Be inclusive by adding gender options and pronoun options

[merlin they them]

There are many board gamers who can speak to their own stories of dealing with varying forms of discrimination and unpleasant environments. As such BoardGameArena should strive to be as inclusive as possible to attract all kinds of board gamers. And from a business perspective, more board gamers means more board games and more money for BGA, so everyone wins.

Add Gender Options
To that note, BGA needs to add more gender options. At the very least, BGA should add the following gender options:

• Nonbinary
• Other/write your own

Add Pronoun Options
Furthermore, BGA should also add pronoun options because not everyone uses the pronouns typically associated with the gender they choose. As such, BGA should add at least these options:

• She/her/hers
• They/them/theirs
• He/him/his
• Custom
  • Subject pronoun (she/they/he equivalent):
  • Object pronoun (her/them/him equivalent):
  • Possessive pronoun (hers/theirs/his equivalent):

Prior Discussions and Suggestions
This issue has been brought up before in a few different cases, so there is clearly interest from the current community. And once this is implemented, it will help grow the community even further. There are people who do not wish to join because of this lack of inclusion.

Please upvote this suggestion and the following to help make this community more inclusive!

• Discussion: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=17064
• This suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=25666
• Suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=20056
• Suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=17226
• Suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=25663

[Curling]

And the same for all languages?!!

Seems complicated. We are in a game website... Shouldn't be a subject here

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

And the same for all languages?!!

Seems complicated. We are in a game website... Shouldn't be a subject here

Indeed.

We should have male pronouns, female pronouns and a default setting for those who haven't set their gender.

But non-binary extremists insist on there being over 50 genders with pronouns as weird as zhir. There is no point trying to accomodate their demands, there will always be more.

[N_Faker]

It is interesting how "he" started out as a gender neutral pronoun.

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

It is interesting how "he" started out as a gender neutral pronoun.

I'm not sure it was ever neutral as such just that the old English for he, she and they were very, very similar.

Our word "they" was borrowed from old Norse.

[fafa-fr]

I agree that gender could be dealt with better on BGA, e.g. by using they/them/their for general text, and for players when they have not explicitely set a male or female gender in their profile.

Add Pronoun Options
Furthermore, BGA should also add pronoun options because not everyone uses the pronouns typically associated with the gender they choose. As such, BGA should add at least these options:

• She/her/hers
• They/them/theirs
• He/him/his
• Custom
  • Subject pronoun (she/they/he equivalent):
  • Object pronoun (her/them/him equivalent):
  • Possessive pronoun (hers/theirs/his equivalent):

Are there really people who want to use different genders for subject / object / possessive? I'm intrigued, could you say a bit more or provide links? This would indeed be complicated (among others because the problem's different in each language), so it needs to be explained and well-argued.

But ...

We are in a game website... Shouldn't be a subject here

Why shouldn't it be a subject? Respecting players shouldn't be a subject on a gaming website? Do you think racism shouldn't be a subject? If you think it should, what's the difference?

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

I agree that gender could be dealt with better on BGA, e.g. by using they/them/their for general text, and for players when they have not explicitely set a male or female gender in their profile.

Add Pronoun Options
Furthermore, BGA should also add pronoun options because not everyone uses the pronouns typically associated with the gender they choose. As such, BGA should add at least these options:

• She/her/hers
• They/them/theirs
• He/him/his
• Custom
  • Subject pronoun (she/they/he equivalent):
  • Object pronoun (her/them/him equivalent):
  • Possessive pronoun (hers/theirs/his equivalent):

Are there really people who want to use different genders for subject / object / possessive? I'm intrigued, could you say a bit more or provide links? This would indeed be complicated (among others because the problem's different in each language), so it needs to be explained and well-argued.

But ...

We are in a game website... Shouldn't be a subject here

Why shouldn't it be a subject? Respecting players shouldn't be a subject on a gaming website? Do you think racism shouldn't be a subject? If you think it should, what's the difference?

Because board games aren't about "social justice". No-one is discriminating against you. If you don't tell me what race, gender, sexual orientation etc you are then I don't know and can't discriminate against you.

I have no idea whether you are a white straight male or a black lesbian. I don't really care either. I just don't want people bringing their politics in and ruining things.

[Curling]

I am here for playing as all people here. I dont care if I play against male female elephant or curling stones.

No pronoun gate please !

[fafa-fr]

No-one is discriminating against you. If you don't tell me what race, gender, sexual orientation etc you are then I don't know and can't discriminate against you.

I don't know if "discriminate" is the right word, but of course you can offend / put down / disrespect people without knowing anything about them. E.g. by implying that some groups are more important than others. If BGA speaks to users using forms that imply that if they're not male (or "worse", if they're not male nor female), then they're less important than others, participating in and increasing what they are facing every day of their life, then of course it can hurt if it happens that they're not male. It doesn't need to be personally targeted at them.

I just don't want people bringing their politics in and ruining things.

Maybe you don't realize it, but opposing to people asking for recognition is exactly "people bringing their politics in and ruining things". Saying that "there's no problem with how things are at the moment" is not less politics than asking for change. It's just that it ruins things for different people: in one case for the people that are fine with the result of "hierarchy", and in the other case for the ones that are enduring it.

(I'd like to stress that I don't say that I agree with OP, I just think that this subject should not be banned from the forums and from BGA.)

[Giordano Bruno 1974]

No-one is discriminating against you. If you don't tell me what race, gender, sexual orientation etc you are then I don't know and can't discriminate against you.

I don't know if "discriminate" is the right word, but of course you can offend / put down / disrespect people without knowing anything about them. E.g. by implying that some groups are more important than others. If BGA speaks to users using forms that imply that if they're not male (or "worse", if they're not male nor female), then they're less important than others, participating in and increasing what they are facing every day of their life, then of course it can hurt if it happens that they're not male. It doesn't need to be personally targeted at them.

I just don't want people bringing their politics in and ruining things.

Maybe you don't realize it, but opposing to people asking for recognition is exactly "people bringing their politics in and ruining things". Saying that "there's no problem with how things are at the moment" is not less politics than asking for change. It's just that it ruins things for different people: in one case for the people that are fine with the result of "hierarchy", and in the other case for the ones that are enduring it.

(I'd like to stress that I don't say that I agree with OP, I just think that this subject should not be banned from the forums and from BGA.)

No-one said the subject should be banned just that I don't want it in the games.

No-one is saying that you can't be considered male if that's what you want. All you need do is sign up and set your gender as 'male'. No-one wants to see your birth certificate to check you qualify. If you say you're male then fine, it doesn't make any difference for playing a board game online anyway.

What is not reasonable is to push identity politics into board games. Inserting your own made-up pronouns into games or being able to choose from 50+ pronouns is not a reasonable request. These pronouns are nonsensical to anyone not involved in identical politics. Do we expect people to know what "zhir" means? Or "ey"? Would this really make games more "inclusive"?

And that's before players start reporting each other for "misgendering"....