If you thought Target—a place where the biggest danger is to your wallet after you walk in looking for toothpaste and leave with $150 worth of merchandise—was an odd place for a culture war, then just you wait. NBC News reports that, for the first time in its 16-year-history, The Sims will allow players to fully customize the genders of their online characters via a free update available today. The update will apply to The Sims 4, as well as content from previously launched packs.
The update will remove gender barriers not only on clothing, accessories, and hair styles, but also “physique, [walking] style, and voice,” allowing players to combine physical characteristics—more than 700 in total—to create the genderfluid online avatars of their dreams:
“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,” Electronic Arts says on the official Sims blog. ”We want to make sure players can create characters they can identify with or relate to.” Which all sounds well and good—until the evangelical Sims show up in their denim button-ups and long floral skirts and start waving virtual Bibles around, chanting, “It’s a flirty moodlet, not a dirty dude-let” and just generally ruining things for everybody.