Smolbaka said:
And it saddens me we live in such a society
Posted under Tags
Smolbaka said:
And it saddens me we live in such a society
Not "is a girl" but "claims to be a girl". That claim is not widely accepted and I think it's bogus. It also has little if any relevance to most artwork, particularly when artists disregard canon or are indistinguishable from doing so.
Smolbaka said:
What made Bridget work in the first place is that he IS a BOY. These people do not understand making Bridget a girl ruins the cultural appeal to him. And it saddens me we live in such a society while Japan still consistently calls him an otokonoko(femboy) to this very day with no drama over there.
We do not care about Bridget's "cultural appeal". The only reason these BURs keep failing is because no one is willing or able to provide satisfying answers to the questions the admins keep asking about how tagging this character would work if we actually went ahead with this change. We don't care why people like Bridget as a boy, we only care that up until very recently that's what everyone knew the character to be, and we only care about that because it impacted how that character was tagged. Changing how the character is tagged introduces complications, and that's the only reason the only compromise that's come out of all this is tagging rating:g bridget_(guilty_gear) transgender_flag posts 1girl.
These discussions will never accomplish anything because everyone would rather argue about canon and accuse people of being transphobic or make ridiculous statements about "the fall of society" because god forbid a fictional character be trans, instead of discussing the only thing that actually matters: TAGGING. Even when someone does try to discuss this topic properly, everyone just ignores them to continue derailing the topic with irrelevant replies. It doesn't matter how many times it's brought up, as long as NNT and evazion are in charge, no one is going to approve these requests just to make people stop asking about it. If anyone seriously wants this change to happen, you need a better argument than "She literally identifies as a girl you transphobes!"
blindVigil said:
...
+1
99% of this thread is beyond pointless. Our tagging system is fundamentally based around biological sex, not gender. Endless arguing about Bridget's canon gender identity is completely and utterly irrelevant until someone proposes an actually workable way of changing our tagging rules to account for gender identity (beyond the limited exception already carved out). A coherent proposal has yet to be seen.
CoreMack said:
Our tagging system is fundamentally based around biological sex, not gender.
The tags use both sex and gender. We use gender when sex is not available. If a fully androgynous character is referred to as a girl, we'd tag her as a a girl. If the character is stated to be a boy, he's a boy. The proposal follows the same logic—if no visible sex, tag by gender.
If a character is affirmed as a gender, and the story leaves no room for doubt, then they can be treated as such by default. Speculation that a character might be or might not be transgender are not enough to switch the tag over. I hope that's considered coherent enough.
agglego2 said:
The tags use both sex and gender. We use gender when sex is not available. If a fully androgynous character is referred to as a girl, we'd tag her as a a girl. If the character is stated to be a boy, he's a boy. The proposal follows the same logic—if no visible sex, tag by gender.
That is inaccurate, you just made it up because that's how you want us to tag. When sex is not obvious based on the image, we refer to their canonical sex. Not their canonical gender identity.
We do this for a few reasons, including the following:
Updated
CoreMack said:
That is inaccurate, you just made it up because that's how you want us to tag. When sex is not obvious based on the image, we refer to their canonical sex. Not their canonical gender identity.
We do this for a few reasons, including the following:
- because people want to know what's in a character's pants before masturbating to them.
- because inconsistency between clothed and unclothed images is undesirable.
- because gender identity is subject to debate and interpretation, whereas sex is generally not.
- because gender identity can change over time, which causes tagging consistency problems.
It isn't inaccurate, at least in so far as the visual aspect. When sex is not obvious based on the image, and there's no other information available, we fall back on their visual appearance, i.e. gender cues and secondary sexual characteristics. Our tagging system is fundamentally based on visual cues, not biological sex or gender, canonical or not - it's about how things look first, and then we correct from there.
That's how you get cases such as topic #16164, where a character was being tagged as a girl on Danbooru because the taggers, like everyone else on the Internet, assumed that character to be female, only for it to be revealed months after that character's debut that they're a boy, despite literally nothing hinting at such being the case. Canonical sex is something most media does not address, same with canonical gender.
Damian0358 said:
It isn't inaccurate, at least in so far as the visual aspect. When sex is not obvious based on the image, and there's no other information available, we fall back on their visual appearance, i.e. gender cues and secondary sexual characteristics. Our tagging system is fundamentally based on visual cues, not biological sex or gender, canonical or not - it's about how things look first, and then we correct from there.
That's how you get cases such as topic #16164, where a character was being tagged as a girl on Danbooru because the taggers, like everyone else on the Internet, assumed that character to be female, only for it to be revealed months after that character's debut that they're a boy, despite literally nothing hinting at such being the case. Canonical sex is something most media does not address, same with canonical gender.
We've had this argument before, and your position remains incoherent. If you were right, and visual cues were determinative, Astolfo would be tagged female. But he is not. Because his canon sex is what determines tags, when the image itself doesn't conclusively tell you.
And why on earth would you use the Kyururu example when it literally proves my point? We took our best guess and tagged the character as female for a significant period of time, then the moment we learned they were actually canonically male, we changed all the tags accordingly.
CoreMack said:
We've had this argument before, and your position remains incoherent. If you were right, and visual cues were determinative, Astolfo would be tagged female. But he is not. Because his canon sex is what determines tags, when the image itself doesn't conclusively tell you.
And why on earth would you use the Kyururu example when it literally proves my point? We took our best guess and tagged the character as female for a significant period of time, then the moment we learned they were actually canonically male, we changed all the tags accordingly.
And you ignored what I said on it being how things look first, and then we correct from there. If Astolfo were some random artist's OC where they never mentioned that he was canonically born male for several years, whether it be in commentaries, tags or anything, then he'd be tagged as female and instances depicting a penis would be tagged as futa, until the artist confirmed otherwise. If we lack confirmation, then visual cues are determinative.
Damian0358 said:
And you ignored what I said on it being how things look first, and then we correct from there. If Astolfo were some random artist's OC where they never mentioned that he was canonically born male for several years, whether it be in commentaries, tags or anything, then he'd be tagged as female and instances depicting a penis would be tagged as futa, until the artist confirmed otherwise. If we lack confirmation, then visual cues are determinative.
When the characters has no canon sex (e.g. a one off OC), then you're correct. Whent the character has a known canon sex, then your proposal of checking visual cues is irrelevant because it will always be overridden by canon sex, by your own admission. So it's irrelevant to characters like Bridget, and not helpful for this thread.
CoreMack said:
When the character has a known canon sex, then your proposal of checking visual cues is irrelevant because it will always be overridden by canon sex, by your own admission. So it's irrelevant to characters like Bridget, and not helpful for this thread.
It's not like this thread is going anywhere anyway given the fact that no one has been able to make a satisfactory proposal to resolve the issue at hand, so my comment is as helpful as everything else in this thread (and the previous two threads we had on this topic).
Regardless, both you and agglego2 were speaking about tagging practice broadly, and I corrected your claim that agglego2 made up the fact that we 'use gender when sex is not available' (at least in so far as visual aspects, not in regards to whether the creator or franchise the character comes from confirms either/or). And given that in most cases characters are not given a canon sex (with us only assuming as such due to their outward-facing gender cues) then on principle they're right. As Astolfo and Kyururu reveal, gender cues don't automatically equal sex.
Damian0358 said:
It's not like this thread is going anywhere anyway given the fact that no one has been able to make a satisfactory proposal to resolve the issue at hand, so my comment is as helpful as everything else in this thread (and the previous two threads we had on this topic).
Regardless, both you and agglego2 were speaking about tagging practice broadly, and I corrected your claim that agglego2 made up the fact that we 'use gender when sex is not available' (at least in so far as visual aspects, not in regards to whether the creator or franchise the character comes from confirms either/or). And given that in most cases characters are not given a canon sex (with us only assuming as such due to their outward-facing gender cues) then on principle they're right. As Astolfo and Kyururu reveal, gender cues don't automatically equal sex.
The debate between you and me about the precise nature of the role that outward-facing gender expression, visual cues, etc play in our tagging system is beyond the scope of this thread.
What we both agree on is that, when known, canon sex overrides gender presentation.
What agglego was saying is that canon gender identity overrides canon sex. This is what is incorrect.
CoreMack said:
What agglego was saying is that canon gender identity overrides canon sex. This is what is incorrect.
But that's literally not what they said. They said we use gender when sex is not available - an androgynous character whose sex is unknown but is otherwise referred to as a girl or boy would be tagged as either, which is correct. In fact, them saying this arguably undermines the proposal they made earlier in the thread, because canon sex is available here. Bridget hasn't had, to our knowledge, any bottom surgery.
Damian0358 said:
But that's literally not what they said. They said we use gender when sex is not available - an androgynous character whose sex is unknown but is otherwise referred to as a girl or boy would be tagged as either, which is correct. In fact, them saying this arguably undermines the proposal they made earlier in the thread, because canon sex is available here. Bridget hasn't had, to our knowledge, any bottom surgery.
Part of the confusion here is that people mean 'gender' in multiple ways. The Bridget Debate revolves around the concept of gender identity, i.e. what gender a character identifies as. You're using 'gender' in the sense of "outward-facing gender expression", which is something else entirely and is just confusing things.
And you're incorrect about a character whose sex is canonically uncertain—they're always tagged as 1other, not by their outward expression. See the 1other wiki or characters like akiyama_mizuki.
CoreMack said:
Part of the confusion here is that people mean 'gender' in multiple ways. The Bridget Debate revolves around the concept of gender identity, i.e. what gender a character identifies as. You're using 'gender' in the sense of "outward-facing gender expression", which is something else entirely and is just confusing things.
But how does that meaningfully impact this? I ultimately understand what you mean, but when it comes to tagging, I'd argue that the distinction between the two is negligible. We cannot meaningfully distinguish between gender identity and outward-facing gender expression through tags because such tagset is incomplete. To wit, we have tags for girly boys and tomboys, otoko no ko and reverse traps, because each represent exceptions in our current system (with their outward expression being the opposite of their gender identity), but we don't have any tags for when they are aligned (i.e. boys being boys, girls being girls). The only thing we have in that context is the *boy/*girl/*other tags. This is by design, and we're dealing with the consequences of that design as we speak.
And you're incorrect about a character whose sex is canonically uncertain—they're always tagged as 1other, not by their outward expression. See the 1other wiki or characters like akiyama_mizuki.
And let's try to not drag 1other into this discussion, because what you said isn't exactly consistent in practice and there's plenty of tagging discourse surrounding their applicability. We'd actually be overcomplicating this discussion if we dragged that in, so let's not.
Damian0358 said:
But how does that meaningfully impact this? I ultimately understand what you mean, but when it comes to tagging, I'd argue that the distinction between the two is negligible. We cannot meaningfully distinguish between gender identity and outward-facing gender expression through tags because such tagset is incomplete. To wit, we have tags for girly boys and tomboys, otoko no ko and reverse traps, because each represent exceptions in our current system (with their outward expression being the opposite of their gender identity), but we don't have any tags for when they are aligned (i.e. boys being boys, girls being girls). The only thing we have in that context is the *boy/*girl/*other tags. This is by design, and we're dealing with the consequences of that design as we speak.
The tags that you mentioned deal with a misalignment between 1girl/1boy and how a character outwardly presents. 1girl/1boy and outward gender expression are different concepts, can come apart, and are tracked using different tags.
The fundamental proposal being debated in this thread is about the 1girl/1boy tags themselves. Currently, these are only ever affected by outward gender expression when a) the image leaves sex ambiguous and b) the canon sex is not known. What the Bridget=1girl advocates propose is for Bridget to invariably be tagged as 1girl, regardless of outward presentation, because of canon gender identity.
If the proposal was for gender expression to determine 1girl/1boy, it would be blatantly insane, as every tomboy would be 1boy.
CoreMack said:
The tags that you mentioned deal with a misalignment between 1girl/1boy and how a character outwardly presents. 1girl/1boy and outward gender expression are different concepts, can come apart, and are tracked using different tags.
The fundamental proposal being debated in this thread is about the 1girl/1boy tags themselves. Currently, these are only ever affected by outward gender expression when a) the image leaves sex ambiguous and b) the canon sex is not known. What the Bridget=1girl advocates propose is for Bridget to invariably be tagged as 1girl, regardless of outward presentation, because of canon gender identity.
You're circling around my point. 1girl/1boy have a built-in capacity to be used in contexts which rely on gender when sex isn't a viable option and they aren't ambiguous enough for 1other, which is what the Bridget=1girl advocates are trying to latch onto, even when it isn't appropriate in this context for reasons we've mentioned previously. But if we were to strip that capacity from those tags to a limited extent, such that it makes it unambiguously obvious that 1girl/1boy is intended strictly for sex, and applying that capacity elsewhere in the form of new tags, would that not get us closer to resolving the underlying conflict?
Damian0358 said:
1girl/1boy have a built-in capacity to be used in contexts which rely on gender when sex isn't a viable option and they aren't ambiguous enough for 1other, which is what the Bridget=1girl advocates are trying to latch onto, even when it isn't appropriate in this context for reasons we've mentioned previously.
If it's not appropriate for this proposal specifically, as we both seem to agree, then for the purposes of this thread we can drop it.
But if we were to strip that capacity from those tags to a limited extent, such that it makes it unambiguously obvious that 1girl/1boy is intended strictly for sex, and applying that capacity elsewhere in the form of new tags, would that not get us closer to resolving the underlying conflict?
I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but as I said above and in a different thread, gender expression affects 1girl/1boy in exactly one situation: when both the image and the lore leave sex ambiguous. In such a situation, we tag based on how a character presents and in doing so we take our best guess. Later reveal of lore can make our guess wrong, because all that gender expression can ever give us is a guess. It never conclusively determines. This is how it works right now, and for the most part it does work, so there's no need to change anything. But this is a debate beyond the scope of this thread and I suggest we drop it.
CoreMack said:
I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but this is a debate beyond the scope of this thread and I suggest we drop it.
I don't think it's beyond the scope of this thread, since it confronts the issue at its root. Would advocates have as much of an issue with Bridget being tagged the way she is right now if there was a tag that affirmed her gender identity alongside her canon sex?
Damian0358 said:
I don't think it's beyond the scope of this thread, since it confronts the issue at its root. Would advocates have as much of an issue with Bridget being tagged the way she is right now if there was a tag that affirmed her gender identity alongside her canon sex?
If you want to propose tags like transgender or boy_(lore), or some other change to our current system, go for it.
The sole thing I'm trying to explain here is that our tagging system, as it currently stands, is first and foremost about biological sex.
Gender expression gives us a rebuttable presumption when sex is unknown. Gender identity currently plays no role at all, other than in the limited exceptions we have carved out from the default rule (e.g. Bridget with trans flags).