I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Insane

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I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Insane

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Fri Jul 15, 2016 10:02 pm

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2284-i-put-trans-character-in-game-gamers-went-insane.html


So, here's an article about trans characters in video games that's actually about a trans character in a video game, and boy is it ugly.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby iMURDAu » Fri Jul 15, 2016 10:18 pm

Wow you use "it" as a pronoun and also judge based on appearance.

Smfh
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby Paradox » Fri Jul 15, 2016 10:28 pm

How many different types of cancer can I expect to get after reading it?
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby gisambards » Fri Jul 15, 2016 10:41 pm

Elements of the article are a little one-sided.
Obviously, the abuse transgender gamers and game developers receive is abhorrent. That one goes without saying. The others are a little more murky.

As I think was discussed somewhere else on this site, the Baldur's Gate "trans character" is actually incredibly badly done - she gives you an unsolicited speech about how she's trans and goes to great effort to mention how everyone is perfectly okay with it. The player character normally is given a possible rude response in every other dialogue tree in the game, but in this case only has polite options. Personally, I'm not going to identify with a Mary-Sue who assumes everyone's interested in their gender identity and has never experienced any difficulty regarding it. It's really not a good example of how to write a trans character by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't think the writer behind it really deserves to be considered some sort of champion for promoting LGBT people in video games, because she's terrible at it.

They also comment on how games with character creators don't allow trans options, focusing, bizarrely, on Fallout 4. They thoroughly ignore that The Sims 4 now allows you to do exactly that - very well, I might add - for the sake of giving an overwhelmingly negative message. But with The Sims 4, transgenderism is relevant because you're meant to be playing someone's whole life - in Fallout 4, when would the transgenderism come up?
I also dislike this whole assertion that a trans person can only identify with a trans character - it contributes to this false notion that transgender people are some third gender. I identify most with female characters, whether they're trans or not. I'm perfectly content to play as a cis woman in any game that allows it. I would like to see more trans characters if they're done well, but personally I think attempts like that in Baldur's Gate are a little pathetic, more than anything. They don't prove anything, and I don't really even think they're that progressive.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby BROWNRECLUSE » Fri Jul 15, 2016 10:50 pm

Toy wrote:How many different types of cancer can I expect to get after reading it?


Maybe three tops.

Start wolfing down your Flintstones chewable vitamins.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby Paradox » Fri Jul 15, 2016 10:59 pm

I wouldn't know how to write a trans character. I like to think a trans woman isn't a man who became a woman, she's just a woman. If I'm gonna write a character who's a woman, I'd probably make her a biological one, unless it's relevant to the story.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby KleinerKiller » Sat Jul 16, 2016 12:07 am

gisambards wrote:Elements of the article are a little one-sided.
Obviously, the abuse transgender gamers and game developers receive is abhorrent. That one goes without saying. The others are a little more murky.

As I think was discussed somewhere else on this site, the Baldur's Gate "trans character" is actually incredibly badly done - she gives you an unsolicited speech about how she's trans and goes to great effort to mention how everyone is perfectly okay with it. The player character normally is given a possible rude response in every other dialogue tree in the game, but in this case only has polite options. Personally, I'm not going to identify with a Mary-Sue who assumes everyone's interested in their gender identity and has never experienced any difficulty regarding it. It's really not a good example of how to write a trans character by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't think the writer behind it really deserves to be considered some sort of champion for promoting LGBT people in video games, because she's terrible at it.

They also comment on how games with character creators don't allow trans options, focusing, bizarrely, on Fallout 4. They thoroughly ignore that The Sims 4 now allows you to do exactly that - very well, I might add - for the sake of giving an overwhelmingly negative message. But with The Sims 4, transgenderism is relevant because you're meant to be playing someone's whole life - in Fallout 4, when would the transgenderism come up?
I also dislike this whole assertion that a trans person can only identify with a trans character - it contributes to this false notion that transgender people are some third gender. I identify most with female characters, whether they're trans or not. I'm perfectly content to play as a cis woman in any game that allows it. I would like to see more trans characters if they're done well, but personally I think attempts like that in Baldur's Gate are a little pathetic, more than anything. They don't prove anything, and I don't really even think they're that progressive.


I have nothing of great meaning to contribute to this issue anymore, because you summed up my thoughts perfectly and hit upon way more detail than I would have. All I'm left with is the burning desire for TCS to implement some kind of once-a-day "super thumb" worth ten upvotes, specifically for posts like these.

Anyway, it's been about a year-and-a-half since I stopped reading Cracked, and it's articles like this that make me glad I did. The A.V. Club can be obnoxious about social justice issues, representation politics, and general clickbait, but at least they aren't slavishly devoted to the "gamers are all immature, bigoted cancer cells who hate progress" narrative that Cracked loves to pound at.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby NathanLoiselle » Sat Jul 16, 2016 12:13 am

What does it matter if players are transsexual? On the internet everyone looks the same anyways. They're all fat, balding, men wearing sweaty wife beaters and living in their mother's (sometimes dead) basements.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Sat Jul 16, 2016 12:28 am

Toy wrote:How many different types of cancer can I expect to get after reading it?

37564
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby LegionofShrooms » Sat Jul 16, 2016 5:29 am

gisambards wrote:Elements of the article are a little one-sided.
Obviously, the abuse transgender gamers and game developers receive is abhorrent. That one goes without saying. The others are a little more murky.

As I think was discussed somewhere else on this site, the Baldur's Gate "trans character" is actually incredibly badly done - she gives you an unsolicited speech about how she's trans and goes to great effort to mention how everyone is perfectly okay with it. The player character normally is given a possible rude response in every other dialogue tree in the game, but in this case only has polite options. Personally, I'm not going to identify with a Mary-Sue who assumes everyone's interested in their gender identity and has never experienced any difficulty regarding it. It's really not a good example of how to write a trans character by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't think the writer behind it really deserves to be considered some sort of champion for promoting LGBT people in video games, because she's terrible at it.

They also comment on how games with character creators don't allow trans options, focusing, bizarrely, on Fallout 4. They thoroughly ignore that The Sims 4 now allows you to do exactly that - very well, I might add - for the sake of giving an overwhelmingly negative message. But with The Sims 4, transgenderism is relevant because you're meant to be playing someone's whole life - in Fallout 4, when would the transgenderism come up?
I also dislike this whole assertion that a trans person can only identify with a trans character - it contributes to this false notion that transgender people are some third gender. I identify most with female characters, whether they're trans or not. I'm perfectly content to play as a cis woman in any game that allows it. I would like to see more trans characters if they're done well, but personally I think attempts like that in Baldur's Gate are a little pathetic, more than anything. They don't prove anything, and I don't really even think they're that progressive.


But gisambards.

You're disagreeing with the article about a social issue.

It doesn't matter if you're actually part of the party in question and therefore potentially more qualified to speak on the issue. You're just wrong.

/sarcasm

(Ok. So maybe that was a little snarky. I guess I still have a bit of cynicism towards some of Cracked's staff when it comes to handling social issues deftly.)
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby iMURDAu » Sat Jul 16, 2016 12:17 pm

There's a sarcasm tag btw fyi. Its sooooooo useful.

So cracked is still trying to bang on gamers? The people who spend their free time using critical thinking to solve problems in short periods of time. M'kay.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby Tesseracts » Sat Jul 16, 2016 4:18 pm

gisambards wrote:I also dislike this whole assertion that a trans person can only identify with a trans character - it contributes to this false notion that transgender people are some third gender. I identify most with female characters, whether they're trans or not. I'm perfectly content to play as a cis woman in any game that allows it. I would like to see more trans characters if they're done well, but personally I think attempts like that in Baldur's Gate are a little pathetic, more than anything. They don't prove anything, and I don't really even think they're that progressive.

There's a bizarre segregationist attitude in the social justice world. There was an article recently which said men don't like the new Ghostbusters because it's not "for them." Apparently the new one is "for women." Does this mean the original Ghostbusters is "for men?" I understand that we like to see characters similar to ourselves, but this idea doesn't need to be taken to a stupid extreme.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby Bromo » Sat Jul 16, 2016 9:43 pm

Remember the early days of Metroid, when it shocked everyone as the ending of the first game revealed Samus is a girl? She was already an established badass who slaughtered aliens and her sex wasn't the main focus of her character (at least in the early games). I would like to see something similar done with a transgender character.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby Tesseracts » Sat Jul 16, 2016 9:57 pm

To be fair to the gaming industry, its portrayal of transgender characters hasn't been any worse than Hollywood's, in which trans people have historically been either punchlines (Ace Ventura) or murderous monsters (Silence Of The Lambs). If you want an unintentionally sad snapshot of the situation, look at Out's "7 Trans-Friendly Video Game Characters." Their list includes Birdo, a dinosaur creature tennis enthusiast who started off as "a boy who thinks he's a girl" in 1988 and was almost immediately changed to just a girl ...


Why do trans gamers hate Birdo so much? What's wrong with Birdo? Birdo doesn't deserve all this hate. I THINK YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, BIRDO. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE MY FAVORITE TRANS DINOSAUR.
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Re: I Put a Trans Character in a Video Game/ Gamers Went Ins

Postby rowdyrodimus » Sat Jul 16, 2016 10:22 pm

Just my opinion but writing the character as Trans was just done to stir up controversy and get additional free advertisement. If there is a reason for the characters sex (and by that I mean gay or straight, cis or trans, that type stuff) as an integral part of the story, then great write it in and make it a part of the character. If it's not important to the story then it's just being done because they know it will get extra buzz.

It's sort of like when I was working at a comic shop and it was slow so I was in a conversation with a customer about the religions of various characters. It's never mentioned because it doesn't matter to the stories. We figured that say, Peter Parker, is Catholic because anytime it showed him in a church it was a Catholic Church, even when he finally got rid of the symbiote. But it doesn't matter to the stories and would do worse for the readership to make a big deal about it.

Basically, if you are going to do something like make a character trans in a game that you know will be scrutinized by mostly men, make sure there's a real reason for doing it. Otherwise, just be prepared for the reaction you get. I personally don't care about how people live their lives but most people aren't like that. As the Diff'rent Strokes theme says, "What might be right for you, may not be right for some". Anytime you put yourself out there, you put yourself out there for criticism and no matter what your thoughts on Trans people are, there's always going to be people out there that disagree with you. In this thing that we call life? Ain't no one says it's fair.
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