Forum Discussion
Gender neutral characters
Hello! I am developing a training that involves a sensitive topic. I need to make the scenarios as gender neutral as possible so as not to perpetuate any stereotypes. It is a serious topic so I don't want to use animal stand ins. I typed in stick figures into my search in content library and got some interesting possibilities. Does anyone have any ideas for what else to search?
12 Replies
I recently had to do a course on workplace discrimination and I found that the library wasn't very helpful. I ended up with images like these (see attached).
Also you might try searching, "Character", "Person", and "People" in the icons.
These characters Toby shared in LinkedIn may work. We also have some in our downloads.
Repeating a feature request here for Storyline modern illustrated characters. Please create some that are gender neutral, representing non-binary or trans persons, and create an additional category to M/F.
I second the wishes posted here. While Tom Kuhlmann's link is helpful, having a "real" person with a face is more helpful in several cases, and there is a distinct lack in non-binary/trans/inter persons. It would be great if that could be addressed...
I agree. We need non-binary characters for our learning.
Also, racial-neutral characters would be great as well.It seems like nothing has changed in over 2 years in this discussion. Will there be any update to the characters to be more inclusive to gender identity? The Content Library is completely unhelpful in finding non-binary and gender-fluid characters.
I'm also looking for non-binary characters. As a work-around I inserted the Illustrated Modern character and "recolored" it to black with a contrast of -40% which gives it a silhouette effect. It's not an ideal solution. I thought it may be helpful in that it would tone down the male and female characteristics. Just starting this project so not sure I will keep this design idea.
In general, the more realistic a character is, the more likely it is to trigger a viewer's inherent baggage. It will almost always be too [fill in the blank] for someone, even if it is an obvious avatar. Stick figures and silhouettes seem to be the best option. They create less interference with the content.
This is a good suggestion, but when creating scenario-based training, especially when dealing with gender-specific topics, where you need to see a character's reaction, stick figures and silhouettes don't really work.
The lack of gender-inclusive characters is a huge miss in 2022.
+1 Request for Gender-inclusive characters. It's almost 2023. Please make some additions. Thanks!
