lore-friendly transitioning methods

[JerryBerrry]

Trans and non-heterosexual people exist. Even in FF14, there are tons of non-heteronormative people. There's a male Lalafell who dreams of being held in Raubahn's arms. A gay pair of treasure hunters are the first to unseal the Wanderer's Palace. In Kugane there's a man who falls in love with a stage actor, only to remain attracted when he learns that said stage actor is a man dressed as a woman. Haurchefant is attracted to the Warrior of Light regardless of gender. Mitron and Loghrif are explicitly a lesbian pairing and that attraction continues even after Mitron is reincarnated into a man. Sadu believes she was a man in her past life but owns her life as a woman in the present.

As for the question, aside from Fantasia I don't think any such physical transitioning methods really exist within the context of the main or side stories. The upsetting Doylist standpoint is that this is a conscious choice to avoid pushing away markets that actively frown upon LGBTQ+ characters being in the spotlight. There is the potential to use lifelike glamours to present as your preferred gender or even use transmogrification magicks (i.e. the Toad spell) to transform yourself biologically (though this obviously carries pretty serious risks).

You’re clean looking into something that clearly that doesn’t exist. Do you have any proof yoshi intended to have everything you said, is?

[Hazelx3]

You’re clean looking into something that clearly that doesn’t exist. Do you have any proof yoshi intended to have everything you said, is?

Youre asking for documentation on things that are already shown through character arcs and lore. If you cant look past the surface level dialogue, youre never going to get why people are discussing this in the first place

[Iscah]

And Koko is also there. Honestly all Koko really does in this context is show that Sadu's not a one-off and it also goes the other way; that's nice, but let's not pretend that he is on an equal level to her.

In this specific context, being examples of how Dotharl reincarnated as the other gender talk about themselves and are talked about by others, Koko is every bit as relevant as Sadu because both give the same opportunity to observe how it works. (Plus we'd never have any reason to know Sadu was male in a past life if Koko didn't bring it up, because she never says anything about it herself -- and what little we are told suggests that she has no reason to. She just gets on with being Sadu.)

Additionally, you can't do anything much with a single data point, but if you have two and they're consistent with each other, especially when it's information deliberately given to us to convey an idea, you can tentatively assume they are typical.

[RaionKansen]

Okay so I really need to directly address this again.

Fantasias exist, but that doesn't necessarily make them accessible or viable. The barest evidence we have is that one quest Dawntrail introduced, but that very quest implies them to be extremely fringe, dubiously available, questionably legal, and on some level extremely obscure; there's not enough info to make it clear exactly what kind of obscure, if it's not well believed in or just a complete unknown. That's not a recipe for something that any given trans person can get on a Tuesday, that is black market goods material, that's something only available to someone with the right connections and/or the right money. It's actually a worse answer than any real-world transition methods, because those are all very known, relatively accessible and at least legal to receive, even if you probably have to travel for some of them.

And I have no idea what to say to 'the Ascians probably steal bodies of different genders, therefore transitioning is not a relevant concept'. That's just complete, patent nonsense. How does 'genocidal ghost wizards that you have most likely never seen or heard of can pick whatever bodies they want' matter to a theoretical trans girl in Limsa? Do you think 'Become Deudalaphon' is a valid approach to transitioning?


EDIT: I can tell that most of you are not trans and have no interest in actually thinking about this or hearing out others, rather than just barrelling in and telling trans people that their questions and interests aren't valid. I really hope I don't have to keep explaining this one, but this is just gonna keep happening, isn't it?

Fantasia is definitely much safer than real world transitioning. You're not shortening your life span or drastically increasing your probability of self-arm. That being said, Fantasia literally makes you something else, so its not entirely the same as being trans. There's no in-between state. You were something, and then you become something else.

The point of bringing up Ascians is it provides the closest parallel to someone in the world of eorzea that may have had anywhere close to a concept of gender fluidity. However, its combo'd with them also being terrible people, so....yeah.

Are only trans people allowed to comment? It's not about validation (well, I guess it kind of is for trans people); people are just responding and giving their opinion. Is my opinion not valid? Are you attacking my right to exist??!??!!? /s

[Coletergeist]

The fun part about this, is that you can sort of come up with your own answer to this inquiry. Ignoring replies saying that it just can't be or would be "alien" or "transgender drama" (whatever that means); this is not true. There are many fun and creative ways in which someone can transition in the world of Eorzea. Since there are no descriptions of transitioning that I'm personally aware of in the game in regards to someone that is transgender, you can use what knowledge you have to come up with your own reasons or methods to this. As mentioned, surgery exists as well as other scientific means to be able to successfully transition. We have Garleans and their technology that exists in this world, and Sharlayans with their technology, and even the high-tech Solution Nine. I would be shocked if transitioning for a character that is transgender is not within reason or capabilities within the world of Eorzea, be it scientific or magical or whatever else. In fact, I would think that there would be many more methods to transitioning in the world of Eorzea than irl for obvious reasons. It really doesn't need to be that deep.

If I had to come up with a personal reason for my own character, I would say a mixture of medicine and surgeries (I would say that my character would personally be against fantasia/using magic for transitioning for one reason or another and therefore would come up with other methods for transitioning).

[Arwen2]

Seriously? Wtf? Pride month is over now.

Conversation not for you. Feel free to find a conversation that meets your needs in another thread.

[Arwen2]

Fantasia is definitely much safer than real world transitioning. You're not shortening your life span or drastically increasing your probability of self-arm. That being said, Fantasia literally makes you something else, so its not entirely the same as being trans. There's no in-between state. You were something, and then you become something else.

The point of bringing up Ascians is it provides the closest parallel to someone in the world of eorzea that may have had anywhere close to a concept of gender fluidity. However, its combo'd with them also being terrible people, so....yeah.

Are only trans people allowed to comment? It's not about validation (well, I guess it kind of is for trans people); people are just responding and giving their opinion. Is my opinion not valid? Are you attacking my right to exist??!??!!? /s

Some people need to educate themselves on the topic of transgender care and rights before having any concrete opinion. People should only comment on what they know to be fact as transgender care does not shorten life spans and actually lessens self-harm situations. I am cis gender and feel right at home in this thread, but I will make sure to foster an environment of inclusion here and as nicely as possible ask those of you who come here spreading negativity and incorrect information to please take your conversation to another thread.

[Burmecia]

eorzea's cultures are actually pretty advanced, they just use magic + tech to work out problems we in earth use tech.
even garlean tech is called magitek, and it's expression imitates magic. allag was something even beyond modern eorzea. for situations we on earth try to build robots, they had advanced chrimerical creature production and cloning programs. though they had automatons too, those manekins running amock in deep dungeons.

alchemists might work out some solutions which can be used to hrt like effects, i guess. fantasia has been mentioned. glamours are thing.
i'm not saying there can't be medical researchers on eorzea who couldn't have found out as much about human body and how hormones work as we have on 2020 earth.

though... whole universe where eorzea is located might not work the same way as ours. we are made out of atoms on earth, they are made out of aether in eorzea.
presundered world for sure had magic which could make anguish over someone's physical form plainly irrelevant

[Cleretic]

though... whole universe where eorzea is located might not work the same way as ours. we are made out of atoms on earth, they are made out of aether in eorzea.
presundered world for sure had magic which could make anguish over someone's physical form plainly irrelevant

Some of the crafter and gatherer quests give us pretty solid confirmation that bodies work the way we expect bodies to work in terms of, like, nutrition and biological needs. I get that it's fun to point out what we don't technically have evidence of, but when we have stories about people having what we can identify as jaundice and pica, we can confidently make our real world biological assumptions.

And I will say that while I don't doubt the Ancients' magic would be capable of doing transitioning, I also don't expect them to be in any way societally accepting of it. This is tangential to the point of the thread, but Amaurot is extremely conformist and conservative; I don't think they'd accept the divergence from common thought enough to recognize and sympathize with something like gender dysphoria.

[RaionKansen]

Some people need to educate themselves on the topic of transgender care and rights before having any concrete opinion. People should only comment on what they know to be fact as transgender care does not shorten life spans and actually lessens self-harm situations. I am cis gender and feel right at home in this thread, but I will make sure to foster an environment of inclusion here and as nicely as possible ask those of you who come here spreading negativity and incorrect information to please take your conversation to another thread.

It does shorten life spans. Especially for women transitioning to men. The testosterone causes a lot of damage to the heart. The rates of self-harm also only increase as someone transtions as well. 3-4x more likely than cisgendered individuals just identifying as trans up to 12-13x more likely post-op.

Some people really should educate themselves. Pretending that this information doesn't exist is only hurting people. It is the correct information. Just like how doctors had to stop saying that "hormone blockers" (the medication used to chemically castrate RSOs) had no side affects when they consistently have several, permanent, side effects.

This isn't negativity or hatred or misinformation. You can't pretend to be compassionate or sympathetic if you can't be honest about the risks.