Last week the long-running reality simulator series The Sims got a new update to The Sims 4 that’s more than a little revolutionary.

The free update, automatically rolled out to all users, makes changes so that

“female Sims can wear suits like Ellen, and male Sims can wear heels like Prince”.

It did much more than that.

The game is already a pariah among social conservatives due to its acceptance of same-sex marriage, gay parenting, extra-marital sex and non-traditional families – but these new changes are SUPER-progressive.

Until now dresses were for women only, and the baggy clothes for men. Setting up a male would give them a male ‘look’ automatically – and you definitely couldn’t mix breasts and a goatee.

The Sims 1, when same-sex marriage was in zero US states, was coded respectively. Now 16 years later, as Pink News says, you can create a gender-nonconforming athlete and a trans polyamorous queer character.

Parent company Maxis says they just made a few changes but in reality, The Sims now allows things that have never been seen before in mainstream gaming, and plenty of things which are still seeking mainstream acceptance in real life. A game that gets released around the world with a child-friendly rating, that now allows trans and gender-diverse people to represent themselves in a way that’s rejected in most other forms of media IS revolutionary.

Maxis said:

“The Sims is made by a diverse team for a diverse audience, and it’s really important to us that players are able to be creative and express themselves through our games.

We want to make sure players can create characters they can identify with or relate to through powerful tools that give them influence over a Sims gender, age, ethnicity, body type and more.”

Yes! What they said. I wanna play!

(via Pink News)