Sims 4 introduces binders and "top surgery" scars

[BawRamEwe]

I'm an occasional Sims player when the mood hits. And I've just seen their latest update...sims from teenage years upwards can now have top surgery scars and binders.

What The Hell?! Is it just me that finds this incredibly disturbing??! This is a game aimed at teenagers/young people and we have to have this gender ideology crap pushed here as well?

I could roll my eyes and ignore the ridiculous pronoun update they released but when you can now give your characters double mastectomy scars and binders? I don't know why I just find this so disturbing. My 9 year old plays this game FFS.

Ffs. I have no words.

Just to add, the video link is of a transmen giving their opinion on this and they give their opinion so calmly and elogantly than I could.

I'm so fed up of this crap EVERYWHERE.

I don't understand why trans people want to play as trans characters and not just as characters of the opposite sex.

I dunno. The Sims has changed a lot since I used to play it as a kid, but the idea was always that it was reflecting real life and how people are. I don't know if it would be top of my list of things to include, but hopefully by now they've already added possibilities like a better range of hair types and feature shapes, having Sims use a wheelchair or crutches, other disabilities, visual or hearing aids, restricted growth, limb differences, clothing from different cultural backgrounds… people do wear binders and people do get mastectomies for various reasons so reflecting that in The Sims doesn't bother me too much. I don't feel happy about teen sims with these features, though. It depends how it's done as to how I'd feel about it, I think, but on the face of it, trans people exist, so having trans (adult) sims as a possibility in the game makes sense.

Incidentally, it's not a children's game — it's rated PEGI 12 — so I don't think it needs to be made with a 9 year old in mind, and as an adult gamer I dislike this tendency for some parents to complain that games made for teens or adults aren't suitable for their younger kids. But I would agree that a user base aged 12+ is vulnerable to inappropriate messaging about elective cosmetic mastectomy and harmful breast-binding.

I know I contradicted myself a bit there by saying it's not a children's game and that I used to play it as a kid I was actually a teenager, though I'm sure if I was younger I would've been allowed to play it too, because I don't think parents were as aware of the fact video games aren't automatically for children a quarter of a century ago.

Well, does the Sims include sexual abuse? Cutting? Anorexia? There'a a lot of those about in the real world too.

I thought about adding a paragraph on real-life things that The Sims probably shouldn't include, such as why it has rules about which Sim characters can have sex with whom based on age group, but I felt that in the case of adult Sims having visible signs of being trans, that was an inappropriate comparison. As I said, I'm uncomfortable with teen characters having mastectomy scars etc.

I don't believe that an adult character appearing to have had hormonal treatment or surgery, or using restrictive underwear, in order to appear to be more like the opposite sex, is something that is necessarily inappropriate to have in a real-life simulation video game aimed at teens and adults. Adults are allowed to choose to do those things and they're not widely considered something that adults should be prevented from doing or helped to stop, if they're competent and have been properly assessed, and the fact that you've transitioned isn't something that people generally feel ought to be kept private, so e.g. an S&M comparison wouldn't work.

My 9 year old plays this game FFS.

To be fair, on the age thing, it does say 12+

I play Sims but just ignore aspects I'm not interested in using/play. Tbh these days I tend to just like building the houses anyway.

@JarByTheDoor

The Sims has done very little about representing disabilities.

They’ve always had glasses available. This update adds hearing aids and glucose monitors (although they’re purely cosmetic), and that’s it for disability representation.

No wheelchairs, no crutches, no prosthetics, no limb differences, no restricted growth, no stomas. No mastectomy scars available for female sims, only male sims.

The general impression I get is that disability representation, and reflecting that aspect of real life, just isn’t a priority for the developers of the Sims.

I just don't think we do ourselves any favours if we have a kneejerk response and get angry about visibly trans people existing in video games per se. The OP isn't entirely clear to me as to whether the objection is about trans characters in the Sims at all, or specifically that teen characters can have mastectomy scars and binders, which I do think would be inappropriate (especially the surgery). But objecting to players being able to make an adult Sim who's visibly a transman in a 12+ rated game is, IMO, playing into the hands of people who accuse FWRers of things like wanting trans erasure.

In that case Pterry I'd personally be prioritising things a bit differently than they are, though I know wheelchairs and crutches, among other things, would be much more time-consuming to implement than scars because of the extra animations required. I think objection should come from the perspective of why certain groups get to jump the queue when it comes to representation, or from the appropriateness and messaging of the age groups of the characters it's being implemented for.

Unfortunately this seems to mirror real life as far as EID is concerned. Disability is always the least “trendy” of the EID characteristics and not celebrated like the others, certainly at my DC’s schools. I say that as a parent of a disabled child.

I assure you, my "top surgery" scars look nothing like that. They are jagged, inflamed and flabby. As well that they ache and restrict my arm movements. I am going to need further surgery to get arm movement back, which will further disfigure my chest. Maybe SIMS should be showing something closer what is the reality for the majority of people?

It's the fact that they have this option available for teens. I don't care that you can create transgender characters, that has been a feature for a while now. What I do care about is the fact that they seem to think this is suitable for teenagers. It's making light of a serious operation that no child should ever be allowed.

Fair enough Baw — yep, to me, having teen sims with mastectomy scars for gender purposes is condoning that operation on people who aren't old enough, and haven't struggled with their gender for long enough, for them to make a properly informed decision on it, and making it look easy to boot.