Sorry I was unclear! The short answer is: if you want to nominate characters fitting any or all of the definitions you listed, we will back you on them being included. That's the rule. Genderqueer characters are allowed. There is no screening for if/how much they do or don't identify as a girl or lesbian or anything else, as long as they don't identify as men.

The longer answer is: any character who is Not Boy is welcome, but we don't want to imply that Not Boy = can/should be considered part of a femslash ship just by automatic default.

What may be helpful is to reiterate how we define femslash: as a relationship between two or more canonically female or genderqueer people. We do not define it as femslash = lesbian (though lesbians are obviously included), though someone who does might feel that a genderneutral character being nominated is misgendering them as female by implication. In that case, we support that and suggest they request/offer other characters they are comfortable nominating and leave those with a different definition of femslash to enjoy their ship.

Hopefully that's clearer, but please let us know if it's not or you have more questions. It may be easier for us to address any concerns about misgendering that you have by dealing with specific scenarios eg. what if someone doesn't use the canon they/them pronouns. The tagsets can be quite broadly multi-fandom and we usually don't know most of them (I don't know any of the characters you've given as examples, for instance), so problems you're used to encountering may be unfamiliar to us.

Diff anon

I was looking forward to this exchange, but I'm beyond tired of exchanges and events that treat women and nb people as interchangeable. It's not fair to either group. NB people aren't basically women just for not being men, and women are their own gender, not some nebulous group of "non-men".

Our intention is not to imply that the groups are interchangeable. The rules for gender pre-date the current mod-team and seem to have worked well for participants for a few rounds now, and that includes the only hard and fast 'not' rule being no male-identified characters. We prefer not to play the gender definition police beyond that.

In addition, gender in fiction can get complicated, even more so than in real life. Taking a broad stance on allowing any ships that don't involve men avoids us as mods having to decide who counts as a woman (what about robots who look female, or characters from a society without gender, or shapeshifters who spend the entire canon looking like a human woman?)

We're not aware of a big AO3 category-style shipping exchange for genderqueer or non-binary characters, and in the absence of such an exchange we prefer to allow people to 'opt-in' for pairings they consider appropriate and might otherwise struggle to find an inclusive space for. If participants who identify as genderqueer or non-binary feel the current rules are inappropriate or offensive to their identity, or such an exchange develops, we're always happy to hear feedback so we can consider making changes for the next round.

Different anon here, staying anon this time because getting my own gender and personal experience involved in namespace is emotionally exhausting:

I'm nonbinary and I've always appreciated your rules and felt welcomed by them. My view on it is not that nonbinary people are "the same as women" but that I would want nonbinary characters to be included as "wildcards" in all types of exchanges. I would want them in f/f, m/m, and f/m exchanges. I feel that the alternative to this is that we'd often be left out entirely or only suitable for gender-neutral exchanges, which is to me an unhappy outcome. It isn't like there are a ton of canonically nonbinary characters, and no one's forcing anyone to request or offer characters they don't want to. I think I supported the previous mod privately for these inclusive rules.

The further reason for this inclusion is that there are a great many ships involving nonbinary characters that are to some degree "femslash" (such as most Steven Universe gem ships) and it would be petty and divisive to exclude them. It would also come as a slap in the face to lesbian-identified nonbinary people like myself. There are some nb-exclusionists who basically think nonbinary people shouldn't have access to any gendered spaces at all, but I don't apologize for using the women's bathrooms or locker rooms when I'm "socially female." If I have to deal with misgendering in life, if I have to deal with mandatory binary gender in a variety of social and legal ways, if I have to deal with misogyny and with homophobia for my relationship with my girlfriend, it is, honestly, petty and cruel to say gendered spaces aren't for me when they would be helpful to me and when I have nothing else.

Lesbians do date nonbinary people. Gay men date nonbinary people, though probably not the same ones--though you never know! Straight people date nonbinary people. In relationships, nonbinary often *is* like a "wildcard." I've found models that assume anyone who dates a nonbinary person is by definition bi to be inaccurate to my experience and the experiences of my friends.

The reason for including all nonbinary characters in good faith instead of just the "female enough" ones, is because it isn't pleasant to have people (who are often not nb themselves) impose artificial categories on nb people as a group, and decide which ones are "really male" or "really female." Hell if I know what such a jury would decide about me if I were a fictional character. I'm bigender, so I don't pass the "not a boy," test, yet I'm AFAB and partially female-identified, so "basically a girl," right? It's unpleasant. I understand that clear, rigid rules are helpful in exchanges, but in queer spaces we're historically allowed blurry gray areas for this exact reason. These lines are drawn through the bodies of the people in our community. It isn't fair or right to ask people to choose half of themselves.

To feralphoenix: not to nitpick, but you listed trans women as "genderqueer characters who are allowed," and that's incorrect. Trans women are not by definition genderqueer or nonbinary, though a trans woman may also identify as genderqueer or nonbinary. Trans women are women, which is a binary gender. Their inclusion is a completely different matter from nonbinary inclusion, though it does set a precedent that a character is not automatically excluded for being AMAB.

I also wish you wouldn't say things like "maybe this should be a girls' only exchange after all" just because you feel you aren't getting exactly what you want. I've been comfortable here for years and that would make me very unhappy.

Mods, I am familiar with all of these characters: Frisk and Chara and the Houseki no Kuni characters. Frisk and Chara canonically have they/them pronouns. There is no textual or creator statement about their genders, but they are consistently referred to with they/them throughout the game, and the game has other they/them-only characters. With Houseki no Kuni, I've only seen the anime so if there's more exploration about their genders in the manga I don't know, but from what I've seen, it was similarly sort of a non-issue, but they appeared to be sexless as well as genderless. The official English subs used they/them, while the Japanese technically did use he/him, it was impossible to avoid some gendering in the register/politeness level they spoke, as well as titles like "big brother" that don't have a gender-neutral equivalent, as much as it's usually easier to vague a gender in Japanese than English. The gendering in that was grammatical, much like the he/him in The Left Hand of Darkness or Earth: Final Conflict, or the she/her in Imperial Radch or arguably Steven Universe. Either they/them or he/him would be canonically correct, but I don't think that in cases like that, where genderless aliens pick a pronoun more or less at random, that it matters much.

It's my opinion that they should be included, not because they're "basically female" but because mods trying to assign nonbinary characters binary genders would be an ugly thing, and because there are so many nonbinary characters who obviously do belong. To other nonbinary people saying they don't like seeing certain characters here, that is your interpretation, but honestly, it isn't your place either to say what "category" nonbinary characters should fall into. As I said, I cringe to think what people would think of me if I were fictional.

I think it would be fair if OP put "Pronouns not used in canon for the characters" as a DNW. To be honest, this can be true of characters who are canonically she/her as well! I have seen people using non-canonical pronouns for Steven Universe and Imperial Radch she/her characters. I don't think it's fair to ask mods to keep track of every character ever's pronouns, but it seems a very fair DNW. If one has a strong opinion on they/them vs. he/him for HnK characters, I don't know what to say, because they're both canonical in different official versions.

Beyond that, you make your signup and you take your chances. If you get a match you hate, defaulting is always an option. If you get a gift you hate, leave a gracious comment and move on. Act in good faith and hope. What else can you do?

One last thing to the mods: you're doing a great job, and if you ever feel between a rock and a hard place because if you say "all nonbinary people are included" someone will accuse you of misgendering, feel free to direct people to this comment. To anyone who feels that inclusion is misgendering: firstly, do not assume that this is the ONLY place nonbinary characters are or should be included, or that that inclusion restrictively defines them. Secondly, picture what a damn mess it would be to have to make modcalls on when nonbinary dynamics are "femslashy enough" considering some are obvious femslash but no one can say exactly where the line blurs. Reminder that the author of Stone Butch Blues, one of the absolute classics of lesbian literature, is a he/him lesbian and pronouns aren't everything, and that nonbinary people have always been part of lesbian and bisexual wlw spaces, not as tokens or as binary women but as members of the community. Gender is so, so complicated, and if you see a character you feel doesn't belong here, don't offer or request them. I hope people will approach this with open minds and empathy and live and let live when they see an experience they don't immediately understand. A hard line on this would inevitably exclude characters who belong, and leave nonbinary wlw-aligned people like myself feeling alienated and hurt. I spent so many years trying to understand my gender, having someone who met me five minutes ago trying to sum it up for me and throw it back in my face is so hurtful. So many people think they're experts on my gender when I barely am, and try to tell me where I do or don't belong. I like that this community has never been one of those places, thank.

I really appreciate your comment! I'm glad that Femslashex has made you feel included, and your thoughts on the current ruleset are helpful for us mods going forward.

Just wanted to second the appreciation for your comment. A lot of your comment reflects my own RL experience of queer female spaces, and it's helpful to know the current rules have been similarly welcoming to some participants. Thank you very much for taking the time!

hfjdskhfjslkjdfs i..................... forgot that i hadn't replied to this yet OOPS, , , , ,

thank you for explaining in more detail! i think the part that's been tripping me up is the "ships you'd be comfortable tagging as femslash" wording because femslash to me very strongly says girl/girl, since it's FEMslash. to continue my own No Boys Allowed metaphor, it feels like i'd have to stuff very Not Boy OR Girl characters into t-shirts labeled GIRL to get them into the sleepover, and that DOES feel like misgendering. :')

i understand that you're trying to be inclusive (and that you got these rules from previous mods), but it really does feel tokeny and it is a little alienating--i can understand why the anon who got here before me was upset! i personally think that a femslash exchange that allows f/nb(/more) and nb/nb(/more) ships too in a "look, the rules are No BOYS Allowed, Not Necessarily Girls Only" spirit is pretty cool, esp in the absence of any big-name nonbinary ship exchanges, but maybe some of the "but you HAVE to label it as femslash" language could be changed in the future?

fwiw, i think your own wording of "That's the rule. Genderqueer characters are allowed. There is no screening for if/how much they do or don't identify as a girl or lesbian or anything else, as long as they don't identify as men." is a good way of explaining the official policy. "we leave things up to the participants" seems a little weakly worded and deliberately vague, and i was very unsure and a bit uncomfortable about it until i got to talk with you and got to understand a little better.


and yeah preventing misgendering w/characters you're not familiar with seems like it would be a BIG headache... speaking of that actually, the suggestion from earlier in the thread was that participants request desired pronouns in our DNWs, but i don't think that will stop other participants requesting the same nonbinary characters from misgendering them in their own prompts/requesting for them to be portrayed as girls. (there's kind of an appalling amount of this kind of transphobia directed at the canon theys in undertale, for instance.) what would you do in a situation like that? would there some way for people nominating characters to preemptively specify what their canon pronouns are?

sorry this is so long lmao, thank you!!

This is an off-the-cuff answer about just the misgendering part of your reply - I'll talk over your suggestions with my comod and consider rewording our rules for the 2019 round

As mods, it would be extremely Labor-intensive to keep track of pronouns for all characters, and AO3's nomination interface doesn't have a method to do so. As a participant, you can specify what you want written (or drawn or vidded) for you; if you're matched to someone who misgenders a character or who you're uncomfortable writing/drawing/vidding for for any other reason, you can default to avoid creating a work for them. We generally don't monitor the contents of people's sign-ups, primarily because we get over a hundred and we're definitely not familiar with some (or even most) of the canons requested

ok, i......... do not think that this is a great policy. allowing people to nominate nonbinary characters in the name of inclusiveness but then saying it's out of your hands if participants misgender them is not inclusive at all. it creates a really hostile and uncomfortable environment for nonbinary participants and anyone who cares about nb rep.

suggesting that participants default if they get assigned to a transphobe effectively penalizes the person defaulting because the defaulter doesn't get to participate/if THEIR gifter defaults they won't get anything, while the transphobe is just going to get reassigned to a pinch hitter who WILL write them something, and may write them something misgendering those characters! a policy like this is effectively punishing people hurt by transphobia while allowing bigotry to slide by without comment.

i understand that trying to figure out a system to keep track of nonbinary characters' canon genders/pronouns can be complicated in the case of fandoms you're not familiar with, and especially cases where characters' genders were changed in translation. and it sucks for you guys because this is a policy that you've inherited from past mods that's a little insufficient in practice and now you have to clean that up!

but... if you want to keep including genderqueer characters you've GOT TO really commit to it and find a way to make sure to the best of your ability that they will be treated by all participants as genderqueer. if you can't or don't want to find a way to do this you might want to reconsider your gender policies and make this a strictly girls-only exchange after all.

FWIW as another nonbinary person, who has been hanging around this exchange since its inception (haven't participated every year, may not participate this year, but I watch it closely for potential requests to treat/fics to read/etc.): I don't really agree!

I get being uncomfortable with the potential for characters to be misgendered - very much so. There are in fact a set of characters who are routinely nominated, requested, and written for this exchange that I don't personally think fit in a femslash exchange, and who actually are sometimes (in my view) misgendered in people's signups/etc. I make a little >:( face every time I see them pop up in this context, even. So I get it. But your proposed answers to this really aren't ideal solutions either.

It's not fair to expect the mods of an exchange to arbitrate the boundaries of "female" or "woman" or "girl" and decide who is female/woman/girl enough to count. That's where the "genderqueer/questioning characters allowed" rule came from initially, IIRC - the original mod team was asked to police those boundaries, and decided that rather than be put in that position, they would assume good faith on the part of the nominators and make "no boys allowed" the rule over "only girls allowed".

Yes, this can be uncomfortable for some people - myself included. Yes, it leaves room for misgendering to happen. But misgendering can happen in any exchange (I've seen it!), and being assigned to create for a transphobe or some other bigot can happen in any exchange (it's happened to me!), and there's no good answer to that problem because either it's "only girls allowed" and the mods have to be the gender police, or it's "no boys allowed" and the mods have to...also gender police, in an even more arduous fashion. Assuming good faith on the part of participants and letting the chips fall where they may generally does work best.

I don't know, this is all a really tl;dr way to say that you're right that saying "participants can determine the character's gender, within reason, and potential misgendering on the part of those participants is outside the scope of the mods' powers" can make things uncomfortable for nonbinary people. Like I said, it has for me! I deal with that by just not requesting or offering those characters during this exchange, which I get isn't a perfect solution, but there is no perfect solution, and at least this one doesn't assign anyone the task of being the ultimate authority on gender identity. Maybe it wouldn't work in an exchange the size of, say, Yuletide, but I personally think it works pretty okay here.

mmm, i think that by nature opening the challenge up to genderqueer characters necessitates opening up a lot of messy conversations and having to get really hands-on with different cases, because gender is messy, and canon vs headcanons is also a conversation that's messy, and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. but i think those are conversations that are worth having to make spaces that are welcoming for all genders. and... personally i think getting hands-on like that is a moderator's job, ESPECIALLY if the challenge is a small one where that's more manageable :')

and anyway, i'm not talking about appointing the mods to decide once and for all what gender is. i'm asking them what they would do about characters who explicitly and unambiguously only ever use they/them pronouns in canon potentially being treated as cis women and only called she/her, and if they can AT LEAST enforce that the canon pronouns are used, even if they're hands-off about exact gender headcanons. as long as that answer is "we will do nothing" my opinion is that this situation is untenable.

Another nonbinary passerby here, and I think it is in fact explicitly not the moderators' job to legislate who does and does not count as a woman for this exchange. Moderators are not familiar with the intricacies of every canon and at the end of the day, this is a fic exchange focusing on femslash. The participants can work out what counts as femslash within vague guidelines. At the end of the day, everyone should end up with some femslash and to have made some femslash, meeting their definition of femslash.

Personally, while I prefer nonbinary Frisk and Chara myself, I think it is entirely reasonable to read them as simply gender: IDK, humans are weird. Monsters don't know what human gender is like. Your opinion and interpretation is not the only possible interpretation. This is very often the case, that there are multiple valid readings of canon, and you're much more likely to exclude people who're affected by these things if you legislate a particular one as the Correct™ one.

Edited 2018-08-17 11:46 pm (UTC)

and you're much more likely to exclude people who're affected by these things if you legislate a particular one as the Correct™ one.

it is very patronizing and also rather cruel to assume that i'm not affected by this issue just because i don't agree with you. i'm speaking up about this specifically because misgendering has hurt me and people that i love directly, and i have had randos getting in my grill misgendering frisk and chara (along with other characters from other fandoms) in my art and writing for years, as far as petty microaggressions go. this involves me and i have a right to be upset by it.

also, speaking as someone who LOVES writing monsters with a distinctly different way of handling gender than humans and is committed to doing so 'til the cows come home................ context clues in canon (i specifically mean the calendars in home & new home) suggest that chara lived underground for at least a year, maybe longer. the idea that over all that time nobody, not even their foster parents, not even their best friend (who they told quite a few very personal secrets to, going by the grave convos), ever bothered to ask chara what they wanted to be called... feels like a bit of a stretch, to put it generously.

They didn't say you weren't affected. They were saying others also affected are more not less likely to be hurt and excluded if mods pick a canon interpretation to enforce. For example if in this case they picked not yours and banned it rather than just let everyone specify how they interpret canon for their own gift.

Unfortunately, I don’t think rules in this area is going to get the result you’re looking for. Keeping track of canon genders/pronouns to enforce may actually make it harder for people to request what they want. To draw on your discussion upthread about Frisk and Chara: it sounds like they have canonic pronouns (they/them) but no canonically confirmed gender identity linked to the use of those pronouns. Relying on a mod-rule in that sort of circumstance wouldn’t prevent you being assigned to someone who (rightly or wrongly) interprets them as a woman using they/them.

Relying on DNWs instead of rules allows participants to be as specific as they want or need, and to compensate for any gaps in canon if they wish to. It’s not so much that we’re saying misgendering is out of our hands. But that the ‘be respectful of other participants likes/dislikes’ rule applies to everyone, including those requesting ambiguous canon or who may disagree with each other. The rules are geared towards allowing every participant to get the gift they want - not that all gifts will be what everyone else wants to read/view or that all requests will be exactly what other people want to write/draw/vid.

What it means for you is that defaulting is your most effective option of last resort, as my co-mod mentioned. Having said that, it’s not your only tool for offers. We also make requests visible now, so you can keep an eye on requests and change your offers if someone has DNWs that conflict with yours.

I realise this probably isn’t the response you’re hoping for, but I just wanted to say we appreciate your feedback and we are definitely listening and considering. Even when rules aren’t changed it helps flag things we need to stay aware of and whether our wording of the existing rules is quite right. I agree with the anonymous commenter above me that there is no perfect solution - hearing from people helps us to continually assess whether this imperfect solution is still the best of the other imperfect options. If anyone else passing by agrees or disagrees that the current rules are achieving that goal, we’re open to hearing as such or people are also welcome to raise it for discussion when we ask for feedback between rounds.

if a character canonically only uses they/them pronouns, or if they're established in-canon as nonbinary/there's word of god establishing them as nonbinary, i don't.......... understand how this is more flexible/ambiguous than a character canonically being male, since trans headcanons for canonically male characters are expressly forbidden in the rules. it's a double standard and i don't feel that there is any good explanation for it.

two defaults in a row mean that someone is banned from participating the next year, no matter what the circumstances are that cause them to default, or when they default. putting the responsibility on the participants to continually stalk requests and change what they wanted to request/offer just in case they get assigned to someone who will hurt them feels really unreasonable! this is what i mean when i say that this policy feels unnecessarily punitive: it's not going to bother the transphobes who like to repurpose canon genderqueer characters as cis women, but it could potentially result in vulnerable people having to leave the challenge because they've been assigned things they can't write. in previous exchanges i've participated in (i'm thinking especially of ladystuck), there was a period directly after assignments where you were allowed to go to the mods to request a reassignment if you were not assigned something you could write, or if you were assigned to a person that you did not feel comfortable writing for. it was definitely more work for the mods but it helped prevent stuff like this from happening. introducing some sort of loophole like that (allowing affected participants to switch to pinch hitting to let them participate again next year, maybe??????????????? i don't know but there has to be something?????????????????????) might be kinder.

(there is also a HUGE difference between permitting fictional content depicting dark subject matter that not everyone might like/be able to handle vs allowing irl bigotry.)

for me this is a paradox of tolerance issue. at least enforcing the use of gender-neutral pronouns where those are canon (in the narrative specifically, to leave room for in-story depictions of transphobia or characters exploring their gender identity; this way DNWs WOULD become an appropriate place for people to specify No Misgendering Please) would be SOMETHING, even if it would still allow the "well, I headcanon this character as a cis woman who uses they/them!" crowd to squeak through on a technicality--because it would be telling people who take a canon nonbinary character/one who only ever uses they/them and saying "well, I headcanon this character as a cis woman who uses she/her!" that that's not okay. this is a significantly bigger deal than "likes and dislikes".

to borrow the words of the other anon who was protesting this policy, i was looking forward to this exchange and wanted to participate in it but i am beyond tired of having to deal with this issue. for me, this is serious enough that i may not be able to participate ever if the status quo remains unchanged.

i do not know how much longer i can keep up this discussion because it is too distressing for me, but i found out about this challenge through some twitter pals who were similarly unsure about how genderqueer characters are treated in the current rules, so i'll go see if they have anything they'd want to add.

allowing affected participants to switch to pinch hitting to let them participate again next year, maybe?

Defaulting once doesn't make you ineligible to participate the next year unless you don't actually hit the default button but don't turn anything in, so this would only be an issue if you were assigned a recipient like this in multiple consecutive years, and in any case I don't think letting people "switch to pinch-hitting" would work all that well because there's no guarantee anything they can write would come up as a pinch-hit.

(This is another quick response from me - I don't have time to address all your points, but i didn't want to leave you hanging.)

If this conversation is hurting you, please feel free to leave for a bit! We won't be changing any rules or policies this round no matter what, so this isn't an urgent conversation. We'll be opening a discussion post after fic and author reveals this year to talk about potential rule changes with participants, and we'll definitely be bringing up your points

My co-mod has beat me to the punch - but you are absolutely not required to continue discussing something that distresses you! Please feel free to bow out or disappear from the discussion or exchange at any point if you need to.

I think the main issue that needs wider discussion is how other participants interpret a rule like that. If there's a consensus about which characters are canonically genderqueer and how to assess that in new characters/fandoms without mod intervention, then it's easy to add. If discussion finds people would group different characters under that rule, or not group, then it becomes a lot more difficult to implement.

We may also be coming up against a difference in how this exchange is run (the priority is ensuring people get what they want in a gift over in a prompt, rules must apply broadly and easily to all fandoms) versus how you would like it to run.

While we do not screen genderqueer characters for some degree of being female (because they aren't!), the rule originated and persists because of how gender and sexual orientation intersect to create the category of femslash. A real life LGBTQ space doesn't need to consider whether a genderqueer shapeshifter taking female form to date a lesbian is femslash, both because they don't have to deal with shapeshifters and also because femslash is not a perfect analogy for lesbian/bi/pan. They also don't have to consider whether a different shapeshifter with a similar genderqueer identity but no canonic relationship with a lesbian is equally eligible - we don't restrict people who want to write femslash about canonically straight characters, after all. Thus we take a broad definition, and we will back you on getting any gift you want that falls under that definition. But that doesn't mean we're necessarily set up to match for specific different gender interpretations as exactly as you'd like, or that matching that way in the future will suit other participants. If you want to opt-in to participating here, and you're comfortable doing so under the current rules, we will support you and ensure you get the gift you want! If it's distressing to you or doesn't quite work how you'd like, it may not be a good fit.

Your suggestions about defaulting aren't ones we will open to discussion. While we aren't one of the biggest exchanges around, we had 189 participants last year. Hand-matching or re-running matching because a participant is unhappy with their match isn't something we're willing to do. Being multi-fandom makes the likelihood of being able to guarantee a swap to a pinch-hit low. While we may sometimes use discretion around these issues, if someone needs to routinely default multiple years in a row then the exchange may not be a good fit for what they want to offer.

Basically though it comes down to rule change suggestions not really being appropriate for us to decide here, when we don't know how many participants might notice a conversation in the comments of the FAQ and people are distracted by an active round. We have been primarily addressing your concerns based on how/why we interpret the current rules as we do and what that means for sign-ups in the 2018 round, but I think this discussion is now clearly moving beyond that. We invite feedback between rounds, so you have two choices to make: do you want to participate in 2018 with the current rules, and will you feel comfortable discussing these questions with both us and the wider participant group between rounds when we open up discussion.

If you find either distressing or not suitable for you, I completely understand and you should definitely do what makes you feel safest.

hey so, another nonbinary anon popping in (my first time in this thread but i've been following things here for a while)!

i'll try to keep this brief since it looks like the meat of this discussion is going to be put on hold until after the current exchange has closed, but i wanted to hop in real quick to mention that a) i share feralphoenix's and the other anon's reservations wrt how femslash ex is currently set up, and b) the mod responses here have been a mix of understandable (e.g. trying to avoid arbitrating what counts as "female enough" for femslash, wanting to keep the workload on the mod end of things within reasonable limits) and actively not settling well with me (e.g. the way headcanons are brought up and how that brushes uncomfortably against the exchange's "no characters who id as boys in canon regardless of how they're portrayed in the actual fanwork" rule, some nigh-fundamental differences in what we think a mod's responsibility is when it comes to mitigating potential exposure to bigotry a la misgendering).

put another way, i can 100% see where you and the rest of the mod team are coming from wrt taking a more hands-off approach in these respects! what troubles me is the room left open for abuse regardless - as detailed in previous comments, and which imo is at least partially preventable with some structural tweaking - and coupled with certain components of your responses i too no longer feel comfortable with participating in the exchange this year (and i've been a participant before!! it's a major bummer having to bow out of an event i used to cheer on with vigor).

if i can i'll swing by again after this year's round and go into more detail on feedback; some of these issues touch my experiences in pretty personal ways. and i would LOVE to participate again in the future, if at all possible

I'm very sorry to hear that, and we would definitely love to hear from you between rounds! If the current imperfect solution isn't hitting the mark for people, then as we've said we definitely want to know.

In some ways I think the conversation here hasn't necessarily been served well by being in the FAQ post, because our focus is on the current rules (which say definition for genderqueer characters is left up to participants) and what existing tools are or aren't available if people want to be more specific than that. We're also hampered by not knowing the fandoms affected, and relying on the limited discussion had here/what can be quickly googled may often be insufficient. It may be perfectly possible for there to be a rule that is clearly scoped and worded to cover unambiguous canon, while leaving room for fandoms with grounds for good faith disagreement. There may of course also be other solutions we haven't thought of, or other problems with particular changes that we wouldn't anticipate.

Hopefully a between-rounds post will give us a better picture of how many people are/aren't having issues, and also draw in more participants in the same fandoms to discuss specific examples amongst themselves so we can more confidently assess how things could work in practice. And certainly if we've put our foot in it or gotten things wrong in places and that's been hurtful or concerning, then that's on us and our unfamiliarity with certain fandoms and characters and I'm really sorry about that.

I'm just curious if you were ever going to come back and do a between-rounds post. I've been randomly checking in every so often because I was wondering where this would all land.

We intended to but unfortunately our offline commitments post-round were more than we expected to be. Feedback and discussion was invited on our announcement here that the schedule was delayed for 2019, and we'd love to hear from you if you have specific requests or suggestions for changes.