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Mass Effect Andromeda's poor handling of LGBT

Seeing how the usual suspects have come out to play, figured it was time to dust this off.

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Prelude.

Member
Dragon Age 2 made every squad mate bisexual. People threw a hissy fit over it.
I mean, it's not like everyone has to be canonically bi because they are allowed to romance both genders, but they can be either gay or straight depending on the player's gender. The game doesn't explicitly tells you their sexuality, but only if they're interested in you.

Personally I want more canon romantic and sexual preference in games. I don't actually like that everyone is romanceable as long as you're their preferred gender, it's simplistic.
Sure, but in a game like this? You have an extremely limited set of options, so why have even less for such an arbitrary reason? It's not like the character is ever gonna be developed through their sexuality, so if they're gay or straight it doesn't involve the game's writing at all.

I'm about to start ME2 and, after seeing this, who got the short end of the stick in you opinion, gay Shepard or straight Shepard?
 
The purpose of a deadname is to basically cast aside a name that you no longer wish to have associated with you. Trans people, in general, do not deadname themselves unless they are required to do so - bringing up your deadname only invites people to use it. It should also be noted that it is not simply a case of an individual person doing so, but in fact a character being written to do so.

Wouldn't deadnaming be something you have done to you by others or you do to other people, but not something you do yourself?

ie a character in a game saying "I used to be Scott but now I am Sarah" (basically what happens in the MEA convo) does not seem to be deadnaming, since presumably a character should be allowed to do whatever they want for themselves. Maybe they really LIKE everyone knowing who they used to be and who they are now, why is there only one acceptable way of handling names?

Now of course if another character walks by and says "haha, don't listen to Sarah there, she used to be Scott!!" or if your PC responds with "well, I think I will just call you Scott" then of course I'd agree thats offensive and wrong but I don't understand why a character themselves can't do with their own identity whatever they want. That attitude of "THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT" seems to be the exact opposite of what self identity is supposed to be - deciding for yourself how you present yourself.
 
I can't believe I'm saying this, but this whole thing reeks of tokenism. It's like they didn;t really care about the M/M relationships and only threw them in there because people expect them to be in a Bioware game.

That trans character is really bad. Honestly I would have preferred no representation.

Rather than tokenism and given the state of the rest of the game, I would expect it is more about priorities. That is, they didn't put representation in as a token effort, they probably didn't put better representation in because they were completely rushed and couldn't add more content.

Perhaps put more simply, I would chalk this up to incompetence rather than malice. While even then you could question their priorities, given they didn't seem to get to story/writing/animation either you could cut them some slack.

OP? I would love it if the trophy issue was a small footnote. It is not 100% a game, it is 100% an arbitrary list of tasks. Given the scope of the wider issue, it is a pretty irrelevant way to frame the problem.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Could you possibly help educate me? I'm wondering what the material difference is between the mass effect dialog and what you've done here. Superficially, both instances are transwoman identifying themselves as trans to provide context for a conversation. Why is it wrong for the ME character to admit she's trans when you've just done seemingly exactly the same thing?

I think it's both a difference in the exact text (i.e. that the handling of the person saying the name they no longer identify as seems like not the way a trans person would refer to themselves) and in terms of the context (that the ME shot is not a conversation about trans identities and experiences, it's <Ryder> Hey tell me about yourself <Character> *random deep exposition into character's history and transition AND I'M TRANS!!!!* versus the conversation here on GAF being explicitly about presumably cis-identified people discussing and asking about trans representation and trans-identifying people identifying themselves in context to offer advice).

A good example of this is media coverage of Chelsea Manning, which has often had to address the fact that she is trans- -- for example, because pictures of her in uniform are relevant to the story, or because she faced criminal charges under another name, or because the story itself was about trans- treatment in prisons and the military. There is not an obviously correct way to deal with this. Ways that are more true to Chelsea's identity often lead to confusion about what the actual story is, weird pronoun-subject accord issues, etc. But the alternative is to "deadname" her or to use male pronouns. And so the best outlets have mentioned the context only when it is necessary, allowed Chelsea to speak for herself, consistently used the female pronoun and the name Chelsea where possible, and generally wrote in a way that made it clear they respect her identity.

But also there's not, like, one uniform way for trans persons to identify themselves. Some might affirmatively carry both the "trans" label and the label of their identified gender -- like, say, Laverne Cox -- while others might wish to not associate as "trans" at all and simply live their life as their identified gender, viewing the "trans" status as just another way in which they are othered and denied the ability to be who they are. And others still might prefer to be the latter, but choose to identify as trans because they feel they owe it to others who are themselves struggling with their gender identity.

This speaks to the complexity of the issue, but also the importance of getting it right and really making an extra effort of internalizing good practices in company culture, including for example consulting with external experts and listening to employees who have experiences that they are willing to share or desire to share.
 
(Honestly, I suspect they will patch the line to say "people knew me by another name, but that is never who I was" or some other similar line post release, but otherwise leave the clunky exposition dump)

I didn't know about deadnaming before this thread, and that's why it didn't strike me as out of place (or transphobic?) writing when I heard it in game, so would this way of phrasing her transition make it acceptable for transgender people?
 
Wouldn't deadnaming be something you have done to you by others or you do to other people, but not something you do yourself?

ie a character in a game saying "I used to be Scott but now I am Sarah" (basically what happens in the MEA convo) does not seem to be deadnaming, since presumably a character should be allowed to do whatever they want for themselves. Maybe they really LIKE everyone knowing who they used to be and who they are now, why is there only one acceptable way of handling names?

Now of course if another character walks by and says "haha, don't listen to Sarah there, she used to be Scott!!" or if your PC responds with "well, I think I will just call you Scott" then of course I'd agree thats offensive and wrong but I don't understand why a character themselves can't do with their own identity whatever they want. That attitude of "THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT" seems to be the exact opposite of what self identity is supposed to be - deciding for yourself how you present yourself.

For the same reason why it's okay that a ton of women in real life like to wear pink and be super girly, but the propensity of this regardless of context in fiction is aggravating. Trans people who use their deadname are extremely rare, mainly because it very often triggers dysphoria.

This isn't a trans woman who used her deadname (which is okay, everyone has their own agency), this is a fictional character written to use her deadname - and no, I don't buy "well the rare instance of a trans woman in a game just happened to also be comfortable with something few trans women are comfortable with." Seems a lot less likely than bad writing in a game where one of the core criticisms so far has been bad writing.
 

Vamphuntr

Member
Weird that it seems to be a step back from DAI and ME3. After 15 hours of playing the game I think it might have been part of content that got cut or rushed. A lot of the stuff just seems thrown at you in this game for the sake of it so far.
 

Rozart

Member
The m/m romance options aren't part of your squad /and/ they're also just non-unique characters? ...Why. It almost seems like a complete afterthought. This feels like a step back from both Inquisition and ME3.
 

TI82

Banned
I wonder how my one friend will react to this. He loves the Mass effect games for a lot of reasons but especially because of their alternative lifestyle depictions. IE they have gay and lesbian romances, feature non binary gender characters etc. He's been so overly excited and refuses to read any reviews or hands on reports until tonight.

I just worry he will go into angry BVS fan mode, attacking those that don't like it. Or just outright disgust in the series.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
This is just overblown. Adding another romance option would mean adding more to the script and story and possibly adding another character. While I'm sure that's possible, the game already has enough problems as it is that you can't expect them to tackle everything at once. If this was a game where this is the only or just one of the few problems, I'd be more concerned.
 

Platy

Member
Now of course if another character walks by and says "haha, don't listen to Sarah there, she used to be Scott!!" or if your PC responds with "well, I think I will just call you Scott" then of course I'd agree thats offensive and wrong but I don't understand why a character themselves can't do with their own identity whatever they want. That attitude of "THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT" seems to be the exact opposite of what self identity is supposed to be - deciding for yourself how you present yourself.

THAT would actualy be preferable because it would be a good way to educate people in the shittyness of deadnaming by saying that the person is an asshole
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
There was like 32 different ways to show that she is trans without needing to be this shitty.
Make an item description on her room that says that she takes female hormones, she says that she came for a surgery with Doctor X, than later you see that Doctor X is specialist in corrective sexual surgery, make you read her journal where she talks about preparation for her surgery .... Hell ! Even making a character saying transphobic shit to her would be better =P

Of course you are correct about the obvious limitations of the approach they did choose, but I think you would find your suggestions here are ones that many in the trans community would find actively worse:
1) Invading someone's medical privacy is bizarre and gross regardless of the context, and would be very terrible writing if unaddressed
2) Trans persons have fought for years to separate their presentation and identity from their medical decisions -- someone is a woman even if they have not "completed" transition, or if they choose not to, or regardless of what level of treatment they decided was correct to resolve gender dysphoria or live a full life. And it's certainly not the business of a stranger what their choices were.
3) Portraying someone just by portraying the adversity they face -- in terms of challenges or abuse -- rather than allowing them to be happy and having an affirmative life -- is something that groups seeking representation have long fought against. For trans portrayals this has often meant trans victims of sexual violence or abuse or slurs. It's not that you can't tell a story about adversity, but it's also a cheap form of adversity to characterize someone's positive, affirmative identity through throwing shit at them and proving they have what it takes to triumph over it. This is also a thing about gender; stories often establish a woman's femininity by proving she's actually stronger than the guys, having her curse like a sailor, and otherwise basically impressing men by pointing out that women can be just as manly as men but still look like sex kittens. Which is generally agreed to be a bad portrayal even when well intentioned.

I am cis- (and straight, and male...) so I wouldn't speak for you, clearly your voice matters. But I suspect you will find that many others in the trans- community or those generally seeking to be represented at all would find your suggestions as replacing a bad portrayal (the one in the OP) with other bad portrayals.

I didn't know about deadnaming before this thread, and that's why it didn't strike me as out of place (or transphobic?) writing when I heard it in game, so would this way of phrasing her transition make it acceptable for transgender people?

I think many would say no, but also I think BioWare is likely to respond as incrementally as possible and this would be a quick fix for the most overt problem. I do think it would be incrementally better. Like, I think if the question is "given that we're going to have this awful exposition dump, how can we make this better", that would be a first step. I'm not saying they should do that -- they should do more and better -- I'm saying that the baseline level of cynicism I have is that I expect that is what they will do. But you will probably get responses from trans-identified posters who are better people than I to answer the question.
 

Olli128

Member
Seems strange. I'm straight but my gay romance with Dorian in Dragon Age was great! Seems weird they wouldn't have any squadmates available for a gay romance.
 

Platy

Member
I am cis- (and straight, and male...) so I wouldn't speak for you, clearly your voice matters. But I suspect you will find that many others in the trans- community or those generally seeking to be represented at all would find your suggestions as replacing a bad portrayal (the one in the OP) with other bad portrayals.

All my suggestions were based on minimal changes and things that would make sense in a rpg or "level design storytelling" way. Like if they want to be lazy, these are better ways to be lazy than deadnaming.

Of course there are lots of better ways but checking every item in a person's privacy is basicaly rpg 101 =P

And there is also the fact that we have so little trans character that we can't have the luxury of having perfect characters ... hell we still use Poison and Birdetta (did anyone said deadnaming ?) as awesome trans representation simply because they EXIST.
 

Harlequin

Member
Rather than tokenism and given the state of the rest of the game, I would expect it is more about priorities. That is, they didn't put representation in as a token effort, they probably didn't put better representation in because they were completely rushed and couldn't add more content.

Perhaps put more simply, I would chalk this up to incompetence rather than malice. While even then you could question their priorities, given they didn't seem to get to story/writing/animation either you could cut them some slack.

I think this is very possible, yeah. They worried about female LIs (straight, bi and gay) first, thinking they'd have enough time to do the male LIs (straight, bi and gay) later on but they didn't have enough time. Would also explain why Sara has got so few male LIs by comparison and why the data miners found so much stuff in the code that pointed to Jaal being bi (he was probably supposed to be bi but they didn't have the time to finish his romance content with Scott). Who knows, maybe they were even going to give Gil/Suvi/Reyes a unique face model but ran out of time. But in any case, that wouldn't have happened if they'd had different priorities (like giving everyone one complete, polished and equally fleshed out romance before starting on seconds, thirds, etc. for straight guys and gay women).
 

Five

Banned
I think it's both a difference in the exact text (i.e. that the handling of the person saying the name they no longer identify as seems like not the way a trans person would refer to themselves) and in terms of the context (that the ME shot is not a conversation about trans identities and experiences, it's <Ryder> Hey tell me about yourself <Character> *random deep exposition into character's history and transition AND I'M TRANS!!!!* versus the conversation here on GAF being explicitly about presumably cis-identified people discussing and asking about trans representation and trans-identifying people identifying themselves in context to offer advice).

A good example of this is media coverage of Chelsea Manning, which has often had to address the fact that she is trans- -- for example, because pictures of her in uniform are relevant to the story, or because she faced criminal charges under another name, or because the story itself was about trans- treatment in prisons and the military. There is not an obviously correct way to deal with this. Ways that are more true to Chelsea's identity often lead to confusion about what the actual story is, weird pronoun-subject accord issues, etc. But the alternative is to "deadname" her or to use male pronouns. And so the best outlets have mentioned the context only when it is necessary, allowed Chelsea to speak for herself, consistently used the female pronoun and the name Chelsea where possible, and generally wrote in a way that made it clear they respect her identity.

But also there's not, like, one uniform way for trans persons to identify themselves. Some might affirmatively carry both the "trans" label and the label of their identified gender -- like, say, Laverne Cox -- while others might wish to not associate as "trans" at all and simply live their life as their identified gender, viewing the "trans" status as just another way in which they are othered and denied the ability to be who they are. And others still might prefer to be the latter, but choose to identify as trans because they feel they owe it to others who are themselves struggling with their gender identity.

This speaks to the complexity of the issue, but also the importance of getting it right and really making an extra effort of internalizing good practices in company culture, including for example consulting with external experts and listening to employees who have experiences that they are willing to share or desire to share.

There are basicaly 2 problems here :

1)You : Hello, nice to meet you !
Person X : Nice to meet you too, I love to have sex with vegetables

This is NOT you say in your second line in a game with huge dialog trees

2) and more importantly, deadnaming means supporting stuff like "yeah you say your name is Barbara but what is your REAL name ?" that transphobic people say all the time to deny our trans lifes (see ? makes sense to include the fact that I am trans in this conversation) as fake ones.

There was like 32 different ways to show that she is trans without needing to be this shitty.
Make an item description on her room that says that she takes female hormones, she says that she came for a surgery with Doctor X, than later you see that Doctor X is specialist in corrective sexual surgery, make you read her journal where she talks about preparation for her surgery .... Hell ! Even making a character saying transphobic shit to her would be better =P



I said poorly, not outright offensive

ALTTP above gave a good reason as to why dead naming is a bad thing.



But the big difference is that I didn't identify myself as trans for the sake of being trans, but rather to provide context for my opinion on the subject. I also didn't deadname myself and make things awkward for everyone.

And this goes back to what I said earlier: There are a ton of ways Bioware could have identified the character as trans without resorting to the character openly admitting it via deadnaming. A little bit of effort into the writing could have made all the difference in the world between a well written character, and a tactless one.



You are absolutely correct. For me, personally, the fact that I am trans is not something that is a secret. At the same time, I don't really bring it up unless it's relevant to the conversation as it is here.

This all is super helpful. Thank you! &#10084;
 
This is just overblown. Adding another romance option would mean adding more to the script and story and possibly adding another character. While I'm sure that's possible, the game already has enough problems as it is that you can't expect them to tackle everything at once. If this was a game where this is the only or just one of the few problems, I'd be more concerned.

Not really a valid argument. It'd be like saying that there's so much wrong with The Phantom Menace, but we can't talk about every problem with it (AKA, no Plinkett review).
 

Sophia

Member
I think many would say no, but also I think BioWare is likely to respond as incrementally as possible and this would be a quick fix for the most overt problem. I do think it would be incrementally better. Like, I think if the question is "given that we're going to have this awful exposition dump, how can we make this better", that would be a first step. I'm not saying they should do that -- they should do more and better -- I'm saying that the baseline level of cynicism I have is that I expect that is what they will do. But you will probably get responses from trans-identified posters who are better people than I to answer the question.

As far as "acceptability" goes, I wouldn't have any qualms with it myself being done that way. That being said, it's a bit ambiguous, and given that Bioware went out of their way to clearly have trans representation here, it might not be satisfactory for them.
 
Listen, I believe in equal rights and representation in all things as much as anyone, but, no, it is absolutely NOT important for a videogame. This is especially true when the subject currently up for discussion isn't even a key focus of the game to begin with. Just because romancing or relationships are possible is not itself an automatic mandate that every type of relationship be represented. I ultimately don't know yet because I don't have the game of course, but even if they didn't make same sex relationships of any type possible, that, too, wouldn't somehow (at least in my view) be evidence of some kind of insensitivity or discrimination. If the developer decides it isn't something they want to explore in their game , that's very much their right. Same as if someone directing a movie decided they only wish to focus on one style of relationship.

I mean, you could say lesbians were left out or underrepresented in Moonlight. Where does it really stop?

You say that romancing or relationships being possible is not itself a mandate to include all types of relationship; I would argue that in a game such as this where creating your own character and enacting what you want that character's backstory to be IS a mandate to include options for all sexual orientations. Would you say the same about race? That just because creating a character is an option does not mandate that features for every race be available?

To your last point regarding "if a developer wants to explore it or not in their game"... in this situation we've established that there are gay male/male relationships available in the game but they feel stilted, poorly established, and shoehorned, when you have heterosexual and homosexual female relationships that appear to be much more realized. Considering this is a game about player choice and part of that is deciding which relationships to pursue, I would not believe that the fact that the m/m relationships were neglected due to what you're essentially calling the artist's choice. Your analogy to Moonlight is flawed, as it's a movie with a singular story which presents itself the same every time.

I would counter and say that representation does matter, particularly for video games such as this. It's a game about creating characters and interacting with a whole host of different people & aliens with different personalities, views, backgrounds, etc. For a particular slice of identity to be left out or so misrepresented is therefore suspicious and problematic. It matters because this is a game where a stated goal is interacting with a diverse set of characters and world the way that you want to. And as it stands from the evidence that we have, playing this game as a gay man and comparing to the options that heterosexuals or homosexual women have is basically showing that yeah, you can play like you want, but the experience is going to be worse than if you took a different path.
 
That seems to be a pretty large oversight. I'm personally not biromantic but even I'd still romance females personally. Sucks for anyone who likes to be fully gay in game or in real life though. The deadnaming is pretty shitty though. I learned really fast after finding out about Wendy Carlos but having a problem in how I sort her discography. I decided keeping the preferred name and always have done that and this was before I knew that referring to somebodies previous name in a past tense was considered transphobic.
 

Quonny

Member
Is the first example in the deadnaming section really considered transphobia?

These issues reflects a lot of the game is seems.
 
Huh. Are there really no gay squadmates? With all the "SJW" stuff thrown at them by assholes, I kinda expected better. Oh well. Heard DA:I was good about this though.
 

OrionX

Member
One of the things I liked about DA:I was that they told us all the romance options beforehand.
Hopefully DA4 will be super gay.
 
This is just overblown. Adding another romance option would mean adding more to the script and story and possibly adding another character. While I'm sure that's possible, the game already has enough problems as it is that you can't expect them to tackle everything at once. If this was a game where this is the only or just one of the few problems, I'd be more concerned.

No. Everyone has different values and priorities regarding critiques of media and what is or is not important, regardless of how many other prominent problems there are.

It is one thing to be more concerned about other problems this game has - poor animations, bad writing, whatever else you find issue with. That's your right, personally.
It's not ok to dismiss other people's discussions about problems with the game by saying there are other things to worry about.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
Not really a valid argument. It'd be like saying that there's so much wrong with The Phantom Menace, but we can't talk about every problem with it (AKA, no Plinkett review).

I understand that it's a valid problem. I'm just saying it's not the first thing that they need to fix.

It feels kinda bad that they touted about characters having more lines than the previous games but couldn't alocate that to this.
 

Quonny

Member
Yes, deadnaming is transphobic.

Can you explain that to me, because I'm not seeing it.

This isn't snark, I'm genuinely curious as to why accidentally calling someone by the name you've called them their entire life and apologizing is expressing negative viewpoints and opinions on transexuality.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I wish they stole the Fallout New Vegas mechanic of making your sexuality part of your character (if you so chose) and then just revamping the world based on your sexuality. That way you could probably just have characters who are both gay and straight, depending on what you chose. And it doesn't even matter since everyone in these BioWare games are pansexual anyway.
 

Sibylus

Banned
Yeah, thinking at this, I think there's like two steps at work here.

The first is that given you're writing a trans character, the typical mode is to have them identify as trans or known to be trans (or to explicitly tell a transition story). So this is an approach done in OITNB, The L Word, Transparent, Transamerica, Boys Don't Cry, Sense8, The Danish Girl, etc...

This in contrast to just having someone incidentally be trans. But the issue being of course that the viewer or player will likely code them as cis, so you miss the benefit in terms of representation or exposure -- and you rely on some external cue like casting a trans actress/actor and using that to say something about the character (which is not ideal, the same way that casting an actor of the opposite gender to the character is not ideal, because it also probably plays into the pernicious belief that transfolk are analogous to an actor in drag or whatever even as it may be a performance that itself is transgressive and genderqueer)... or you have to have the author do a "Actually, Dumbledore is Gay", which I think again is not ideal.

But given that you wish to have the representation be overt, how do you portray it? Set aside the truly ugly options that many films and television shows resort to
this GLAAD article discusses the omnipresence of trans characters as killers, villains, sex workers [often "deceiving men", another awful stereotype], and victims -- really, truly awful, and I include here even the tendency of OITNB to define Sofia's identity by people hurling transphobic slurs at her and simply showing that she's tough enough to take them) and the remaining best options are either to use a flashback or narration framing device, or an exposition dumb. So with a flashback you can show someone's pre-transition life through the lens of the camera or narrator without needing to engage with why the person is discussing their pre-transition life or if that is true to the way she lives now. Or the other alternative is basically an exposition dump where the person announces they are trans. Which is almost certainly going to fail due to terrible writing, and it's probably going to fail in exactly the way this does.

So it sounds to me here that this is a reflect of ignorance borne of good intentions, where the thought process was:
- We want to be inclusive and tell a trans story
- How do we make it clear that the character is trans?
- Have them discuss their transition
- Okay, well, the way we do any characterization in our games is we just have them monologue their life story
- Bingo, all done!

And the result is bad writing which reads as tonedeaf, untrue to the trans experience, and hackneyed.

I think the need to back up good intentions with good results speaks to the value of having trans team members (and also not tokenizing them by using them as your Hey I Need You To Be The Voice Of All Trans People), listening to their ideas, and consulting with external groups who want to help on this stuff, rather than just a priori deciding "We want a trans character", writing what you think works, and settling for that.

(Honestly, I suspect they will patch the line to say "people knew me by another name, but that is never who I was" or some other similar line post release, but otherwise leave the clunky exposition dump)
I largely agree with the sum of this post. The difficulty of writing a good trans character is indeed largely mooted by consulting gender-variant folks for their perspectives. I've discussed my transition, my experiences with gender expression and norms, and life before transition in ways that developed out of natural conversation with people that struck me as being receptive. Shit, I've even had those conversations in the salon, in government offices, at work, and with many people I hadn't known for very long.

And as it happens, science fiction is a great place for discourse on gender nonconformity well above and beyond, "hey stranger, want to know the name I hated and buried in a different galaxy?"

Genuine perspectives on this would elevate it beyond clunky, misguided adaptation and into a foundation for something much more promising and forward-looking. Beyond the game's representation being backwards, it's done a profound disservice to the genre and its own potential by looking backwards too. Small scifi is the saddest kind.
 

Hopeford

Member
Can you explain that to me, because I'm not seeing it.

This isn't snark, I'm genuinely curious as to why accidentally calling someone by the name you've called them their entire life and apologizing is expressing negative viewpoints and opinions on transexuality.

I'm not trans, but I figure it's kind of like when you are trying to reach for the popcorn and accidentally elbow your friend in the face. Like, it's an accident, no hard feelings about it, but goddamn it you still hit me in the face and ouch, that hurts.
 
Can you explain that to me, because I'm not seeing it.

This isn't snark, I'm genuinely curious as to why accidentally calling someone by the name you've called them their entire life and apologizing is expressing negative viewpoints and opinions on transexuality.

I can't speak for trans people but I would offer this:
Your intent doesn't matter. Of course it may make it far less impactful, you apologize and try harder next time and hopefully move on. It's just semantics, but whether or not you meant it or not doesn't make it automatically less offensive, just in the same way that people are racists or sexists without 'meaning to be'.
 

Hopeford

Member
I mean, sure, but that doesn't make you someone who has negative feelings towards your friends face. You're just being aloof or careless, not hateful, scared, or have any negative feelings towards said face.

What I was trying to say is that accidentally hitting a friend is a violent action, even if you aren't a violent person. I think it's easier to understand if you think of the accidental word as being a transphobic action rather than it making you a transphobic person(especially if you admit fault to it and promise to try not doing it again).

Then again, I'm not trans so maybe I'm completely wrong about this.
 

Sibylus

Banned
Addendum I forgot to add:

I don't have strong preferences for trans characters who come out or don't come out, overt or subtle. Characters like Ned Wynert in Assassin's Creed Syndicate are a kind of subtle-overt, it's clear to many who play that he is a trans man, but at the same time the game doesn't beat you over the head with that fact to make sure you get it, or turn it into a trans tragedy story. Having him just living his life and people accepting him without fuss is a great message all its own. I love creative work that digs into trans identity and transition and gender non-conformance, but it's good that we show that trans folks also just want to live their lives too.
 

Platy

Member
I mean, sure, but that doesn't make you someone who has negative feelings towards your friends face. You're just being aloof or careless, not hateful, scared, or have any negative feelings towards said face.

Transphobia, like Racism and Homophobia is not just beating people on the street.

Saying that all black guys have big dicks is some kind of racism because it puts everyone into the same box.

If you say some transphobic stuff like deadnaming, apologize like if you elbowed a person's face ... and if you do that in front of others, since we live in a transphobic world, other people might think it is ok to deaname as well, because "a friend did so she, i mean he because ROBERT i am right, must be ok"
 
The deadnaming case is some really bad case of tone-deaf writing. If you're really trying your earnest to do a positive and realistic portrayal of a trans person, at least try to understand some basic concepts.
 

Platy

Member
How? Is the name really that big of a deal?

That's like being called antisemitic for saying "Merry Christmas" to someone not knowing they were Jewish.

No, that is like saying Merry Christmas to someone KNOWING they are jewish and hate to be said Merry Christmas. Because he went out of his ordinary life to get a visible "I hate christmas" tatoo on his arm
 

Fotos

Member
No, that is like saying Merry Christmas to someone KNOWING they are jewish and hate to be said Merry Christmas. Because he went out of his ordinary life to get a visible "I hate christmas" tatoo on his arm

Is deadnaming purposely calling someone it while knowing you shouldn't? Genuine question. I've never heard of this before and I have gone to school with some trans people.
 

Platy

Member
Is deadnaming purposely calling someone it while knowing you shouldn't? Genuine question.

It is saying the birthname of a trans person. If said person is not out as trans yet it does not count as deadnaming because there is no other name to call.

If the person is presenting themself as Sarah and you call her, a full visible woman, Robert than you are being an asshole deadnaming.

If a trans man is named Robert and you call him Sarah you are basicaly saying that his identity is fake and you don't believe/respect it.
 

wamberz1

Member
Well, I could understand if this were a trophy only obtainable through 1 playthrough, but it's obtainable through multiple so... couldn't you just play one playthrough where you are a gay male, then one where your anything else for a different option? As far as I know nothing is holding you back from doing that. I'm a straight male and usually always try to roleplay different races/genders/sexual orientations from my own. Maybe I'm way of the mark here, though, and I'm not aware of something.

Everything else though seems shitty, yeah. The lack of gay male romance options particularly. And that screenshot... yikes.
 
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