Going through the pics of Dracojeff I noticed that someone (https://e621.net/users/1382151) has recently removed almost all trans_(lore) tags and added male_(lore) or female_(lore) to a lot of posts.
There was this discussion in the forum post 'Rivet and Trans Tagging', but I didn't follow it for very long. Did the meaning of male_(lore)/female_(lore) change, because of that or did the user misinterpret the tags?
As fas I remember male_(lore) for example meant 'You know/the artist says the characters is male, but you can't really tell (because of a simplified art-style, they just look ambigious, etc.)' while trans_man_(lore) meant 'Character identifies as male'.

Phyco is a character who was born male, identifies as a man but after cosmetic surgery looks like/has the body of a woman, using trans_man_(lore) for him a trans man really does not fit (and his wife llanalu is the inverse case). his case is similar to pb_(theycallhimcake), who we also tag as male_(lore) without trans tags.

Originally when the tags were first made, it was intended for characters that were intended to look like the given sex in an image when TWYS caused them to be tagged differently. e.g. a character the artist intends to be herm, but in different pictures you see different sets of genitals; only a penis and breasts in one image for gynomorph, only breasts in another image for female, neck up in another for ambiguous_gender, and the full monty in another for herm; such a character would be tagged herm_(lore) (if not also tagged herm) so we know they're intended to be that. This was how it was described with a similar example around the time the lore tags were being added.

But the wikis then included wording that the tags also apply when a character identifies as the given sex regardless of what they're intended to look like, making the tag used for two separate things and thus not reliable for either.

watsit said:
But the wikis then included wording that the tags also apply when a character identifies as the given sex regardless of what they're intended to look like, making the tag used for two separate things and thus not reliable for either.

I mean, in all honesty, with the way gender lore tags function they aren't particularly reliable in any case. since they're only applicable when there's some kind of conflict of visuals and lore their function is kinda limited; the main function of the tags really is just having them show up on the post.

sipothac said:
I mean, in all honesty, with the way gender lore tags function they aren't particularly reliable in any case. since they're only applicable when there's some kind of conflict of visuals and lore their function is kinda limited; the main function of the tags really is just having them show up on the post.

Yeah you can't use male_(lore) to find all characters that are or intended to be male, but you could look at a character tagged as a ambiguous_gender, see male_(lore), and make the logical conclusion the character is intended to be male (such that if you look for other pictures of the character, you won't be surprised to find a penis on them). This was the utility they were meant to have. But with the extraneous definition, you can't be sure of that anymore either; they could just as well have anything down there and identify as male, or a penis down there and identify as anything, and the tag would be valid either way. It doesn't even convey artist intent or canon, since it doesn't indicate what aspect it's referring to.

Taking Phyco as an example, if they were depicted in a way that was tagged ambiguous_gender, it would be valid to tag both female_(lore) and male_(lore) at the same time for the same character, both for different reasons and no way to know which for what.

I sometimes tag oatchi_(pikmin) as male_(lore) instead of male because he looks ambiguous, but I’m unsure if it’s something I should do

demonthedarkhound said:
Going through the pics of Dracojeff I noticed that someone (https://e621.net/users/1382151) has recently removed almost all trans_(lore) tags and added male_(lore) or female_(lore) to a lot of posts.
There was this discussion in the forum post 'Rivet and Trans Tagging', but I didn't follow it for very long. Did the meaning of male_(lore)/female_(lore) change, because of that or did the user misinterpret the tags?
As fas I remember male_(lore) for example meant 'You know/the artist says the characters is male, but you can't really tell (because of a simplified art-style, they just look ambigious, etc.)' while trans_man_(lore) meant 'Character identifies as male'.

I've seen male_(lore)/female_lore misused more than a few times, when there are characters that are clearly male or female and don't need the tag. I think it's just the product of tag stuffing and not knowing what they mean.

in any case I just really do not think we should tag a character who is amab, idenifies as man, and also seems to be fully comfortable in the body he has as trans_(lore), it just does not make sense to me.

sipothac said:
in any case I just really do not think we should tag a character who is amab, idenifies as man, and also seems to be fully comfortable in the body he has as trans_(lore), it just does not make sense to me.

Perhaps we should tag what we see and not worry about them having been a different sex prior to a gender_transformation in their past, much like how we tag a character as their apparent species and not worry about them having been a different species prior to a species_transformation in their past (we wouldn't tag post #3482306 as human_(lore), if such a tag also meant "a character that is human but can't be tagged human"). Or have a tag for a character that has had their sex/species/form changed "in lore" as opposed to a *_crossgender or alternate_* depiction. Essentially a "long after gender/species/form transformation" tag. Either way, I don't think abusing the sex lore tags, by giving them two disparate definitions, is the way to go.

watsit said:
Perhaps we should tag what we see and not worry about them having been a different sex prior to a gender_transformation in their past...

I mean, in a perfect world the tags functioning like the way you described might be ideal... but, uhh, we are talking about gender tags here, and there are users who get particularly bent out of shape with those being "wrong", which was kinda the problem that the creation of lore tags intended to solve.

sipothac said:
I mean, in a perfect world the tags functioning like the way you described might be ideal... but, uhh, we are talking about gender tags here, and there are users who get particularly bent out of shape with those being "wrong", which was kinda the problem that the creation of lore tags intended to solve.

It was the trans tags that were intended to solve the issue of characters being tagged the wrong gender. The male/female/etc_(lore) tags were there for users that knew a character was intended to be male/herm/female/andromorph/etc but TWYS caused them to be tagged differently (herms being tagged gynomorph when you can't see their pussy, flat-chested females being tagged andromorph when their body is too masculine, andromorphs being tagged male when their body is masculine and you can't see their pussy, etc). As mentioned here:

NotMeNotYou said:
As an example Sonic the Hedgehog is drawn by an artist as a female character instead of a male as per Sega's canon. If we can't see that the character is female under TWYS, but we know the artist intended for Sonic in this case to be female, the lore tag added should be female_(lore) instead.

The tags weren't about gender identity, but "correcting" when the intended sex was different from the visible/TWYS sex.

I do want to point out that, looking through tag edits where +male_(lore) is locked there have been locks for both situations, as well as a statement from admin furrypickle that states this is a valid use case for the gender lore tags.

sipothac said:
Phyco is a character who was born male, identifies as a man but after cosmetic surgery looks like/has the body of a woman, using trans_man_(lore) for him a trans man really does not fit (and his wife llanalu is the inverse case). his case is similar to pb_(theycallhimcake), who we also tag as male_(lore) without trans tags.

A little off-topic, but is Ilanalu really Phyco's wife? I only remember a single picture where this was stated and Phy is visibly drunk in that one, so I don't know if it even counts.
Actually, I don't know if Ilanalu has lore at all.

demonthedarkhound said:
A little off-topic, but is Ilanalu really Phyco's wife? I only remember a single picture where this was stated and Phy is visibly drunk in that one, so I don't know if it even counts.
Actually, I don't know if Ilanalu has lore at all.

they've been stated to be at least a couple in the shared description of the TF drive images that acted as her introduction as a character as well as the additional description that series' epilogue image got, Phyco also has a photo of Llanalu with "I love you!!" written on taped to his mirror as seen here, and the description of the post you linked also calls her Phyco's "bara-wife".