Sqorgar, you and your oh-so-conveniently conditional arguments sound like part of the biggest problem I have with everything related to PA: the people who watch this crap happen, then ultimately shrug it off.
I'm one of Penny Arcade's biggest detractors. It's just that, in this case, I don't think Gabe was wrong. I think the reaction was wrong. It's off for me to have Penny Arcade being the innocent victim, so please try to understand that I'm trying to be objective, not shrug off their behavior.
You may argue that people ganging up on Mike won't change his mind, yet you simultaneously admit he has the mind of a child, which I agree with, and suggests that he's a hopeless case.
I don't think I ever said that he was a hopeless case. Just that he is very defensive and takes things very personally. Any time someone argues with him, he clams up or uses his PA fans as a weapon to fight back. I don't think he's hopeless though. I think he can learn. That he hasn't thus far is depressing, not fate.
...but I'm sure there's a part of you that understands why that rapidly stops being acceptable after multiple offenses. Two wrongs don't make a right, and neither do 900 of them from the same source.
Gabe is an asshole. This I agree. But do I think he is such a monumental asshole that I should boycott Child's Play and PAX? That's a bit iffy. I would avoid such things if they were directly in line with his idiot beliefs, but as it happens, those parts represent the few good qualities the man has. At the end of the day, he's a father and a gamer, and sometimes this shows through.
So yeah, in this particular case, with this particular mountain of evidence, I think it's okay for a bunch of people to call out and attempt to hurt someone who says stupid things in public and rally other people to join them, especially when that someone has done very similar things since day one of them being famous.
It is NEVER okay to attempt to hurt someone, no matter what stupid thing they say. If you want to bring the trans community down to Gabe's level, that's your choice, but I don't think the best way to gain support in the gaming community is to be petty and vindictive.
So he doesn't learn; fine, fuck him. The end goal shouldn't even be educating him, but educating those around him.
And what are you teaching them? That's it's not okay to share your opinion on the off chance you might offend someone? That making mistakes should be punishable by public shaming? That it is not okay to disagree with someone, ever?
If you think you are teaching tolerance, you are actually teaching the exact opposite.
I just don't want to say any word or make any action that shows I like, support, or otherwise tolerate people I find to be consistently top-shelf annoying fucking assholes. Why do you?
Because I don't think anybody is an asshole 100% of the time. Gabe does many regrettable things, but he does a lot of good things as well. Part of my dealing with Penny Arcade has taught me that public perception doesn't always show the whole truth about a person's character. It creates cruel caricatures - effigies to to misunderstandings and mistakes - and it burns them in your face.
I think Gabe was wrong, but my disagreement with what he said does not mean that I condemn the man and everything he has ever touched. I'm still deciding what my own position is on certain transgender issues, and the thing about all this that really pisses me off is that the trans community is so god damned sensitive that they refuse to let any conversation happen that they don't approve of. They don't get to dictate the terms of how people see them. They can earn it. They can work towards improving it. But they do not have the right to punish and to hate because of it.