The game offers gender-neutral title and pronoun options along with the explicit statement that 'your actual gender is up to you,' which decouples presentation from biology and permits non-binary playstyles. Romance mechanics with officers are entirely gender-blind, supporting same-sex pairings and flexible outcomes such as pregnancy, adoption, or the player character becoming pregnant regardless of the combination of partners.

These features are not incidental but foundational to the systems, overriding any attempt to maintain a consistent Victorian-era fantasy atmosphere. Developer statements from Failbetter Games confirm the intent behind these choices, with explicit prioritization of inclusivity by removing historical gender restrictions. The team described stripping away 'gender biases' in favor of a 'gender-blind approach' that makes 'all roles and characters available to all genders and none,' and later comments referenced consultations aimed at improving trans and non-binary representation. This deliberate engineering elevates ideological goals over fidelity to the setting's period logic, resulting in a moderate but noticeable intrusion of contemporary identity politics into the game's core loops.