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[BeesEight]

Thanks for the explanation. I hadn't really given it much thought beyond race (ethnicity?) and gender (sex?) both being things you're born with.

I'd be surprised if most people did. I don't mean that disparagingly--simply most fields of study do not cover those topics and the vast majority of people have their "internal" identity match their "external" identity and it doesn't really cross our mind.

For what it's worth, the historical scientific philosophy was that of tabula rasa and a strong prevailing theory was that concepts of gender identity were all learned from society and upbringing. The aforementioned case study (David Reimer) arose when a doctor who performed a botched circumcision encouraged the parents of the child to simply raise the infant as a girl. Unfortunately, the child grew up with a lot of stress and anxiety for they never self-identified as a girl despite the parents never informing him he was born a boy and could not reconcile his personal feelings with how he was told to behave. When he finally learned the truth, he started living as a man (though, he eventually committed suicide because of the anguish he had experienced).

The case is, in the psychology field, extremely famous for becoming the foundation of modern gender identity theory as well as being a benchmark in transgender studies.

If someone hasn't studied psychology, however, I'd be very surprised if they had heard it. I know I didn't until I took my classes.

 

[JDSN]

huh it says no fatties too. the whole thing just seems to be in bad taste doesnt mean they have a history of transphobia going off that image. that would be saying the escapist has a phobia of fat ppl too. ...

(and yes i did realize the joke that could me made of me typing this and jim sterling leaving them while typing this out) ...

Well they hired a transphobic guy, so I think this might by the begining of that history.

 

[Easy_D]

lol Yngwie Malmsteen is not a viking

Eh. To be fair, he is Swedish

 

[Corpekata]

I don't think that Yahtzee thing is bad given the game he is talking about is told from the perspective of an oppressive regime and in fact during it if I recall you are required to eventually check gender and deny people if they are "misrepresenting" it.

 

[L Thammy]

Look, all I'm saying is that I should be allowed to treat everyone else like shit while being completely free from consequence. I don't think that makes me a selfish person at all.

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Since he seems to think he's beyond needing to be civil to people he dislikes, he can't object when someone inevitably swings at his ignorant face

Sure he can. Using violence against words isn't right either.

Isn't it funny how denying climate change or being anti-vaccination is ridiculous, but people who ignore the science behind gender are "entitled to their opinion"?

I wonder if that has to do with society treating trans people like second-class citizens or something

I mean, he is entitled to that opinion just like everyone is entitled to whatever awful opinions they have about vaccinations, race, politics, genocide, hats, etc. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to get educated on why their views are damaging and whatnot.

But I wouldn't tell someone they're not allowed to hold those views. I just would hope they had the common sense to not put them out in the open, especially when their professional life is already out in the open. This guy clearly doesn't fall into that category.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I don't think that Yahtzee thing is bad given the game he is talking about is told from the perspective of an oppressive regime and in fact during it if I recall you are required to eventually check gender and deny people if they are "misrepresenting" it.

The fact that it's a slur is still really bad. He wouldn't have been able to get away with saying the n-word, for instance.

I mean, he is entitled to that opinion just like everyone is entitled to whatever awful opinions they have about vaccinations, race, politics, genocide, hats, etc. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to get educated on why their views are damaging and whatnot.

But I wouldn't tell someone they're not allowed to hold those views. I just would hope they had the common sense to not put them out in the open, especially when their professional life is already out in the open. This guy clearly doesn't fall into that category.

The issue is that being wrong about climate change or vaccination is ridiculous and unacceptable, but being wrong about gender is just one man's opinion. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that disregarding experts in the field of gender is okay, because trans people are treated poorly in society.

 

[NotLiquid]

Escapist must be feeling really fortunate that Yahtzee seems to not give a single shit about the community running itself to the ground.

The Escapist has a history of this.

There's an implied transphobia content warning for the whole thread, so:

I'm kinda mixed on this since the screenshot in particular is taking the piss out of Papers Please where this is basically what actually happens in the game due to the narrative being set in prejudiced circumstance. For the sake of absurd parody the joke was really "eh" itself, but where it crosses into explicitly bad form is the site going with this image as the splash page.

 

[JackDT]

Of course, he's right, he has the *right* to be treat people however he wants, be an douche, insult whoever he wants, whatever. Everyone else has the right to tell him, "Hey would not mind not being such a douche?"

 

[KePoW]

Eh. To be fair, he is Swedish

Right but I don't think of current Swedish people as historic vikings haha

 

[foolishoptimist]

Also the whole "why should I have to go out of my way to gender them correctly?" argument is silly. If you called someone Sarah, and they replied that they were actually called Ashley, would you continue to call them Sarah so you don't have to go "out of your way"?

Apparently, not being an asshole, is going out of his way.

 

[Alo81]

Dude's a dirtbag. This is more than enough reason for me to never visit the site again. Disturbing that people still hold these types of views.

 

[Deleted member 126221]

Good thing Jim Sterling has his own website now, I won't need to go there anymore. This website is heading in a weird and frankly disgusting direction.

 

[GamerJM]

This is fucked up.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

I like it when people like this air their views publically. Freedom of speech is great.

It makes it easy to actually see how fucking abhorrent people are.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

He also encouraged @a_man_in_black to go and kill himself: https://archive.today/EKnYL

And The Escapist has hired another known GGer: LizzyF620

They did two pieces, if I recall correctly.

Female Developers speak about Gamergate, which was, as you might guess, all women.

and Developers speak about Gamergate, which was, as you might guess, all men.

There's also an article about this and why The Escapist doesn't talk about GG anymore: http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/104288647532/why-the-escapist-wont-talk-about-gamergate

 

[Paz]

ok so? he's entitled to his opinion.

And people are entitled to think his opinions are horrible and do everything in their power (be it making this thread, simply not visiting the escapist, or anything else) to make it known that those opinions are not acceptable.

The freedom to have your own opinion is not make you immune to critique.

 

[Monocle]

You're missing an image.

WTF

ok so? he's entitled to his opinion.

People are free to criticize those who publicly state their nasty hateful opinions. As an Escapist employee, that guy represents the Escapist, so now we can criticize them for hiring a bigot too.

 

[Daingurse]

Fuck this guy.

 

[Casimir]

I think he's more referring to the fact that both Arthur Gies and Ben Kuchera moved meaning that those that didn't like them could just avoid this single outlet and not the separate ones they worked for.

No, Gamergate hates Polygon. They're saying that Polygon keeps all the shitty reporting contained and The Escapist keeps Gamergate supporters contained. I don't think either of those things are true, but hey.

Oh no no.

Just shit.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Sarakin]

I can understand ignorance, but consciously refusing to recognize a person's gender?

Gender Identity can be a tricky thing to wrap your mind around. It's not exactly ignorance, so much as trying to understand it properly. I can absolutely understand someone knowing what a trans person is, and what that means but still having a hard time accepting it.

That doesn't make it right. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to understand either.

Maybe i'm just arguing semantics I dunno.

 

[Zach]

I just don't understand why grown people feel the need to be unnecessarily mean to other people. All anyone is asking is that you be kind and considerate to others. But I guess that's suuuper oppressive.

 

[besada]

Someone call the political correctness police. A guy on the internet doesn't agree with you.

And what you're doing here is different how? You're commenting on people you disagree with on the internet.

The Escapist has a right to hire anyone they want, and people have a right to comment on that hiring, as well as determine whether that hiring will effect their future commerce with the site.

The difference between them and you is that you're trying to shut down conversation you don't like, whereas they're actually discussing the issue. I'd recommend that if you aren't interested in discussing it, or if you genuinely believe people don't have the right to comment on other people's public opinions, then you probably shouldn't be here. If you do believe it's okay to discuss people's public opinions, then feel free to express yours without trying to shut down conversation.

 

[tiebreaker]

ffs, I thought this was about that prison sim game. Reading the OP and the Replies was confusing.

Am I the only one who never heard of this website?

 

[Alo0oy]

Why are right wingers always closed minded & assholes?

 

[A Link to the Past]

Gender Identity can be a tricky thing to wrap your mind around. It's not exactly ignorance, so much as trying to understand it properly. I can absolutely understand someone knowing what a trans person is, and what that means but still having a hard time accepting it.

That doesn't make it right. But that doesn't mean it's impossible to understand either.

Maybe i'm just arguing semantics I dunno.

I wouldn't describe it as a hard time accepting it. To me, trying to wrap one's head around it is more akin to the poster earlier who asked why people can change gender rather than change race. Personally, I don't think it's reasonable to call his views understandable, because to me they are a lot of the same views that lead people to kill or otherwise harass trans people.

 

[Steel]

Lovely.

 

[lil]

The issue is that being wrong about climate change or vaccination is ridiculous and unacceptable, but being wrong about gender is just one man's opinion. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that disregarding experts in the field of gender is okay, because trans people are treated poorly in society.

Yep, the whole 'it's just someone's opinion' thing really bugs me. I mean yeah, it's their opinion and they can have it, but it isn't just their opinion because it wasn't formed in a vacuum. It's bigger than just them—their opinion was informed by a violent transphobic culture and it perpetuates that violent transphobic culture just the same. We know of 5 murders of trans WOC this year alone and it's freaking February. Trans people are dying by the day, and we're all connected to that.

 

[BenjiGAF]

Why are right wingers always closed minded & assholes?

People who vote one way or another aren't all the same, but keep using blanket statements to display how open-minded and civil you are

 

[F0rneus]

Well it's not like the guy can't get a job...He deserves to work, no matter how horrific his speech is. But he is a terrible person in my opinion. I'll avoid The Escapist from now on. What their new hire says, is simply horrid and soulless IMO.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Well it's not like the guy can't get a job...He deserves to work, no matter how horrific his speech is. But he is a terrible person in my opinion. I'll avoid The Escapist from now on. What their new hire says, is simply horrid and soulless IMO.

He can work at McDonald's if he wants to be trash.

 

[Walshicus]

"I have no problem with trans people, I just hate it when they have some impact on my ability to say something without it having repercussions."

More or less what the dude's saying. It's fine if he wants to be a goddamned idiot, but that doesn't entitle him to freedom from consequence.

I don't read it as that, but instead being unwilling to engage in what he perceives to be a delusion, or misrepresentation of reality.

I do kind of wonder whether this guy's just being more honest with himself than a lot of us. I mean an overwhelming majority of straight men would reject being romantically involved with people moving from male to female... so deep down I'd say we already don't believe the transition is "genuine". There is a divide that is not likely to go away.

Just guess there's a difference between not engaging with something you don't believe and being a dick.

Yep, the whole 'it's just someone's opinion' thing really bugs me. I mean yeah, it's their opinion and they can have it, but it isn't just their opinion because it wasn't formed in a vacuum. It's bigger than just them—their opinion was informed by a violent transphobic culture and it perpetuates that violent transphobic culture just the same. We know of 5 murders of trans WOC this year alone and it's freaking February. Trans people are dying by the day, and we're all connected to that.

Yes, but that violence is wrong in of itself regardless of the sex-change element. It almost seems like you're advocating thought policing to solve a problem only tangentially related.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Apparently Brandon Morse founded "Misfit Politics", some right wing news site he writes for. Seems those credentials are enough for the Escapist these days. They really do seem to be pandering to a certain group.

He can work at McDonald's if he wants to be trash.

Don't be like that. There are a lot of good people who work at places like McDonald's. It's not like they want to, but it's not always easy to find the job you want.

 

[Alo0oy]

People who vote one way or another aren't all the same, but keep using blanket statements to display how open-minded and civil you are

Well, where I live, they're the only people that want to turn the country into Saudi Arabia.

 

[cosmicblizzard]

I'd be surprised if most people did. I don't mean that disparagingly--simply most fields of study do not cover those topics and the vast majority of people have their "internal" identity match their "external" identity and it doesn't really cross our mind.

For what it's worth, the historical scientific philosophy was that of tabula rasa and a strong prevailing theory was that concepts of gender identity were all learned from society and upbringing. The aforementioned case study (David Reimer) arose when a doctor who performed a botched circumcision encouraged the parents of the child to simply raise the infant as a girl. Unfortunately, the child grew up with a lot of stress and anxiety for they never self-identified as a girl despite the parents never informing him he was born a boy and could not reconcile his personal feelings with how he was told to behave. When he finally learned the truth, he started living as a man (though, he eventually committed suicide because of the anguish he had experienced).

The case is, in the psychology field, extremely famous for becoming the foundation of modern gender identity theory as well as being a benchmark in transgender studies.

If someone hasn't studied psychology, however, I'd be very surprised if they had heard it. I know I didn't until I took my classes.

I had heard of the Reimer case before, but never read much about it beyond a basic summary. Interesting and unfortunately tragic stuff.

A bit OT, but it does make me wonder if in the future, there will be something like ethnicity-reassignment surgery or some kind of weird psychological link will be discovered. Will stuff like "oreo" or "twinkie" or any other variation become slurs?

The human mind is a strange beast.

The issue is that being wrong about climate change or vaccination is ridiculous and unacceptable, but being wrong about gender is just one man's opinion. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that disregarding experts in the field of gender is okay, because trans people are treated poorly in society.

Oh, so you're talking about the hypocrisy from proponents of those discussions. I understand, but I do think the scope could be potentially different depending on who you ask. Some might say being anti-vaccination is directly and immediately harmful to another human being, generally a child, whereas they could call transphobic remarks less so as they're no physical component there.

Keep in mind this is not necessarily my view, as something being psychologically damaging should not be encouraged either.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

I'm having trouble wording this, so if it sounds offensive I don't mean it to, it's just because I've never been in a situation where I've had to question it.

I find it easier to wrap my head around someone being born male/female, but identifying with the other and feeling more comfortable with another gender, whereas I find questioning why someone would want to pick the opposite just a tad odd. Maybe it's because I find it easier to accept that someone dressed a certain way, probably wants to be identified that way?

I dunno.

It's not "playing pretend", if someone gets to live a more comfortable life, why go out of your way to make them feel bad?

 

[Head.spawn]

lol Yngwie Malmsteen is not a viking

Sure he is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcwcxBf_fTE

 

[Some Nobody]

Lol, what? Fuck the Escapist. What was this place without Jim Sterling anyway.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Apparently Brandon Morse founded "Misfit Politics", some right wing news site he writes for. Seems those credentials are enough for the Escapist these days. They really do seem to be pandering to a certain group.



Don't be like that. There are a lot of good people who work at places like McDonald's. It's not like they want to, but it's not always easy to find the job you want.

Oh, don't worry, I'm speaking from experience, I worked at a McDonald's for years and only got out due to a lucky break. My point was that he has the right to work, and lower-tier jobs like McDonald's are open to people who destroy their careers, not that only bad people go to work there.

 

[mreddie]

Oh, so basically he wants the views because he's doing the ol right winger bullshit Rush and Beck did.

Never fails.

Spoiler

...to being a moron.

 

[aliengmr]

Not at all surprised, GG is a ready made audience. Just add asshole and stir.


Really getting tired of the "Hey, we should be allowed to offend people!" "Waaaa quit offending our video games by having opinions about them!" stupidity.

 

[F0rneus]

I'm having trouble wording this, so if it sounds offensive I don't mean it to, it's just because I've never been in a situation where I've had to question it.

I find it easier to wrap my head around someone being born male/female, but identifying with the other and feeling more comfortable with another gender, whereas I find questioning why someone would want to pick the opposite just a tad odd. Maybe it's because I find it easier to accept that someone dressed a certain way, probably wants to be identified that way?

I dunno.

It's not "playing pretend", if someone gets to live a more comfortable life, why go out of your way to make them feel bad?

This is literally a very simple situation for me. I am a Mega Man fanboy. Always will be. And the person who first showed me this wonderful series is my friend Alex. When we played Mega Man 2 and 3 together...Alex was a boy. But as of three days ago, Alex has fully transitioned. Haven't spoken to her yet but nothing has changed IMO. She's still the kid who could beat Bubble Crab in X2 when I couldn't.

 

[Khalifa Jayy]

All this "outrage" is amazing.

 

[Jathaine]

Literally almost every psychologist on the planet can.

But seriously, it's pretty simple. Being black is not a state of mind. We're not taught that our skin is or needs to be a certain colour. Gender, however, has fucktons of shit tied to your brain and psychology.

I'm pretty sure this post was made by someone who hasn't lived life as a minority group in their country.

 

[Ketkat]

All this "outrage" is amazing.

Why is that in quotes, are people not actually outraged?

 

[Weiss]

Escapist continues a downward spiral into total shitville. Can they just drop Critical Miss and Zero Punctuation so I never have to go to their site again?

 

[Daingurse]

All this "outrage" is amazing.

It's not hard to be outraged towards a bigot.

 

[BlastProcessing]

Escapist must be feeling really fortunate that Yahtzee seems to not give a single shit about the community running itself to the ground.



I'm kinda mixed on this since the screenshot in particular is taking the piss out of Papers Please where this is basically what actually happens in the game due to the narrative being set in prejudiced circumstance. For the sake of absurd parody the joke was really "eh" itself, but where it crosses into explicitly bad form is the site going with this image as the splash page.

I think he could have constructed a better joke there. It's a cheap punchline that relies on pre-existing prejudices.

My "Is this offensive?" rule of thumb is to just replace the word with another similar slur for the group. Like how the "Washington Redskins" name seems a lot worse when you call them the "Washington Jews". I don't think the joke is absurd parody. That's part of the problem; it's way too specific and grounded.

I stopped watching Yatzee's stuff years ago because it got fed up with how often his comedy punched down instead of punching up.

ok so? he's entitled to his opinion.

And I am entitled to use that opinion to make judgements about his character. In the same manner, I am entitled to use your post to make judgements about your character. Ain't entitlement grand?

All this "outrage" is amazing.

 

[CambriaRising]

All this "outrage" is amazing.

Tell us more about how trivial transphobia is.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Apparently Brandon Morse founded "Misfit Politics", some right wing news site he writes for. Seems those credentials are enough for the Escapist these days. They really do seem to be pandering to a certain group.

There's an opening for reactionary games commentary. Basically the entire games media at present is either corporately apolitical (IGN, Game Informer, etc) or clickbait-leftist (Polygon, Kotaku, etc). This means that an outlet that can successfully brand itself as being in some way to the right of the rest of the games media has the potential to scoop up a lot of loyal readers just because they feel the rest of the games media looks down on them. It's the Fox News strategy.

I don't know if it will work in this case, but it's possible: the audience for a gaming website is overwhelmingly male and men tend to be more conservative than their age cohort as a whole. All else being equal you'd expect games-oriented websites to be slightly more conservative in their politics compared to other websites aimed at the 18-35 demographic for this reason. Right now that isn't the case, and maybe there's a good reason for that. But it makes sense that someone would try to tap that underserved part of the market.