remove "(hopefully female)" from the pregnant tooltip

[Gorro_Rojo]

i understand it's probably meant to be a harmless joke. however, here's something to consider, trans people exist! men can be pregnant! nonbinary folks can be pregnant!

i don't intend the game to include all of the gender spectrum, but as a trans person, when playing this amazing game, this little joke really threw me off, it's a common joke and it's quite harmful to the trans community and to our visibility.

thanks for the amazing game! hope this gets noticed :)

[Rayvolution]

It's a tooltip that only pops up on a villager who is already pregnant, and due to the game mechanics, that will always be female. But a more satirical situation may happen later if I ever add a way for a male villager to become pregnant (maybe a god spell in the future?), and that's why it's in there. :)

I fully support trans-rights and regularly do everything I can to help, because they have a ton of hardships people like myself can only barely understand. I'm just a boring white-straight guy, but I'm actually involved in quite a few LGBTQ groups in my area and my wife is bi, so I'm not completely out of the loop or anything.

Oddly enough there's actually placeholder code for "gay/bi" villagers. Trans is a bit complicated though, because I may just add a gender-change spell someday anyway, making "being trans" a slightly obsolete concept if you can just auto-magically change genders/sex anyway.

A slight off-topic tangent about why I have not finished that code:
Having said that though, RtR also has an issue with how the mechanics work, there's no LGBTQ+ representation because nearly any combination of gay/trans/etc will be seen as a "nerf" because they likely can't breed (ie; 2 gay villagers can't have children as they can't get each other pregnant). I have to be careful, because if something like "gay villagers" existed, they would instantly be less valuable than the straight ones because breeding is an important mechanic, and I don't want to encourage people to "cull" the non-straight villagers or be upset that they have them. That would send an awful message that non-CIS people are below or less useful to society, and we both know that's not the case what so ever in reality.

I highly respect it's a sensitive issue, but I don't think this particular tooltip is really "anti-trans" or offensive, I'm sorry, but it feels like you're grasping at straws a bit.

The tooltip in question, that pops up when a villager is pregnant and you hover over the blue rattle icon on their UI, for those wondering:

"This (hopefully female) villager is with child and will likely give birth in a few days from conception."

I'm open for discussion on it, but I really honestly don't see much of an issue here. Also, if I do add a way to get male villagers pregnant, I may change it to "usually female", it's a bit more concise anyway, it's just not currently true. :)

[Gorro_Rojo]

I understand that it's part of the mechanics of the game that women are the only ones who get pregnant. It's good to know you're considering representing more of the LGBTQ+ community in the game! I see the problems you raise and hope you'll find your way around them.
However, representation isn't what I'm posting about, but instead just changing two words to help stop promoting cisnormative discourse.
Why would the villager be 'hopefully female'?

[...] a more satirical situation may happen later if I ever add a way for a male villager to become pregnant (maybe a god spell in the future?), and that's why it's in there. :)

Why is a male villager becoming pregnant a satirical situation?
Why would there even be a need to clarify that the villager should be 'hopefully' female or would be 'usually' female?

I highly respect it's a sensitive issue, but I don't think this particular tooltip is really "anti-trans" or offensive, I'm sorry, but it feels like you're grasping at straws a bit.

You understand it's a sensitive issue, so why joke about it? Why even mention it at all?
I'm not saying this is super offensive or insulting or that you're a transphobe or any of that. I'm just saying that it pushes forward harmful discourse towards the trans community. I, as a trans person, think that, and so does my partner who is also trans.

In any case thanks for being open about this! It's incredible to see the developer himself answering this and opening a discussion instead of just dismissing it or ignoring it.

[back_buffer]

I'm with Gorro_Rojo here. I like that this game doesn't take itself seriously but this particular phrase is a little bit cringy. My suggestion would be to just delete the paragraphed text, even if you add male/nb pregnancy in the future.

I'm absolutely thrilled to see that you've already been thinking about LGBTQ+ representation in a way that won't cause players to be upset about it :) I can't wait to see where you go with it.

[Rayvolution]

Alrighty, alrighty, I see your point. I'll have it removed next patch, and reintroduce it as "Usually Female" if I add some goofy mechanic (Think like The Sims alien abductions or something) where men can get pregnant. :)

[Gorro_Rojo]

Thanks! Thats great!
I have to ask tho, why not remove it? What's so essential about it?
Also, again, why is it goofy that men can get pregnant?
I know considering this stuff can be annoying, specially if you're a solo developer (which i understand you are? sorry, not sure) and it's not your focus.
Also thanks back_buffer for the support! I agree that seeing how your think about actual representation is interesting and I can't wait to see how you may some day go with it. Speaking of which, if you really don't mind small goofy mechanics, you can fix your balancing issue with adding gay relationship by just...making them get pregnant anyways. Just a thought though, not my main point here.