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#most of my khajiit characters are bi following all this with rare counter examples
sothasil · 3 months
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Any ideas on lgbt (mostly gay stuff) in khajiiti culture?
Canon sources of LGBT khajiit are rare from what I know of, encountered some gay NPCs when I was playing ESO which was never commented upon (this was before the Elsweyr expansion which I haven't played), and years ago, sex jokes from Daggerfall were often brought up as crumbs of representation but I believe they're less lore-y and more fantasy flavor takes on basic jokes. Gender is very important to the notions of what makes LGBT- khajiit culture, judging by the creation myth in Words of Clan Mother Ahnissi as well as by the honorifics they use in their naming conventions, seem to go for a male/female binary. There are no transgender or gender non-conforming khajiit mentioned that I know of, although I cannot name any culturally relevant sexism either, so it's fair to assume it's not much of a thing. Historically, the real life cultures I've read about that strictly see gender as male or female seem to inch for both sides of the same coin approaches, or seeing them as two separate things, and given khajiit motives of duality and seeing outside of it I would assume it's the first. I also believe people outside that strict biological binary have and will always exist, although in video games representation it is not fair to read much into their absence because those people are rarely if ever represented in mainstream media.
This being out of the way, here's the headcanons portion! I'll be referring to khajiit and elsweyri culture interchangeably (a can of worms for another day)
My main idea would be that khajiit are very lax about sex, do not consider it a taboo topic and in their culture, have a lot of freedom around it. Ostracizing someone for homosexual relationships would be considered an attack. The times it could be a big deal would be surrounding situations where someone wants biological children, should it be of their own desire or because of peer pressure, which would be niche situations more depending on individuals than culture as a whole. However, I also believe that in using our modern terms, the social norm would be bisexuality and that someone displaying exclusive preference should it be gay or het might raise a few eyebrows. Given this, I do not believe that the born and raised elsweyri have specific gay subcultures as is the case in our modern world. Same sex marriages would also happen (more in my marriage post).
Regarding transgender people, with the strong binary I mentioned above I think gender non-conformity and transgender identities would be understood closely to our modern world. It'd be easier to understand to a khajiit that someone would transition from male to female and the other way around, but more complex personal expressions of gender would be outsides of the social norm and broadly characterized as "third other" or by less gentle people, as a combination of traits of each, the basic "x soul y body" or whatnot phrases you sometimes hear. This could be both rejected and reclaimed by people! And contrary to gay stuff, it's likely that GNC individuals would group up to find in each other respite from the social norm.
But if you're to ask LBGT questions to a khajiit the most likely answer would be in the lines of "why is this your business?", or adjacent 😺
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