• SaraTonin@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Just checked Outer Wilds, which is deemed „slighly woke“ because the race of aliens to which you belong all use they/them pronouns. They do note that the race of aliens you‘re studying all use he/him/she/her pronouns.

    Here‘s the thing - your race has evolved from amphibians. Hermaphroditism and spontaneous sex-change is a well-established trait in some species of amphibians. The other race are mammals, where such examples are much rarer.

    For it to actually be a „woke“ thing, rather than world-building, you‘d have to have one of the mammals be referred to as „they“. Or, perhaps, one of your race referred to as „he“ or „she“. As it is, it suggests that gender is either non-existent or fluid amongst your species and therefore it makes no sense to use that as an identifier, and gender exists amongst the other species and therefore it does make sense to use that as an identifier.

    And, truthfully, we don‘t know, because other than a couple of references to people „flirting“ with each other (in both species) and you being referred to as „hatchling“ rather than being given a name, sex gender, reproduction, etc. doesn‘t come up at all.