Park that horse, drop that trowel, sleep on the farm, dream about me

For a long time now, farming and life sims have been basically synonymous with queer gaming. That makes sense, really – to be able to truly simulate life, you have to be able to capture its full diversity.

In some ways, Stardew Valley is no exception. Much like in other modern farming sims, like the Story of Seasons franchise, you can take your pick from any eligible bachelor or bachelorette without being limited by gender. Bye-bye, heteronormativity; hello, bisexual townies.

Unfortunately – and again, much like many other cosy games – the choice between your dream bachelor and bachelorette is about as binary as it sounds. This binary approach also seeps through into other aspects of Stardew Valley, as noted in Mothership. Namely, the character creator is still incredibly binary.

When you boot up Stardew Valley for the first time, you need to create your own playable character. In doing so, you’re forced to choose between two binary options, signified by a Mars or Venus sign. You can guess exactly how the rest goes.

After that point, the local valleyfolk refer to you with he/him or she/her pronouns throughout. There isn’t an option to disregard the gender options altogether, or to use different pronouns. As a result, your options for playing as a non-binary character are incredibly limited,

That’s the case if you play vanilla, un-modded Stardew Valley, anyway. Thankfully, Stardew Valley has a healthy modding community (and of course, a very queer fanbase, for the most part) who are ready to fix the simulator’s inclusivity issues.

In fact, Stardew Valley fans have been pushing for more inclusivity in the title for years. There’s even a Change.Org petition calling for more trans and non-binary options to be added to the game, with over 10,000 signatures. So, it’s unsurprising that the community would take things into their own hands.

Mods make magic for queer Stardew Valley fans

Sites like Nexus Mods boast a long list of queer Stardew Valley mods, from character creator overhauls to Pride parades and polyamory. Some offer small (but sweet!) additions like Pride flag banners, while others offer all-new takes on core characters and romanceables.

Diverse Stardew Valley is one particularly well-known example that aims to introduce a “comprehensive selection of ethnic, racial, cultural, gender, ability, and body-type diversity” to Stardew Valley’s cast through the addition of new sprites, text, and decor. Other mods focus more on the character you play as, with Hana’s Stardew Valley Gender Neutrality Mod breaking down any gameplay-based gender binaries, adding custom pronoun options, and altering dialogue for inclusivity. There’s even a discrete version of it, in case you need to keep your mod usage on the down-low.

These two examples barely just scratch the surface of what modders have to offer. Other mods include Pride In The Valley, which adds new festivals and events, and Queerify Stardew Valley, which adds rafts of new rainbow-tinged dialogue. Meanwhile, PolyamorySweet and Platonic Partners and Friendships each reinvent and reinvigorate the built-in relationship and marriage system to centre a wider range of relationships. Personally, I’m pretty enamored by the Stardew HRT mod myself, which turns progesterone, estradiol, and testosterone into craftables. 

There’s clearly a demand for these types of mods, too. Besides the fact that they exist, and the aforementioned petition, most of the mods listed above have thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of hits. Everyone wants their own sweet queertopia, even if they have to make it themselves. 

Of course, there is a catch: you can’t mod Stardew Valley on console. So, if you find yourself frequently farming on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4/5, or Nintendo Switch, then you’re sadly flat out of luck. At the time of writing, there don’t seem to be any plans to bring modding support to Stardew Valley on console, although developer ConcernedApe (Eric Barone) is open to the idea if it were “simple” or “possible”.

A queer life down on the farm

Thinking of getting gay in the hay, lesbian in the leaves, bi with the bees, trans with the trees, or some other flavour of cottagecore queer? Before you do, here’s a quick rundown of what you can and can’t do in Stardew Valley.

Can you be gay, lesbian, bi, or pan in Stardew Valley?

Yes, you can. You can pick from any eligible marriage candidates, regardless of their gender or yours. Some lines of dialogue can differ, depending on whether you’re entering a similarly-gendered relationship with them or not, though.

So, there’s gay marriage in Stardew Valley?

Yep! You can follow up your dream gay romance with a big gay wedding.

And, there’s even gay divorce. As long as you don’t mind shelling out 50,000 gold, that is.

Can you be aromantic in Stardew Valley?

Unlike in some farming games – I’m looking at you, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life – you don’t actually have to get married in Stardew Valley. So, you don’t have to worry about being forced to be paired up with anyone if you’re aromantic.

However, if you want to have children, you unfortunately do have to get married. Thankfully, there are mods for getting around this, like Family Planning.

Can queer couples have children in Stardew Valley?

Yes! Despite the valley’s rather regressive perspective on marriage and children, similarly-gendered couples can have children together.

Again, though, that isn’t without some limitations. Gay and lesbian couples will always adopt children, while differently-gendered couples will always have children together natally instead.

In a game full of beasts, monsters, and other fantastical elements, that difference seems totally unnecessary. Couldn’t we all just have our babies delivered on some kind of cloud, or something? Or at the very least, couldn’t we have the choice of how to have a child?

What gender can you play as in Stardew Valley?

The vanilla character creator makes you choose between playing as a man and a woman. Using the Gender Neutrality Mod allows you to get around this.

When you don’t use any mods, playing as a man will lead to other characters using he/him pronouns for you. The same goes for if you play as a woman – you’ll be referred to with she/her.

At the time of writing, you can’t change your pronouns or your character’s gender in plain old, un-modded Stardew. Best hope you don’t realise anything several years into running your farm, or anything.

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Toni Oisin H.C. is the Head of Audio at QSO Media. Read more of his writing here.

The LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas offers support and resources to queer people in Kansas. You can find out more here, and donate here.

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