Nexus Mods Fine With Bigots Leaving Over Removed Starfield ‘Pronoun’ Mod

Wait, the mod removed the option to set a gender in the character editor? Why don't these people just make a male character and be done with it?
- Because it's not actually about the pronouns. These people aren't actually angry about pronouns.
  They're angry about trans and non-binary people. They're angry that people are growing to accept these people, who they do not think should be accepted. They are angry that a group they don't think is normal, is being accepted as normal.
  
  I don't think it's even about that, they're angry because the want to be angry. The why doesn't matter, if the current right wing outrage du-jour had been... I dunno, left handed people rather than trans people, you'd see all the same people working themselves into a screaming tantrum if a game or movie had a left handed person in it.
  
  And the "replaced white people". And the female leaders. If someone wants a taste, go through the Steam forums for the game. It's a complete deranged mess.
  
  Let's roll it back a bit. There's a bit of a difference between "accepted" and "tolerated". For the most part, the trans community is merely tolerated by the majority of the country.
  
  It's not "about trans and non-binary people," it's about the injection of identity politics into video games. The removal of the mod shows that activist fiat is necessary to present the illusion that people buy into gender ideology.
- They need to force their views on others. If anyone believes what they believe, then they are suddenly just like everyone else instead of the bigot they know they are deep down
  
  They aren’t really forcing their views on anyone though, they’re just jacking themselves off. No nonconforming person is going to download this and inflict it on themselves, and they have no reason to use it themselves unless they’re just really closeted and lack the will to not express their own nonconformity. It can literally only exist to rile people up who sought out the mod specifically, which includes only them.
  
  How does installing a mod on a single player game force views on anyone?
- The crazy thing is how hysterical they're being over something you can fail to even notice is there. It gave me male pronouns as I choose the male body type, and the button prompt to change it is hidden way down at the bottom of the screen. It's literally on screen for a few seconds and then never mentioned again in a game with hundreds of hours gameplay.
  
  Yeah, I'd see reaction videos before I played, and I honestly couldn't find how to change my pronouns for a good 30 seconds.
  God, Bethesda sucks at UI.
- Then they couldn't do their performative outrage, which is all they have.
- Because REEEEEEEEE
- Because they're little fucking babies.
  
  Looking throughout history, aalways have been
- What difference does it make that they don't?
- Does it matter? I have a mod to improve blood splatter, does murder meet your approval?
  
  If someone made a "killing Jews" mod it wouldn't be allowed either.
  Nazis aren't welcome.

To confused people exploring from all Communities trying to understand what the hell is going on:
Bethesda is a game studio who does a decent job of giving people choice to do/be whatever they want in their games. Out of the box they included the option to choose your pronouns in a new game called "Starfield".
They also make it possible to modify their games to make very drastic changes to the player experience.
Nexus is a site that hosts thousands of mods to all sorts of games. People make mods, upload them to Nexus and players download them.
Someone made a mod to remove the option to choose pronouns from Starfield.
Nexus decided they don't want to host this mod. It's hurtful to people and goes against their values of inclusivity.
That's about it. Most of the people whinging about censorship don't even play the game. They're just here to whinge about how the world is moving on from old bigoted ways and they want to stay in the past and be jerks to people for merely existing. If they actually cared, they'd just download the mod from some other site. The mod itself is probably not much bigger than this reply.
- Most of the people whinging about censorship
  To further add on that, to complain about censorship for a mod that LITERALLY censors the game.
  
  In undue fairness, a mod to downgrade nudity or vulgarity would kinda make sense, if someone personally didn't want to see that. (Or if they were concerned about it for streaming. Or they had kids in the room.) For example, there's some racial slur graffiti in Bioshock Infinite that is used for highly effective shock value and characterization, and I could see someone wanting to tone it down.
  The root issue is what's being removed: the abstract possibility of characters being called "him" or "her" independent of their appearance. To people who won't use the feature, it is literally nothing. It simply does not exist beyond a checkbox they'll scroll clean past. The game part of the game will work exactly as they expect, from start to finish.
  They're whining about censorship because the real purpose of this mod is to signal that they're against anyone else having that option.
  They are performatively upset by this trivial separation of character model and branch condition. Because they hate trans people. There is no other possible motivation, because this pointless change is simple and direct.
  This removal is a website telling those bigoted trolls: poop in someone else's yard.
  
  I didnt even think about that lmao
- This is like that old "progressive redneck" meme. I agree with the spirit of what you said but shit that's not how I would say it.
  
  Happens all the time IRL to me. I use both he and she pronouns and ignorant people always ask why bother just pick one. Well, I did, they're my PERSONAL pronouns and I chose both these.
- I'll add that my understanding is that you aren't even prompted to choose a pronoun in-game -- it defaults to one or the other based on your character creation choices, and you can then change it if you want to. It's literally a non-issue.
  
  But, but.... "PRONOUNS! GENDER AMBIGUITY! ARGLE BARGLE CRAZYRANT!!1!one!"
- Good for Nexus
  Happy to continue using their services

Moderation exists to identify and exclude people who are being absolute cocks.
You don't need any grand philosophical statement about values. You don't need to defend the paradox of tolerance against absolutist demands for unrestricted expression. It's perfectly fine to say: you were doing some diet Nazi shit, that's awful, fuck off.
- "but you need to hear BOTH side of the arg-"
  No we don't.
  
  We already heard the terrible arguments for intolerance and don't need to rehash it over and over again in every new piece of media.
  
  In this case the guys who are leaving are literally trying to make one side shut up.

This is all fine and well, but am I the only one a bit concerned about how NexusMods is practically a monopoly in the modding scene? Why does literally every modder have to use a rate-limiting host as a platform, especially when Github exists?
- Well, for one thing, Nexus gives modders a share of ad revenue. Under a different name, I have a mod that's a backend requirement for a big, popular mod, and that nets me a reliable few bucks a month.
  That said, a good portion of the modding community also exists on Gamebanana. If you want BotW, ToTK or Source engine mods, GB is the go-to.
  
  Wait I have a stupid subscription to nexus and idk why I haven't canceled it (used it for one month for some mod back in the day). I use nexus for all mods. Should I keep my sub then because all I care about is modders getting something.
- I mean, github does exist. It looks like people just prefer platforms with a pre-existing community.
  
  Mods uploaded to github does really suck for discoverability though. There's the roguelike Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. The modding scene exists entirely on Github and you'd basically never find them unless you go searching for mods on their Discord channel.
- Steam workshop exists as well, for games that support it.
  
  That's even worse though. Plenty of games (e.g. Stellaris and RimWorld) are also available on platforms like GOG or, ugh, Epic. But if you want to use mods and you bought the game on any platform other than Steam it's fuck you.
  
  There's a couple issues with it. I mean, it's simple for games where you're not using a bunch of mods, but at some point it just becomes excessive. Not to mention that when a mod updates, the mod will automatically update breaking your game sometimes, or when you're trying to play a game, a mod just doesn't update causing it to break the game that way too. There's just a lack of control that's often necessary when modding.
- I don't think that term really applies here. It's not like the barrier to entry for a webservice hosting game modification data is all that high. It's very different from the railway, waterworks and power grid markets.
  Also there are at least the competitors Loverslab, Curseforge, ModMD and Modrinth from the top of my head.
  
  I remember using ModDB back then, I'm shocked that they have never updated their site since then
- That went so well until your proposed alternative was Microsoft.
  
  At least github is easier than the shit that is nexusmods
  Also there are alternatives
  Gitlab.. sourceforge..
  Ive downloaded a lot of mods from sourceforge over the years
  
  I know what Microsoft's general reputation is, but it's undeniable that GitHub has only seen improvements since Microsoft acquired it.
  
  Yeah, an alternative using git would be good probably, but maybe don't use github. Preferably though, it'd be agnostic and just target some git repo anywhere. It'd pull from a description file for the page to ensure a uniform appearance preferably, and it'd show and manage versions from some uniformly named folder on the repo.
- There's also steam workshop. Neither are shining examples of a free modding community. I think nexus mods starting out better and slowly enshittified but I don't know the extent of it.
  
  Nexus hasn't changed much over the years. They just make a new mod tool every few years it feels like lol.
- I think it's just the internet being the internet. Or at least how it's been for awhile. There are big sites that a lot of people crowd to and that becomes the default. Like auctioning things off online. Ebay. That was where everyone went to. Need to order a few different things online? Amazon. Are there other online stores? Plenty. But Amazon is seen as cheap and convenient.
  Nexus mods is just the popular site, but the moders have other options.
- We don't. My ultrawide mods get thousands of downloads and I haven't uploaded a single one to Nexus.
- There's also the Thunder store!
- That's kinda like saying PlanetMinecraft monopolized sharing world's, isn't it?
- There's stuff like Curseforge, but it's only for some games, mostly Minecraft. The problem, if someone considers it a problem, is really that communities for games generally centralize around one site for their mods for the most part, and Nexus has garnered a lot of trust and therefore has more pull/inertia for communities working those things out.
  As for Github, I believe the vast majority of mods have Github pages, but Github itself doesn't really have a UI suited for mod downloaders, and no real incentive to implement one. So sites like Nexus and Curseforge are still a necessity.
  
  https://www.curseforge.com/starfield
  Starfield mods (a few) on Curseforge currently
- I believe modrinth will be expanding to be more than Minecraft mods iirc.
- I was really hoping thunderstore and mod.io would take off more since they seem more platform-agnostic and FOSS-like with their integration with git and versioning (and for some games they have), but people just prefer convenience of nexusmods and steam workshop unfortunately. They just have a bigger community and better discoverability in the end
  
  They have integration with Ready Or Not iirc. MSFS also has far more mods on Flightsim.TO than on Nexus.
- R2Modman and thunderstore.io has grown it's catalogue quite a bit as of late, but it's mostly (don't know if it's entirely or not) unity games. It's my favorite modding platform with features that make sharing modlists for multiplayer a breeze.
- Their rate-limiting isn't bad at all, their integration into everything is excellent, and for games without much of a community Vortex is often the only mod manager. Their API isn't closed down, so Mod Organiser can integrate with Nexus just as well, and they probably would also do it with other mod sites if those ever bothered to set up a version check etc. API. They have an excellent search function.
  In short: They provide a good service. Like the most annoying part about Nexus as a freeloader is the five or what seconds wait before your mod manager picks up the download.
  And, no, their rate limiting really isn't bad. 1.5MB/s for people with adblock, 3MB/s for people without. How often do you download gigabytes worth of mods it's not like they're bullying you into a subscription.
  
  But any rate-limit is worse than no rate-limit. GitHub exists and can provide the same features in a better manner with no limits whatsoever.
- Nexus has the lions share, but only for some games, I had a premium subscription but still found for like half the games I mod that nexus either didn't have a modpage for them or that most modders for that game used other sites to host their mods
- In Curseforge we trust
  
  Not really sure curseforge is better. Its another of those sites with an sketchy bloaty overwolf launcher that makes you jump through hoops to load mods onto a server.
  It's concerningly hard to avoid overwolf in modding
  
  I hope that was snarky because CF has really gone downhill.

Considering their policy doesn't allow for other stuff like this, yeah I am not surprised.
Content that may be generally construed as provocative, divisive, objectionable, discriminatory, or abusive toward any real-world individual or group, may be subject to moderation. This includes but is not limited to content involving politics, race, religion, gender identity, sexuality, or social class. We tolerate content related to real world issues and events as long as the appropriate tag ("Real World Issues") is used and the content is handled in a tasteful, respectful, and non-inflammatory manner. Users who do not wish to see such content should make use of our content blocking feature.
Reminds me of the time when a Spiderman mod removed the VERY few instances of a pride flag in a recreation of NEW YORK CITY and a Skyrim mod that removed any potential gay romances that only occur when wearing a very specific amulet (including a single dead skeleton couple off the beaten path.)
Those got booted as well cause.....come on now. Its blatantly targeting a group of people about their sexuality and gender who have BARELY any presence to begin with in these games.
Starfield is even more egregious as its LITERALLY just a menu option and the rare use in dialogue....
Really pathetic and sad people would even feel the need to make them to begin with. Let alone feel the need to upload them to a platform.

I swear to god, every time i hear about conservatives getting upset about gay and trans rights I'm more convinced it's projection. They want to have the freedom to follow their own preferences but have been taught by someone in their family and/or society that certain preferences are completely unacceptable. Rather than go against the grain, they lean into the hate side of it. "If i can't have that, you sure as hell can't--and if you do, you're gonna pay dearly" seems to be the philosophy. All this because they want to explore their sexuality but they decided the social price is too much. Not allowed to have what they crave, now they just scorn those that are brave enough to face the storm they themselves avoided...or they just hate people having freedom. Probably both.
- It's only anecdotal, but a lot of the people I know who were hateful like that while growing up actually did come out as LGBTQ+. Some were trans, some were gay, some were bi, etc.
  Some of them are just a-holes though. One dude complained about a gay classmate. He never liked it when I asked him why he was thinking about what the other guy was doing with his bits so much. I've always thouht it was a fair question. I never did get an answer, though.
- You're overthinking it.
  Conservatives don't believe things. Conservatives believe people.
  Their stated ideals are ad-hoc justifications. All that has ever mattered is ingroup loyalty. Reality itself is defined by interpersonal trust. What's true today is simply dictated by people above you in The Hierarchy, and your job is to make whatever mouth noises justify them. If they weren't right and better and handsome then obviously they wouldn't belong in that high position. It is impossible for someone to simply be wrong. That would require an objective means of evaluating claims. In their worldview, that is not what claims are for.
  This constant quest for logical explanations is a category error. Logic is not what they're doing. They think the whole world runs on who-says. Like if they get their guy to be the head scientist, he could make the sun go around the Earth.
  
  Conservatives don’t believe things. Conservatives believe people.
  This is kind of deep. Feels true. Did you come up with this?
  
  I don’t think your idea precludes the idea conservatives are bitter about their own self-repression. The social cost of exploration being too high is flip side of the strict adherence to hierarchy for world view. If there wasn’t some emotion to tap into the narrative wouldn’t land nearly as well as it has
- The thing is it's only just tangentially related to trans rights. I mean they're making a character creation screen and they do need to know what pronouns to refer to the character as in game dialog as the player is playing it. So they need to know that for the game to work.
  These fools seem to want Bethesda to add logic to restrict the pronouns on the character creation screen. So it's not that they're angry that Bethesda made an effort to be inclusive. They're angry that Bethesda didn't put in an effort to explicitly exclude trans people.
  That and I think they're just generally triggered over the word "pronoun." Triggered by words that describe words. There's something very wrong with these people.
- Whenever you hear a conservative complaining about anything at all, it's always projection/admission or both.
  "They're rigging the elections,"
  "They're gonna riot if Biden doesn't win,"
  "They're running pedophile rings under their favorite pizza parlor,"
  I could go on.
- I think they want what trans, gay, lesbians, etc have. In terms of resources, jobs, money, social contacts and status. So, just like it happened with religion, they highlight the difference between you and them. Tribes created. Now it's a Us against Them where them are different, so not human, inferior. If they are not human we can do whatever we want to them. And the rights start to be eroded. People arrested. We can go further down the line but you know what happens next. The Them get eliminated and the Us get the resources. We've seen this happen for ages.
- Have you read Terry Pratchetts book Thud? It touches on that briefly. For what its worth i agree with you. Nothing else makes sense. Especially when so many vocal homophobes get caught having same-sex fun.
- People will eventually stop giving a fuck. This same shit happened in 1954 w/gay people. Gay people started suing and winning, and society moved forward.
  We'll likely see the same thing. Generally, it has to get worse before things get better. Back then, it started when scientists got fed up with getting their buttholes inspected by "security" to make sure they weren't gay today (embellishing a bit here, but the gist is that they got fed up with the constant fear mongering and told the security teams to fuck off).
  I'm sure we'll reach a fever pitch and then someone will tell them to fuck off, as is usual. Then everyone will forget about it, save for some older folks.
  Check out the Lavender Scare: the prosecution of gays and lesbians in the federal goverment by David K Johnson. It's an uplifting book on how social movements get going and how it provides a sea change for society at large, even straight folks, in this case.
  
  To be clear, there's 50 years from 1954 to when gay marriage was first legalized. And 40 years ago, we even thought we were done with the whole abortion debate. Don't even need to get into how long it took for people with Brown skin were legally treated anywhere near equal. BLM was how many years after the Emancipation? And still opposed by people who "want to leave it all well alone". It's a big deal that it takes that long to enact minimal change (considering we have a seated SCOTUS Justice who said we need to reconsider the constitutionality of gay marriage)
  The real problem, perhaps, is everyone coming to the defense of the modder, even here. People saying "just let people do what they do" (see highly upvoted comment here). If the intolerant side "do what they do" and the rest of us get bored or sick of the human rights side, then it takes 50 years, or 100 years, or more to make meaningful change.
  
  Society has moved on to attacking Trans and non-binary people, gays included in this ignorant lot (obviously not all gays).
  People gonna hate what they don't understand or if something makes them uncomfortable.
- Rather than go against the grain, they lean into the hate side of it. “If i can’t have that, you sure as hell can’t–and if you do, you’re gonna pay dearly” seems to be the philosophy.
  Making a game mod that only effects people who choose to install it seems like a poor strategy for achieving that.

- The argument really isn't against pronouns.
  It's against censorship. Why shouldn't I be able to remove that feature from my game if I want to?
  Is it really hurting anyone if I don't want stupid pronouns in my game?
  I'll note that I don't own the game and have never played it. Just an outside observer watching the stupidity.
  
  I can tell you definitively that yes, this debate hurts people. Sending the statement that it's a valid point of view to consider trans people mentally ill (or worse) harms people. If you look at how our existence is being debated and the consequences of that you would have to be very privileged to not see a problem.
  
  NexusMods is a private company with their own conditions for using their services.
  You are not entitled to anything on others’ properties, including your ability to speak.
  There is no freedom of speech here on lemmy.world either for you, they can restrict and block your posts from being seen by others, still their rights to do so.
  
  Is it really hurting anyone if I don’t want stupid pronouns in my game?
  There's pronouns in this sentence.
  
  Dude, I went through character creation and barely noticed the pronoun option was even there. The mod is unnecessary
  
  You can so whatever you want to your installation of the game on your computer. Nexus does not have to host it. No freedoms lost.
  But we all know you're not using the mod, you just want it up to stick it to the libs.
  
  stupid pronouns
  which is stupider, "he" or "she"
  
  How about names. Do you call Muhammad Ali still Cassius Clay? Just because that’s the name he was given at birth. Should people not have the right to change their name? Like it is here in Germany. And what exactly do you consider stupid about the pronouns them or they? I think they (!) are just normal pronouns, aren’t they? And for quite some time they are regularly used to replace single persons, if the gender of that person isn‘t known. I know that because when that started I was totally confused because I had learned different at school in the 70s.
  
  You could, you just can't host it there.
  
  It's not censorship when private groups are doing it. Moreso, I think the entire world has figured out the right answer to the Paradox of Tolerance is intolerance (yes, even censorship).
  There are two reasons said censorship is okay.
  Those who hold to these extreme beliefs are happy to censor the opposing viewpoint whether we censor them or not. They see the idea of trans human rights as unworthy of protection.
  So long as you allow a false belief to spread, there will always be adherents. When it is a harmful belief, that makes even innocent-seeming propagation of that belief genuinely harmful... which by every moral tradition (and most legal ones) is sufficient to override freedom of speech.
  Remember, there is no free speech absolutism where all speech is protected. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying or ignorant. What we're arguing about is whether to draw the line at malicious behavior that is already more harmful than speech many of us are already against.
  And from your "don't want stupid pronouns in my game", you show you've fallen for bullet point #2.
  
  People say Lemmy isn't a hivemind but the reaction to your comment proves that this is not the case.
  I'm pro choice either way. If people want to identify as they, them, it. It's up to them. If people want the option to remove that from their game it's also up to them. Who cares either way.
  
  Share your opinion, get downvoted. Feels just like reddit!

Does anyone even install these mods or do they just exist for people to get outraged at?
- I would imagine a bare handful of people install them.
  There's some number of people who are so angry and stupid that the mere sight of something like an option to choose pronouns fills them with blind, seething rage, so for them, mods like this are essentially QOL improvements.
  More's the pity...
  
  option to choose pronouns fills them with blind, seething rage
  Yeah I was there when BATTLETECH (still dunno why its name has to be so LOUD :P ) launched. Every hatefool was raging about it, apropos of anything or nothing. Try to talk about any part of it and it's "OH YOU MEAN FUCKING PRONOUNWARRIOR?!?!" and a bunch of incoherent senseless bile. There's a sizeable group of people who deeply love being offended, and it's not us (queerfolk/LGBTQIA+/QUILTBAG/GSM/whatever). Like, I'm neck-deep in queer over here and every time I play a game with a pronoun selector at the beginning I promptly forget about it but oohhhh nooo, not these bellends. They somehow think a button at the beginning of the game that matters like three times ever has entirely DESTROYED videogames with LIES and FALLACIES 🙄
  They'd be a joke and an insignificant oddity if they didn't deliberately make messes of everything else (say, going to MWLL/other games, ranting about "pronounwarrior," pretty sure some critters got teamkilled over it...) for no good reason.
  
  I've seen that in videos, but I always assumed it was for show to get their viewers riled up. I honestly can't imagine an actual person doing this on their own, unless they were encouraged to do it by some influencer.
  As in, how many people fire up a game, get mad that pronouns exist, and then search online for a "fix"? I think that number is pretty small.
  But then again, I tend to be pretty careful about distancing myself from bigots.
  
  Small government alpha males scared of having the option to choose he/him as their pronouns
- Mostly the outrage.
- I can see someone with a modlist with 252 mods in it adding one just to max it out, and a plugin like this wouldnt conflict with much.

- Are you sure about this picture? I'm sure that instead of nice cool looking ships most I make are just flying bricks or dicks.
  Errrmmm, disks, I mean disks.
  
  Thatsapenis.jpg

How are these people not seeing that they are actively trying to censor shit with the shyte excuse "keep politics out of my games", and then turn around and yell censorship as soon as people ignore their bigoted crap.
You don't need to answer, it's rhetorical.
- The rhetorical question highlights the complex nature of the debates around modding and game customization. The term "censorship" can indeed be used selectively to further one's viewpoint, whether it's calling for the removal of political elements from games or protesting the removal of a mod.
  However, maybe it's worth considering that people may hold these opinions without necessarily harboring bigoted intentions. The desire to keep politics out of games, for some, might stem from the view that games should be an escape from real-world issues. Conversely, concerns about censorship could arise from a belief in preserving the open nature of modding communities.
  What we're really grappling with is how to balance the broad spectrum of user needs and societal responsibilities. Accusations of bigotry or censorship often serve to shut down dialogue rather than facilitate a nuanced discussion about these complex issues.
  So while your question is rhetorical, it does bring to light the need for more open and honest conversations about the competing values that are in play here.
  
  In my opinion this entire debate is not political at all but is simply made to be a political statement because people don't understand it.
  Having someone forbid the use of cheese in video games because that person doesn't like cheese is just never going to happen. If cheese comes out to be an extreme health hazard like smoking it can become political but if the only argument is "because I don't like it" you are always going to be wrong.
  Your arguing about taste and feelings. There is no point to it, as there is nothing to convince. At that point you are just telling someone their taste or feeling is wrong.
  But for some reason people think they can influence someone else's own feelings about how they feel when they get addressed as their birth gender. And for some reason it is made into a political problem because of how strongly people think they have to have control over this. It doesn't affect them, and the only possible outcome is that a minority will suppress their emotions. There are no competing values in any way.
  I don't like cheese, but you won't hear me bitching about people eating cheese next to me in a restaurant even if I don't like the smell. And you especially won't see me making this political, because that is so incredibly selfish and ignorant that it wouldn't even be something I'd ever consider.

Incredibly petty mod to make in the first place, so Nexus might as well be petty too and remove it.
- Finally, someone who isn't just calling one side stupid and dismissing peoples points.

- A single player offline videogame, even!
- Where do you live, Iran? Also the mod doesn't impinge on your ability to express yourself. Not sure how that relates to being afraid in a game.
  
  This mod "impinge" on NexusMod's rights, it's their private service and they have the right to set conditions on it. One of which, mods cannot remove diversity.
  It's as simple as that. The people can go elsewhere to find the same mod or share it among themselves.
  As for Iran statement, are you serious? There are people getting murdered in USA for even being non-binary. Even "binary" people are getting shot for being inclusive. Like this one https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/21/us/california-pride-flag-shooting/index.html
  
  Let me guess, you don't have any trans friends. Probably don't have any gay friends, either.
  I know no fewer than 5 people who have been physically assaulted over their sexuality or their gender identity. My local pro-LGBTQ church was vandalized by people who left messages about how god hates them.
  You deserve all those downvotes you're complaining about if you really believe that non-binary people in the Western world aren't reasonably afraid to express their gender.
  And as for "how it relates to..a game". Can you imagine being Jewish and a bunch of pro-nazi mods made it to the frontpage of your favorite game? Can you imagine if then everyone started bitching because the site took those hateful mods down?
  Games, as online communities, are used to "innocently" draw people towards extreme beliefs.

Nowadays everything seems newsworthy... I would not be mad about it if Bethesda did not include a pronoun setting, i am not mad someone made a mod to remove said option, i am not mad nexus keeping its sovereignty to decide what they host...
What is everyone mad about? Just let ppl do whatever they do.
- Exactly this. It's a game guys, not real life.
  
  The way you worded this makes it look like you're against pronouns
- I am, like, mildly upset about it being removed, at most. Seems like moderation team is going a bit overboard, deleting something that seems extremely mild.
  
  It does nothing but act as a middle finger toward a threatened minority.
  
  Mind leach above made an extremely good point so I'm just gonna copy paste it.
  Trolls escalate. They keep pushing until they get smacked down, then cry and scream and pretend they've been proven right. Being ignored doesn't just embolden them, it bores them, and tells them they need to get worse to get attention. No matter what happens - no matter what anyone says to them - they get to use it in their stupid little word game.
  The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.
  You have to simply get rid of it, and the sooner, the better.

They finally give you something that controls how people refer to you in their games, and dipshits wanna remove it? This is as close as you're going to get to having characters refer to you as a choice you've taken other than Codsworth and Vasco having like 1000 generic names recorded to use.
- Does it even affect dialogue? The PC is hardly ever referred to with pronouns, actually I can't remember a single line.
  
  I believe it changes enemy barks like "He/She/They shot him!" and maybe a few dialogue lines?
  
  They definitely use your pronouns a lot. It's all they refer to you as, aside from cute nicknames like "Dusty," or "rook" or "renegade." Probably doesn't stand out if you chose your normal pronouns, since they'd just be say he/him or she/her or they/them.
  
  A security officer referred to me as sir in New Atlantis.
- We can't be far from text-to-speech tweaking a ton of voice acting. Might have to pronounce or IPA your custom name, to get an AI voice to nail it... but maybe it's better-off being wrong. There's disarming verisimilitude in schmaltzy NPCs confidently fumbling your character's name. Or if some characters heard it, but haven't seen it, and you catch some mutter 'so that's how it's spelled.'
  Whether that name is Paarthurnax, Heloise, or Ng.
  
  I am just picturing the orc noble who uses words incorrectly/mispronounces shit. Forgot what those are called, but they have similar characters in most of their games. In Starfield, they even called him "Dumbrosky." Dumb Bro ski.
- As someone with a generic name, fuck you!
- I mean, I sorta get it. Identity politics are political and often divisive, and some people don't want it in their escapism.
  It's not a perfect analogy, but if a role-playing game had a mandatory character-selection choice to choose if my character was pro-choice or pro-life, I could see myself mildly resenting it.
  
  Not really a good example. A more apt example is if these people were getting angry that the character creator allowed a player to create a woman, or a person of colour. The game offering you a choice of pronouns is not asking you for a political opinion, it's literally just an option to create a type of character that these people don't think should exist.
  And that's the crux of it, they aren't angry about pronouns, they're angry about trans and non-binary people becoming normalised.
  
  Terrible analogy. It's just turning the binary male / female into non binary body types & pronouns to be more inclusive for those who fall outside the norm on the spectrum of things.
  
  I wouldn't. I mean, I hate Nazis but I don't mind a game where I can choose to play as one (so long as the context makes sense like it's a multiplayer WW2 game or Diso Elysium). It's a fuckin' choice. If you don't like one of the options: Choose a different one.

This is a big deal because it's a Bethesda RPG so you are going to spend 76% of the time in the character creation screen.
- Basically one of the only reasons I played Bethesda games LMAO

I used to have a lot of respect for Az from HeelVsBabyface as a content creator back when he did WoW videos. Many of the fanboys who play Blizzard games dismissed him as a whiny bitch when he complained about issues with the game long before other more respected creators (i.e. Bellular, Asmongold, Sodapoppin, Preach) jumped on the very same 'fuck Blizzard' bandwagon.
Watched him a lot less after he branched away from WoW stuff because his content was more anti-woke and not really of my interest.
His two minute anti-pronoun rant made him look like a clown and was the last straw that made me unsub to his YouTube and unfollow him on X.
What people like Az seem to forget is that Starfield is set hundreds of years in the future. I can understand why a pronoun selection menu would look out of place in a medieval setting like The Elder Scrolls, but not in a game set 300 years in the future.
Also, nobody is forcing you to play as a trans or non-binary character. This is not discrimination against white men as Az pointed out in his nonsensical rant. You can make a white male character that identifies with he/him pronouns and not be placed at a disadvantage in the game.
- Yea, if you create a male looking caracter it will even default to he/him, that rant is just reducles and silly af!
  
  reducles -> ridiculous
- His two minute anti-pronoun rant made him look like a clown and was the last straw that made me unsub to his YouTube and unfollow him on X.
  Part of me wants to have a "NO PRONOUNS" option. Just replace all uses of he/she/they/you/etc with the characters name, no matter how awkward that makes it read. Give Az exactly what Az wishes for.
  No one will ever refer to Az by a pronoun again, Az will simply be Az regardless of if referring to Az in that fashion sounds weird as fuck and not like the way anyone would ever actually talk. But then Az will have to find another issue for Az to complain about, likely that other people are allowed to play as they see fit, even though Az is also allowed to play as Az sees fit.
  
  This calls for everyone else to be aware of this social convention.
  Kinda like someone asking about preferred pronouns.
- The crazy thing is that in TES, people don't know what a UI element is and we can hide it from the NPCs. Everyone wins. Most games don't directly feature bigotry in their content, certainly not TES, so there's no real reason not to include such ab thing.
  
  Most games don’t directly feature bigotry in their content, certainly not TES
  Well. Not real-world bigotry.

I'm fine with it too!
Nexus Mods has had some controversy in the past but they seem generally solid.

Never was so much cared by so many about something so meaningless.
- That really applies on both sides. This is such a nothing issue - it defaults to what you'd expect for a cis character, so you can literally ignore it if you aren't going to play a character whose pronouns and body type do not align.
  But, someone modding their game doesn't effect anyone else playing it, whether that's removing the pronoun selector in Starfield, adding a pronoun selector to Skyrim (even supporting multiple pronouns with different frequencies for each), turning every hold banner in Skyrim into a pride flag, removing pride flags from Spiderman, turning Skyrim dragons into Thomas the Tank Engine, or adding the ability to fuck Skyrim dragons. All of those are mods that exist, BTW.
  To each their own.
  
  And this only makes the claims that "this is not a political statement" more absurd. There may be room to argue that the original decision to let players select their pronouns is not political, but both the mod that removes it and the removal of that mod from Nexus are just pathetic attempts to get back at the other side. Can't get more political than that.

I can get behind the whole: "i'm playing games to escape from the world, stop dragging the real world politics into games" sentiment, but!
I made a trans character in cyberpunk because haha look a penis and boobies, Apparently Diego is now in a gay relationship with Sam...something about Sam and Cora (i find them adoreable, i'm just sad i can't give her all the books i steal) made me prefer them and...well i'm gay it seems lol.
Even more layers to roleplaying yay.
- Gender identity is only political because conservatives made it political. Choice of pronouns shouldn't be political. What gender you are shouldn't be political. These people make it political and then it has to be removed from apolitical discussions. Just like how climate change has been made political, it's not, we're all going to fucking die, that's not political.
- I, for one, am very upset at seeing politics in muh game that includes mercenaries, piracy, loan sharking, corporate espionage, religious extremism, terrorism, war crimes, gang warfare, drug addiction, poverty, shoplifting, mass shootings, genetic engineering, environmentalism, atheism, corruption, philanthropy, smuggling, ..................
- I can get behind the whole: “i’m playing games to escape from the world, stop dragging the real world politics into games” sentiment, but!
  If you're playing games for escapism, play a simple puzzle game, or a racing game, or maybe Minecraft. Flight Simulator. Tetris. Rocket League.
  Any game that attempts to build a believable world is going to get political occasionally, because a believable world has class politics, war, struggles between technology and the natural world, etc. etc. etc. Even a game like Ratchet & Clank doesn't shy away from the politics inherent in its world-building. Truly incredible how "Gamers" have gone from an edgy subculture that reveled in right-wing panic to a seething mass of bloated man-babies who can't even handle being confronted with ideas.
  
  These people would prefer if you use random made up politics in line with the world it is set in.
  Instead of real world politics dragged into a fantasy setting. That's why i can understand their point just because i understand where they come from doesn't mean i agree with it or support them.
  Heck i made a transgender in cyberpunk because i can, a lot can be said about that too. I don't give a damn about what people want, just do it but accept that not everyone is going to like it nor agree with it and if you can't deal with that then do not do it...you are not strong enough to cope with the downsides.

I'm finding it very difficult to phrase this comment. I want to share my thoughts, but I know that if I am perceived as a bigot, everything I say will be seen as something to be defeated rather than understood. But tiptoeing around the subject doesn't convey my meaning any better. So please, give me the benefit of the doubt long enough to hear me out.
I think what nexus is doing here is inappropriate. Mods, by their very existence, give players choice. Even this one: it means players can now choose he or she or to not be asked at all. Nexus, by removing this mod, is exerting what influence they have to eliminate that choice.
Nexus has considerable influence. For many games, particularly Bethesda games, they are seen as the default and complete source of mods. When looking for new mods to install, most people wouldn't bother checking other sites since everything is on nexus. If players aren't aware a mod exists, in other words they are unaware an option exists, that hinders them from making that choice. Also, their vortex mod manager makes installing mods from nexus super simple. By removing the mod from their site, they are making installing the mod at least a little bit more difficult.
I have seen multiple people posit here that removing the mod is fine because it does something so silly and pointless that no one should care about it. But we all care about silly, pointless things from time to time. I have spent days comparing all of the ways of getting unified GTK and QT themes on my desktop to try and get them just right. That was entirely pointless. But I wanted it that way, so I made it that way. I don't have to justify it to anyone, and neither do the users of this mod. Installing the mod will only affect their game, no one else even has to know about it. Nexus' decision does effect other people. They do have to justify themselves. Removing the mod is telling people they must select a pronoun. If it is really so pointless, nexus shouldn't have bothered removing the mod.
People also claim that the political implications made by the mod are dangerous, and must be suppressed. I know you'll roll your eyes at me, but yes: I'm making the free speech argument. It really is important though. If we, as a society and as individuals, accept suppressing speech for it's ideological contents, then we are begging the question: which ideas are ok, and which aren't? The ability to control public discourse is powerful, and highly coveted by anyone who wants to bend society to their will. It has been done before, and we know how horrible the consequences can be. It is incredibly dangerous. Answering that question at all is only justifiable in the face of a comparable danger. Is the idea of not being asked one's pronouns really a comparable danger? Nexus seems to think so.
Of course, free speech also protects Nexus' right to control what they put on their platform. I am not saying they shouldn't have that right. But nexus is a platform, not a person. They position their site not as a place for them to share their own content, but for others to share theirs. Any modification to the contents of their site is a modification to other people's speech, not just Nexus's. They ought to use their capability in this regard responsibly and sparingly. Their actions here are neither.
I thought that others here on Lemmy believed in the same principles I do. That people should have total control over their own software and activities with it. That neither corporations nor governments should take any action to unduly control what they do with their own property. The belief in FOSS and decentralization seemed to go hand in hand with that. But if something like this can make you all turn on those principles, then maybe the resemblance wasn't even skin deep.
- It wasn't removed because of the pronouns though. It was removed because the mod description violated their community policies.
  There are plenty of mods just like it that the site keeps up. Dozens of mods even remove black characters from games, which is way worse. The difference is, those mods don't write long rants about how much they hate minorities and liberals in their descriptions.
  
  To be entirely fair, if it's not the mods content itself, but the description, that got it removed, that should probably be clarified front and center. That's a pretty big shift from the mod being removed based on it's simple existence.
  
  This finally explains it. I was about to write something similar as the comment you are replying to, because it did felt like a totally unnecessary PR stunt of another corporation that only exploits the issue for publicity, and I really hate that.
  But if the mod description was as bad as you say, then removing it was the right move.
  
  It wasn’t removed because of the pronouns though. It was removed because the mod description violated their community policies.
  There are plenty of mods just like it that the site keeps up. Dozens of mods even remove black characters from games, which is way worse. The difference is, those mods don’t write long rants about how much they hate minorities and liberals in their descriptions.
  if that's true then it makes sense
   
  Edit: I just found out about the spider man pride flag removal mod debacle and read the official statement by Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/news/14733
  In regards to the replacement of Pride flags in this game, or any game, our policy is thus: we are for inclusivity, we are for diversity. If we think someone is uploading a mod on our site with the intent to deliberately be against inclusivity and/or diversity then we will take action against it. The same goes for people attempting to troll other users with mods deliberately to cause a rise. For our part, we will endeavour to do a better job of moderating our website to this ethos ourselves.
  We aren't the authority on what users can and cannot mod. Us removing a mod only means it cannot be found at Nexus Mods, nothing more, nothing less. We also note that we are not the only site that has removed this mod from their platform. As a private business, we have a right to choose what content we do and do not want to host on our platform. Respect this right the same way you want respect for your rights.
   
  By Nexus Mods' own words they will take action against anti diversity/inclusivity mods and actively take a stance on what kinds of mods are allowed on Nexus Mods.
  So regardless of what the mod descriptions may or may not have said, it seems Nexus Mods would've deleted this pronoun removal mod as well.
   
  These aren't mods I would've bothered using (and I don't even play these games either) but Nexus Mods trying to police what mods players are allowed to use is pretty shit.
  The great thing about mods is they only affect the people who choose to get them and gives everyone more choices to change games to what they want, and I don't think anyone should try to force what kinds of mods are allowed or not.
  The whole point of modding is that you find something you don't like or think could've been improved in some way, so you change it to your preference.
- Look up the paradox of tolerance.
- I think what nexus is doing here is inappropriate. Mods, by their very existence, give players choice. Even this one: it means players can now choose he or she or to not be asked at all. Nexus, by removing this mod, is exerting what influence they have to eliminate that choice.
  I don't think you're a bigot, but I also think you're off the mark.
  First off, the mod has quite literally zero value. Installing it is more work than ignoring an option during character creation. I constantly ignore options I don't care about during character creation, it really isn't hard. It's hard to interpret the intent of the creator of the mod, as well as its users, as anything else but being out for blood.
  That alone though isn't a reason to remove the mod -- Nexus is full of useless mods. But something neat happens when you do nuke the mod: Bigots come out of the woodwork, you can ban them in one fell stroke, and thereby lessen your moderation load in the long term.
  Last, but not least, the curse of neutrality aka the Nazi bar thing.
  Oh, EDIT:
  Removing the mod is telling people they must select a pronoun. If it is really so pointless, nexus shouldn’t have bothered removing the mod.
  You don't have to select a pronoun. The default will match the phenotype of the body you select.
  
  I am now totally confused as to what is even going on. After reading multiple top level comments, many responses and then reading the article (gasp I know... blasphemy) I can't tell if conservatives are mad about pronouns being an option or not being an option. Many of the comments made it sound like they added pronouns, the way the article is written makes it sound like they removed the ability to choose pronouns.
  So which is it. Who is mad, and why exactly?
  Edit: Okay, maybe I understand now. Someone created a mod that removed pronouns. The place that hosts mod downloads, removed that mod from their list of downloads. Now people are mad it was removed. Do I have that right? If so, my only remaining question is if one were to use the mod, does it mean others not using the mod can't see their pronoun(s)?
- Removing the mod is telling people they must select a pronoun.
  No, it defaults to body type.
  This option is literally nothing to people who don't care - and the people who care enough to dislike it, are assholes. They have their private reasons and their private reasons are bad. Bigotry is not an OK idea. We've had that discussion, it went very predictably, and it has a right answer. We don't need to endlessly litigate whether we've been too harsh about demonstrable bigotry.
  A website saying 'no thank you' to an act of petty bigotry is a non-event. There is no fucking danger in moderation excluding that. That's what moderation... is. That's why we have human beings reviewing stuff, instead of offering an unfiltered pile of everything all the time.
  In this context of moderation: game modifications must successfully and safely do something useful. This fails on two out of three points. It successfully removes a feature. But that feature is easily ignored with no side effects or consequences, and the blindingly obvious motivation behind its removal is overt sexual prejudice. While safe in the sense that it won't brick your computer, it's plainly a threatening message to the people who use this feature - it is dehumanizing. It is treating the possibility of their existence as something intolerable, to be excised. To be physically removed.
  You can still install this stupid mod. It hasn't been erased from reality. It's just not approved on one website with clear rules against exactly that sort of thing. Making bad things harder to do is not some betrayal of your right to make terrible decisions. A lot of things that are possible have barriers for good reasons.
  And none of you grasping at freedom as an excuse to entertain bigotry seem remember - we all have a right to freedom of association. We don't want to deal with that shit. You can't make us, and still pretend you care about choice.
- This mod is taking away a choice though.
  I'm pretty sure the vanilla game has the option to choose pronouns that conform to whatever your feelings about gender are. So choose that option and play the game.
  Why should Nexus devote resources to a mod that removes options from a game? There's no point to this mod for anyone that's of sound mind. The only reason for it's existence is some petty bullshit from people that hate trans people so much they will install a mod in a feeble attempt to feel like they hurt people in some small way.
  
  If the mod just totally skipped character creation and the goal was to just save time, I could see the purpose. But its clearly not there to save anyone time; its just there as an excuse to tirade against certain demographics for existing.
  
  I’m pretty sure the vanilla game has the option to choose pronouns that conform to whatever your feelings about gender are.
  If you're a hardcore heteronormie, congrats, the default behavior of the game conforms with your worldview. Simply choose a male or female body, and don't even touch the pronouns. They're automatically what they're "supposed" to be.
  
  No it's not, you have the choice not to download it it's not forced upon you.
- I mean we already have seen this before with Marvel's SpiderMan pride flag removal mod.
- This is not a place of acceptance. This is a left wing echo chamber. You either tow the narrative or GTFO.
  I think of myself as very moderate. I'm neither supportive of right wing horse shit or the lefts batshit insanity. I'll get downvoted into oblivion every time for pointing out this place being extreme left, or for making any comment that doesn't align strictly with the narrative taking points.
  
  what exactly is the left's batshit insanity in this instance? literally that the game lets you pick your pronouns?
  did you know that fallout: a post-nuclear role playing game (1997) also allowed you to do this? a few other games that have let you do this are fallout 2 (1998), mass effect (2007), fallout 3 (2008), mass effect 2 (2010), skate 3 (2010), the elder scrolls 5: skyrim (2011 and also every year since), mass effect 3 (2013), fallout 4 (2015), sonic forces (2017), mass effect andromeda (2017), cyberpunk 2077 (2020), trackmania 2020 (2020), and literally every other game ever to feature a character creator. if this is batshit insanity, then i can't wait to find out what you think of unions.
  
  Literally enlightened centrism.
  
  I think of myself as very moderate.
  You were wrong.
  
  What narrative talking points? Gay people exist, trans people exists. There's nothing political about that. If you think otherwise you need to adjust thinking of yourself as a moderate.
  
  Depends on the community. I have had reasonable results, but I do have to be extra careful. It probably helps that I'm kind of a stealth leftist.
  
  Dude I thought reddit was leftist and then I came here. Funny thing is I'm a pansy lefty European (believe in social healthcare, UBI and all that good stuff) yet this place is a bit much for me.
- The fact that you wrote that wall of text just to not get attacked speaks volumes of the current state of progressivism in this place, you can't say anything and you are walking on eggshells.
  And you know what? Fuck those dipshits.
  
  And are these "progressives" in the room now? No, they're clearly not. Nobody is attacking him and he's not even being downvoted.
  He wrote the wall of text because he has the self awareness to know that the comment he is writing is functionally identical to what a far-right reactionary "hiding their power level" would write.

Everyone showing up late to go 'well I don't see why they removed it!' --
You are why.
Trolls escalate. They keep pushing until they get smacked down, then cry and scream and pretend they've been proven right. Being ignored doesn't just embolden them, it bores them, and tells them they need to get worse to get attention. No matter what happens - no matter what anyone says to them - they get to use it in their stupid little word game.
The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.
You have to simply get rid of it, and the sooner, the better.
- I understand your point that the behavior surrounding certain mods can escalate and create a toxic environment. In that sense, it's not just the mod in question but the kind of interactions it may foster. However, that leads us into a very slippery slope. If we start removing mods based on what they might encourage rather than what they actually do, where do we draw the line?
  Note that mods can be used for multiple reasons, not all of which are nefarious. Some people may genuinely appreciate the option to customize their experience in a way that the mod allows, without any intention of engaging in toxic behavior.
  Your argument seems to be based on the idea of acting pre-emptively to negate potential harm, which is a valid point. But this can also set a concerning precedent that may affect the open nature of modding communities, by limiting what can and cannot be customized.
  So the question then becomes, how do we balance preventing potential harm with preserving the user's freedom to customize their experience? It's a complicated issue, but one that deserves open dialogue rather than summary judgment.
  
  However, that leads us into a very slippery slope.
  Wrong.
  Next.

Tbh I don't even know why the option even exists. I have 2 days worth of playtime and not once does it go on about pronouns or anything like that. So to me the menu seems completely pointless. If i can recall i also don't think the NPCs have even referred to me as male or he/him. Maybe Bethesda added it last minute or something to try to appeal to a larger group of people idk. I'm just enjoying my spaceship man.
- When you meet Sam & Cora they'll refer to you by your pronoun while they talk about you.
  The whole thing is just to make the character generation non binary, that's it. I don't see why this is such a big deal for some people. I'm a cis male, I select a masculine body type and go with he / him, or maybe they / them, and be done with it. It does nothing but help others feel more included.
  
  Ohhhh. Wow i never noticed that tbh. I was so focused on trying to win sarah over. Never met a more picky person in my life. Now she resides on europa because she bitches every time i steal or a innocent sounding dialog option makes her mad. Sam is cool every ounce and a while he says something about me stealing but it's not as annoying. I've yet to come across cora. I spend so much time in the ship builder.
- I'm not super far in, but I have heard it. The first time I remember hearing it is in the opening act when Lin is telling Barrett about you. Also when Sam talks to the marshal about you in Akila City. I suppose there are only so many opportunities for other characters to talk about you while you're standing right there, but it does pop up, so it's nice to have the option for those moments.
  
  Do people really care what gender the MC is? I just role play as whatever gender the character is.
  If I'm playing Tomb Raider, I am Laura Croft. If I play GTA, I'm CJ or Trevor or whatever. If I'm given a choice, I'll sometimes look up if the gender matters (e.g. in Mount and Blade it can impact relations), and otherwise just pick randomly. When there's a character creation screen, I usually randomize it a few times and get into the game.
  I wouldn't mind role playing as a gay or trans person, though I'd be a little worried about the content because I'm not looking for anything with relationships, I want to wreck monsters and solve puzzles.
- I did notice it when creating my character but the only thing I thought was "Oh hey, cool"
  Edit: I thought you said you didn't notice the option even exists but I'll just leave this here anyways
- It was most likely a Marketing/management decision, just a checkbox to fill to show people they "care".
  
  Or one of the many, many people involved with development suggested it because it applied to them or someone they knew and the decision was made to include it out of respect for the people involved.
  
  Or, maybe, inclusivity is never a bad thing, regardless of your personal level of cynicism. Hate the world all you want, but there are people out there that appreciate and deserve things like this.
  
  Ahh the old "they did the right thing for the wrong reason" argument. Maybe, just maybe, somebody at the company did actually care?

Of course is Kotaku coming with a whole tempest in a teapot over this.
Kotaku is an absolute joke, but that's not new, they are the laughing stock of game journalism for a reason.

I don't see the big deal about the pronoun mods. You have to download and install it. Just don't download the mods.
- It has no reason to exist besides being a middle finger to a queer minority.
  This is a website deciding not to become a Nazi bar.
- By the same token, I don't see a big deal about the pronoun choice. Just choose She/Her or He/Him. You don't have to choose They/Their.
  
  Huh, just considering practicality, how many new characters would one have to create in order to save rather than waste downloading this? Given the time required to download, read, and set up, I’d guess somewhere in the range of 20-30 characters.
  Speedrunners might download a mod to skip setup entirely, not a single option. Of the millions who purchased starfield, perhaps a few dozen might use this ergonomically. Neat.
  
  So what about people who do want to use they/them? Adults could install software like this for their kids and use the mod to deny their kid the right to choose what pronoun they want to use.
  
  Exactly. So whats the big hullabuloo here? Let people mod their single player game the way they want.
  And its not like the player doesn't kill hundreds in a normal play through, pronouns seem like a minor thing in comparison.
  
  It is not a big deal. It doesnt have to be. Its just a small mod with a small change that some people apparently wanted for their experience. They didnt demand to change the game. I dont see problem with choosing pronouns, but I also dont see a problem with changing pointless stuff in your game.
- Just pick your pronouns when you create your character. These are people getting their panties in a twist because they are being reminded that other people can choose different pronouns.
  
  These are people getting their panties in a twist because they are being reminded that other people can choose different pronouns.
  That's nothing new. The vast majority of far-right reactionaries know exactly zero trans people. They're getting upset because a stranger, who exists entirely in their imagination, may have an opinion about their own body that the far-right have not approved as "okay to have".
  Of course, there's probably deeper reasons that they won't say out loud. What if they accidentally find a "man" attractive? What if they have to treat a casual acquaintance with basic human decency?
  The horror.
  
  I'd imagine for some, the problem is being reminded they too can choose. And they've had the option to choose for a long time.
  Honestly, that was my biggest issue the idea of asking other people their pronoun was sort of a trend (at least according to the rightwing media? idk; I've never once seen a person ask another person their pronouns in IRL). For some reason I never wondered why I, as a "cis man", I'd be afraid of such a question (especially since I was the type to like when people mistook me for being gay, so it wasn't like I was afraid of having my "masculinity questioned" or was anti-LGBT).

Internet brain worms
- *tadpoles

problem solved

What difference does it make to anyone that people are doing this in their own game? It's not like this mod takes the option away for everyone. It doesn't. It only effects their own private game they're playing in their own home.

If the primary objective here is to engage in constructive dialogue, then name-calling and overgeneralization serve no purpose and only fuel the fire. The issue at hand has been conflated to be about political affiliations like Republican vs. Democrat, when that's not the core point of discussion at all. We're here to debate the merits and drawbacks of mod removal, not to stereotype one another based on our political leanings or otherwise.
I must point out, albeit reluctantly, that much of the stereotyping and overgeneralizing in this thread seems to be coming from those who are in favor of the mod's removal. This does little to advance a constructive conversation and only serves to deepen divisions.
If we're truly interested in finding common ground or at least understanding the other side of the argument, we need to stop dismissing each other's viewpoints out of hand. Only through respectful and open discussion can we hope to reach a resolution that considers the full complexity of the issue.

Oh lord what a bunch of cringe. Who fucking cares? About any of this? There's so much awful shit in the world and so many people spending their time worrying about the absolute nothing issues of the world.

Sorry this is stupid all round. People are stupid for getting annoyed that you can set pronouns in a game, but Nexus are stupid for removing the mod that allows players the ability to if THEY wish to choose so.
Nexus just hosts the mod, if anybody is offended they could just not download it.
- Hosting implies complacency. They have to draw a line somewhere, and the longer they wait, the harder it becomes. This was obviously a bigoted mod, and even though it could be considered "harmless" to leave up, it leaves the door open for further mods. These bigots will not stop slowly eroding away features they think are "woke", and they will only get worse and more egregious. Stopping them now, letting them know it's not acceptable behavior, is the only way to end it.
  
  We can play the slippery slope game both ways. You say: if you dont remove a harmless mod, then bigots will start adding harmful mods.
  I say: if we let moderators remove harmless mods because of their political ideology, they will start removing more and more mods that are not made by bigots, but disagree with moderators politics. Like for example, if player wants to play as a billionaire and exploit poor workers.
  How about instead of playing the slippery slope, we just deal with actual harmful mod as they come. I mean, ffs, there is a mod that lets you kill children in Skyrim. Is removing pronoun selector really worse than that?
  
  Hey bud, don't tell me how I should play the game I spent my hard earned money on. If I want to remove a certain feature I don't like, you and I both should have the freedom to do so.

Rule of thumb - if there are two sides to the issue, but one side is only supported by heartless idiots, and these heartless idiots happen to be identified with the political camp you oppose - then it's a political issue.

Look I've got no skin in the game here, what's wrong with having a mod that removes a selector in a character creation screen?
I get that some people are upset if they get misgendered or whatever (as I would be...my chosen pronouns just happen to line up with what everyone assumes they are...comfy living) but is it really necessary to force everyone to have a pronoun selection option if they don't want a pronoun selection option? You're not going to make someone blinded by hate see any clearer by forcing them to do something that only affects them.
Edit: I'm sorry if my questioning hurt some folks, that wasn't my intention. I couldn't see what the big deal was, but thanks to those who made the effort to engage with me, I have a more informed view and I can appreciate why the mod was removed and why its existence was upsetting.
- Thank you, i hadn't heard of this before.
- The Headline isn't everything that's going on.
  This is not the first time something like this happened, some months back someone upload a mod that removed all rainbow flags from the spiderman game. Im guessing its the exact same thing like the last time: Someone made a new account to upload a mod that was only made to spark controversy. The mod itself didn't matter, the author is just a troll that wanted a reaction from this. They knew they would get banned so they made a new account. Nexus has the same stance on this as last time: they don't platform trolls so they removed it. It's not about the mod, it's about the authors intentions, which are to harm the platform
  
  Makes sense. And what I didn't state in my message but I equally believe, is that Nexus can host (or not) wtf they like. Within reason of course.
- What's wrong with having a mod that removes the skin color selector? I get people care about race and stuff, but is it really necessary to force everyone to have a skin colour selection option if they don't want a skin colour selection option? You're not going to make a racist see clearer by forcing them to do something that only affects them.
  You have it in your own question. It is hateful. It was made by the hateful for the hateful to perpetuate a hateful idea. You might even call it a kind of hate speech, which probably means it violate Nexus's terms. Even if it doesn't, it's icky af. And Nexus is entirely in their right to refuse hosting it. The nod creator is still free to use their own mod and share it in other ways, but Nexus should not be forced to host it.
  
  Thanks for the reply. Some food for thought.
- Noones forcing anyone. The creator can upload the mod elsewhere. Nexus doesn't subscribe to bigotry and won't platform it.
  
  Yeah I agree, but forgot to mention that in my comment.
- Was going to comment the same. How is this mod hurting anyone? Isnt this the point of modding, to tweak it a little bit to suit your tastes? Its not like its a rape or child molesting mod. Those things should get deleted. But this? Such a petty thing to do.
  
  Imagine there was a group of people in your school, in your workplace, in your city who for some reason feel that Kazakhspy should not exist. They're not allowed to kill you, that's against the law, but they would if they could. Instead, they say fuck Kazakhspy, go kill yourself Kazakhspy, I can't stand you Kazakhspy. Hearing that kind of thing on a regular basis might be a little hurtful. Now imagine some game studio heard about this and thought hey, let's include Kazakhspy in our game. And then that group in your community was like "what the fuck is this! I hate Kazakhspy and now they're shoving Kazakhspy down my throat in a videogame? I will not stand for this." And goes through the effort of making a mod to remove you from the game and puts it on the website. You hear about this and see that it's up there with a few downloads. You might be a little hurt to know some people hate you so much they'll mod a game to spite you just because they don't like your existence. Then the website owner is like, "Wow, this is weirdly hateful and doesn't belong on my website. Let's not perpetuate hate against Kazakhspy."
  That's why. In context it's hurtful to people because the intention of creating it was to hurt people through hate.
  
  If you don't like it go start your mods4bigots site, then you can upload anything you want to suit your "tastes".

Let the people who play the game decide if a mod is worth downloading or not. Stop expecting corporations to manage your head for you.

So there was a modification that remove pronouns, and they removed it, because it was "bigoted"...?
I'm so very confused as to what's happening here...
Why would a "bigot" make a mod like that, and why would anyone care?
- Your either baiting, or you haven't really been paying attention to the culture war taking place in North America.
  
  No I'm just legitimately confused about why anyone would do that or why anyone would care that they did.
  
  The part that confuses me a bit is that it's a mod that removes functionality from a single player game. Usually features get added, not removed. When something is removed it's usually to improve stability or performance. Or to rebalance the gameplay. This change falls into none of these categories.
  Well I guess if the mod author did it to garner attention or make a point he/she/they succeeded.

Censorship is censorship; I mean, it's their right, but it still stinks. One day they can/will remove all sexual mods for being too misogynistic, etc.
Basically, fuck people crying over pronounces and fuck Nexus Mods.
- Are you a centrist by any chance?
  
  Yeah, probably :/

Well they're fine with murder but not removing the pronoun selector? Odd mentality.
Wonder what they're going to ban next.
- Well they’re fine with murder but not removing the pronoun selector? Odd mentality.
  Said the person arguing in favour of removing the pronoun selector, but not arguing that they should remove the murder.
  Keep clutching those pearls Karen.
- Murder?
  Edit: wait, do you just mean the concept of murder in video games?

Personally they should just make an offensive section and let them put them there
- Why let a tumor fester
  
  I just like freedom of speech and expression by having them in its own section you would have to seek them out rather than appear in new
- Bash.org used to have a "worst of" section, for the lowest-voted quotes. It was mostly racist garbage. At some point the worst went something like, 'that's where black people belong: back of the bus, bottom of Bash.'
  They nuked that shit shortly after, because why the fuck would you want that on your server?

I dont know who is the most pathetic group here, if nexus mods for taking down a dumb harmless mod for ridiculous reasons or the moders that made a mod that takes out a dumb harmeles feature for ridiculous reasons. Nexus mods sucks either way and the mod devs suck too.

Another reason for not piling everything onto Nexus mods, their site, their rules unfortunately.
- I’m fine with you leaving too.
  
  Cool but I'm pretty sure they didn't ask you

Removing the mod is imposing a political viewpoint, and it's also completely performative. Why should NexusMods care if the mod exists? Everybody mods their games at their own consent.
No non-conforming people were protected by this move.
- No non-conforming people were protected by this move.
  By taking this down, NexusMods communicated that they care about non-conforming people far more than if they had just said it. They are creating an environment where bigotry is removed rather than accepted. Nobody is saying you can't be a bigot in private with your game, we are saying if you're going to be a bigot we don't want you to do it here with us because we care about the people you are excluding/hurting.
  
  Rejecting gender ideology isn't bigotry. Removing it from a game where its present also isn't bigotry. Removing the mod is just performative slacktivism and does nothing to help anyone.
- Rejecting bigotry is not supposed to be a political viewpoint.
  Addendum: "YourContentSucks" just went through my profile and downvoted everything lol what a cuck A2: Actually now that I think of it the username does kind of check out
  
  What rock did you sleep under? It’s ALWAYS been a political viewpoint.
  
  Rejecting gender ideology isn't bigotry. Also, like I said, nobody installs mods they don't want. It literally affects zero people who don't want it to affect them.
- Nexus mods has no responsibility to host an asshole's dickery on their servers.
  No one was benefited by your comment.
  
  True, but the act does show everybody that they are political activists. Either that, or they're afraid of the left. Either way, it's worth pointing out. It carves out a space for competition.
- If 'trans people exist' is a political viewpoint, it's the kind that only monsters disagree with.
  Some questions have a right answer.
- This has literally nothing to do with politics
  
  It's literally gender ideology politics. Outside of that, there is zero reason to take down the mod. It harms nobody. It doesn't even violate their own TOS.
- Because the mod itself is intended as a form of political grandstanding. So that bigots can download it thousands of times and then hold it up and say 'look how many people are modding the woke out of BG3' in an attempt to discourage inclusive content in other titles.
  
  Well, sure. Lots of people don't want woke garbage in their games. When it tops the download list the number of people who reject gender ideology is revealed. That's the real problem with it. It scares the shit out of the left because it breaks the illusion of social acceptance the left fights so ferociously to maintain by force and fiat.
- Bigroty is not a political opinion. It's just hate.
  
  Bigotry is a political opinion, but the idea that all political opinions deserve identical respect is really dumb.
  Some people's ideas are bad, actually. It is fine and good to tell them where to shove it.
  The kneejerk demand for "civility" confuses polite responses for appropriate responses. Some people are monsters. Some people need to hear, "fuck off." That is the correct attitude for a worrying number of online interactions, and if moderators won't step up and proactively remove the bigoted propagandist time-vampires who deserve it, the least they can do is stay out of the way. 'What you chose to say is fucking awful' cannot possibly be more of a personal attack than being told 'everyone like you is inherently broken.'