The LGBT Gamer Community Thread.

[Dancing Wind]

bell hooks has died.

Obituary

[Freehold DM]

Dancing Wind wrote:

bell hooks has died.

Obituary

damn.

[keftiu]

This forum is kind of miserable these days. I’m probably gonna be around a little less.

This company and this fandom make it real hard to enjoy Pathfinder lately.

[Kobold Catgirl]

:(

Take care. Things do really suck lately around here; the slavery discourse has been cancerous. TwilightKnight in particular needs to get banned before I do for flaming him out of existence.

[Rysky]

:(

*channels positive feelings and offers hugs to anyone and everyone who wants or needs some*

[Cori Marie]

Love to you all

[Kobold Catgirl]

Inqui is very, very carefully calling me "they", huh.

[Freehold DM]

Once I have to pee, I will have a new job.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

At the sake of going into obscure things, I didn't realize professional pisser was a job option.

Now I'm wondering what the requirements are for a gig like that...

:>

[Umbral Reaver]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

:(

Take care. Things do really suck lately around here; the slavery discourse has been cancerous. TwilightKnight in particular needs to get banned before I do for flaming him out of existence.

It's stunning that he hasn't been banned.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Full Disclosure: I've gamed with Bahb before, and I GM'd and HQ'd for events that he coordinated. He was Really Good at that job.

There's two theories here off the top of my head:

1) He knows a lot of people from OrgPlay, and he's seen how Paizo 'makes it's sausage' at conventions. That could explode catastrophically if it's pushed especially given current circumstances with a lack of trust with Paizo.

2) He's been suspended before, for correctly calling Paizo on some of their shadier shenanigans for years before this. Silencing the voice would send up a lot of warning bells and for good reason.

Lately, though, it seems as if he's fallen into an information silo and has been walking down the talking points.

[Kobold Catgirl]

He's a fan of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro with 5/6 trans people on his "ignore list". I'm sure he's good at coordinating events, but the dude's a transphobe.

[Cindy Robertson]

Has anyone heard about the trans character that is in West Side Story? Apparently, they are re-envisioning Anybodys (the tomboy) as a trans man. They did a lot of research first to make sure that the character fits into 1957. Then they hired a trans masculine actor to play the part. The actor said that it was nice not having to educate the production team on transgender issues.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Oh, that's cool as heck!

[Tender Tendrils]

I picked up cyberpunk 2077 on sale yesterday, and had a (really welcome) shock (I had forgotten that the game had nudity) when I got to the "choose your genitals" part of the character creator.

This is the first time in a video game where I could create an explicitly trans character.

[Kobold Catgirl]

That is a very cool option to have!

[Rysky]

Ye!

[keftiu]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

I picked up cyberpunk 2077 on sale yesterday, and had a (really welcome) shock (I had forgotten that the game had nudity) when I got to the "choose your genitals" part of the character creator.

This is the first time in a video game where I could create an explicitly trans character.

I hate to bear some bad news, but the Cyberpunk devs were repeatedly transphobic in marketing and elsewhere leading up to release. They’re really rough on queer issues.

[Freehold DM]

I GOT A NEW JOB!!!!!

New Job Stuff:

I will be running a multi session group level intervention that targets lgbtq men of color who are either HIV positive or high risk HIV negative. I will be posting educational campaigns online as part of the greater education and training team/education department. I will also be doing escorts to various appointments(doctor and otherwise). I have wanted to do this for so many years and I feared I would never work in human sexuality full time. Now it's actually happening.

[Freehold DM]

keftiu wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

I picked up cyberpunk 2077 on sale yesterday, and had a (really welcome) shock (I had forgotten that the game had nudity) when I got to the "choose your genitals" part of the character creator.

This is the first time in a video game where I could create an explicitly trans character.

I hate to bear some bad news, but the Cyberpunk devs were repeatedly transphobic in marketing and elsewhere leading up to release. They’re really rough on queer issues.

That's strange. I thought the issue was the trans fetishization? Or was that an in game thing?

[keftiu]

Freehold DM wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

I picked up cyberpunk 2077 on sale yesterday, and had a (really welcome) shock (I had forgotten that the game had nudity) when I got to the "choose your genitals" part of the character creator.

This is the first time in a video game where I could create an explicitly trans character.

I hate to bear some bad news, but the Cyberpunk devs were repeatedly transphobic in marketing and elsewhere leading up to release. They’re really rough on queer issues.

That's strange. I thought the issue was the trans fetishization? Or was that an in game thing?

That was one of many things: https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/22058784/cyberpunk-2077-marketing-cd-proj ekt-red-transphobia

[Kobold Catgirl]

It's still fine to enjoy it. I'm glad a queer person is getting some use out of that game. :)

[Rysky]

Also isn't your "gender", in that what people react to you and attracted to you, determined by you character's voice?

(and that's without getting into the whole intentionally causing seizures thing)

[Kobold Catgirl]

Freehold DM wrote:

I GOT A NEW JOB!!!!!

** spoiler omitted **

Congrats!!!

[Rysky]

Freehold DM wrote:

I GOT A NEW JOB!!!!!

** spoiler omitted **

Awesome!

[Tender Tendrils]

I had heard there where issues with cyberpunk (which is part of why I didn't buy it at full price) but it is still nice to be able to make a trans character.

Pretty much every tv series I have watched has had some instance of transphobia in it, usually confined to a single episode that I have to skip, and video games often have the same issue. I take things on a case by case basis - sometimes I make compromises, sometimes I don't. For example, I am currently watching the x-files series for the first time (am partway through season 8) and I skipped the episode called "Gender Bender", then you have Archer, with which I skip every episode because they are all transphobic.

I wish I could be completely uncompromising on this stuff, but transphobia is so pervasive that it creeps into almost everything and I have to pick my battles.

edit: one day I will watch Archer again though - I want to go through each episode and make an actual tally of all of the transphobic/sexist/etc jokes in it, because somehow people don't notice the transphobia in it?

[Umbral Reaver]

A core part of cyberpunk by allocishet white writers is the fear of the 'other', as represented by cybernetics. See how often cyberpunk stories angst over the loss of humanity or the soul when someone gets a robot arm.

Transphobia slides in with effortless ease. The fear of body modification was already there. This is more of the same to them.

[Umbral Reaver]

As it happens, I'm a severely disabled amputee and I would very much like replacement parts, so I don't like it when people write stories about people like me being less than human.

[Kobold Catgirl]

In my opinion, nobody--least of all queer people--should ever be forced to justify simply taking personal joy in a work of media. I decided not to bring up the criticisms I'd heard of Cyberpunk for that reason.

We have very little un-messy media that actually has interesting or daring trans representation. I'll take Venus Envy's actual trans main character over She-Ra's "oh, we envisioned Perfuma as trans, but it never came up" any day of the week. I'll take But I'm A Cheerleader over two background characters in Avengers Endgame kissing any day of the year.

It's okay to criticize it, but, like... I don't like derailing someone else's fun with "oh, that work has problems". I've been trying to break that habit myself. I don't think this should be a space where we have to feel insecure or defensive about the media we enjoy.

I really like She-Ra, and I don't think their handling of Perfuma was problematic. It was a creator headcanon that they didn't want to try to capitalize off of because they didn't manage to get a trans voice actress or make it explicit, and I respect that.

[Rannik]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

In my opinion, nobody--least of all queer people--should ever be forced to justify simply taking personal joy in a work of media. I decided not to bring up the criticisms I'd heard of Cyberpunk for that reason.

We have very little un-messy media that actually has interesting or daring trans representation. I'll take Venus Envy's actual trans main character over She-Ra's "oh, we envisioned Perfuma as trans, but it never came up" any day of the week. I'll take But I'm A Cheerleader over two background characters in Avengers Endgame kissing any day of the year.

It's okay to criticize it, but, like... I don't like derailing someone else's fun with "oh, that work has problems". I've been trying to break that habit myself. I don't think this should be a space where we have to feel insecure or defensive about the media we enjoy.

I really like She-Ra, and I don't think their handling of Perfuma was problematic. It was a creator headcanon that they didn't want to try to capitalize off of because they didn't manage to get a trans voice actress or make it explicit, and I respect that.

Wait, who was kissing who?

[Kobold Catgirl]

I don't even know. It was in Endgame or Star Wars or something. Unnamed characters. I can't keep up with every pandery easy-to-cut-for-homophobic-screenings gay kiss Disney puts on the big screen. :P

[Paul Watson]

It was Endgame but wasn’t even on screen. One guy in the post-blip support group CaptainAmerica was running was talking about his date, and how it was going really well, and that he hoped he’d see him again. That was it. It wasn’t long enough to be a “blink and you’ll miss it” thing.

[Cori Marie]

The kiss was in Star Wars, but again background characters.

[Tender Tendrils]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

In my opinion, nobody--least of all queer people--should ever be forced to justify simply taking personal joy in a work of media. I decided not to bring up the criticisms I'd heard of Cyberpunk for that reason.

Thank you, all of that backlash kind of made me feel icky. I sometimes enjoy problematic things (hey, for example, D&D and Pathfinder!), but I do it with an awareness of how it is problematic and I pick my battles. As an Asexual, Autistic, Trans person, I sometimes have to take my representation where I can get it (such as Star Trek's Commander Data for being coded as Autistic, despite the problems with the "Robots are always coded as Autistic" thing) for all 3 of those things, warts and all.

Heck, most of the original queer representation was really problematic (such as Lesbian Pulp Fiction, from when morality codes meant that the only way to write lesbian characters was in books like "Satan was a Lesbian". But those books where still really valuable to many queer people, despite their problems.)

This year I chose the recent (and ongoing) drama with Paizo as my hill to die on, refusing to buy their products until they publicly acknowledged the transphobia stuff, and leaving the forums until they started banning transphobes. I am not going to purchase the Absalom book, and have been fighting all of the bigots still on the forums. I can only do that with so many things however, and video games aren't a space where I have the energy to fight that fight with.

[keftiu]

To be clear: I wasn't trying to condemn anyone playing or liking Cyberpunk. I prefer to know when something I'm consuming is made by jerks, because it sucks to be surprised with later on, and the issue didn't get a lot of mainstream reporting.

Pretty much all media is problematic, and the lines we draw are our own.

[Umbral Reaver]

The thing about autistic rep is that it's usually terrible when neurotypical writers intentionally write a character as autistic, and better when they *accidentally* write a character in a way that autistic people see and take hold of as their own.

[keftiu]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

The thing about autistic rep is that it's usually terrible when neurotypical writers intentionally write a character as autistic, and better when they *accidentally* write a character in a way that autistic people see and take hold of as their own.

This is me clinging to every single robot character I can get my hands on.

[Tender Tendrils]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

The thing about autistic rep is that it's usually terrible when neurotypical writers intentionally write a character as autistic, and better when they *accidentally* write a character in a way that autistic people see and take hold of as their own.

Yeah, this is the main difference between say, Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory and Commander Data from Star Trek.

It's super unfair though that we usually only get good representation when someone unintentionally codes a nonhuman character (an alien or robot) as autistic.

And honestly, it would really benefit most neurotypical writers in general to understand Autism better - things like theory of mind are incredibly foundational to writing good characters of any kind.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Confused Autism Tangent:

There is an interesting dynamic to how people relating to characters like Data has led modern more well-meaning "autistic" characters to be coded almost backwards--the autistic character becoming coded like the robot coded like an autistic character. It's got a "romanticized savant" feel I don't always love.

I'm not the hugest Entrapta/Abed Nadir/Dina fan at times, if anyone here's a She-Ra/Community/Dumbing of Age fan. Sometimes it has this weird fetishistic vibe of, like, "It's okay to be autistic!... in fact, aren't autistic people kind of more enlightened? If only we could possess their wisdom and clarity." It feels, at times, a little infantilizing. Entrapta deserved to be held accountable for her choices--she sided with some very bad people for some understandable-but-still-bad reasons, and did very bad things--but the narrative never reckoned with this because she wasn't viewed as fully responsible for her actions like, say, Catra was.

[Cindy Robertson]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Umbral Reaver wrote:

The thing about autistic rep is that it's usually terrible when neurotypical writers intentionally write a character as autistic, and better when they *accidentally* write a character in a way that autistic people see and take hold of as their own.

Yeah, this is the main difference between say, Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory and Commander Data from Star Trek.

It's super unfair though that we usually only get good representation when someone unintentionally codes a nonhuman character (an alien or robot) as autistic.

And honestly, it would really benefit most neurotypical writers in general to understand Autism better - things like theory of mind are incredibly foundational to writing good characters of any kind.

The only sorta saving grace with Sheldon is that they never said that he has autism and the creators have explicitly said that he's not on the spectrum.

[Tender Tendrils]

Cindy Robertson wrote:

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Umbral Reaver wrote:

The thing about autistic rep is that it's usually terrible when neurotypical writers intentionally write a character as autistic, and better when they *accidentally* write a character in a way that autistic people see and take hold of as their own.

Yeah, this is the main difference between say, Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory and Commander Data from Star Trek.

It's super unfair though that we usually only get good representation when someone unintentionally codes a nonhuman character (an alien or robot) as autistic.

And honestly, it would really benefit most neurotypical writers in general to understand Autism better - things like theory of mind are incredibly foundational to writing good characters of any kind.

The only sorta saving grace with Sheldon is that they never said that he has autism and the creators have explicitly said that he's not on the spectrum.

He is so heavily coded that the creators saying that either come across as just saying that to get out of trouble, or being irresponsibly ignorant about how they coded the character.

The thing with coding (especially coding that heavy) is that you need to be aware of it as an author, and have to take responsibility for it even if it was unintentional, because audiences are going to take potentially harmful stuff away from it whether you intend it or not.

That isn't to say that authors need to be perfect and catch every bit of coding in their writing, just to say that they need to make a good faith effort to be aware of it and responsible about how things are coded, which I don't think the creators of Big Bang Theory did.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Yeah, I know autistic people who were literally called "Sheldon" by bullies. The creators only avoid admitting Sheldon is autistic because he's an offensive as hell representation of what they think autistic people are like. :P

[Freehold DM]

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

interesting.

Very interesting.

Professional stuff:

Full disclosure, have worked in mental health for almost 20 years and have encountered a whole mess of ideas of how to work with people I encounter professionally who live with autism. Far and away the best, both professionally and not, is to treat people like people, but the professional love affair with autism and associated behaviors specifically has waxed and waned over the years. For a (long) while I was encouraged to ignore strange behaviors/outbursts. Then I was encouraged to pay some attention to them. Then it was back off again. Then it was back on again and with a vengeance(ask why someone did something and remember the answer for future interactions!!!). Then it was inverted(only answer questions, don't ask people anything!!!). Then employment became a big issue at my job and I was encouraged to find work for people living with autism first due to their very lengthy job fidelity and overall skill level with an eye towards personal interests(Almost succeeded twice with respect to getting someone a job at an art store, they have forgotten more than I have ever learned about art at least as it applies to western religion). I'm not sure where things are now, this came up at random intervals over the years. But yeah...definitely get the strange fetishism part. Cannot deny I tried to dabble in it myself, but it felt weird, though not completely wrong- I worked with some genuine geniuses and more than a few savant in high school, but things are different when you are expected to do something for money/the rest of your life. My best friend was able to make it work to an extent, but not everyone is able to, nor should we assume/try to force it.

[Cori Marie]

My dog died this morning. Very sudden onset of heart failure, where he was acting normal and happy on Thursday and spent Friday rapidly deteriorating.

[Freehold DM]

Oh my god. I am so sorry Cori.

[Kobold Catgirl]

I'm so so sorry. :(

[Cindy Robertson]

I'm so sorry Cor!.

[Cori Marie]

We've been crying all day, and everywhere I look there are reminders of him, despite taking care this morning as soon as we got home from the vet at 4 AM to put all of his things out of sight. Instead I just see the empty place where his bed should be. Or I go to the bathroom and see the lack of a bathroom mat because I threw it away because he was laying on it when he started

spoiled for graphicness:

throwing up blood

I just. God. It hurts.

[Umbral Reaver]

Sending hugs.

[Rysky]

:(

*sends all the hugs to Cori*