Preference vs. Discrimination: What's the Difference?

Recently we were forced to ban a member we liked in part because of discriminatory behavior by this member. Thanks, in part, to this situation, we created a Diversity Policy for Birchwood Isle which lays out what we allow and what we don't allow in terms of discrimination against any group on our site.

On Birchwood Isle, we don't allow anyone to discriminate against anyone else for any reason. So while it may be an unpopular point of view, you cannot refuse to role play with a character for being straight, or white, or male, or wealthy, or cisgender, or any number of things.

You are permitted to have a preference in your role play! Some people prefer to role play with female adults, and some might have a preference for adopting female children. These are preferences, not discrimination. We highly recommend that you keep these types of preferences to yourself. Talking openly about preferences that exclude particular groups of people can be triggering to some people and is generally offensive to nearly everyone on Birchwood Isle. Elect to play with men instead of women if you want, but try not to post in your plot page (or other people's plot pages) that you don't want to role play with women.

If your preferences become discriminatory -- that is to say that if you prefer one group over the other so much that you cannot play with a particular group -- then that is discrimination, and this isn't going to be the right group for you: You'll be in violation of our discrimination policy.

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of a class of people based on such things as gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. The key word here is prejudicial. 

If you choose to judge an individual (let's say my character/inner adult Josh Tanner) based on his gender (cismale) or his ethnicity (Samoan) without taking the time to learn about Josh as an individual, this is discrimination. 

While we understand the sexual nature of ageplay, and that your own orientation and preferences may relate to your preferences in a group such as ours, we also believe that inner kids are people too and that we cannot allow members to pick and choose people to play with based on discriminatory practices, policies, and behavior.

So you may prefer to play with women, but you may not refuse to play with men. 

If characters of a particular gender, race, or sexual orientation "trigger" you, let us know up front. We may be able to make accommodations, but more likely than not you'll find that this isn't the group for you.