Lumpinou’s LGBTQIA+ / Gender & Orientation Overhaul Mod (Sims 4): (2024)

Gender Identities: Choices & Base Impact

Choices: Male, Female (trans or cis); non-binary, agender, genderfluid questioning: identity.

Gameplay impact:
– by default, gender identities are what is used to determine orientation compatibility. For more info, read the FAQ entry “How (on what basis) does the system determine attractions towards Sims who identify as / are Trans, Non-Binary, Genderfluid or Agender?“
– Identity also opens the doors to the gender affirmation and transition features.

If you are asking yourself, “I want my child Sim to label their gender identity; can Child Sims have gender identities?” – yes, but it’s a different system and menus. See here.

Gender Transition & Gender Affirmation

Gender Id Discovery & Secondary Impacts

• Gender Identity discovery: see the ‘Self Discovery’ section.
• Optional: aspects of dysphoria: See the “Experiences Dysphoria” Extra Aspect in the Extra Aspect section of this page.

ROMANTIC Orientations: Choices, Base Impact, & Special Relationship Types

SEXUAL Orientations: Choices and Base Impact

Choices for Types: allosexual, gresexual, demisexual, asexual (sex favorable, sex indifferent or sex-averse)

(Never heard of these distinctions? If you are curious, here are some readings:
-1: asexuality and attitudes towards sex- -2: asexuality-)

Choices for Genders: sexually attracted to male / female, bisexual, pansexual, questioning

Gameplay Impact – Asexuals: Asexual Sims will not woohoo autonomously. They have chances of refusing woohoo, which range from systematic to occasional depending on their personal attitude towards woohoo (sex favorable, sex indifferent or sex-averse).
Greysexuals will accept or refuse (hoping to develop this more later to refine criteria for why).
Demisexuals won’t want to engage in woohoo unless friendship points are high enough.

Gameplay Impact – Everything Else: sexual orientation determines whether a Sim will react positively or not to another Sim using touching romantic interactions with them (kissing, woohoo, etc).

How to Assign Gender Identities & Orientations

• It is advised to NOT do assignments for orientation in CAS, but to do it all through this mod instead – because the mod has more options that CAS can’t handle at all! (it will also adjust the cas stuff, and vice versa).
• The mod has a convenient all-in-one system for assignments so it’s fast and easy to make them.

How to assign to other Sims, and more:

• See Under “Manual Assignments‘

Orientation Discovery: See under the ‘Self-Discovery’ Section

I want all sims to be romanceable by any sim

• Turn OFF ‘Orientations & Identites Impact Gameplay”
• Likely, you’ll also want the auto-assigns turned off.

I want all sims to be romanceable by any sim,
EXCEPT those I assign orientations / gender identities

• Turn ON “Orientations & Identites Impact Gameplay”
• Turn OFF “Played Sim auto-assignment”
• Turn OFF “NPC Auto-Assignment”
• Manually assign to whichever Sim you want.
  Note: It you have ‘orientations based on identities, not cas gender’ ON, the sim initiating romance with another who has set orientations must have at least a gender identity set for the other sim’s orientations to recognize them. And vice-versa.

I want sims to have auto-assigned orientations & identities,
AND to have them accept / Refuse romance accordingly to that

• Turn ON “Orientations & Identites Impact Gameplay”
• Turn ON “NPC Auto-Assignment”
• Turn ON “Played Sim auto-assignment” if you want played Sims to also be auto assigned.

I want all sims to have auto-assigned orientations & identities,
BUT no gameplay impact

I want only the transgender / gender transition features

• Turn OFF “Orientations & Identites Impact Gameplay”
• Turn OFF “Played Sim auto-assignment”
• Turn OFF “NPC Auto-Assignment”
• Turn OFF ‘v2 switch’.
• This will leave the Mod POWERLESS over your game other than for the transition gameplay. I don’t recommend this, but, it’s possible.

Orientation Discovery, aspect 1: “Unexpected Crush”

Orientation Discovery, Aspect 2: Finding Out about Ace / Aro spectrum Alignment

For Sims to discover if they are on the aro or ace spectrum.

How it works:

• If the Sim passes the percent chance to be assigned a future discovery, they are marked already for exactly what it will be (aro, greyro, demiro, ace, greyace, demisexual, or a combination of both.
• Sims who will have a discovery will get occasional moodlets and / or notifications when engaging in the relevant romance and / or physical intimacy, depending on what they are going to eventually discover.
• To figure out exactly what aligns with their experience, they should ‘Research Asexual & Aromantic Spectrums‘ on the computer.

Settings: you decide the percentage of Sims who will have discoveries. If ‘discovery for all’ is on, Sims who you manually assigned stuff for will qualify, otherwise it’ll be only for auto-assigned Sims and sims who you force-run the system on.

Identity Discovery Systems

For Sims to discover their gender identity through gameplay.
Happens (or not) according to your settings on this matter.

Sims who are marked by the system to discover that they’re not cis after all will get occasional moodlets about strange feelings. Once they research, they’ll find out about themselves. the system knows all along what your sim is, the sim themselves don’t know until they figure it out.

There’ll be more developments later for discoveries through social interaction with other sims etc.

The “Ponder” Menus

You can use the “Ponder” menus to have a Sim get orientations, identity, or both, either manually selected or randomly selected.

Discovery Settings

What is it? + what it will and what it won’t do

This system can auto-assign orientations & identities to Sim in the world. It is customizable. See below.

• Auto-assign will NEVER modify what you have manually assigned.
  
• Auto-assigns start at Teen.
  
• If the auto-assign applies non-cis identities to a Sim, it will also give them pronouns to match. If the auto-assign applies ‘Trans’ to a sim, it will also switch their clothing preference to the gender they identify as. Some Trans sims will also be automatically made to have taken gender-affirming steps (but not all!)
  
• This mod ignores the game’s gender preference metric, using its own systems instead, but for the sake of the game & mods that look at it, this mod changes that metric when assignments are made. For Sims who are strictly attracted to one gender only, the preferences will also be locked in place.
  
• Auto-assign takes into account pre existing marriages and significant others, to create matching orientations. You can still change what it selected, of course.

Auto-Assignment Settings

• —– On / Off auto assign settings ——
• Auto-assign for NPCs:
  On or Off. Default: Off.
  If ON, gender identities & orientations will be auto-assigned for NPCS.
  If OFF, you will be expected to give Sims orientations / identities manually if you want the mod to apply to them. The percentages you set will determine how many sims get what auto-assigned.
• Auto-Assign for Played Sims:
  On or Off. Default: Off.
  If ON, gender identities & orientations will be auto-assigned for played Sims.
  If OFF, you will be expected to give your Sim orientations / identities manually as wanted. The percentages you set will determine how many sims get what auto-assigned.

  Note: auto-assign takes into account pre-existing marriages and significant others, to create matching orientations. You can still change what it selected, of course.

• Auto-Match Romantic & Sexual Attractions:
  On or Off. Default: On
  – If this is ON, auto-assigned romantic and sexual attractions will match each other.
  – If this is set to OFF, Sims might have matched romantic and sexual orientations, or be pan- or bi-sexual while only being hetero- or hom*o- romantic.
  
• Played Sim Feature Auto-Assign Upon AgeUp To Teen:
  On or Off. Default: Off
  – If ON, played Sims who age up to teen will get orientations and identities auto-assigned.
  – If OFF, they won’t and you can manually assign elements to them as you discover them.
  
• —- Percentage settings —-
  — For percentage settings, I went with a random default of 10%. Change it to your liking! —-
  
• Played Sim Percent of Non-Hetero Sims: default 10%.
• Played Sim Percent of non-cis Sims: default 10%
  NOTE: Non-cis sims will also be assigned various pronouns. Some Trans sims will be assigned to have done transition steps.
• Played Sim Percent of Sims Identifying with Aromantic Spectrum: default 10%
• Played Sim Percent of Sims Identifying with Asexual Spectrum: default 10%
  
• And the same settings have a NPC version:
  NPC % of Non-Hetero
  NPC % of non-cis
  NPC % of Ace-spec sims
  NPC % of aro-spec. sims

Manual Assignments: choose, change, add, shuffle, remove

It is advised to NOT do assignments for orientation in CAS, but to do it all through this mod instead – because the mod has more options that CAS can’t handle at all! (it will also adjust the cas stuff, and vice versa).
The mod has a convenient all-in-one system for assignments so it’s fast and easy to make them.

You can manually assign and re-assign all aspects at any time.
You can remove, re-shuffle or change any Sim’s assignments at any time.

• To change your own Sim’s orientation / etc, it’s under ‘orientations, identities & physical characteristics’.
  
• You can change orientations / etc for a Sim your Sim is clicking on by going under ‘actions’ then ‘orientations & identities’ then ‘Make changes for [Sim]’
  
• You can change ANY sim’s orientation / etc by clicking on your own sim and going to the ‘Orientations & Identities’ -> ‘Any Sim’ menu.

Alternative: the “Ponder” Menus

The “Ponder” menus also give you an option to make a manual or randomized selection but with a bit more of a gameplay vibe to it.

The ‘Coming Out’ Progression

• The progression is not required of any Sim (ie, Sims don’t have to come out at all if they don’t want to; they can choose to be out within their family but not in public, etc etc).
• The possible ‘progression’ is built on this model:
• Sims typically start out as ‘in the closet‘. At this stage, they are generally ‘pretending’, ie , this tells the game that these sims should not reveal the truth (until ready), and act in ways that don’t reveal it. [this is up to you, there’s a setting]
• Coming out to family or partners switches them to ‘discreetly out‘.
• At this point, they can choose to (or not to) ‘come out publicly online‘. That makes them ‘Out‘.
• They can choose to go further and become a “proud advocate” (only through the ‘extra aspects’ window for now).

These different ‘statuses’ will have MUCH more impact as the mod keeps developing!

Reveal Orientation to Family & Partners

Family and Partners are able to react to a Sim’s coming out.
Reactions are user-directed or left to fate, according to your choice at the moment. Animations and moodlets reflect the reaction and choice made.

There are special outcomes for couples: if the revelation means that the sims are actually incompatible in terms of orientation, an additional option shows.

In the Sim Profile, a relationship marker will remember how a Sim reacted.
Sentiments can also be added, and they trigger moodlets on occasional proximity.

A Sim coming out for the first time will see a special notification, and have the ‘closeted’ trait removed to be replaced by ‘discreetly out’ (if applicable).

Sims can tell friends if a coming out went well or badly (under ‘friendly’).

NOTE: the “NEGATIVITY” setting is OFF BY DEFAULT.
If Negativity is OFF: there will be only non-phobic reactions (positive)
If Negativity is ON: Sims will be able to have positive, neutral or negative (phobic) reactions.

Reveal Gender Identity to Family & Partners

Family and Partners are able to react to a Sim’s coming out.
Reactions are user-directed or left to fate, according to your choice at the moment.
Animations and moodlets reflect the reaction and choice made.

There are special outcomes for couples: if the revelation means that the sims are actually incompatible in terms of orientation, an additional option shows.

In the Sim Profile, a relationship marker will remember how a Sim reacted.
Sentiments can also be added, and they trigger moodlets on occasional proximity.

A Sim coming out for the first time will see a special notification, and have the ‘closeted’ trait removed to be replaced by ‘discreetly out’ (if applicable).

Sims can tell friends if a coming out went well or badly (under ‘friendly’).

NOTE: the “NEGATIVITY” setting is OFF BY DEFAULT.
If Negativity is OFF: there will be only non-phobic reactions (positive)
If Negativity is ON: Sims will be able to have positive, neutral or negative (phobic) reactions.

“Come Out Publicly On Social Media”

See section “The Coming Out Progression”.

For Non-Family and Non-Partners:
‘Ask / Tell about Gender Identity & Orientations‘
+ Option to show answers in Sim Profile

Sims can ask each other about their Orientations & Gender Identities.

“Closeted” sims will not really answer.

“Discreetly out” sims will refuse to answer unless there’s good friendship.

‘Phobic’ Sims will have a, well, phobic reaction (only if Negativity is ON).

Some orientations & identities will show in the Sim profile if you have the relevant setting enabled.

• For the sake of not overloading game resources, only lgbtqia+ orientations & identities will show. (note that in the trait panel, even cis-het stuff shows, to better erase the concept of normativity and expectations, because the resource concern doesn’t apply there).

“Ask / Tell Pronouns” + Known Pronouns show in the Sim Profiles

The “Ask / Tell Pronouns” Mod has been integrated into this one (it still exists as a standalone for people who don’t want the LGBTQIA+ mod, too).

Settings

• You’ll be able to hide / turn off coming out settings in the next update (the one after the game patch) as I am waiting for update time to upload it in.
• Choose to display known pronouns and Id. / Ori. in profile or not.

The Settings

AUTO-ASSIGNMENT SETTINGS: See “Auto-Assignment System”

OTHER SETTINGS:

• Orientations & Identities Impact Gameplay:
  On or Off. Default: On.
  –If ON, orientations & Identities (from this mod and from CAS) impact acceptance / refusal of romance and woohoo.
  – If OFF, any orientation / identity label & assignment of this mod & CAS will NOT impact acceptance / refusal of romance / WooHoo.
  This turned OFF makes all Sims act pan whether they have labels or not.

• Orientations Depend on Gender Identities, Not Game CAS Gender:
  On or Off. Default: On.
  – If ON, Sims will react to each other based on their orientations and identities from this mod.
  – If OFF, Sims will react to each other based on the game’s cas gender distinction of Male / female only.
  • Examples:
    – Kay is ‘biologically’ born male, identifies as male: both systems will let sims attracted to males accept Kay’s advances / initiate romance towards Kay.
    – Kay is ‘biologically’ born male, identifies as non-binary: with this ON, Sim will let sims attracted to any gender accept Kay’s advances. With this OFF, only Sims attracted to males will accept his advances.
    – Kay is ‘biologically’ born male, identifies as trans female: With this On, Sims attracted to females will accept Kay’s advances. With this Off, sims attracted to males will accept his advances.

• Grey Out Interactions if Speaker does not Fit Other Sim’s Orientations
  On or Off. Default: On.
  – If ON, the mod will imitate the game’s system and grey out romantic / woohoo interactions for Sims who know the Sim talked to is not interested in their gender.
  – If OFF, the romantic interactions will be available regardless (but will fail if used, due to incompatibility. This is useful for storytelling.

  NOTE: Despite what the game’s own system might think and do, in my system non-averse Asexual Sims will never be fully prevented from (user directed) offering woohoo; non-averse aromantics will never be fully prevented from (user-directed) offering romantic interactions. Not all asexuals are celibate and not all aromantics hate holding hands!

• Grey Out Interactions if Other Sim does not Fit Speaker’s Orientations
  On or Off. Default: Off
  – If ON, the mod will grey out romantic / woohoo interactions if active sim is not attracted to other sim.
  – If OFF, the romantic interactions will be available regardless.

• Allow User-Directed WooHoo for Non-Romantic Relationship Types:
  On or Off. Default: Off.
  – If On, ‘woohoo’ interactions will be available (User-Directed only) without romance (so, it would show for Sims in queerplatonic relationships, Sims with no romance points for each other, etc).
  – If OFF, normal game criteria for WooHoo apply. NOTE: Sims with compatible sexual orientations but not romantic ones, and aromantic sims, will be able to choose to WooHoo without romance regardless of this setting.
  
• Allow Negativity and Phobia
  On or Off. Default: OFF
  – If ON, various reactions are possible when sharing about LGBTQIA+ topics such as transitioning gender, etc. If ON, choice windows will appear to let the player decide a positive or negative reaction (or leave it up to fate) in some circ*mstances.
  – If OFF, every Sim will react positively. Choice windows will not appear.

• Allow Neutral Reactions
  On or Off. On by default.
  – If negativity is OFF and this is ON, neutral answers are allowed. These are non-phobic answers such as ‘It’ll take time to adjust’, or ‘I’m afraid for our relationship’ (if a sim confessed being not oriented towards a partner’s gender for example).
  – If negativity is On, neutral answers are always allowed.

• Allow ‘Coming Out’ Systems (SETTING WILL BE IN NEXT UPDATE)
  On or Off. Default: On.
  Choose to completely hide coming out systems, or let them show and be available.

Allow Orientation Discovery Systems

Percent of Qualifying Sims subject to orientation Discovery
(Qualifying Sims are auto-assigned Sims & Sims manually allowed)
Amount of qualifying sims to actually get a discovery

Allow Discovery For All Sims
On or Off. Default: Off.
Normally sims with auto-assigned identities / orientations and manually allowed sims qualify for orientation discovery; if this is On, all Sims qualify instead. Among those qualifying, NOT all will be flagged to have a discovery.

Show LGBTQIA+ Known Info in the Sim Profiles.
On or Off. Default: On.
– If On, once you know a Sim is part of the community, their orientations & identities will be remembered in the Sim Profile. This might be difficult for weak computers.
NOTE: if a Sim’s orientations / identities change, the saved orientation / identity info in Sim profile will be removed because it’s not accurate anymore.
NOTE 2: Pronouns, once asked, will always show in the relationship panel, regardless of this setting

Show Rejection Explanation Notifications:
On or Off. Default: On.
– If ON, a notification will show when a Sim refuses romance / WooHoo based on orientation, explaining what aspect is incompatible.
– If OFF, these notifications won’t show.

How to Modify Settings? + How to keep settings when updating the mod

MODIFYING SETTINGS:

• In Game, with the dedicated Interaction.
• (Or through directly editing the config file for those who prefer that.)

KEEPING SETTINGS WHEN UPDATING:

• Just Keep the ‘Lumpinou_LGBTQIA_GlobalSettings.cfg’ file when updating and your settings will survive! NOTE: If the update instructions say to delete it, do so. There may be rare cases that if I make changes to the settings system, the config file would need to go.

This List is Not Complete 🙂

(UPCOMING) Social Interactions; Reactions; Experience Moodlets (UPCOMING)

(UPCOMING) Cultural Attitudes towards WooHoo & Romance (UPCOMING)

McWooHoo: One setting is incompatible (but also exists in this mod)

Compatibility notes for Wonderful / Wicked Whims by Turbodriver

• WW and WonW will take into account my mod’s orientations in determining results for WW and WonW’s sexual attraction system. HOWEVER, WW and WonW see ONLY the CAS gender of Sims. So, it will not look at gender identities.

Old Mods that Lock Gender Preference (such as Chingyu’s)

• All those mods are OBSOLETE for the new game version. They conflict with the game and with this mod..

I am a MODDER, I want to integrate / make my work compatible with this mod

TROUBLESHOOTING

Questions about Orientations / identities & Their Impact

About the Config File ‘Lumpinou_LGBTQIA_GlobalSettings.cfg’

How to Play with this Mod?

That’s up to you, of course!

First, check out the “Quick “Playstyle” setting guide” section

Here are some more detailed possible models:

• NPC auto-assign ON, played-Sim auto-assign OFF, Gameplay Impact ON:
  With this combination, Sims in the world will automatically have their preference and be ready to function with the mod.
  Your Sims will be ‘left alone’ by the mod.
  So, when you have a new Sim, I advise giving them a gender identity to begin with, so that the system knows how other Sims should react to them (this is different if you have ‘orientations based on identities’ turned off).
  Then, you can play your Sim, see where life leads them, see what relationships they strike up – and once you’ve gotten a feel for them, you can give them the assignments that match them!
  You could also do a manual assign right away if you so choose of course.
• NPC auto-assign ON, Played Sim auto-assign ON, Gameplay Impact ON:
  With this model, all qualifying Sims will have their preferences set up automatically. You can selectively modify any of them, of course – but you are basically giving the game & mod full power to make the initial decisions, and then build your Sim’s lives around those decisions. Help your Sim meet someone compatible, see what happens, change things around if your Sim finds that something has changed, there’s always freedom to adjust! 🙂
• NPC auto-assign OFF, Played Sim auto-assign OFF, Gameplay Impact ON:
  With this model, you are leaving the game’s own system in power ‘by default’. Then, punctually, for the Sims to whom you assign orientations & identities, you give power to the mod to make sims react to each other according to identities & orientations.
• Auto-Assign(s) ON, Gameplay Impact OFF:
  Let’s call this ‘high control storytelling mode’. You let the mod give Sims orientations & identities, but you don’t let the mod have gameplay impact.
  
• Auto-Assign(s) OFF, Gameplay Impact OFF:
  And that would be ‘total control storytelling mode’. You don’t let the mod assign anything, and don’t let it impact gameplay. You assign orientations & identities when you want and keep them as a cosmetic, storytelling-only aspect.

FEEDBACK / CONCERNS / COMPLAINTS