Gamers throw shitfit re: transgender character in Baldur's Gate

[The_Queen]

Since I made the mistake of opening a UP comment, I'm going to give his unworthy ass my time and painstakingly explain the point of view that says these comments are transphobic. Because I hate myself.

- "T**nny" is a transphobic slur. A slur is a term that is used to demean, dehumanize or marginalize a group of people.
- The view that the mere existence of a transgender character in a game, or said character's identity being referenced, is "social justice garbage" or "SJW politics" is transphobic because transgender characters/people existing is not inherently social leftist propaganda (again, words mean things), and saying that transgender characters can only exist as a political vehicle prohibits transgender characters from being an organic part of a fictional universe.
- "Transvestite" and "transgender person" are two different things; to equate the two is transphobic erasure.
- "Born a man"
- "a tr***y that doesn't fit the lore" implies that transgender characters in and of themselves don't belong in Baldur's Gate lore (or, implicitly, fantasy in general) since from what I can tell, war god priests aren't exactly a violation of Baldur worldbuilding.
- Literally saying that "political opinions" (which is a dogwhistle for "a transgender person exists and mentions her identity in an optional dialogue path") don't belong in Baldur's Gate (or, implicitly, gaming)
- "We are trying to ESCAPE having to deal with the existence of non-cishet people, but I'm totally not a bigot"
- "the existence of a transgender person offends us, remove her from the game"
- "let me discover the transgender woman for myself instead of forcing me to mingle with non-cishets" I understand that UP is deliberately missing all of this and will continue to plug his ears because he's UP, by the way, but I'm in that ranting mood
- "it's not natural for this transgender character to talk about her identity so openly, now please excuse me as I kill a dragon with a magic sword I got from a god" (I don't even know if BG has dragons, I haven't played it, substitute something else there if there aren't)
- "it's not natural for this transgender character to talk about her identity so openly, transgender characters need to jump through the Hoops of a Thousand Fuckboys before they're allowed to talk about their identity"
- the existence of a transgender character is not a goddamn lecture on gender politics, transgender characters and people can exist apolitically you gatekeeping fuckos

That got ranty at the end there, but I hope I've made myself clear. And I hope I haven't spoken out of turn; as a cis person, my understanding of the topic is second-hand, but that's how I understand it at least. I don't mean to make myself a high authority on this or anything.

Eh, I give it my stamp of approval. Since the dialogue isn't even mandatory, it really just highlights that the crux of the beef against her is the existence of trannsexuals in a video game. Likewise, there are plenty of transpeople I know who are entirely honest about being trans, so expecting her to be quiet about it really just stems from being uncomfortable with the notion of a trans person being, well, a person.

[Katsuro]

Dunno if someone's already brought this up but gamers do remember Poison from Final Fight/Street Fighter, right?  I don't remember anyone giving a fuck about her being trans.  I know that her being trans was only done as an after thought to get around the issue of hitting women for the western market (which in itself is full of it's own issues, like how Capcom presumably thinks hitting trans women is ok if they used to have a penis because they're not real women or that they think that's how westerners think, or something equally as shitty) but I think its still relevant.  Video games, especially Japanese ones for some reason, are also full of androgynous characters, like Leo from Tekken, Elliot from DoA and pretty much fucking everyone in every JRPG.  So why is this suddenly a big deal to these fuckmonkeys?

I also feel that the fact that it's common for players of both video games and table-top RPG type games to create and play as a character of a different gender than their own is relevant too, as is gender swapping character in fan art and cos-play.  I'm not quite sure how exactly but in my defense I am tired as all fuck.

Edit: Googled some trans video game characters and there's even more than I was aware of.

http://www.out.com/entertainment/popnography/2013/11/03/7-trans-friendly-video-game-characters
https://transgamersociologist.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/a-brief-history-of-transgender-characters-in-video-games/

There's even more if you include all the deliberately androgynous/gender non-specific characters.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Dunno if someone's already brought this up but gamers do remember Poison from Final Fight/Street Fighter, right?  I don't remember anyone giving a fuck about her being trans.  I know that her being trans was only done as an after thought to get around the issue of hitting women for the western market (which in itself is full of it's own issues, like how Capcom presumably thinks hitting trans women is ok if they used to have a penis because they're not real women or that they think that's how westerners think, or something equally as shitty) but I think its still relevant.  Video games, especially Japanese ones for some reason, are also full of androgynous characters, like Leo from Tekken, Elliot from DoA and pretty much fucking everybody in the Final Fantasy series.  So why is this suddenly a big deal to this fuckmonkeys?

I also feel that the fact that it's common for players of both video games and table-top RPG type games to create and play as a character of a different gender than their own is relevant too, as is gender swapping character is fan art and cos-play.  I'm not quite sure how exactly but in my defense I am tired as all fuck.

Because Poison is an actual character.

Anyway, allow me to take a look at the reviews cited:

(click to show/hide)

This person's problem was with the writers trying to promote an agenda, by taking away the player's choice.  In Mass Effect, you can portray Shepard as a racist asshole.  Here, the only response you can give is a positive one.  And they only briefly mentioned the political stuff.



Aside from misusing the word "transvestite," this isn't too bad.  It's not complaining about the character herself, but about her being poorly-written and the devs using her as a shield.



How do we even know this is about Mizhena?  There's other political stuff shoehorned into the game too.

Edit 1: accidentally posted too early.



I'll give you this one, since the reviewer does seem to be genuinely transphobic, if only unconsciously.  But that doesn't invalidate the other points he/she makes.



There are legitimate grounds to think Mizhena was poorly-handled.

The rest pretty much speak for themselves, at least to me.  To sum up, I think the only remaining one that's really "transphobic" is the last.  The others are kind of poorly-worded, but I'm not sure if they can be considered outright transphobic.

Besides, listing those reviews and only those reviews was pretty blatant cherry-picking.

Edit 2: Here's the Steam front page as of right now:

(click to show/hide)

[Askold]

Because Poison is an actual character.

Explain. The average character in old fighting games only has enough character to fill a few lines of backstory on the manual and possibly a text screen if you win the game with that character. Meanwhile Baldur's Gate has generally had well written NPCs with whom you can talk to and the companions have an adventure or two relating to them not to mention them commenting on things that happen in the game.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Because Poison is an actual character.

Explain. The average character in old fighting games only has enough character to fill a few lines of backstory on the manual and possibly a text screen if you win the game with that character. Meanwhile Baldur's Gate has generally had well written NPCs with whom you can talk to and the companions have an adventure or two relating to them not to mention them commenting on things that happen in the game.

What I mean is that her character doesn't revolve around her being trans.  And from what I've been hearing, that's not the case for Mizhena.  I haven't checked it out for myself, though, so I could be wrong.

[Even Then]

See, Askold, Mizhena actually mentions her gender as opposed to stuffing it away in the author's notes, where it won't offend UP. Therefore, she's not an actual character, but rather a dreaded SJW Borg Mindcontrolled Drone. Nevermind that she's also established from the get-go as a pious priest and that her gender is a piece of trivia buried underneath one of her dialogue branches. No, she just revolves around being transgender. Because that's how all non-cishet characters work.

[Askold]

Because Poison is an actual character.

Explain. The average character in old fighting games only has enough character to fill a few lines of backstory on the manual and possibly a text screen if you win the game with that character. Meanwhile Baldur's Gate has generally had well written NPCs with whom you can talk to and the companions have an adventure or two relating to them not to mention them commenting on things that happen in the game.

What I mean is that her character doesn't revolve around her being trans.  And from what I've been hearing, that's not the case for Mizhena.  I haven't checked it out for myself, though, so I could be wrong.

...So once again you are going on based on rumours.

It has already been proven in this thread that the character doesn't just jump in and announce that they are trans. That is only something that comes up IF you start talking to them and ask about their personal life.

And honestly, it does not make sense to me that there would automatically be a stigma for transpeople in Forgotten Realms. They have spells that can turn males into females or vice versa. Granted that this is normally used as a curse to strike on unwitting victims (who most likely will not appreciate this) but it still means that they are likely to have means of doing the same to people who wish such a change. Or you can simply buy one of the malfunctioning magical items that give the same effect as a curse. In either case it would likely be as easily available as other magical cures are.

[ironbite]

*munches popcorn*

Ironbite-this has been rather amusing watching UP be super thick.

[Ultimate Paragon]

See, Askold, Mizhena actually mentions her gender as opposed to stuffing it away in the author's notes, where it won't offend UP. Therefore, she's not an actual character, but rather a dreaded SJW Borg Mindcontrolled Drone. Nevermind that she's also established from the get-go as a pious priest and that her gender is a piece of trivia buried underneath one of her dialogue branches. No, she just revolves around being transgender. Because that's how all non-cishet characters work.

I legitimately didn't know that.

[Svata]

It was already mentioned in this very fucking thread, you twatwaffle!

[Askold]

Either he doesn't read our comments OR he is merely acting like a moron again.


...Honestly, UP is there something wrong with you? I know I already made the joke about you acting as dense as a suspect in court but unless you are doing this on purpose the only other option I can think of is that you are merely skimming a few of our comments and you aren't even looking into any of the topics and merely parroting information that others feed to you.

[Katsuro]

...They have spells that can turn males into females or vice versa...

This is a bit of a tangent and not totally relevant, but that just reminded me in Norse mythology isn't Loki the mother of Odin's horse, Sleipnir?  You'd think fans of lore/mythology rich RPG's and adventure games would be into real life ancient mythology, and who doesn't love MOTHERFUCKNG VIKINGS?!  (And before someone says the so-called "viking era" was medieval not ancient - yes but the religion predates the "viking era".)

I know it's going back a bit but to me that added to the stupidity of all the butthurt over Marvel's new Thor being a woman.  And yeah I do realise that Thor in Norse mythology is not a shape-shifter like Loki but that's kind of splitting hairs, the point is people were annoyed about a character getting gender swapped when that character is taken from a real-world religion were certain characters can change genders at will (not to mention the fact said Marvel character had also been a horse-faced alien at one point).  Plus it's not like the comics are all that true to the real mythology anyway so the fact it's Thor and not Loki being made female isn't all that relevant to the argument to my mind.

But I digress.  Back to the show...

[SCarpelan]

Even if she had very little other characterization than being transwoman it wouldn't matter. That kind of throwaway minor NPCs can be used to flesh out the world and in that case the fleshing out would be to let player know that transpeople exist in that world, too.

If she was a significant character plotwise and had no real characterization besides being trans then her character would actually be problematic in many ways.

[Even Then]

Also, the original Thor didn't stop existing or anything. IIRC, someone new just became worthy of the hammer and gained Thor powers, along with Thor's divine task on Earth or some bollocks. And yeah, Loki turned into a mare and seduced some giant dude's horse so the giant couldn't finish a wall on time.

Back to the show; I love how the complaints of some of these entitled brats are "Waaah, I'm not allowed to be transphobic in this game! Me not being able to be bigoted in this game is GAMER OPPRESSION!"

@SCarpe: Why do I get the feeling that if that fluff bit of Mizhena's was about her having, say, a sister who's a rogue, these assmasters wouldn't be whining about her character revolving around that?

[Belloc]

Serious question: if the inclusion of this character is pushing an agenda, what would NOT be pushing an agenda? The character does nothing but exist and happens to be transgender (a quality that is only revealed after optional dialogue choices). It is the base-line minimum of existence. If this is promoting an agenda, what isn't?