So with the release of Dream Daddy, a dating sim in which you are a single father choosing between several candidates to date, all of which are also dads, it was revealed that one of the dads is transgender, and the player character can also be trans, and it's not that big of a deal. I believe it's only brought up once, with the dateable trans dad talking about his (chest) binder.*EDIT* WOW, admins, can we please not make the word g a y a slur censored by the board? It's not a slur when used correctly, for Pete's sake.
Even Stardew Valley, which is BASICALLY Harvest Moon in almost all respects, has the option to be gay or lesbian.
Now, I'm not saying Japanese games are anywhere near making trans characters (except maybe Naoto Shirogane in Persona 4, who identified as male, though most say it's only because they wanted to work in the male dominated field as a detective). However, do you lovelies think that us LGBT people might ever get any representation in HM games? Being a gay transgender male, I used to pick female characters whenever I could just to be able to marry a male character, but it's extremely uncomfortable for me to be referred to in feminine terms, even in a virtual world.
Not much would honestly have to change, except the pregnancy and birthing scenes/mechanics. All that would have to be changed to is either surrogacy or, more likely, adoption. Everything else, all characters would be dateable by both genders, with only pronoun changes and occasional gender-specific scenes needing some tweaking.
However, it seems from a developer stand-point, it may be more complicated (see this article for a brief spin from Hashimoto about Story of Seasons).
Thoughts? Please, no transphobia or homophobia here. If you don't WANT the option, that's fine, but I'm looking for people who also want the option, and/or have ways it could or could not work.
P.S. I am starting a playthrough of Magical Melody and dating Jamie, because they're the only gender neutral person in the game. I just wish the game didn't end when you married them (or is that only a rumor?)