I've been looking at some of the forums about trans characters, and as a trans woman, I do understand the need to keep it to TWYS, even if it's nowhere near as streamlined as I'd like to see. That being said, I have art of my main character/fursona, who is also trans herself, and she's seen leaning on a trans flag in one image and has a trans flag in the background of another. She's the only character in each image. Would that qualify for visibly_trans or no? My main reason for asking is also because, as it stands, most of the art using that tag are trans men with top surgery scars.

I'm also looking around to see if there's any way to realistically indicate mtf bottom surgery scarring in the art rather than use some other janky method involving the tags themselves. Additionally, it might help to make two different tags for visibly_trans (example: visibly_transfem and visibly_transmasc). I also get that this might take a lot of time to implement, so I understand if this isn't feasible, I'm just trying to be helpful about streamlining tagging trans folks. :)

cloaked_sharko said:
she's seen leaning on a trans flag in one image and has a trans flag in the background of another. She's the only character in each image. Would that qualify for visibly_trans or no?

I would say no, by the definition of the visibly_trans wiki

Anyone can wear trans pride colors without being trans, so it wouldn't qualify.

Pretty sure the tags you're asking for are covered by visibly_trans trans_woman_(lore) and visibly_trans trans_man_(lore).

waydence said:
Anyone can wear trans pride colors without being trans, so it wouldn't qualify.

Pretty sure the tags you're asking for are covered by visibly_trans trans_woman_(lore) and visibly_trans trans_man_(lore).

ah, thanks. I wasn't familiar with lore tags.

waydence said:
Pretty sure the tags you're asking for are covered by visibly_trans trans_woman_(lore) and visibly_trans trans_man_(lore).

Is it really "lore" if they're visible in the post?

strikerman said:
Is it really "lore" if they're visible in the post?

Can lore and regular gender tags can coexist? If not, then yeah, visibly_trans needs expansion.

I have also heard the suggestion that gender, in general, should be entirely lore tags, but I get why that's not exactly feasible since it would likely take a really really long time to implement.

The idea was that since there's no good way to discern trans people visibly, a character's gender would be in the lore tags, basically making it so that the artist is the one who determines a character's gender rather than the viewers or the bots (if there are any for that) while still keeping the distinction between the (theoretical) female_(lore) tag, the (also theoretical) gynomorph_(lore) tag and the trans_woman_(lore) tag. Or create separate gender tags entirely like how it is done with species.

Yeah what we're tagging under TWYS is actually sex characteristics, not gender. Have anyone ever brought this up?

cloaked_sharko said:
...I have art of my main character/fursona, who is also trans herself, and she's seen leaning on a trans flag in one image and has a trans flag in the background of another. She's the only character in each image. Would that qualify for visibly_trans or no?

Though I can see how something like trans_visibility could be useful for trans characters displaying their trans accessories.

cloaked_sharko said:
I have also heard the suggestion that gender, in general, should be entirely lore tags, but I get why that's not exactly feasible since it would likely take a really really long time to implement.

It's also not feasible because no-one wants it. The tags are not there to validate you, they are there to help people both find things they want to see and avoid things they don't. Not everyone is attracted to your genital configuration and that's OK, that's why the blacklist exists. Some people are specifically attracted to it, which is why we have tags like gynomorph (which covers a broader spectrum of otherwise female-looking characters with male genitals) and trans_woman_(lore) (for people who are interested in the backstory).

(If you think this is bad, you should see the shitshow that periodically erupts when artists draw characters that look, but canonically are not, underage.)

cloaked_sharko said:
The idea was that since there's no good way to discern trans people visibly, a character's gender would be in the lore tags, basically making it so that the artist is the one who determines a character's gender rather than the viewers or the bots (if there are any for that) while still keeping the distinction between the (theoretical) female_(lore) tag, the (also theoretical) gynomorph_(lore) tag and the trans_woman_(lore) tag. Or create separate gender tags entirely like how it is done with species.

Neither female_(lore) nor gynomorph_(lore) are theoretical tags - they are both used for examples of characters who appear to be one gender in the image but are canonically another. gynomorph_(lore) and trans_woman_(lore) have distinct meanings, with the former usually implying that the character was simply born looking that way.

Neither female_(lore) nor gynomorph_(lore) are theoretical tags - they are both used for examples of characters who appear to be one gender in the image but are canonically another. gynomorph_(lore) and trans_woman_(lore) have distinct meanings, with the former usually implying that the character was simply born looking that way.

yeah I probably should have checked for the tags lol.

That being said, when I discussed this sort of thing with other trans furries who are familiar with this site, they all agreed that the currently implemented tags, while not intended to validate or invalidate anyone, do invalidate us because of how the whole TWYS system works. There's nothing visual to distinguish a trans character from an intersex character or a cis character in the majority of cases, and what I offered might help with that situation. I may have been among the first to suggest this particular idea in a forum but it is a problem that plenty of people have with this site, so not no-one.

Additionally, many of the posts on these forums talking about this are complaining that there's nothing being done about it rather than offering any suggestions, so I'm at least making an attempt to solve this. However, I will admit that my knowledge about how this site runs is not the best, mainly due to the fact that I'm no programmer, so my ideas may be flawed. I have, however, read a few other forum threads about this sort of problem, and hope to bring something proactive to the table.

Thirdly, while I have my criticisms of how TWYS is being implemented in terms of gender vs sex representation, I understand the need for it in an archival site such as this, and with how huge the site is now, most things involving tags will take a while to implement.

I'm not trying to be inflammatory with this, and I sometimes struggle with tone, so I apologize if anything I've said came across that way.

cloaked_sharko said:
That being said, I have art of my main character/fursona, who is also trans herself, and she's seen leaning on a trans flag in one image and has a trans flag in the background of another. She's the only character in each image. Would that qualify for visibly_trans or no? My main reason for asking is also because, as it stands, most of the art using that tag are trans men with top surgery scars.

Someone already said it, but No because even in the profile pic for you with your character, she looks entirely like a cis gal. A trans flag doesn't really change that because that doesn't always make someone "visibly" trans as of the site's rules. After all there are iirc art of characters who aren't trans with the flag as a support thing instead of it representing them, if that makes sense.

waydence said:
Yeah what we're tagging under TWYS is actually sex characteristics, not gender. Have anyone ever brought this up?

Many times.

magnuseffect said:
Many times.

What was the response?

Edit:

rainbow_shoebill said:
I had gender with your mom last night

Should've guessed

cloaked_sharko said:
Additionally, many of the posts on these forums talking about this are complaining that there's nothing being done about it rather than offering any suggestions, so I'm at least making an attempt to solve this. However, I will admit that my knowledge about how this site runs is not the best, mainly due to the fact that I'm no programmer, so my ideas may be flawed. I have, however, read a few other forum threads about this sort of problem, and hope to bring something proactive to the table.

Programming isn't really relevant anyway. It's a social and maybe philosophical or logical situation. Tags are very simple programming wise and the question has always been 'what tags should we have and exactly how should they be defined, such that we maximize the amount of people who can find what they want and avoid what they don't want'. TWYS can be described as the main principle by which such adequately-specific systems of categorization can be developed.

TWYS looks like it comments on gender because of how certain tags are labelled, but it doesn't. Mod explanations for this inaccurate labeling I've seen have been along the lines of 'we can't call them sex tags because (69, cowgirl_position, vaginal, anal, etc) are sex tags'. I don't consider that a strong argument. The only actual gender tags we have are lore tags.

TWYS does not always work great. However, most non TWYS suggestions blatantly fail to maintain existing searchability/blacklistability. I suspect *lore tags are basically a quarantine zone for 'tags that cannot be made to work well, but some people REALLY want to be able to put them on images.'

As for 'your suggestion', I count three different ideas you've posted and one question that could be interpreted as a suggestion. I suggest being more specific. But for your first question, it seems to me that you might want the *_scar tags listed in visibly_trans wiki.