litphoria

Medically speaking, wider shoulders in men and wider hips in women are both considered secondary sexual traits as well.

I think it's fine the way it is, but for the couple times I've seen it used, it was either a mistake, or the profiles REALLY need to add context description to indicate what they mean by 'both'.

I have both with Yasu, but added context to help clarify. I may actually clarify further still.

I don't consider misuse a problem and it's not why this got brought up.

Beards and boobs is one of the combinations people use when they're making fun of trans people in offputting comedy. (It is unfortunate such jokes are made and it would be better if they weren't, but I'll leave that aside.)

We probably have clear examples other than this one to show what the trait is about or for. We should use them. This description is plenty clear. Let's use different plenty clear examples. Either in addition to this to highlight what the trait is about, or instead of this.

(And for my part yeah I could do with more explaining about what this tralt encompasses, because I sure need explanation when someone uses it but I'm also not always sure if I should use it or not.)

Or put differently I want this trait to communicate more than a mental image of characters that get used as the butt of bad jokes. Adding examples would actually do that quite well. And it would help me understand where the trait is appropriate.

Breasts and beards are the two best examples of secondary traits, and make the meaning as clear as possible. But for a feedback to be successfully implemented, it needs a simple alternative solution. an alternative description in this case, that people can support. Right now, even though Lit doesn't permit this, I'd vote against changing this description.

Actually there are plenty of men with breasts. Some of the best binders in the world were initially made for men with that. As for women with hair, many of them show with facial hair when they do have hirsute traits, therefore having beards. So when it comes down to it, all secondary traits are fuzzy. That said, Velus makes a very good point that the current combination falls well onto the offensive side. I know that adam's apples cross the gender line, but simply making the switch to that one part would make a big difference. (As in listing breasts and adam's apples as both).

Also remember that these traits are supposed to capture the norm and the average. Most average men do not have wide hips. Most average women do not have prominant adam's apples or wide shoulders.

There are also people with an animalistic, hairy skin condition called Hypertrichosis. Should we also remove the 'Furry' category entirely? I hate this hypersensitivity. But as has been mentioned, if someone will actually write the new description and propose it, I might endorse it if it makes sense.

A character with both female and male sexual maturity signifiers, such as both a prominent adam's apple and breasts.

A character with both female and male sexual maturity signifiers, such as both narrow hip bones and breasts.

A character with both female and male sexual maturity signifiers, such as both wide hip bones and facial hair

just to name a few. I think either of the original options is fine, though in combination I can see where it causes issues. I know that just with my character, because of the 'squick factor' someone might be fine with mental gender of any, sex of male, female of both, but still has both in secondary as a hard no.

I trust people that need it to understand what a secondary sexual characteristic is.

Sure, and yet I also want to know what 'both' should be used for. We don't have traits/categories with descriptions of "you'll know it if you need it". They all have descriptions of "here, this is what this means, now you know if you should have it, and what it means to search by it." I don't want the examples removed, I want clear examples of more than exactly one combination of features which helps me understand what's going on here and reduces that squick factor of it landing with only "oh, this is about people with boobs and beards".

If it's only used for trans people and people who have breasts and a beard, why don't we have a trait that more clearly flags "this character is trans"? (Leaving aside the "this character has a beard and breasts" which is a bit of a weirdly specific combination to have a whole trait for.)

If we can't find any suitable examples for this category except one exact combination of two specific features, should it (and its trait) really exist? If for every other feature we bring up, one can say "well, that's not really an indicator of both, someone who's female/male can have that just as easily", then what is the trait actually describing? (Nothing?) Can we say more about what that is, so I can understand what this trait is for?

Yasu, those sound like useful cases of what I'd like to see. At this point after hearing the responses I could take or leave those being listed in addition to beard/breasts, but it would be useful to have a couple of examples, e.g.:

A character with both female and male sexual maturity signifiers, such as both narrow hip bones and breasts, or wide hip bones and facial hair.

Well if it is for standard secondary sexual characteristics, then I think the wiki says it all. There may be cases that cross the normal bounds, but then any combination of the standard secondary traits should function as examples. Honestly, I'd be just as happy without this trait, despite using it myself. My character has both from genetics and hormones, but I can voice just as clearly that he presents as male and happens to still contain mammary tissue.

That said if it is going to remain as a trait, I feel like it should have a more clear description. Velus, I like your example a lot. It includes the 'obvious' items, without implying that those are the only characteristics that as possible with this trait.

I actually agree more with, "Do we really need this Category or entire Trait at all?" given the fact that either the characteristics are slight, and no one is searching for someone who has narrow hips, much less narrow hips in combination with any other slight characteristic, like adam's apple. (Though, how in the world have we not added facial hair as a Trait yet?) If we had facial hair Trait, though, anyone could directly indicate the major secondary sexual characteristics. Conceivably, the whole Trait could be removed.

After reading the topic and thinking about it for a while... I would say that it is true that the use of this trait is more or less minimal. I only now noticed that I could (or should) consider setting Both for my character, despite feeling like he is "male enough" to have it set to Male. Seems like only times where using this is actually obvious are very extreme cases?

After some more recent discussions in main channel that touched on this again I've brought up a newer suggestion about what to change this to.