I'm sure most of you (like myself) are exhausted by arguments regarding Tag_What_You_See and genders, but I'm having a couple of tagging conundrums that I would like to have other users' input on.

Before I begin, I want to go on the record as saying that I personally believe genitals and other physical traits are not irrefutable indications of a person's gender or sexual identity. However, I do understand the importance and enjoy the usefulness of TWYS for the intent and purpose of tagging and searching-- even if I don't always agree with it, and that the rule can sometimes be offensively contradictory of what a character owner or artist desires. So the following observations and conjectures I make are based solely on TWYS rules.

If genitals are not visible, are traits of sexual dimorphism the defining indication of a character's gender tag?

There are some traits exclusive to certain sexes of animals. A few examples:

A male lion's mane
The dorsal fins on orcas
The horns on some species of caprines
A peacock and a peahen
Male and female frigate birds
Male and female mallards

This also extends to fantasy species as well. Though unlike real life animals, these are more subjected to change.
Trancy Mick's Nevreans (post #728685, crossdressing male)
The 'female Charr are not cuntboys' discussion and ruling.
Some species of Pokémon (Gen IV and above)

Let's start with:.
post #703980
Male orca, as indicated by the tall dorsal fin. Though a lack of visible genitals mean it can arguably be tagged ambiguous_gender just as well, right?

As per TWYS: if genitals are visible, they override any persuasion of a character's gender as far as tagging is concerned. In consideration of this, the following image is irrefutably female.
post #694405
Mane of a male lion, but physically very-much female.

There are a few images I am a little iffy about, though. Namely because the characters in question are clothed.

post #710970
Peacock, as indicated by the deep blue coloration and tail feathers, but of an extremely effeminate persuasion (breasts, general figure, no bulge or visible male genitals). Confers a female tag, right? Could still very-well be a crossdressing male, as suggested by the traits of male peafowl.

post #710853
Arguably fits the same criteria as the image above, just no breasts and not quite as effeminate. So it gets tagged as a crossdressing male, right?

Could the breasts on the first peacock be fake? There is no clear indication they could be (unlike the peacock in post #710856). If breasts that cannot be proven to be fake are predominantly a feature of females, then what about the following:

post #354015
Male frigatebirds are the ones with the inflatable red chest. This is a bit of a stretch, but could this be a crossdressing male frigate bird inflating his chest as faux breasts?

I want to say that the peacocks and that frigate bird thumb'd above are male, as per sexually dimorphic traits. But two of the images in question are very female in appearance. So, again, I ask: Unless genitals are visible, are traits of sexual dimorphism the defining indication of a character's gender tag?

I would appreciate the input of others. Thank you for your time.

chdgs said:
Things

While I get the idea, it is odd since nothing would stop an artist from drawing a girl lion with a mane or some species with horns. Furry artists don't necessarily follow the rules when trying to make a unique thing.

Kinda of similar to why they don't take the defined traits for male and female pokemon into gender tags. For example, female pikachus ALWAYS have the heart tail

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/2/27/Ayumi_Pikachu.png/250px-Ayumi_Pikachu.png

But that is ignored because nothing would stop an artist from making a male OC pikachu with a heart tail.

Sexual dimorphism genders will lead to assumptions basically. I think so anyways

i go by what i see in a pic and what i know of biology and/or physical anatomy.

if i make mistakes based on that simply because the artist says or thinks otherwise, am i really to blame for not being telepathic and thus not knowing what the artist intended as the gender despite what TWYS shows? (aka not knowing what is commonly referred to as external info)

i still remember one artist using the above as an excuse to issue a take down simply for disagreeing with TWYS. of course this was before the whole "flat-chested female" thing started to replace the cuntboy tag.

those female peacocks are abominations and must be destroyed

CamKitty said:
While I get the idea, it is odd since nothing would stop an artist from drawing a girl lion with a mane or some species with horns. Furry artists don't necessarily follow the rules when trying to make a unique thing.

Kinda of similar to why they don't take the defined traits for male and female pokemon into gender tags. For example, female pikachus ALWAYS have the heart tail

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/thumb/2/27/Ayumi_Pikachu.png/250px-Ayumi_Pikachu.png

But that is ignored because nothing would stop an artist from making a male OC pikachu with a heart tail.

Sexual dimorphism genders will lead to assumptions basically. I think so anyways

Oh, great, you're bringing that up. Could we kindly not bring up that argument? Things were said, mistakes were made, and social skill levels were lost. Let's just leave what happened in Vegas.

treos said:
i go by what i see in a pic and what i know of biology and/or physical anatomy.

if i make mistakes based on that simply because the artist says or thinks otherwise, am i really to blame for not being telepathic and thus not knowing what the artist intended as the gender despite what TWYS shows? (aka not knowing what is commonly referred to as external info)

Since e621 is predominantly a porn site, it makes the most sense to tag genders based on what's visible so users can search for what they want to see. This is why I support TWYS.

If it causes conflict, it is likely due to a contrasting view on the tangibility of gender identity. TWYS can be a difficult subject to address with some artists because, in some circles, genders are intangible-- something you cannot "see"-- and applying a label based on appearance that is contrary to how someone personally identifies is considered extremely offensive.

It is important to note that e621 is not interested in tagging gender identities, only physical genders. It just happens to use established gender labels like male and female (or hermaphrodite, "dickgirl", and "cuntboy" as they are necessary in fantasy).

Knotty_Curls said:
those female peacocks are abominations and must be destroyed

The first one comes off as female to me. Extremely effeminate such that she trounces any notion of her coloration suggests she may actually be male. (I like her either way)
The second one looks more like a crossdressing male. (Which I also like)

On the note of "female peacocks", I speculate that Pavé from Animal Crossing was originally going to be changed to female in western releases, but it was decided to keep him as an effeminate male due to his feathers being a clear indication of actually being male.

I say this because (after Birdo in SMB2) Nintendo has a tendency to change their transgendered male characters to females in international releases. Possibly due to cultural differences regarding transgendered persons (or just Nintendo Of America's general censorship policy). Animal Crossing's Gracie, Saharah, and Vivian from Paper Mario immediately come to mind. But they couldn't give Pavé the same treatment due to the nature of peafowl sexual dimorphism. Granted, Animal Crossing games have also gotten more progressive since the 2001 US release on GameCube.

Squaresoft didn't seem to care as much about such possible stigma when they released Chrono Trigger in the west (1995). If it were a first-party SNES title, I would bet that any dialogue regarding Flea actually being male would've been removed because the in-game sprite and the official artwork totally depict a female.

CamKitty said:
But that is ignored because nothing would stop an artist from making a male OC pikachu with a heart tail.

That's perfectly fine. The maned lioness in my first post (rightfully tagged as female) is an example of how artists certainly can make characters featuring a sexually-dimorphic trait even when the trait is exclusive to the opposite gender of their species.

However, you wouldn't exactly know she was female had it not been for the image clearly indicating such by means of showing her nude. If you crop the image just above the breasts, she takes on the appearance of an effeminate male lion and would be tagged as such because just about everyone knows that a maned lion is indicative of it being male. Such a thing does not happen when you crop most characters from the shoulders up, it often just makes their TWYS gender ambiguous.

Genitals are the major determining factor in gender tags on e621, but not exclusively. Otherwise something like post #711237 would be tagged as ambiguous_gender instead of male just because you cannot see a penis or bulge. And that would be just plain silly.

Assuming a non-anthro Pikachu: Even with the female trait of a heart-shaped tail, TWYS dictates that it will be tagged as male if the character has male genitals. But if a particular instance of the same character had no visible genitals to say otherwise (clothed, back turned towards viewer, or featureless crotch), shouldn't it be tagged as female because of the tail? I would think so.

The orca in my first post is one such case where Tag What You KNOW (using based facts, not "because the artist said so") may determine a gender tag when genitals (or other obvious features) are not visible. The issue there is that not everyone may know male orcas have taller dorsal fins. Just like how not everyone may know female Pikachus have a heart-shaped tail.

The differences between genders is not always as obvious as a lion's mane or a peacock's fanned feathers. It certainly becomes more muddled when anthropomorphism is applies because the human figure alone can often provide a clear indication of which gender tag to use.

But I digress:

I would think is more appropriate to find something like post #710970 and post #354015 in a search for female avians, as they appear more to be females with traits exclusive to males of their species as opposed to crossdressing/transgendered males. Though post #710853 is in a bit of a gray area in that regard.

So, I guess the answer to my question highlighted in yellow in the first post is a rather unsatisfactory "not always".

The orca in my first post is one such case where Tag What You KNOW (using based facts, not "because the artist said so")

I think we may have to change up the terminology to avoid miscommunication in terms of tagging.

Tag What You See = What you actually see and can tell without external information. Something that would be common for people to know.
Tag What You Heard = What the artist, commissioner, or owners of the characters included say.
Tag What You Know = Actual facts and information, usually on some sort of wikipedia page.

Would this distinction be acceptable for clarifying what is meant?

I'm gonna say it again, I don't like discussing gender and sex, yet I'm always drawn to the debate for some reason... So I'm gonna keep this short.

I don't really have too much trouble with using some sexual dimorphism when tagging, however there are a lot of real organisms expressing this feature, and probably only a handful of these are commonly known. So unless my tired brain somehow skipped that part where it was mentioned, an add on question would be maybe not only what dimorph traits should be recognized but on which organisms. In addition what happens if you add a classical dimorphic feature to an organism that does not normally have that feature?

ShylokVakarian said:
Tag What You Heard = What the artist, commissioner, or owners of the characters included say.

Just a side note, but... Regardless of what to call it to avoid confusion, I thin that the use of that in tagging will never work, unless we implement different tag categories. E.g. if the artist says an apple is a pear should we tag it as a pear? How will the user benefit from that? However in a few select cases it might be interesting, yes.

Just a side note, but... Regardless of what to call it to avoid confusion, I thin that the use of that in tagging will never work, unless we implement different tag categories. E.g. if the artist says an apple is a pear should we tag it as a pear? How will the user benefit from that? However in a few select cases it might be interesting, yes.

I know that TWYH isn't to be used in tagging.