The LGBT Gamer Community Thread.


Gamer Life General Discussion

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Drejk wrote:
Duh. B&$!@ing on my country degrading social politics continues. I just read an article about Polish Ministry Of Foreign Affairs removing from their guide for Poles going abroad list of countries where being non-hetero might lead to imprisonment or execution... Reason? "Ministry cannot favor any social group or be suspected of aiding any worldview option"... WTF?! Warning people that they might get murdered by barbarians violating basic human rights is favoring someone's worldview? Seriously?

Sadly, thejeff is right. Unfortunately, political reality is often far different from actual reality, from what I have seen; it involves giving those who had hateful voices too much voice way too often. Thus why you can have governments such as Poland making policy decisions like that which are utterly bizarre.

Paizo Glitterati Robot

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Removed some posts and the replies to them/quoting them. A detailed discussion on feminism is probably better suited in a different thread. Additionally, we do not tolerate derogatory labels on our forums. This is a long going and productive thread on our forums, let's keep it on track please.

Liberty's Edge Contributor

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Legion Janus wrote:
Two even more silly things are the idea that trans women can't be feminists or that lesbians can't be feminists. And I wish I was making either of those up.

Well dang. Guess I have to turn in one of my three membership cards.

Are you seriously looking to accomplish anything in this community thread beyond trolling and making it feel unfriendly and unsafe to the LGBT people who've been posting in here for ages, MagusJanus? I mean, you made up an entirely new, female avatar to come in here and dump on feminism. Trans women and lesbians are already aware that there are some corners of feminism that don't like us, and trans people know we're the redheaded stepchildren of the queer rights movement. Both these attitudes are dying out. What are you hoping to accomplish by walking into a community thread where various queer identities are getting along just fine and ranting about how much we shouldn't be getting along?


Legion Janus wrote:

Two even more silly things are the idea that trans women can't be feminists or that lesbians can't be feminists. And I wish I was making either of those up.

I'm waiting for someone to connect what I said about different realities and which one I deal with most often with what I've said on here. It should put what I've said in an entirely different light.

Oh, I'm sorry. Should have realized from the "political reality" talk. I really need to look at aliases and realize who I'm talking to. It all makes sense now.


Crystal Frasier wrote:
Are you seriously looking to accomplish anything in this community thread beyond trolling and making it feel unfriendly and unsafe to the LGBT people who've been posting in here for ages, MagusJanus? I mean, you made up an entirely new, female avatar to come in here and dump on feminism. Trans women and lesbians are already aware that there are some corners of feminism that don't like us, and trans people know we're the redheaded stepchildren of the queer rights movement. Both these attitudes are dying out. What are you hoping to accomplish by walking into a community thread where various queer identities are getting along just fine and ranting about how much we shouldn't be getting along?

I've had this avatar for quite some time, actually. Look at the posting history.

And my actual goal was not to create a rift, but to demonstrate an existing rift before moving on to discussing the idea of using education to hopefully close it and to get people to thinking about the political system in itself and how screwed up of a worldview it operates under in hopes of leading people to discussing different strategies for utilizing that worldview to advance causes and correct problems. Unfortunately, that got lost in the course of the conversation.

It was not to say people shouldn't get along, but to point out problem areas to discuss ways in which they can be corrected.

There are no worries of me ever bringing it up again. Or anything like it. I should not have posted it the first time.

thejeff wrote:
Oh, I'm sorry. Should have realized from the "political reality" talk. I really need to look at aliases and realize who I'm talking to. It all makes sense now.

I included "Janus" in the name and said I'm a lobbyist. I thought it was rather obvious.

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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There are always going to be people who take something you love and turn it into something hateful and vile. A feminist is just a person who believes that men and women have a right to the same rules and that women should be able to make decisions about their own bodies. Now there are several sub-genres that take different tacks on these two things, some of whom have been hurt in various different ways which guides them to a specific understanding and yes, some people do go off the deep end. But we can't damn all feminists simply because some of them are awful and loud, just like we can't condemn all religion just because westboro baptist church is the loudest and probably amongst the worst out there.

Anyway, this topic is really about things that are going on in the LGBT community and while I think feminism often intersects with with the LGBT community, it isn't really the focus for this. I'd make another thread about feminism and it's political realities in off-topic if you really wanted to continue that thread. It's really too tangential here.


Legion Janus wrote:

And my actual goal was not to create a rift, but to demonstrate an existing rift before moving on to discussing the idea of using education to hopefully close it and to get people to thinking about the political system in itself and how screwed up of a worldview it operates under in hopes of leading people to discussing different strategies for utilizing that worldview to advance causes and correct problems. Unfortunately, that got lost in the course of the conversation.

Have you noticed yet that these clever conversation plans of yours don't tend to work out?

Legion Janus wrote:
I included "Janus" in the name and said I'm a lobbyist. I thought it was rather obvious.

As I said, I should have realized. I tend to take aliases at face value, unless something slaps me in the face.


Honestly, given my general curiosity and my constant tiffs with Sincubus, I always hover a person's name if it's purple :p


Odraude wrote:
Honestly, given my general curiosity and my constant tiffs with Sincubus, I always hover a person's name if it's purple :p

I don't think I'd noticed that purple means alias. :)


thejeff wrote:
Have you noticed yet that these clever conversation plans of yours don't tend to work out?

Yep. Too clever, obviously; I tend to outsmart myself with them.


@Chris Lambertz

If the derogatory labels note was directed at me, please note that I was referring to pro-lesbian and feminist groups that have reclaimed and make use of a former slur and was referring to those groups by their proper and official name. I was using the term they themselves apply to their marches, and in that context, it's a pretty standard and non-derogatory usage, a term of empowerment. I'm not sure how it's possible to discuss the phenomenon I was describing without including the names of those particular marches. I was using them positively from my own perspective as a queer woman.

If that still violates Paizo policy, then I apologize for any offense. Is there a better way to bring up something like that when it's relevant to the conversation? For example, if I wanted to refer to the comic where the Bechdel Test originated, how can I refer to it without using the term in question?

I agree about the conversation having moved away from the focus of the larger thread. Apologies for contributing to the derail.


Back on topic:

California court rules it's okay to expel a student for being transgender.

This seems similar to the trans student getting denied proper housing at George Fox University in Oregon.

The religious exempt at work again.


On a much, much more positive note, regarding trans health coverage in the state of Illinois...

Adding Illinois to the list of states I need to think about moving to when I move from Wisconsin.

Edit to add: Interestingly, the bulletin issued to insurers cites the Affordable Care Act, and its prohibition against discrimination by insurers against transgender people because of their gender identity.


And one more, a piece from a writer on Nate Silver's blog about some of the difficulties involved in getting an accurate estimate of the size of the transgender population in the US.


thejeff wrote:
Odraude wrote:
Honestly, given my general curiosity and my constant tiffs with Sincubus, I always hover a person's name if it's purple :p
I don't think I'd noticed that purple means alias. :)

I just learned about that... Never noticed that before probably due to various angles at which I look at the screen...

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

Yeah a lot of the insurance stuff going down cites the affordable care act and/or state anti-discrimination laws. I want to say washington cited both.


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All this talk about health insurance makes me sad I'm leaving my current job. While the pay was mediocre, I was part of the ICUBA health plan, which is pretty nice. Just got new glasses practically free. Gotta love that flex card. I'm pretty sure that the company my girlfriend works at (Akamai) has insurance that covers the gender reassignment surgery. Unsure thought. I'd have to ask her.

Got me birthday coming up and the ladyfriend is coming up to visit. Along with a surprise. Woohoo :)


Lissa Guillet wrote:
Yeah a lot of the insurance stuff going down cites the affordable care act and/or state anti-discrimination laws. I want to say washington cited both.

Nice to see that starting to pay off (in some places).

Liberty's Edge Contributor

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Wes Schneider just put together a quick list of 50 LGBTQ Pathfinder Characters, so you have something to bust out the next time someone asks you for a specific example of how inclusive Pathfinder is.


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Slate just ran an article on whether the LGBTQ community needs gay resorts, like Provincetown MA. I found it really interesting because I was just in P-Town with my family a few weeks ago.

My heteronormative family and I loved the vibe of the place. It was one of the few places I've been where LGBT people appeared to be in the majority.

And the drag queens out advertising for that night's show looked FABULOUS!

(And gaming-related note: There is a game store on Commercial Street. They don't have a lot of PF stuff, but I did buy an oversized d20 that I'm using as a counter die.)

Anyway, just thought I'd share, and I wondered what others thought.


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Crystal Frasier wrote:
Wes Schneider just put together a quick list of 50 LGBTQ Pathfinder Characters, so you have something to bust out the next time someone asks you for a specific example of how inclusive Pathfinder is.

Thanks! And thanks, Wes! Y'all are awesome.


AWESOME!!!!


Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:


And now, for your delectation: radical feminists vs. trans activists.

Transcending the Norms of Gender: The Left Hand of Darkness by JULIAN VIGO

I was a little disappointed this didn't have a reference to Ursula K. Le Guin's book of the same name. Which I enjoyed when I read it... probably 20 years ago.


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Huh. The HRC takes on MichFest, joining Equality Michigan in the effort.

From the HRC's blog post on the subject:

HRC wrote:

While the organizers continue to insist that excluding trans women is not an official policy, their “intention” that the festival cater exclusively to “womyn born womyn” serves to further marginalize trans women, denying them access to one of the only exclusively female spaces in our society.

Trans women and ciswomen (another word for non-trans women) suffer under the same patriarchal oppression, similarly restrictive ideas of what it means to be a woman, and the same structural barriers that deny women control of their own lives and bodies. The festival attempts to provide a refuge from this; to exclude some women from this refuge is simply inexcusable.


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On Friday, the Swedish imam Mohamed Zahed will bless the lesbian couple Maryam Iranfar and Sahar Moshleh (who's been married for four years already).


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Check out the blog post for the new Shaman iconic, if you haven't noticed it already...


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Well it looks like my family is handling my coming out in the most annoying and nonsensical way possible, by pretending it didn't happen on the one hand while treating me like I'm a sick freak on the other.

I suppose I could force them to deal with it more by refusing to let the issue be buried but I'm sure that that will just come across as me 'rubbing it in their faces.'

Eh, F$&$ 'em. I've always liked the idea of investing in the family you choose rather than the family you were born into anyway. I think I will take my queer self and my queer wife and just spend all my time hanging out with my queer friends in one rainbow themed extravaganza!


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Huh, I actually feel really good right now, like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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Amazing how that works. ^_^ Glad you've found some peace.

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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Link to the new shaman iconic

We now, officially, have a transgender iconic character. Also, the background fiction was done by Crystal so it's super worth reading.

Enjoy!

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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Also, looks like you can add Illinois to the list of the enlightened states. ^_^

Illinois DOI Calls for Health Insurers to Bar Discrimination Based on Transgender Status or Gender Identity


Yuugasa, that sounds pretty much exactly like how my family reacted. Well, plus a little extra unrelated drama involving my dad using his usual bullying tactics on my kid. I didn't talk to my dad for a year afterwards. Which many people are very willing to lecture me about because that's a bad thing to do in their minds. But it was the only way to make my point that if he couldn't be civil he couldn't be in my life at all. Seemed reasonable to me. Might just be my family though. My aunt once stopped talking to the rest of the family for twenty years. Compared to that a year is nothing.


Lissa Guillet wrote:

Link to the new shaman iconic

We now, officially, have a transgender iconic character. Also, the background fiction was done by Crystal so it's super worth reading.

Enjoy!

Very cool. And I loved the background. It really made the character seem very real and like she would be very interesting to play.

Liberty's Edge Contributor

Yuugasa wrote:

Well it looks like my family is handling my coming out in the most annoying and nonsensical way possible, by pretending it didn't happen on the one hand while treating me like I'm a sick freak on the other.

I suppose I could force them to deal with it more by refusing to let the issue be buried but I'm sure that that will just come across as me 'rubbing it in their faces.'

Eh, F%!& 'em. I've always liked the idea of investing in the family you choose rather than the family you were born into anyway. I think I will take my queer self and my queer wife and just spend all my time hanging out with my queer friends in one rainbow themed extravaganza!

that's how my mother reacted the first two times I came out to her, too.


Lissa Guillet wrote:

Link to the new shaman iconic

We now, officially, have a transgender iconic character. Also, the background fiction was done by Crystal so it's super worth reading.

Enjoy!

Thank you thank you thank you! Way to go, Crystal!


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Yuugasa wrote:

Well it looks like my family is handling my coming out in the most annoying and nonsensical way possible, by pretending it didn't happen on the one hand while treating me like I'm a sick freak on the other.

I suppose I could force them to deal with it more by refusing to let the issue be buried but I'm sure that that will just come across as me 'rubbing it in their faces.'

Eh, F&&~ 'em. I've always liked the idea of investing in the family you choose rather than the family you were born into anyway. I think I will take my queer self and my queer wife and just spend all my time hanging out with my queer friends in one rainbow themed extravaganza!

Sorry to hear that. Maybe they'll come around eventually. In the meantime, extravaganza away!


lynora wrote:
Yuugasa, that sounds pretty much exactly like how my family reacted. Well, plus a little extra unrelated drama involving my dad using his usual bullying tactics on my kid. I didn't talk to my dad for a year afterwards. Which many people are very willing to lecture me about because that's a bad thing to do in their minds. But it was the only way to make my point that if he couldn't be civil he couldn't be in my life at all. Seemed reasonable to me. Might just be my family though. My aunt once stopped talking to the rest of the family for twenty years. Compared to that a year is nothing.

I am really, really sorry to hear that=(

In addition, I personally would never lecture you for not talking, in my mind if someone wants to remain on speaking terms with you they should at least put in enough minor effort to make conversing with them a generally neutral if not good experience. Why even talk otherwise? Also, bullying a kid? Way to stay classy.


Crystal Frasier wrote:
Yuugasa wrote:

Well it looks like my family is handling my coming out in the most annoying and nonsensical way possible, by pretending it didn't happen on the one hand while treating me like I'm a sick freak on the other.

I suppose I could force them to deal with it more by refusing to let the issue be buried but I'm sure that that will just come across as me 'rubbing it in their faces.'

Eh, F%!& 'em. I've always liked the idea of investing in the family you choose rather than the family you were born into anyway. I think I will take my queer self and my queer wife and just spend all my time hanging out with my queer friends in one rainbow themed extravaganza!

that's how my mother reacted the first two times I came out to her, too.

*wince* Well at least you went on to become a happy and whole person who created one of the most kick-ass iconics ever!=)

Shadow Lodge

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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
KSF wrote:

Huh. The HRC takes on MichFest, joining Equality Michigan in the effort.

From the HRC's blog post on the subject:

HRC wrote:

While the organizers continue to insist that excluding trans women is not an official policy, their “intention” that the festival cater exclusively to “womyn born womyn” serves to further marginalize trans women, denying them access to one of the only exclusively female spaces in our society.

Trans women and ciswomen (another word for non-trans women) suffer under the same patriarchal oppression, similarly restrictive ideas of what it means to be a woman, and the same structural barriers that deny women control of their own lives and bodies. The festival attempts to provide a refuge from this; to exclude some women from this refuge is simply inexcusable.

The exclusion can't last much longer. Of course I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has.

My wife (at the time, fiance) had a long conversation on a plane with someone coming back from the festival who was a long-time attendee. When this woman found out that my wife was queer, lived in West Michigan, and was an amateur musician, she spent most of the flight trying to convince her to attend the following year. My wife finally had to come out and explain that while she might otherwise have been interested, that because she was trans she was simply not welcome. So they then spent the rest of the flight talking about the trans exclusion policy, and in the end this particular attendee ended up convinced the policy was stupid and served no purpose. Whereas the longstanding protests had just served to further entrench her in her position that "they" should be kept out.

IMO, the only thing that changes minds is for opponents to see us as people first, and then engage. But that's tough, slow, and exhausting. I think that conversation must have been in 2008.

The protests are important too, but for different reasons. They improve visibility, but don't seem to change minds.

Silver Crusade Assistant Software Developer

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Like I've always said. It takes both. And honestly, I feel like the women at michfest would much rather throw the baby out with the bathwater than admit that they've been oppressing a minority for really no reason when they could, in fact, embrace them, listen to them, and teach them.


pH unbalanced wrote:

IMO, the only thing that changes minds is for opponents to see us as people first, and then engage. But that's tough, slow, and exhausting. I think that conversation must have been in 2008.

The protests are important too, but for different reasons. They improve visibility, but don't seem to change minds.

Yeah, I agree that getting opponents to see us as people is the most effective but most difficult step towards acceptance. I hope our slowly increasing presence in the media will help make that easier. Also agree on the importance and utility of protest. Kudos to your wife for achieving that understanding with the other woman.


Lissa Guillet wrote:
Like I've always said. It takes both. And honestly, I feel like the women at michfest would much rather throw the baby out with the bathwater than admit that they've been oppressing a minority for really no reason when they could, in fact, embrace them, listen to them, and teach them.

The thing I've been seeing lately is MichFest supporters claiming that anyone who decides to drop out of the festival over the policy has been bullied by trans people into doing so. This way, they get to still believe the musician or comedian or whoever still agrees with them, and get to believe they have further evidence about how awful and (ugh) man-like trans women are.

Shadow Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Lissa Guillet wrote:
Like I've always said. It takes both. And honestly, I feel like the women at michfest would much rather throw the baby out with the bathwater than admit that they've been oppressing a minority for really no reason when they could, in fact, embrace them, listen to them, and teach them.

I suspect you're right. Like you say, before they can change they have to accept that they've been so wrong for so long, and that's a lot of psychic baggage to take on. It'll take a change in leadership, no doubt, and most arts organizations are set up so that leadership is very difficult to change.

KSF wrote:
Kudos to your wife for achieving that understanding with the other woman.

Thanks. She's a professor with a degree in rhetoric -- I spend a lot of time watching her in amazement. I can't even think that fast.


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Part of something I wrote on Facebook tonight about Shardra:

And, as I said, for change, there's actually a transgender writer who wrote the character's backstory (revealed today).

I think the impact of that shows in how much that backstory resonates with a type of trans experience. Particularly, for me, in the first two paragraphs, up through "But Shardra still had the whispers to keep her company on lonely nights." The character demonstrates what can happen when trans people tell our own stories, instead of having to watch non-trans people, however well-intentioned they might be, tell our stories for us.

I ramble on about the importance of representation, and diversity in representation sometimes, and I'm sure I occasionally annoy people with it. But something like this is really important, to me at least, because trans characters in our culture so rarely get to exist outside of, call them social problem films. And those films are okay in and of themselves (as I was trying to discuss yesterday, with limited success). But elsewhere, out in the wider world of fiction and drama? We're pretty rare. And almost non-existant in some of the genres I hold near and dear to my heart, and that were formative to me - sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes. At this stage of things, any well-done character that escapes from the confines of the societally prescribed boundaries of acceptable trans drama is a wonderful thing.

And a specific instance like this, in the fantasy genre and in an RPG, also seems important to me (if to no one else) because, like I said, these kinds of stories were formative for me, and helped shaped me as I was growing up. When I see a character like Shardra (or Anevia, whom I adore), I can't help but look back, and think about the impact a character like that would have had on me when I was a kid, confused, sad and feeling angry and ashamed of this storm of gender swirling inside me.

There was one trans character I remember running into who wasn't played for a laugh (like in that WKRP episode with Herb's old college buddy), or depicted as a psycho. That was Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp (played by John Lithgow), and as I've stated elsewhere, I think she was an important character. But she seemed so sad and on some level, alone. At the end of things, in a way. And there was Valerian, in the film Dragonslayer. (If you ever want to know why that film is important to me, watch the scene at the village dance.) But she was a girl masquerading as a boy, so it wasn't quite the same thing.

Running across a character like Shardra in a book, in a comic, in a movie, in a D&D module, would have helped reassure me that it was okay to be who I was. That it was okay to want to be and identify as a girl. And further, that there was a path forward, that I could hope to be who I needed to be. And that I wouldn't have to be sad and alone if I did so. I did find all of that eventually, later in life, of course. But even the occasional presence of characters like this one, back in those early confused days, could have helped save me from a lot of loneliness and pain.

These kinds of characters, these kinds of stories, they shouldn't be so rare in our culture. It's a wonderful thing, a beautiful thing, a hopeful thing, these occasions, slightly less rare now but still rare, when they do finally appear.

So, this made me pretty happy.

Liberty's Edge Contributor

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I'm not crying. I always streak mascara down my cheeks like this


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Oh jeez, now you got me going.


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I showed my girlfriend the backstory and it really spoke to her. Even made her tear up a bit. She really appreciates it, Crystal.

Now after that sappiness, back to enjoying the waning hours of my birthday :p


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Odraude wrote:
Now after that sappiness, back to enjoying the waning hours of my birthday :p

Happy birthday, Odraude. Hope it was a good one, and I hope to goodness continues through the coming year.


Thanks, it shall. Ladyfriend is visiting for the weekend so it's just me and her enjoying my final days up here in Melbourne.

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