I would imagine that it would require assigning some kind of masculine-feminine value to every character creation trait
Masculine body > presuming male
Feminime body > presuming female
Beard - overwrites body > presuming male (maybe except Dwarves)
What other traits would you concider?
Good point, I think I started fantasising about a more in-deoth character creator like DA:I or Skyrim, that we're certainly not going to get. I got a bit ahead of myself there.
Being trans involves more than just the possibility of being misgendered, and from a writing standpoint having that be the only time a character's transness is recognized would just be disappointing.
I cant honestly imagine anything else ...
But question:
If you would find that disapointing, you surely find curent state, when your character gender identity is stated outside of the world ... and whole world knows, accepts, and calls you acordingly ... at best equaly disapointing, right?
I fo not, and here is why. There are plenty of games where your gender is pretty much purely cosmetic. Characters don't really acknowledge it beyond calling you he or she, sir or madame, etc. It's the bare minimum of female inclusion and I genuinely think that's fine. Being a woman shouldn't automatically require sweeping, intricate changes. People don't complain that your gender doesn't suitably impact reactions in pokemon, for instance. I don't recall Skyrim having especially complex reactions to female vs male players either. I see Larian's current implementation as an admittedly crude version of that. Like I said, I think this sort of inclusion should be the default and exclusion is what should need justification. So while I of course want the current implementation to be polished, I don't find the aesthetic transness anymore disappointing than the aesthetic gender in pokemon or animal crossing.
Now in contrast, imagine if BG3 let you play as a woman and everything else was the same, but the only difference was that every once in a while, some character would sexually harass you, or make a secret comment. Even if you could opt out via options, isn't that dumb? And it says that the only "interesting" difference the writers could come up with between the genders is harassment and demeaning interactions. Or imagine when we play as gnomes or halflings, if the only difference were occasionally being insulted for our heights and that's all. And I stress 'only' here. No extra NPC interactions beyond that, no story reactions beyond that. If npcs misgendering a trans character were a feature alongside other, deeper reactions and character beats, then I'm all for it. And we do get minor little differences for gender that are more in depth than that anyway, like female drow getting to basically pull rank with that petrified drow wizard to get him to give us his crystal thing. That's a thoughtful interaction that shows they considered the setting and the more complex ways our character might interact with it. But trying to represent the trans experience and just reducing it to being misgendered borders on being insulting in my opinion.
I think the best way I can define the difference is: with the current implementation, Larian isn't trying to tell a trans story, they're trying to tell a fantasy story and give trans people more explicit inclusion in that story. With your suggestion, Larian would be trying to tell a trans story and telling a boring, tedious, low-effort one that reduces being trans to one sort of interaction, as opposed to the myriad story possibilities that could emerge.
