I agree that media representation can be rare. Good ones even more so.
Some time ago I was at my parents' house. They watch "The Closer" in syndication at times, and I sat down with them. The episode was about a trans* character. (Well, it was actually about some crime, but that didn't catch my attention.) I had a hard time determining whether it was a joke or it was serious. The introduction of the character was the "played for laughs" manly detective telling manly cop stories about the two of them, and then she shows up... However, she was trying to convince her friend that this is how she always felt (and revealing she was a lesbian didn't help her arguments). I think at the end the old manly detective finally accepted her friend as who she really was.
I have a hard time determining whether it was good or bad representation. I feel like it started as a joke but then got into some serious territory.
I agree that media representation can be rare. Good ones even more so.
Some time ago I was at my parents' house. They watch "The Closer" in syndication at times, and I sat down with them. The episode was about a trans* character. (Well, it was actually about some crime, but that didn't catch my attention.) I had a hard time determining whether it was a joke or it was serious. The introduction of the character was the "played for laughs" manly detective telling manly cop stories about the two of them, and then she shows up... However, she was trying to convince her friend that this is how she always felt (and revealing she was a lesbian didn't help her arguments). I think at the end the old manly detective finally accepted her friend as who she really was.
I have a hard time determining whether it was good or bad representation. I feel like it started as a joke but then got into some serious territory.
That's more or less the plot in the WKRP in Cincinnati episode I referred to. Except that the old friend kept coming on to cis character, Herb. I suspect they meant well, Herb was always the most socially regressive character on that show, and upending that was a typical source of humor in his plots, but I still cringe thinking back about it now.
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Sadly just because there weren't enough people around when they voted on the law - and all-male sexual relationships were banned in an earlier law, so it's just the Ugandan lesbians who are safe (for now). :(
Assistant Software Developer
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Also, in trans healthcare news...
PEBB votes to add transgender services to health coverage starting in January
Also, in trans healthcare news...
PEBB votes to add transgender services to health coverage starting in January
Broken link. It's taking me back to the Paizo homepage.
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A friend just sent this comic my way. It's pretty good.
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Broken link. It's taking me back to the Paizo homepage.Also, in trans healthcare news...
PEBB votes to add transgender services to health coverage starting in January
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I just watched a very moving short (~15-minute) documentary over at The Atlantic, and I though folks over here would appreciate it.
Transmormon, the story of a Mormon family who embraced their transgender daughter.
It's way too dusty in here.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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Hi friends! I've been away from the Paizo forums for a while (or at least, I've not been posting and my lurking has been pretty limited), but since Shardra's reveal I've been engaging a bit more. I've always appreciated Paizo's aim for inclusivity, as well as this community on the forums. I just wanted to awkwardly introduce myself (as I can find no other way to do so :P) and say hi!
I do have a question about representation in the game. I love that the iconics are super varied, and Shardra makes me super happy, but I was curious about how to bring that representation to the actual game, rather than just in the art and lore of the setting.
So this question is kind of a two-parter: first, how do you approach diverse representation at your own tables? One way, of course, is to use published Paizo material that includes and/or allows for such things (through their explicit portrayals of characters' genders and sexualities, or their "if we don't explicitly state it, do whatever" stance), or to change existing materials. Another way is to do so with the characters one makes for the game, but I feel like larger media representation can be inhibiting her. For instance, as a male cross dresser myself, I've played a fair amount of female characters. And obviously someone's Pathfinder characters don't have to be extensions of oneself (I mean, I once made a half-orc alchemist who was intended to be a parody of early-20th-century racist pseudo-science and anthropology, but with orcs instead of non-Europeans/PoC), but only super recently have I made a cross-dressing male character. It just literally didn't occur to me for the longest time, because I've never seen it! It's rare in most media (and 99% of the time it's a joke, or a Halloween costume, or a form of humiliation), and I have never seen such a thing in a medieval fantasy setting.
This brings me to part two: representation is important overall, and is important to me. I'm wondering if there's a way to incorporate this into actual gameplay. Like, it's wonderful just to have that representation, but sometimes I feel like I want to challenge social oppression fictionally as well. It's great to have my paladin be a lesbian, or to play a cross-dressing prince, but one sort of stumbling block I run into sometimes is that I want to fictionally be a champion of social justice in a fictional world where that's not necessarily even an issue. One thing that bugged me about some people commenting on Shardra's Meet-the-Iconics discussion was that her gender didn't matter. And in a sense, it doesn't, insofar as she is a capable and powerful adventurer. It's not like that's her defining feature (and it shouldn't be), but it doesn't feel like it doesn't matter. I feel like there was a really nice parallel between the expectations imposed on Shardra's gender and the expectations imposed on her as a sort of liaison between the spirits and her material home. I loved that in Crystal's story, and I'd love to incorporate the same kind of stories into actual gameplay, but I'm not sure how.
Do any of you have experience with this? It's one thing to state that Golarion has little in the way of the widespread, institutionalized oppression that Earth cultures do, but what would it be like to create adventurers to tackle those problems? How could I go about making a game that incorporates a lady-knight character whose shield is emblazoned with the spring from the cover of Foucault's The History of Sexuality Part I, who is a champion of justice and roams the land challenging sexism, the gender binary, and heteronormativity? Would a game be interesting if it were a quest to find a legendary artifact hammer called the Patriarchy Smasher?
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I think that, considering Golarion's flavor as I see it, one key note to hit would be that oppressive groups would be *rare*. My impression of Golarion is that it's a pretty accepting place altogether, which of course doesn't mean that there aren't any intolerant people at all, but you might want to make sure to portray them as an exception. (Of course, you always have the option to make a less-tolerant Golarion where the default is more intolerance if you feel it would serve your storytelling purposes.)
With that in mind, I would probably not have protagonists whose main thrust is to combat intolerance, because it's so rare. It would be like a preacher going around modern Europe saying that women should have the right to vote. That ship has sailed. They already have that right. Similarly, in Golarion heteronormativity is already a sailed ship.
One option, if you want it to play a big role, is setting things in the past of Golarion which might have been less enlightened. Were different kinds of being equally accepted 2000, 4000 or 6000 years ago?
If you want to have an artifact called the Patriarchy Smasher, it seems unlikely it would be created in today's Golarion, but considering it's an artifact, it could easily have been created in less enlightened times. Perhaps it has been lost over time, the less and less it became necessary, the less records about it were kept, until it became forgotten about, and you could emphasize in the quest for the hammer how, for many centuries now, the need for the Smasher simply has not been there, and that's why nobody knows anything about it anymore.
As for antagonists, I mentioned earlier that if you want to set your story in modern tolerant Golarion, make sure you portray any intolerant groups as pretty rare. That is, they would mostly have to be underground, not have public meetings and so on. Sort of like a secret society. Exposing them to daylight and seeing the city's populace denounce them could be, played the right way, far more satisfying than just defeating them in combat -- see for example the end fight in the first Spider-Man movie, where the people of New York pitch in to help Spidey against the Green Goblin.
I realize that you were more asking about ideas about how to make your player character specifically themed against this sort of stuff, but I drew a lot of blanks on that. Still, maybe some of these musings could be helpful.
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Yeah, Golarion is set up as generally pretty tolerant.
On the other hand, various prejudices certainly exist in some places, with both Orcs and at least one tribe of Kellids (the one Amiri's from) noted as explicitly patriarchal, for example. So going up against that kind of thing is certainly possible if you want to do so.
And obviously, a homebrew setting can have whatever you like in regards to such things.
I think there was one intolerant group in the Cities of the Inner Sea book...I think they were bigoted more than sexist, though.
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Haven't had a chance to dig too deeply into this yet, but it seems like a worthwhile project:
Patchwork, 25 short films about trans people. Made in the UK.
Here's the teaser for the project.
And while on the topic of trans people and the UK, here's a piece on Trans*Pride Brighton 2014.
Rahadoum
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Golarion is mostly set up with the assumption that acceptance is a Good act and bigotry is, at best, a Neutral act. And you'll notice that there are PLENTY of neutral and evil nations on Golarion. Dollars to doughnuts Cheliax has all kinds of rampant social-Darwinism-style bigotry that paints Chelish people as superior by virtue of their national power and any "foreign" bloodlines as less capable. And that's not even getting into how they treat halflings as second-class citizens, drive teiflings to the fringes of society, and enslave half-orcs.
I'm betting even "good" nations like Andoran still have plenty of social inequality to confront. Just because Paizo wants players to be aware that they're welcome no matter who they are doesn't mean Golarion is a universally-peaceful, Disneyesque paradise of racial and sexual harmony.
Because that'd make for very different adventures.
So I have been reading about how TV and movies need more LGBT characters and then they go on to list some that they like. From the lists, I think that they want more stereotypes instead of stronger written characters. One of my favorite lesbian characters is on White Collar. You only hear about her being a lesbian once in a while because it's not the defining characteristic. To me, that's how we should have more representation on TV and in movies. It should be obvious but not what defines a character. I think the stereotypes cause more problems than they solve. What do you all think?I'm gonna go with we need more obvious representation and we need more subtle representation. We need more representation, period. But in the currnt climate I lean on the side of obvious representation over subtle. There really are some people whose lives revolve around their sexuality, or queer people who are lusty and will flirt with anyone with a pulse. there are queer people who are pretty uninterested in sex or dating, or just don't talk about their private lives much. But we get so little representation that I feel that the more obvious character win out over subtly. We've had so little representation and spent so long trying to read subtle nods and winks that I'm tired of it, and subtle representation is too easily erased if people get angry over queer inclusion. I would take a single Alex Vause over a thousand Dumbledores.
Sorry, I'm responding to such an old post, but until the intro of Shardra I had not realized there were so many LGBT folks on these forums and this discussion was linked to in that thread, but I digress. I'm a straight guy, but pretty comfortable in my own skin and have no problem admitting if a guy's attractive, so I'll give my two favorite LGBT characters neither of which were even slightly subtle. Shane from "The L Word" and I think his name was Brian from "Queer as Folk". I always found those two shows to be very well done.
I have never seen either of these shows.
oh my! You definitely should. Queer as folk was like late 90's to the 2000's, but The L word was more recent. They were both either on HBO or Showtime...damn my fuzzy brain. EDIT: Here's a link for Queer as Folk: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262985/ and here's the L Word: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330251/ . Oh and here's a picture of Shane: http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/Shane%20The%20L%20Word%20Scholtes.jpg
Of course Shane is played by a heterosexual woman, so it is not surprising that a heterosexual man would find her attractive.
Of course Shane is played by a heterosexual woman, so it is not surprising that a heterosexual man would find her attractive.Um, I don't really see how her being Heterosexual would make her "more" attractive to a heterosexual man.
"Vibes". Really, a lot of the information we pass on is non-verbal in nature. While we don't always pick up vibes correctly, that doesn't mean that we don't ever pick them up accurately. I'm not trying to pick on Phithis, it just seemed as if he was saying that admitting to finding Katherine Moennig attractive was due to him being "comfortable in [his] own skin". I'm suggesting that there is nothing actually surprising about a straight guy finding her attractive.
Nah, lol the comfortable part was saying Brian was attractive. As far as Shane goes I thought the actress was bi *shrug* and she's very androgynous and I thought she'd be attractive to many people, but it's both character's confidence that really makes them attractive. Oh and as for me personally heterosexuality has nothing to do with attractiveness, my girlfriend and the mother of my baby is pansexual.
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Yeah, gotta say I've not really noticed any correlation between women's sexuality and level of attractiveness either.
Ability to express themselves intelligently, though... smarts are sexy.
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Ellen Page <3 :,-(
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There's an incredibly lucky woman out there for Miss Page.
This is pretty good. "I Am," a short interview film commissioned by TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland).
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I have never seen either of these shows.
How is this possible?!?!?!?!?
Please watch when you can.
A long, good read: "On the 'dispute' between radical feminism and trans people", but Juliet Jacques.
A good bit from the very end:
On top of that, we’re attacked for only talking about our identities when the dictation of such stupid terms prevents any focus elsewhere – for so many creative trans people, this is one of the most frustrating ideological injustices of all. Ultimately, though, this is not so much the fault of the trans-exclusionary radical feminists as of those who uncritically make us fight on their turf, meticulously preserving the ‘balance’ and forcing people like me to carry the weight, looking around desperately for support as our bodies buckle and break.
OMG, CRYSTAL PLUS ELLEN? DOES SHE PLAY PATHFINDER TOO???!!! That's an interesting couple if so! Sorry, nerd moment!
I'm strictly hetero myself (Not a homophobe though, obviously!), but just peeked to see what everyone was talking about! I've got a lot of family that is LGBT and would like for them to get this level of acceptance where where we live!
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OMG, CRYSTAL PLUS ELLEN? DOES SHE PLAY PATHFINDER TOO???!!! That's an interesting couple if so! Sorry, nerd moment!
I'm strictly hetero myself (Not a homophobe though, obviously!), but just peeked to see what everyone was talking about! I've got a lot of family that is LGBT and would like for them to get this level of acceptance where where we live!
Speaking of homophobe I got into an argument with a coworker the other day cause according to him since I'm not attracted to men I must be a homophobe. He was dead serious too.
That's exceedingly odd! Did he even know the definition of homophobe?
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Also Mrs. Crystal, with the advent of Shardra and Kolo McBadass has their been any thought about making a "twin-soul" archetype for classes? Sorry if this is rude, just a thought I had.
Nothing official, and I certainly wouldn't want to turn anyone's real-world spirituality into game mechanics, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a little notebook full of trans-related gaming notes.
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Also Mrs. Crystal, with the advent of Shardra and Kolo McBadass has their been any thought about making a "twin-soul" archetype for classes? Sorry if this is rude, just a thought I had.Nothing official, and I certainly wouldn't want to turn anyone's real-world spirituality into game mechanics, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a little notebook full of trans-related gaming notes.
Okies, and any of those notes you can share?
In the Divinity Drive are we going to see art of Kolo with frickin laser beams and rocket launchers strapped to his back?
I just noticed Kolo's illustration depicts him with an ankylosaurus-style thumpy tail.