. Please don't label words, label their use. While maybe unlikely, in 100 years being called a cunt might be considered a compliment. It's a technicality so sorry for arguing about it, but I hate when people make words inherently offensive.

Also I just want to say that while you got your ups and down when it comes to arguing, you're taking the good road of being calm and collected even when criticized (even with destructive criticism), I really like that. Especially when I'm picking on your ideas and thoughts (which I feel I'm doing quite a lot). I love it when people can handle my "I'm right and you're wrong" superiority attitude that I feel like I sometimes have.

GDelscribe said:
I really appreciate all the work you've done on this @TitanMelon
And I kind of have to agree with the issue at hand here being partially part of the nature of the instituted tagging structure we use as is.

It is sorta frustrating that we can't tag such things, as well. I know this is partly irrelevant to the discussion but, TWYS is flawed.

After all If I want to look up incest for example. What defines incest? I remember an argument over a picture involving Nasus_(lol) and Renekton.

post #225523 has the incest tag.

In fact

post #926497
post #225643 post #393885 post #415517 post #829960
All also have the tag.

Now when post #828410 was tagged with incest, people got in an uproar despite the characters being obviously brothers according to lore. And its a generally accepted tag by the community for these two.

But Ratte ruled in the end that "If there is no indication of relation that can be seen in the image, the incest tag does not apply. Lore is outside information and is not used when tagging images."

Which means there's either a fundamental flaw in TWYS because if I'm turned on by incest and I want to search for that, then how am I supposed to find pairings like this one with /different/ families.

Lets say the incest is father and son but the father is a different species? How am I supposed to tag that?

I could probably tell it was, but then it could be argued its just some daddy fetish with some unrelated characters.

Im not saying we need to change everything. Far from it. But it is an issue.

Either affordances have to be made for artists/copyright owners and lore is respected, or TWYS is enforced even harder and everything that is even remotely subjective needs to be classed as a mistag and we need to strip a lot of images.

Tags like incest are fundamentally subjective when blood isn't involved. After all a character could be adopted or legally the child/brother in law etc through marriage. Is that still incest?

As our language evolves and things like the basic "boy" and "girl" get expanded upon it becomes more important to clarify so in honesty a retagging structured system where we strip things down to "this character has these parts" seems like the most useful answer. Especially considering as furries we HAVE characters outside the existing male and female archetypes. Its what started this thread.

Definitely in agreeance here. We even have technical incest for adopted families, which is outside information, so why not proper incest?
If people want to find same-species sex, then we should tag homogenous_relationships or something, that way we can stop people from whining "Oh but it is incest they're the same species!" when that has nothing to do with incest.

Furrin_Gok said:
Definitely in agreeance here. We even have technical incest for adopted families, which is outside information, so why not proper incest?

I don't like that tag because it doesn't really help since incest itself suffers from almost inherent issues due to outside information being used (probably often not really intentionally), hence why I want a separate tag for the other kind of incest. But this is getting a bit off topic.

Chessax said:
I'm curious, why would it make things worse? In my view it would just not solve the problem.

When you have options that change the user experience in non-obvious ways, you are obfuscating any discussion of the UI -- generating misunderstandings.

(never mind that adding code that doesn't actually solve a problem, itself constitutes taking on technical debt for no sound reason)

Ok, how about this (thank you, anon, for the idea): the slur tag, and then the slur tag followed the character's preferred gender, as a suffix. Example: Roy; Maleherm; maleherm_(male).

Then, Roy will get their wiki page updated to include his initial source (ref page, or first ever post) and their appropriate suffix.

With crossgender, it'd be ignored completely, if Roy was CG'd female, he'd not have the _(male) suffix at all.

This will only apply to characters that are any intersex. It does require background information, Though. This still excludes sexual dimorphism, so no "she's female because of wings, not Cuntboy" applying if that's the only difference.

Siral_Exan said:
Ok, how about this (thank you, anon, for the idea): the slur tag, and then the slur tag followed the character's preferred gender, as a suffix. Example: Roy; Maleherm; maleherm_(male).

Then, Roy will get their wiki page updated to include his initial source (ref page, or first ever post) and their appropriate suffix.

With crossgender, it'd be ignored completely, if Roy was CG'd female, he'd not have the _(male) suffix at all.

This will only apply to characters that are any intersex. It does require background information, Though.

That goes against TWYS and will skewer the search results.

Chaser said:
That goes against TWYS and will skewer the search results.

Well, I hate to say it but almost all intersex arguments are TWYS vs TWYK. This is a retort to those arguments & won't effect the base tag. Like I said: Maleherm & maleherm_(male), both on a post (maleherm_(male) implying maleherm).

The herm tags arent a real big issue right now. And afaik, what youre proposing would serve no purpose because in the end it would result in twyk tags like
Male_(female) as well, which would add about 10 new body_(gender) tags at least and then to make matters worse as you propose.

Cboy and dgirl would still be in effect.

Which largely serves no purpose to do.

If we did want to do what you propose. We could just have people use whatever tag we wanted. Say for example as an artist I upload my characters with the tags gynomorph. For clarification by others or tag implications and system reasons it gets changed to dickgirl against my wishes.

Now theres a tagging dispute.

As long as the original tags exist as the main lead alias nothing will have changed at all.

While I agree it would be nice if there were some respect for character lore. If its not allowed and not gonna happen. Then its not allowed and not gonna happen.

The whole reason I brought up the incest tag is because affordances are already made for that.

Theres an entire technical_incest tag which is entirely subjective and lore based.

Just as the same as when a charcters refsheet lists a character as a hermaphrodite, if both the male and female genitals are not completely visible then the admins will, and have in the past, ruled that it is just one or the other. Not a herm.

The way the tagging system works right now is confusing on what is allowed and what isnt because even the community isnt fully aure sometimes what the way the system is supposed to work.

On one hand we penalize and punsih users for adding the trans_character tag to their own trans characters because its "subjective" and "lore based" but have an entire tag and section dedicated to a fake form of incest involving adopted siblings or interspecies siblings that isnt really immediately incest at all with a "technical incest" subjective tag.

You and I can probably both understand the frustration that people are having with a system that seems to be random and arbitrary and designed to be stacked against them.

Charr have a lore based affordance as well, and afaik MLP also has some lorebased affordances.

I dunno just seems mildly unfair.

Back on topic however, keeping the current tags we have keeps all the negative connections that go with them and beats the purpose of the thread in the first place.

Competent tag changes like cuntboy_(male) or however youre proposing we use it not only doesnt get rid of the issue at hand but exacerbates it by adding in multiple new tags which clutter the tag cloud, act as entirely subjective, and frankly pointless additions in a halfhearted careless attempt to appease people without actually doing any work for progressing forward in a mutually psotive way.

Tl;Dr,

Its laziness that will lead to more problems than we already have. So no I respectfully decline your suggestion Siral.

Dickgirl and cuntboy are not slur tags. The OP is using them as slurs. The community is not. The community should not resolve the OP's problem with using these tags as slurs by changing the tags. Rather, the OP's usage should be what shifts.

31h253 said:
Dickgirl and cuntboy are not slur tags. The OP is using them as slurs. The community is not. The community should not resolve the OP's problem with using these tags as slurs by changing the tags. Rather, the OP's usage should be what shifts.

They are indeed slurs and a large amount of the community especially the lgbt agrees they are slurs.

Regardless of this and your personal views on the subject this has already been discussed.

They are words that negatively impact people.

Please stop trying to derail the topic.

IT'S THE CURRENT YEAAAARRRRR

lol

GDelscribe said:
They are indeed slurs and a large amount of the community especially the lgbt agrees they are slurs.

Regardless of this and your personal views on the subject this has already been discussed.

They are words that negatively impact people.

Please stop trying to derail the topic.

Nah, I agree with 31h253. It's a majority thing. Topic isn't derailed, just quickly resolved ^^

Ahri_The_Pure_Slut said:
Nah, I agree with 31h253. It's a majority thing. Topic isn't derailed, just quickly resolved ^^

We've been over this, multiple times. The topic is pretty big, so I'll forgive you for not reading the entirety of it, but let's put this to bed, shall we?

NotMeNotYou said:
The terms are vulgar, that is not even up for discussion I hope. If we can have a system that is less vulgar (and doesn't compromise the tagging/search system) then why the fuck not change?
Just because it's only about 5% of our users that might have a problem with the current tags doesn't mean we need to rub our dicks all over their faces while yelling how their problem is imagined.

Most people who seem to be against any potential change cite discomfort with "bending over to the others".
Guess what? This is essentially the same argument the other side brings up as well! Because they, too, don't want to bend over to others saying they should accept vulgar descriptions for their characters.

And what an unbelievably ludicrous demand it is that people would like to have their creations treated with a modicum of respect...

Also, a poll conducted earlier in the thread, of a separate LGBT community to determine if these terms were slurs:

http://i.imgur.com/WFbMt2L.png

So no. This hasn't resolved the thread, you are bringing up a topic which has already been resolved, hence why GDelscribe feels as though this is a derailment (though, really, they way they went about saying that could have been much better).

Again, I don't blame you for not reading the entirety of the thread, but the snarky attitude is not really appreciated here.

Clawdragons said:
We've been over this, multiple times. The topic is pretty big, so I'll forgive you for not reading the entirety of it, but let's put this to bed, shall we?

Also, a poll conducted earlier in the thread, of a separate LGBT community to determine if these terms were slurs:

http://i.imgur.com/WFbMt2L.png

So no. This hasn't resolved the thread, you are bringing up a topic which has already been resolved, hence why GDelscribe feels as though this is a derailment (though, really, they way they went about saying that could have been much better).

Again, I don't blame you for not reading the entirety of the thread, but the snarky attitude is not really appreciated here.

"separate lgbt community"
That's acutally not how polling works. And I assume most of the snarky attitude is coming from the fact that OP is being extremely condescending in their own posts.

Ahri_The_Pure_Slut said:
That's acutally not how polling works.

Oh? Why do you say that?

From my perspective, if you want to determine whether the words are slurs, you need to sample a population which is not directly involved in this discussion (which would introduce a number of biases), and yet who is close enough to the issue overall to recognize whether something would be a slur.

Note that I'm not polling anything directly related to e621 (such as - should these tags be changed), but just whether the terms are slurs or not.

What sort of population do you think I should have sampled, and why?

Apologies I could have been much nicer about it. Im just tired of the same tired discussion being brought up when its not longer relevant.

Also @chessax and @savageorange for the points on the way the system works. Im learning a lot more about how the tagging system works itself from this thread and it really helps me get better as a member who wants to contribute to the community (i have a small background in code and even I didnt consider the sheer magnitude of an effect that something like that would have)

So I guess that it certainly goes back to the earlier discussion of the best tag replacement choices.

savageorange said:
When you have options that change the user experience in non-obvious ways, you are obfuscating any discussion of the UI -- generating misunderstandings.

Ah, right, tried to figure how this would interfere directly with this topic, but I see how that could create a whole range of new problems.

Clawdragons said:
We've been over this, multiple times. The topic is pretty big, so I'll forgive you for not reading the entirety of it, but let's put this to bed, shall we?

Something being vulgar doesn't make something a slur. The question was not about it not being vulgar, but it being a slur. I don't want to argue that, just make a distinction.

Clawdragons said:
Also, a poll conducted earlier in the thread, of a separate LGBT community to determine if these terms were slurs:

That poll is nothing more than an indication, of course maybe that's all that's needed, but still that is all that it is.

I'm fairly certain that if you ask random people out on the street if dickgirl or cuntboy are slurs, you would get the same response, maybe because many people might equate "slur" with "vulgar". E.g. you might get the same exact results for pussy.

The poll needs to be a lot more complex and much more controlled to actually give reliable data. That said, it's probably better than nothing.

Clawdragons said:
What sort of population do you think I should have sampled, and why?

How about all demographics? Impossible? Maybe. Hard? Absolutely? Feasible? Probably not. But that is still what you want to do. More importantly you want to tie each result to a specific demographic. And bias isn't wrong as long as you include it in the results.

Not trying to pick on you, but conducting these kind of inquiries is a science by itself and certainly not easy.

---

Sorry I didn't have anything more related to the topic to say, but I kind of don't know where to start, or rather where to continue. I have followed this discussion from the start, yet I still feel a little lost, most things have already been said.

It would be nice if admins etc. could take a look at the quite a few of suggestions that has been made so far and group them e.g. like:

• Never gonna happen
• Acceptable (but may have issues/need discussion)
• Preferred

Chessax said:
That poll is nothing more than an indication, of course maybe that's all that's needed, but still that is all that it is.

And that's all that I consider it to be, so we're good.

I'm fairly certain that if you ask random people out on the street if dickgirl or cuntboy are slurs, you would get the same response, maybe because many people might equate "slur" with "vulgar". E.g. you might get the same exact results for pussy.

That's a valid point. It would be worth having a question asking about whether something vulgar, but clearly not a slur in the sense we are using it.

How about all demographics? Impossible? Maybe. Hard? Absolutely? Feasible? Probably not. But that is still what you want to do. More importantly you want to tie each result to a specific demographic. And bias isn't wrong as long as you include it in the results.

I disagree with this.

The question I feel that I'm trying to answer is whether or not trans* people feel as though the terms are slurs. If anything, I feel as though I was too broad in my survey.

If the question you are trying to answer is "what does population X think of this", sampling any population other than population X is not necessary.

Chessax said:.

It would be nice if admins etc. could take a look at the quite a few of suggestions that has been made so far and group them e.g. like:

• Never gonna happen
• Acceptable (but may have issues/need discussion)
• Preferred

Definitely seconding this. Wouls really help a lot.

And basically what Clawdragons said.

If a person who is unaffected or unrelated to something is polled for something specific then that introduces some skewed results.

Think about it this way. If I ask only people who have no peanut allergy or any allergy at all whether or not its ok to take peanuts and peanut products to school Im going to get a bunch of people who are unrelated to the alle4gy saying "yeah sure its fine because it doesnt affect me."

Thats just bad practice for proper demographic statistic collection.

If I want to know if a word is a slur I should go talk to the people its used to refer to mainly. And when a majority of them say yes it is, then it is.

The survey only served to further solidify my earlier point, yeah there might be people who are fine with those terms. Some who even may claim to be totally fine with or even proud of calling themselves that or being called that. But theyre an extremely small number compared to the massive number who are negatively impacted. Not to mention its hard to tell how many of those people saying "its ok" arent feelinf pressured to say so because of societal pretenses that they are afraid to challenge lest someone jump at their throat for speaking out.

As this thread has unfortunately demonstrated is actually an incredibly reasonable fear. Cause its been almost 16 pages of that exact thing from tons of different users.

You know, I really like that this is all about trying to change the name of a tag, when it is argued that it's just the name that's the problem.

The name Cuntboy and Dickgirl are slurs. I agree with that, they are effectively the same thing as listing a person by their mental/physical/social disability. The tag needs to work without any problem. Changing the name changes the tag, and for this case it's always been for worse.

So, if this is about changing a tag, then this should probably be focused on finding an appropriate name that won't make it vague/ambiguous, long, and/or can be commonly used. If this is about the slur, then by all means use another one, but the tag works as intended...

If you want to make a poll, then let everyone vote on it. If only the people who are affected by it vote, then the other people the tag effects will get ignored, even though the tag works for everyone, not just the people who find it offensive.

The point now should be "how do we replace it?", not "is it offensive?". This argument is going in circles because "the name is offensive" is the only thing being repeated.

Clawdragons said:
If the question you are trying to answer is "what does population X think of this", sampling any population other than population X is not necessary.

That's true. But it doesn't resolve the question of what the poll results actually represent. What type of person participates in the specific community Y you are talking about? What subset of those people are the type of people who will participate in your poll?

IOW, it's fine to sample population X, but just posting a poll won't get you a representative sample of population X. You have to also make the people who don't want to answer answer, make the self-deceptive people answer as truthfully as possible, prevent people from thinking their answer over excessively, and phrase questions in a way that avoids biasing the answers.

(what that boils down to is that Internet polls border on entirely meaningless as any kind of evidence.)

savageorange said:
IOW, it's fine to sample population X, but just posting a poll won't get you a representative sample of population X. You have to also make the people who don't want to answer answer, make the self-deceptive people answer as truthfully as possible, prevent people from thinking their answer over excessively, and phrase questions in a way that avoids biasing the answers.

Trust me, I understand. As I said, I'm a statistics major. I understand the issues.

The thing is, I'm not looking to get this published. If I was looking to get it published, yeah, clearly, this would be insufficient. However, e621 is not a peer-reviewed journal.

There were a few comments regarding "well I sent PMs to some random furries and they all agreed it wasn't a slur", or "well the tags are used on FA so that proves the point!". For as weak of evidence as that poll counts for, it is still stronger than the evidence that's been presented to the contrary (though that's not a hard hurdle to pass). As meaningless as an Internet poll is, it's still a heap of a lot better than unverifiable hearsay.

Clawdragons said:
However, e621 is not a peer-reviewed journal.

I pray everyday to whatever forgotten gods exist outside our awareness that this statement never becomes false

My personal view is that the words that started the topic aren't inherently offensive in porn communities, and that regardless of the genital configuration of any of my characters as posted, those iterations of those characters are never 'trans' in mindset, and any words that use that as part of them would not fit the characters, and would make me uncomfortable.

I also feel that any changes should reflect the views of the users of the site, not nebulous individuals from different communities whose beliefs and mindsets do not align with aforementioned users, and I say that as an lgbt person who cares not a whit about the terminology being debated here.

Yenalover said:
My personal view is that the words that started the topic aren't inherently offensive in porn communities, and that regardless of the genital configuration of any of my characters as posted, those iterations of those characters are never 'trans' in mindset, and any words that use that as part of them would not fit the characters, and would make me uncomfortable.

I also feel that any changes should reflect the views of the users of the site, not nebulous individuals from different communities whose beliefs and mindsets do not align with aforementioned users, and I say that as an lgbt person who cares not a whit about the terminology being debated here.

We might not care, but the artists do, and we care about having art hosted here. They say the tags are vulgar, we use less vulgar terms for the tags. If they try to say that we shouldn't objectify the characters though, then too bad, it's art, you objectify everything in art.

Furrin_Gok said:
We might not care, but the artists do, and we care about having art hosted here. They say the tags are vulgar, we use less vulgar terms for the tags. If they try to say that we shouldn't objectify the characters though, then too bad, it's art, you objectify everything in art.

And there are artists who don't think the terms are vulgar, and actively refuse to use sites (like tumblr and occasionally e621) where they get harassed for using them, and, just the same, the owner of the character(s) can just as easily issue takedown requests as an artist can, whether they're on one side of this or the other. Just sayin'.

And to be quite honest, almost the entire point of pornography is the vulgarity of it, isn't it?

I want to preface this with the disclaimer / apology that I read as far as page 7, and then wanted to see if this was still ongoing / what state it's in now so read the last 2 pages (16-17). So if stuff I'm saying here is outdated, mea culpa.

1. I think that aliasing could help. Like, put aside 'it's not the intent' or 'it's been around for ages' and such defending the current tags; in practical terms aliasing dickgirl and cuntboy to any given new tag wouldn't do any noticable harm. Out of habit, when searching I will still type 'dickgirl'. So will Rando Joe looking for material. When new people find e621, they'll use some aliased tag, see what it brings up, and learn the one that's used - still, they can use their standard / preferred aliased one. I'd be quite happy to see a change made because in practical terms, it means business as usual.

2. For all the flaws of TWYS, I feel that a 'trans' tag would be unwieldy TWYK. What if a given character is drawn sometimes with one genital configuration, another time with a different one? Does one take precedence? A trans person doesn't become cis after SRS.

There's also the minor quibble of it implies there's a way to 'look trans', and...fair enough, this is used for porny purposes and you can't get much less passable (as cis) than having your parts out, but it does feel strange. It's also worth noting that if you take 'being trans' as what it is - identifying as a gender other than the one assigned at birth - then for some fantasy stuff, you're going to end up tagging some things as trans that...well...aren't trans. There's also a kettle of fish involved in trans vs trans*, but I'm going to leave that one alone because it's a tangent to a tangent.

3. At first, I was against such a change reading the thread, and then I came around to the idea of andromorph and gynomorph, and now I'm in a position of being behind an aliasing change, but bluntly, I've kind of soured on the -morph tags. Hear me out?

Let's start from saying that dickgirl and cuntboy are slurs. Fair enough. Then let's say some of the 'cleaner' alternatives - Vagentleman, Phallady - suggested are also slurs, or at least inappropriate. The reason why can't be common usage as slurs, because they've only been suggested here. The problem is in how they're built. It's still got that 'othering' in the juxtaposition of a gender with the genitals coded to the other one. 'Dickgirl' works on a strange juxtaposition, as 'Phallady' would. I agree with you there. Got me so far?

...So the proposed change for dickgirl would be gynomorph. I'm going to admit there's a little ambiguity in it - refer to genitals, or to gender / overall presentation? I'll also say the answer - that the gendered part takes precedence in gynomorph meaning women...but the precedent you're pointing to for the term is a bit iffy. Though wikitionary gives a nicer 'an organism with female characteristics', wikipedia's definition - and the one cited a few times upthread - is Wikipedia's 'a male who possesses distinctly feminine features'. I acknowledge and appreciate that some of OP's trans contacts approve of the -morphs, and I wanted to say I was happy with them too, but the more I thought about it the more troubling it became. The suggested solution of swapping dickgirl to gynomorph is to stop calling transfeminine characters girls and start calling them males on the basis of their genitals :/ I'm sympathetic to the idea (and of course, if the tag goes ahead, you do you!) but the way 'gynomorph' is defined makes it deeply uncomfortable and seemingly even more transphobic than what's currently there. I understand that it may look like I'm playing semantics, but given that that definition was given above, I hope you take that objection in good faith.

4. With that in mind, I'm personally behind the suggested 'intersex_[respective genitals]'. That comes under TWYS and passes no judgement (i.e. it doesn't pose a juxtaposition, utilise a common-usage slur, or try to label gender either way). That's part of why I skipped from page 6 or 7 to the end, because I wanted to say what a good suggestion it sounds like. I'm sorry if the 'suggestions' part of the discussion has moved on from this one, rendering this paragraph irrelevant. My bad, but very long thread.

5. Putting all those aside, I'd just like to acknowledge this from long back, emphasis mine:

GDelscribe said:

Theelderscrotes, a popular user who has a lot of commentary on the subject in general and is part of the trans community had this to say:

"Just. call them. trans characters.
furry communities, and all porn communities really, are absolutely terrified of fessing up that they like trans bodies. they try to push awful terms on them, or make up fantastical excuses for them, or insist they only like the fictional concept of trans bodies, but they’re just kidding themselves. they’re trans. they should not need a term to other them because pornographers need to realize they can’t hide behind fictional concepts that make their interests ‘safe’, and realize real goddamn people exist with the very same bodies they desire
if cis people are going to lust after people like me, i’d prefer that they be straight up about it instead of pretending they’re into fictional, ‘impossible’ concepts

Although I don't agree with the conclusion (I believe 'transgender' as a tag wouldn't work in a place like this where it's for archiving, unless it's otherwise made apparent in the image), huge props for sharing this. It is a problem in porn communities that artists often do hide behind 'fantasy' to pretend that the bodies they are drawing don't exist to make them more palatable to cis people. I reiterate, I'm iffy over trans tags in this scenario, but it was a great comment.

ForbiddenFruit said:
4. With that in mind, I'm personally behind the suggested 'intersex_[respective genitals]'. That comes under TWYS and passes no judgement (i.e. it doesn't pose a juxtaposition, utilise a common-usage slur, or try to label gender either way). That's part of why I skipped from page 6 or 7 to the end, because I wanted to say what a good suggestion it sounds like. I'm sorry if the 'suggestions' part of the discussion has moved on from this one, rendering this paragraph irrelevant. My bad, but very long thread.

About the only thing you missed in all those skipped pages were the tags "Male_with_pussy" (Shot down because it'd imply male) and "Masculine_with_pussy" (Which doesn't have the same implication). form_with_genitals is honestly as unambiguous as you can get while still defining things just fine.

I really appreciate your insight @forbiddenfruit and when you put it like that the morph tags do seem, almost just as bad as our current tags.'

I agree with you wholeheartedly on all the comments youve made, another suggestion thats also been made since was masculine_with_pussy and feminine_with_dick as right now which also sorta works pretty decent. But yeah I agree with Intersex_* being really useful.

I feel like your post has a lot of really what Ive been trying to explain but, better than I've been capable of, so thank you much.

ForbiddenFruit said:
-snipped-

Although I don't agree with the conclusion (I believe 'transgender' as a tag wouldn't work in a place like this where it's for archiving, unless it's otherwise made apparent in the image), huge props for sharing this. It is a problem in porn communities that artists often do hide behind 'fantasy' to pretend that the bodies they are drawing don't exist to make them more palatable to cis people. I reiterate, I'm iffy over trans tags in this scenario, but it was a great comment.

You make a lot of good points, and an intersex tag (with aliasing, because its much easier to type the other words :V) would be fine, in my opinion. I disagree with number 5 mainly for personal reasons (I identify as a woman, and when everything's all said and done and I look like how I feel, the only person I feel should know what I was before are individuals I'm having a deep relationship with at that moment. Its part of the reason I'm confused with this generation's obsession with identifying as 'trans' instead of fighting more for the right to have their bodies fit their brains.)

I feel that the intersex* tag suggestion of yours would be preferable to any other suggestions, but given the community and ease-of-searching I'm fine with keeping current tags or, at the very least, tag-aliasing so that those terms become synonymous with the much longer to type versions.

tl;dr: I like your tag suggestion better than others, but I don't want to type a novel when I'm looking for porn kthx

Yenalover said:
You make a lot of good points, and an intersex tag (with aliasing, because its much easier to type the other words :V) would be fine, in my opinion. I disagree with number 5 mainly for personal reasons (I identify as a woman, and when everything's all said and done and I look like how I feel, the only person I feel should know what I was before are individuals I'm having a deep relationship with at that moment. Its part of the reason I'm confused with this generation's obsession with identifying as 'trans' instead of fighting more for the right to have their bodies fit their brains.)

I feel that the intersex* tag suggestion of yours would be preferable to any other suggestions, but given the community and ease-of-searching I'm fine with keeping current tags or, at the very least, tag-aliasing so that those terms become synonymous with the much longer to type versions.

tl;dr: I like your tag suggestion better than others, but I don't want to type a novel when I'm looking for porn kthx

I won't get into specific since I want to stay on topic(And not start a potential war) BUT. You. You I like.

And I also agree with the intersex* tag (Of course with aliasing for the same reason you listed as well as thats what many will still use.)

Yenalover said:
I disagree with number 5 mainly for personal reasons (I identify as a woman, and when everything's all said and done and I look like how I feel, the only person I feel should know what I was before are individuals I'm having a deep relationship with at that moment. Its part of the reason I'm confused with this generation's obsession with identifying as 'trans' instead of fighting more for the right to have their bodies fit their brains.)

I see where you're coming from - definitely poor form of me to extrapolate the experiences of some people I know to a group as a whole. Mea culpa.

I'm totally with you on aliasing rather than out-and-out replacing, make no mistake. I mean, I'm still going to be plugging in 'dickgirl' and 'herm' out of habit if a change just goes ahead.

List of valid tags for intersex_* / altersex_* etc. tagging system

All of those are great points on page 17

Since there's some mention of the intersex_* tagging system, thought it may be a good time to post a list of all the valid tags with that system:

Notes: intersex and `altersex` (see also post #195912) are synonymous for the purposes of this list (i.e they fill the the same spot)

--

If you think those tags are too long to type out
(keeping in mind that the relevant existing tags like cuntboy/dickgirl etc still work and would be aliased accordingly),
check out the list of tag shortcuts here

If you want an entire explanation of how this system would work, see T1. Combined Gender tagging system

Chessax said:
[..]

Sorry I didn't have anything more related to the topic to say, but I kind of don't know where to start, or rather where to continue. I have followed this discussion from the start, yet I still feel a little lost, most things have already been said.

[..]

Definitely agreed, since there's so much interrelated topics going on at the same time + input from everyone

I'll try to have an actual forum topic summary made asap
(it's high priority on the todo list)
--

It would be nice if admins etc. could take a look at the quite a few of suggestions that has been made so far and group them e.g. like:

• Never gonna happen
• Acceptable (but may have issues/need discussion)
• Preferred

Sounds like a great next step with this

And suddenly people forget the <form>_with_<genitals> tags. RIP my pride.

Furrin_Gok said:
And suddenly people forget the <form>_with_<genitals> tags. RIP my pride.

If its any consolation those are my favorite tags of the suggestions.

Also @forbiddenfruit theres a full list of all the current tags on the first post of page 12 in case you wanted a full quick rundown.

Also @yenalover

Its not really hard to understand that people might want to be called by their preferred identified gender.

Gender and Sex are separate constructs.

Some people only care about the top half in terms of dimorphism. Some only care about the bottom.

You dont need genital dysphoria to be trans. Having genital dysphoria doesn't automagically make you trans either.

And lastly. "This generation" that youre looking down on is poor as all hell.

We dont have the money to support getting the surgery needed to fit the "model of what a trans person is supposed to be" and its mildly irritating that that has to be said but I digress.

And thanks for the update @titanmelon

Gender and Sex are separate constructs.

Sex is not a construct. It is biology. XX vs XY

Ahri_The_Pure_Slut said:
Sex is not a construct. It is biology. XX vs XY

We still consider birds to be male and female, despite having ZW sex chromosomes, rather than XY (though that system is not exclusive to them). Likewise with insects who have the X0 system.

Ahri_The_Pure_Slut said:
Sex is not a construct. It is biology. XX vs XY

In GDel's defense, it's a physical construct.

Clawdragons said:
Likewise with insects who have the X0 system.

What's the X0 system?

Furrin_Gok said:
In GDel's defense, it's a physical construct.
What's the X0 system?

"A physical construct"
lel 10/10

Ahri_The_Pure_Slut said:
"A physical construct"
lel 10/10

Hey, the constructs in question may have been mental constructs, but nobody actively stated such :P

Ahri_The_Pure_Slut said:
Sex is not a construct. It is biology. XX vs XY

the concept of sex is a social construct. it our way to attempt to categorize bunch of physical traits into two imaginary boxes called "male" and "female".

Furrin_Gok said:
What's the X0 system?

The X0 system is a sex differentiation system is a system wherein the male has an X chromosome and the female has XX chromosomes. In that system, it's the number of chromosomes, not the type, that determines sex.

Also on the subject of interesting sex differentiation systems, the Snapping Turtle. Not genetically determined at all, but rather, determined by temperature. Colder eggs produce females, warmer eggs produce males.

I propose this: Any way that you try to objectively define sex, there exists a counterexample.

Don't get me wrong - I think sex is a very useful construct for categorizing and understanding things. Constructs are essential for humans to function. But it's also important to recognize when something is a construct, otherwise you run the risk of failing to understand those things that don't fit into the categories you've defined.

Mutisija said:
the concept of sex is a social construct. it our way to attempt to categorize bunch of physical traits into two imaginary boxes called "male" and "female".

Actually no, it's based on basic biology.

ThatBIackGuy said:
Actually no, it's basic biology.

So is species, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't fall apart under close scrutiny.

Though admittedly "species" is much easier to see the flaws with.

Clawdragons said:
So is species, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't fall apart under close scrutiny.

Though admittedly "species" is much easier to see the flaws with.

Species, on a biological level, have far more varying variables at work. They hardly compare with the workings of chromosomes, especially in regards to genitalia/the reproductive system.

ThatBIackGuy said:
Species, on a biological level, have far more varying variables at work. They hardly compare with the workings of chromosomes.

Except, as I've explained, sex may be determined by different chromosomes types than the standard XY that most people are familiar with (such as ZW, X0), or may be determined by factors other than chromosomes - such as egg temperature, for Snapping Turtles, and may actually vary across an organism's life (such as for Clownfish).

Trying to reduce sex down to chromosomes does not work.

Clawdragons said:
Except, as I've explained, sex may be determined by different chromosomes types than the standard XY that most people are familiar with (such as ZW, X0), or may be determined by factors other than chromosomes - such as egg temperature, for Snapping Turtles, and may actually vary across an organism's life (such as for Clownfish).

Trying to reduce sex down to chromosomes does not work.

When we're talking about humans, yes, we can. I'm well aware of how things can vary with different species of animals, but I'm not talking about miscellaneous animals. Such variations are both not possible, and not natural for humans.

ThatBIackGuy said:
When we're talking about humans, yes, we can. I'm well aware of how things can vary with different species of animals, but I'm not talking about miscellaneous animals. Such variations are both not possible, and not natural for humans.

what about humans with XXX chromosomes? or XXY chromosomes? or XYY chromosomes? what about people with XY chromosomes and female body? what about people with XX chromosomes and male body?

those are all real existing things

ThatBIackGuy said:
When we're talking about humans, yes, we can. I'm well aware of how things can vary with different species of animals, but I'm not talking about miscellaneous animals. Such variations are both not possible, and not natural for humans.

Well, two problems. One, you've already admitted, unless I'm very much mistaken, that species falls apart under close scrutiny. Your objection just now seems to me to be based on the idea of species, and so likewise would fall apart under scrutiny.

That is to say, your objection relies on accepting a premise that you don't accept.

And second, of course, is the fact that when discussing sex, most people would happily admit that animals have sexes. That is the way we usually use the word. Redefining it to only apply to humans seems to me to be a shifting of the goalposts.

Mutisija said:
what about humans with XXX chromosomes? or XXY chromosomes? or XYY chromosomes? what about people with XY chromosomes and female body? what about people with XX chromosomes and male body?

those are all real existing things

Genetic disorder on the same line as down syndrome (but clearly not with the same effects), higher levels of estrogen while developing, and higher levels of testosterone while developing.

Clearly they're real, however, that doesn't change the purpose of said individual's reproduction systems, nor the biological title/name given to them. Those that are changed/altered are mutations, not naturally occurring functions that are linked to some new form of sex/gender/etc.

Clawdragons said:
Well, two problems. One, you've already admitted, unless I'm very much mistaken, that species falls apart under close scrutiny. Your objection just now seems to me to be based on the idea of species, and so likewise would fall apart under scrutiny.

That is to say, your objection relies on accepting a premise that you don't accept.

Species in regards to genetics that dictate their "species" itself, vary, yes. I wasn't referring to factors that dictate the sexual reproductive system.

And second, of course, is the fact that when discussing sex, most people would happily admit that animals have sexes. That is the way we usually use the word. Redefining it to only apply to humans seems to me to be a shifting of the goalposts.

I feel as though you took what I said in the wrong context/too literally.

ThatBIackGuy said:
I feel as though you took what I said in the wrong context/too literally.

Maybe. I'm honestly just trying to take what you're saying in any way that actually makes sense.

Species in regards to genetics that dictate their "species" itself, vary, yes. I wasn't referring to factors that dictate the sexual reproductive system.

I failed here though. I have no idea what you're trying to say.

Or maybe I took what you said in the wrong context, I honestly don't know anymore. There's so much going on here, and half of it doesn't have any actual info backing it to make it worth debating.

ThatBIackGuy said:
Genetic disorder on the same line as down syndrome (but clearly not with the same effects), higher levels of estrogen while developing, and higher levels of testosterone while developing.

Clearly they're real, however, that doesn't change the purpose of said individual's reproduction systems, nor the biological title/name given to them. Those that are changed/altered are mutations, not naturally occurring functions that are linked to some new form of sex/gender/etc.

but they are naturally occurring, its not like someone artificially made it happen. they are natural, just not as common as the XX female and XY male. you cannot strictly shove sexes into two separate boxes because its a biological fact that there will always be shitton of people who will be left outside of the boxes because they cannot fill whatever requirement someone sets for male or female.

For one-- in the case of more than one X chromosome in a cell, all but one will be inactivated to barr bodies. This is how female cells work in particular as to avoid gene overexpression. Females typically have one while males typically have none.

For two, our tagging system does not go in accordance to a character's karyotype, but to their perceived sex.

Stick to that, please.

Mutisija said:
but they are naturally occurring, its not like someone artificially made it happen. they are natural, just not as common as the XX female and XY male. you cannot strictly shove sexes into two separate boxes because its a biological fact that there will always be shitton of people who will be left outside of the boxes because they cannot fill whatever requirement someone sets for male or female.

Naturally occurring, technically yes, but not "natural" in the sense that that's how it was meant to be in the process of developing. Cancer, birth defects, etc are all "naturally occurring", but that doesn't mean they're natural to have (again, not trying to draw parallels, just listing, albeit extreme ones, examples none the less). Except we can, they are, and it'll always be that way, because in the end, for humans there's only those "two" on a biological and reproductive level, anything inbetween (ie missing part of this, has an extra that, etc) are mutations and/or disorders. Same goes for "feminine looking with a penis", or "Masculine with a vagina", they're what their original reproductive system dictates ("societal views/standards" are subjective, and therefore null and void).

I only see this ending in a record, regardless of the lack of aggressive motive, personal attacks, or just trying to piss people off in general (though, I guess it could be "derailing") so this is all I care to comment on the matter.

Mutisija said:
but they are naturally occurring, its not like someone artificially made it happen. they are natural, just not as common as the XX female and XY male. you cannot strictly shove sexes into two separate boxes because its a biological fact that there will always be shitton of people who will be left outside of the boxes because they cannot fill whatever requirement someone sets for male or female.

Truthfully, from a scientific standpoint, it doesn't matter whether it's natural or not. It is still not biologically normal or medically viable being a deformity called "Disorders of Sex Development" and this is because humans do not function as anything other than Male or Female, biologically, considering there are no documented cases of true hermaphrodites.

Ko-san said:
Truthfully, from a scientific standpoint, it doesn't matter whether it's natural or not. It is still not biologically normal or medically viable being a deformity called "Disorders of Sex Development" and this is because humans do not function as anything other than Male or Female, biologically, considering there are no documented cases of true hermaphrodites.

just pointing out that mutations and shifting rates of expression in physical characteristics from the genetic sex is in fact biologically normal. All life exists and continues to exist thru mutation, without a species eventually dies out.

And as for true human hermaphrodites im quite sure they have and do exist but they of cource look nothing like the perfect combination as depicted in most art here. As for why there isnt much documentation, you only need to look at the fact of how many Intersex people in general have faced being misdiagnosed as male or female and having gender realignment surgery forced on them at birth in the past and the fact that they would have been lumped together with other intersex people less in the "middle" by the medical community, on that the fact of not coming out exactly because most people would objectify them and face widespread stigma from a society that just cant see outside a box...

Not to offend but the fact that youre able to say in one breath that physical sex isnt social based and then in the next breath say that in other societies where characters/species exist who fit the masculine_with_pussy/femenine_with_penis labels that its based on their society that its /normal/is an astounding confusing leap in logic. But I digress.

Anyway back on topic. Yes XxxY XYY XXY etc exist. Its odd karyotypes that lead to intersex bodies presenting in the first place.

But like Ratte said what were focusing on here partly is the standard XY and XX forms that result in A definably male body at birth and a definably female body at birth respectively.

Its important to have the distinction that sex and gender are not the same thing and do not always correlate or match up. Thats kind of the definition of being trans in the most simplistic terms possible. Having a gender that is different from the defined sex at birth.

But anyway back on topic.

Im still personally voting for type of body_with_genitals as its relatively innoffensive and allows trans folks a lot of leeway in that it also happens to align with their gender, masculine_with_pussy and feminine_with_penis or male/female whatever helps most. It seems to also be the most popular choice right now and genuinely seems harmless to almost everyone. Meanwhile the altersex/intersex choice is also popular if only slightly less.

R'D said:
just pointing out that mutations and shifting rates of expression in physical characteristics from the genetic sex is in fact biologically normal. All life exists and continues to exist thru mutation, without a species eventually dies out.

And as for true human hermaphrodites im quite sure they have and do exist but they of cource look nothing like the perfect combination as depicted in most art here. As for why there isnt much documentation, you only need to look at the fact of how many Intersex people in general have faced being misdiagnosed as male or female and having gender realignment surgery forced on them at birth in the past and the fact that they would have been lumped together with other intersex people less in the "middle" by the medical community, on that the fact of not coming out exactly because most people would objectify them and face widespread stigma from a society that just cant see outside a box...

Or it's that no human has been born with two properly functioning genitalia. You don't have to make it more complicated than it is. And you are generalizing mutations too much; making claims that harmful mutations and neutral mutations are just as good as beneficial mutations, in which the latter is the only one that matters in natural selection and evolution. If a species was riddled with deforming mutations that merely made it harder to procreate and played no part in survival then that species would die out as the mutations would eventually lead to cancer and disabilities. Furthermore, if a mutation is beneficial, odds are that said mutation will spread and be more common among the species no longer being an abnormal phenomenon, such as the growing absence of vestigial parts including the palmaris longus muscle in either one or both arms and wisdom teeth.

I was going to respond to comments on my last post, but... What are you guys droning on about? All this is entirely off topic, we don't need to bring in real world sex or gender. Humans have two functional sexes and a lot of in-betweens, that's it, nothing more, nothing is "normal" because everything is "normal" in some sense. We're not tagging humans but humans' are tagging and hence references to basic human appearances makes sense. Renaming the binary sexes of non-mammals into some "not-female" and "not-male" will accomplish nothing.

The more we deviate from the topic the harder it is to keep on topic and the more it will be allowed. I love going off topic but in this case it hurts a lot more than adding "interesting side points". If you want to discuss chromosome configurations or what to call a "female" bird, or anything else, it would be more interesting to start a new topic dedicated to that, you could link it from here, but just not discuss it here. I'm not blaming anyone, but everyone participating in this (definitely including myself).

I'm sorry for getting upset and "backseat moderating" but I really want this to go forward not run around in circles or bring up technicalities that won't matter anyway. This thread is long enough as it is and just keeps on getting longer.

If you want to help, comment on some of @titanmelon's or @GDelscribe's topics/consolidation posts instead. They've made great attempts to bring order to chaos (probably others as well).

I'm starting to feel like I should just let this go for a month or two and see if there's anything left in the ashes when I come back...

My vote stands. The tags should stay how they are now. Seems like people are just looking for something do be offended about, honestly. We've had these tags since I started using the site, almost 6 years ago. This is literally a non issue. I really hope the staff doesn't plan on bending over and obeying you, just because they're afraid to offend you. Seen it happen many times, and the offensive card is getting VERY worn out by this point.

Chessax said:
I was going to respond to comments on my last post, but... What are you guys droning on about? All this is entirely off topic, we don't need to bring in real world sex or gender. Humans have two functional sexes and a lot of in-betweens, that's it, nothing more, nothing is "normal" because everything is "normal" in some sense. We're not tagging humans but humans' are tagging and hence references to basic human appearances makes sense. Renaming the binary sexes of non-mammals into some "not-female" and "not-male" will accomplish nothing.

The more we deviate from the topic the harder it is to keep on topic and the more it will be allowed. I love going off topic but in this case it hurts a lot more than adding "interesting side points". If you want to discuss chromosome configurations or what to call a "female" bird, or anything else, it would be more interesting to start a new topic dedicated to that, you could link it from here, but just not discuss it here. I'm not blaming anyone, but everyone participating in this (definitely including myself).

I'm sorry for getting upset and "backseat moderating" but I really want this to go forward not run around in circles or bring up technicalities that won't matter anyway. This thread is long enough as it is and just keeps on getting longer.

If you want to help, comment on some of @titanmelon's or @GDelscribe's topics/consolidation posts instead. They've made great attempts to bring order to chaos (probably others as well).

I'm starting to feel like I should just let this go for a month or two and see if there's anything left in the ashes when I come back...

I think this thread was doing a fine job running itself around in circles even before this little discussion. And I doubt it's going to be resolved any time soon provided the few people who actually give a damn and them not being able to make a choice.