Today I honor my fathers: Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gandalf, LeVar Burton, Bob Ross, Mr. Rogers.
Whoever decided that Link should be the default post type for reblogs is an asshole
And you can Quote me on that.
Question by cocksucking-accent:This! Not only are nonbinaries absolutely not represented when you pick a gender for your character, but many features are exaggerated. Some trans women don’t have wasp waists, and that’s okay and should be okay and their character should be able to look like that. Some trans dudes do have wasp waists and don’t mind said waists and having a male character with a teeny waist would help them normalize their body and feel more at ease with themselves. Gender isn’t just boobs v. not boobs!Also there is a problem very similar to an already known RPG story fault. Most RPGs are written for male characters, and use the same script when you play as a woman, which results in awkward and/or nonsensical situations.
This is why you can’t just flip a switch and keep everything else the same. Women characters are not male characters with tits. Trans characters are not cis characters with a superficially different backstory. We are different people who interact with the world differently and are treated by others differently. The same goes for race, which faces similar problems but I’ll leave to someone more qualified to comment on in detail.
These traits matter. We can’t design meaningful characters with a colorblind/genderblind/anythingblind mentality. Otherwise we’re just writing cis white men with a different character model.
Made rebloggable by request.
theinsanelylogical asked: Another question for you, meant entirely sincerely (I'm genuinely curious): What would be different about a trans* protagonist from what's already there? You can choose gender, and most of the backstory is left to imagination. What more is needed to make a protagonist trans*? Should there be an option in character creation to make them trans*, and what would the difference be, playing a trans* char vs. cis? Of course, just asking is probably a sign of my ignorance, but I honestly don't know.
This is a sign of your ignorance. You don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing; it is the default state of every human being. However, it means that when people who do know speak up, it’s best to listen instead of instantly trying to form a rebuttal.
“You can choose gender, and most of the backstory is left to imagination”
Not every game works this way. Some open-world games do, some Western RPGs do. But this is yet another incorrect assumption, yet another conflation. And even in those instances where you customize a blank slate hero, there is a big failing. Binary isn’t gender, nor is physical sex. There are countless other ways to handle character creation and gender within a game.
The trans community has extremely different experience with gender, with social construction of gender, with gender relations, and with relating to people. There is no single way we are different, for we are a varied community with many viewpoints, some of them in opposition to each other (just like any community).
But no, the difference is not a superficial “hey BTW this character is trans” and that’s it. That’s why I’m more interested in trans people writing trans characters, because very few cis people have any idea just how different our lives are. There is a huge gulf in understanding and empathy toward trans lives in the cis community.
Question from thegentleprice:
I’ve been reading your blogs responding to Gaider this morning, and I’m curious to know which games feature glbt characters that you would recommend. I’d like to check them out! I’ve certainly been looking games featuring such characters, but aside from mainstream markets I’m not sure where to look. And as you know that market can be lacking. Googling hasn’t offered much help either.
Thanks for asking! This is definitely one of those instances where Google can be a bit lacking.
Here are three sites I can recommend right off the top of my head:
They each have several games that feature queer characters and/or queer themes.
Made rebloggable by request.
thegentleprice asked: I've been reading your blogs responding to Gaider this morning, and I'm curious to know which games feature glbt characters that you would recommend. I'd like to check them out! I've certainly been looking games featuring such characters, but aside from mainstream markets I'm not sure where to look. And as you know that market can be lacking. Googling hasn't offered much help either.
Thanks for asking! This is definitely one of those instances where Google can be a bit lacking.
Here are three sites I can recommend right off the top of my head:
They each have several games that feature queer characters and/or queer themes.
venak-hol asked: I really appreciated reading your view and your criticism of not only how David answered the question but how I asked it. I've only been out for about a year so I'm still learning and it's important for me to learn these things.
(part 2 of 2)
Thank you.
Some took my response as a hostile attack on David, which is completely inaccurate. I support him continuing to push from within the AAA industry. I just also want to make sure we’re not defining “gamer culture” in narrow terms or ignoring that there are devs outside of the AAA industry.
venak-hol asked: Hi! I was the one who asked David Gaider about trans* representation. I did not mean to seem hostile towards anyone. When I refer to gamer culture, I usually mean the 'mainstream' portion that seems to depress progress. I myself am trans and was asking solely because I'd love to see a game from the AAA games industry with positive representation and was curious as to where one of my favorite writers stands on the issue.
(part 1 of 2)
