Gender / Sexuality

Gender and sexuality is a lot different in Faetalia than what we, as human beings, may be used to. For one, things like ‘cis’ or ‘heteronormativity’ would simply not exist, so please remove those notions from your mind when it comes to this world and the fairies in it. There is no ‘straightness being the norm’, there is no need for a cis man and cis woman coming together in order to make babies, there is no discrimination around any of these things. Homosexuality and transgenderism, or just being explorative with one's gender, is, and has always been, incredibly commonplace in Faetalia.

Gender

Gender is a complicated and tricky subject, and that remains to be the case regardless of what universe we are in. While in Faetalia, we want to avoid things like cisnormativity and even just the notion of “cisgender” altogether, but we don't want to remove the aspects that make trans storylines so impactful and meaningful for people. That being said, there is definitely no “cisgender” norm, and fairies deciding to play around with their gender expression and identity is entirely normal and respected. Transphobia is Not a thing in Faetalia, but there can still be complicated feelings around such a thing like gender that can still lead into interesting trans storylines without needing to play into the misery of transphobia.

In Faetalia, there are biological traits associated with sex that are closely similar to ours, but with room for more fantastical interpretations. And, of course, there is also the possibility of being born intersex. Fairies would be assigned a sex at birth, but not necessarily a gender. That would be largely up to what the fairy’s parents choose until they have the agency to do so themselves. Some parents may decide not to choose at all, giving their child that freedom to make their own decision when the time comes.

As stated previously, though– gender, it’s a tricky subject. Whether meaning to or not, we bring in stereotypes, norms, and ideas from our world into the fiction we create, and thus, a lot of the gender ‘norms’ we are used to are going to carry over. That’s absolutely fine and understandable! While there aren't any restrictive “gender norms”, such as dresses being for women, blue being for boys, makeup for girls, etc., some gendered associations do exist, more like cultural tendencies rather than strict expectations. While certain traits may be more commonly linked to one 'gender', deviation from these associations is entirely normal and never frowned upon by society. Instead, personal expression takes precedence over conformity.

For instance, a mother who sees womanhood through the lens of pink frills and delicate curls may initially dress her daughter in such a way. If that child later rejects those aspects, the mother's reaction would not stem from a belief that femininity requires such things, but rather from a personal sense of loss—an adjustment to the idea that her child’s tastes differ from her own. Oh, I wanted you to like pink and frills because I do…! Now you’re so different. That way, you can still play into that sort of complicated nature of deviating from what your parents have come to expect from you without the reasons stemming from transphobia or strict gender stereotypes.

Similarly, maybe a mother’s view of ‘womanhood’ is entirely different! Maybe she’s grown up super masculine or butch, and thus when she raises a daughter, she instills that presentation onto her. That child could still grow up to realize that’s not for them and deviate from what has been the “norm” in her household/family. Complications could still arise from that! It would just fall more in line with “going against your parents’ expectations”, focusing more on navigating personal growth than overcoming societal oppression.

That way, things such as transitioning can still be a complicated thing for one's character to go through. Change is hard for anyone, even if you know you’re going to be accepted regardless. Deviating from your parents’ expectations, whether it’s not wanting to carry on the family’s legacy of being beekeepers, or just no longer wanting to go by the name they picked out for you, is going to be a challenging thing internally and maybe externally as well.

But ultimately, and I can not stress this enough, transitioning and exploring one’s gender is extremely normal and often celebrated in Faetalia. While it may be a change to get used to, it’s not a negative one. No parents, friends, or any fairy, would be having an outright negative Transphobic reaction to a development like this.

Some parents, after learning their little one would like to transition, may host a party to celebrate this change. Others may go through a process of picking out the best new name together. Some may keep it a lot more lowkey, but still do things to quietly honor this change.

And access to the means of transition is also readily available and accessible in Faetalia. We are very open to creativity in this department as well. HRT potions, surgeries or even just magically altering your body to align more with your ideal presentation. Anything is possible. A fairy could also decide to change nothing but name and pronouns and that would still be awesome. They could change absolutely nothing at all and that would fly. In Faetalia, being a man or woman doesn’t have to be associated with the same norms that it is in the real world. A trans male fairy choosing to keep every traditionally “feminine” aspect about himself could still choose to associate all those aspects with his own masculinity, and that would totally rule. Or maybe, a character still identifies with the gender they were brought up as, but wants to explore other anatomy or presentation. That's awesome too! When it comes to fairies transitioning and gender presentation, the world is really your oyster.

And that doesn’t even begin to cover the vast ways one could explore nonbinary identities, using different/multiple pronouns, and really just all the ways one can explore this aspect of themselves. Plus, identity can often be so fluid. If a fairy decides to change their mind at some point, they can at any time, and that would be just as welcomed and embraced. Fairies have the ability to present and identify any way they’d like without fear, so take advantage of that!

Sexuality

As for sexuality, we begin with largely the same disclaimer. There is no heteronormativity in Faetalia, no expectation that heterosexuality is the default, no belief that reproduction requires a specific pairing of biological sexes, and no assumption that every person must partner with the "opposite" gender.

There is also no rigid expectations that fairies need to find love, or partners, or eventually marry and be with the one! The ways in which love, attraction, romance, sexuality manifests is different for everyone, and those differences are very much respected and valued.

While we, again, understand that it’s only natural to end up projecting things from our world into our fiction, and we are totally open to that, we still implore you to think about these things in ways that acknowledges that homophobia/bigotry isn’t a thing, and homosexual or queer relationships are very commonplace in this world. Repression is an incredibly fun thing to play around with in storylines, but ask yourself– would my character still repress this aspect of themselves if there are multiple royals in queer relationships? Would that still be something that it takes them time to figure out, or would that process be easier? If it does still take longer, why is that? It forces you to get a little more creative with your reasonings.

No fairy is growing up lacking representation. It is all around them, probably making it a lot easier to figure themselves out in that department. However, things like attraction can still be so complicated! Even if you've got the details figured out, that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. And there's still plenty of ways to play around with the complications of that without relying on storylines of oppression.

Maybe your fairy has grown up all their lives thinking they're one thing, and then one day come to realize they're something else. What would it feel like for a fairy, so convinced they're this sexuality, to one day find themselves attracted to someone that seemingly falls outside of the label they've identified with? What then? And this doesn't have to strictly be "they thought they were straight and didn't realize they were gay plotlines", but can extend to other sexualities as well. A character raised by gay dads may come up assuming they're gay too because they were closest to that growing up, only to realize they're not later on. It can go any which way!

Or maybe, despite the representation of sexualities galore, they've set themselves up thinking they've gotta be like this one book character they resonated with when they were five. This character I like likes men, so obviously I do too... not realizing that maybe that's not actually the case until much later.

Perhaps they don't feel romantic or sexual attraction at all, but all their friends do, so they still feel different because of this. They have to seek out community that understands this aspect of themselves. (Which, let us be clear, would also not be hard to come by! Asexuality and aromanticism are also very normal and accepted within Faetalia, just as any other sexuality/identity would be.)

As for babies, and making babies, that process would not require “a biological man and a woman”. We’ve got magic, baby. We’ve got transgenders. We’ve got the ability to do whatever we want! If you want your characters to cast a spell on a flower and poof- baby, there you go. More traditional means also remain an option, but biology doesn’t have to dictate the process. Adam and Eve did not populate Faetalia, a bunch of gay transgender magical fairies did and it’s beautiful.