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

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.