It’s a Boi! Free Sims 4 Update Adds Gender-Affirming Scars & Shapewear

When EA scheduled the latest Behind the Sims Summit to line up with a patch release, the Sims Community rumor mill started buzzing. The last BTS Summit dropped the news that a new life stage – Infants – would soon be coming to the Sims 4, and many Simmers hoped that this post-livestream update would be it.

And while we only got a due date for the arrival of Sims 4 Infants, this update did add something pretty epic – top surgery scars – making yet another huge leap forward in terms of diversity, both in The Sims and in the entire gaming industry.

Adding Top Surgery Scars in The Sims 4

This isn’t the first push EA has made toward transgender representation in TS4. A previous update gave Simmers the option to essentially detail-edit a Sim’s gender in Create-A-Sim, choosing any combination of gender, body frame, clothing preference, pregnancy ability, and pronouns.

Even More Representation Options in TS4

For example, I recently created a transmasculine nonbinary Sim with a male gender, masculine clothing preference, feminine frame, and they/them pronouns, which gave them the look of an AFAB (assigned female at birth) person who’s had top surgery (a gender-affirming procedure where one’s breast tissue and/or nipples are removed).

But this new free update adds even more gender realism and diversity to the world of The Sims by adding a new CAS category – Body Scars – as well as binders and lower-body shapewear to Sim clothing options. This update also added a category of medical wearables, one of the first steps EA has taken toward disability representation in the franchise.

The Sims community has been calling for more representation of diverse people and bodies for a long time, and this update shows EA is listening. I hope other developers are paying attention, too.