alchemicalsolution
First Post
I think you've failed to adequately summarised the wording or intention of the section on sex in the PH. The actual paragraph is more nuanced and considered;
"You can play a male or female character without gaining any special benefits or hindrances. Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behaviour. For example, a male drow cleric defies the traditional gender divisions of drow society, which could be a reason for your character to leave that society and come to the surface. You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide"
The book tackles a difficult issue head on and, despite a little bit of self-contradiction (not conforming to your broader culture's expectations of sex, gender and sexual behaviour presents a perfect opportunity to introduce some special hindrances to the player, in my view) it does a good job of this precisely because it doesn't say 'sexuality/gender doesn't matter'.
I would have quite a serious problem with the sentiment expressed in your wording, because it seems to provide the player with a justification for telling the DM how the societies of his world work with regard to sexual identity. This kind of world building is best done collaboratively, in my opinion, but ultimate creative control needs to rest with the DM if he's to have the opportunity to work themes into the narrative of the campaign.
It would be unacceptable to me for a player to declare 'the PH says I can be a Drow Cleric/Warlock who worships Torm and has a pact with Asmodeus, so your world has to accommodate that' just as it would be for them to say 'The PH says I can be whatever sex and sexual orientation I please and it doesn't matter so gender identity must be a non-issue in your game world".
The PH says neither of these things, and I want to highlight the distinction between what you've implied and what's in the book, because 5E is actually very good on encouraging players to think about choices like this for their characters and work with the DM to create a more engaging, complex game world, and this should not be confused with any injunction which may be in the book about player etiquette at the table which, one must assume, is directed at children who play the game since being told to treat your friends respectfully in a gaming product as an adult is rather patronising.
Of course, for kick-in-the-door style play the whole subject is moot, my point assumes a gaming style in which plot, character development and theme are present and important elements in the campaign. If you just want to roll some toons and run a smash n' grab, I can't see why you'd care any more about your character's sexual orientation than you would about their political or religious views.
That said, I also find it interesting that someone raised an objection to the mention of gender identity on the basis of not wanting any non PG13 content (by which they meant sexual references) at the table because it would get in the way of enjoying the mindless gratuitous violence that's inherent in the system, for want of a better term.
Of course the rules have always constrained the worlds of D&D to some extent; if you don't want a game world in which there are interventionist, theistic deities you've got considerable revision work to do on the core spell lists and mechanical assumptions about magic. Like a lot of DMs these are the things about D&D I love to hate, the tropes we all subvert for humour or because we see things differently. I've been glad to see a subtle but important erosion of the alignment system's vice-grip on the system's capacity to incorporate low fantasy settings in 5E, that's a trend I definitely want to see go further.
Questions of sexual identity, gender role in society and sex in general can be very interesting to explore through the medium of RPGs and I'm pleased that 5E doesn't overly simplify these things as a design decision, quite the opposite. In roleplaying we're free to explore aspects of the human condition which we might not find appealing if presented with them in the real world, such as racism, slavery, religious fanaticism, fascist or authoritarian governments and so and so forth. Exploring these things aren't for everyone, but I'd hate to see 5E excise the possibility of exploring any of them in service of producing something uncontroversial and politically correct. We invest more time and effort in our recreation than video gamers, I think we have a right to expect products which can accommodate more sophisticated tastes, and 5E allows room for that by continuing the long tradition of giving players and DMs ultimate authority to play 'their' D&D, not 'the' D&D.
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