LGBTAI+ #56: Prismatic Spray!

[Astrella]

This is what I always say. All the latter accomplishes is annoying fans of characters that are getting completely altered just for some imaginary diversity quota. Make something original and interesting, don't just take things from everyone else and alter it to appease your own tastes.

I hardly think some people headcannoning Samus as trans when there's a dearth of trans characters is a) completely altering the character to meet a diversity quota or b) taking stuff from people. Like could you explain to me how the possibility of Samus being trans ruins the character?

[Ravens_cry]

This sort of thing is exactly what I was talking about when I said I didn't follow comic books very closely.

But yeah, even though I was imagining a "female Tony Stark" (I.E. a young inventor who built herself a suit of powered armor to fight crime with, not literally an R63 Tony Stark) as a new character, this would qualify too.

One of my far, far too many ideas was the idea of a female inventor type who operates on a shoe string budget, going to junkyards and eBay for parts and doing their own construction and machining.

[Athedia]

Depending on who is writing him, Batman could easily be Ace. Actually any character who doesn't explicitly have a sexuality could be interpreted as Ace just as easily as the other possibilities.

Okay, I also don't like Batman.... But my point is he isn't in the public canon as Ace so I think it would be strange because of the way they would have to emphasize it. Also I hate Batman.

I hardly think some people headcannoning Samus as trans when there's a dearth of trans characters is a) completely altering the character to meet a diversity quota or b) taking stuff from people. Like could you explain to me how the possibility of Samus being trans ruins the character?

So trans characters are good, Krem was one of my favorite NPCs in Inquisition. But Samus is already an icon because she completely bucked the gender norms for video game characters. Transwomen still had the "advantage" of growing up in a society that took them more seriously before they came out. The whole deal with Samus is that she is powerful and badass while still being in a female body and growing up female. It doesn't ruin the character so much as say that the characters influence on the canon is not as important.

That being said, headcanon away. I have a headcanon that contradicts the lore in many games. But you also have to accept that the public canon is the most common way to look at things and the lore is what the games are based on.

[ThinkMinty]

I also have no objection. As always with topics that may skirt the line though, please be careful.

Incidentally, I finally finished the starting post. Got kinda thinkpiecey, due to the fact that I've written thinkpieces before.

[ThinkMinty]

So trans characters are good, Krem was one of my favorite NPCs in Inquisition. But Samus is already an icon because she completely bucked the gender norms for video game characters. Transwomen still had the "advantage" of growing up in a society that took them more seriously before they came out. The whole deal with Samus is that she is powerful and badass while still being in a female body and growing up female. It doesn't ruin the character so much as say that the characters influence on the canon is not as important.

She was *presenting* as female as early as three years old. Your argument is undercut by that one.

Your point about female-bodiedness is still cromulent, though.

That being said, headcanon away. I have a headcanon that contradicts the lore in many games. But you also have to accept that the public canon is the most common way to look at things and the lore is what the games are based on.

Pff, who wants to be common?

[Astrella]

So trans characters are good, Krem was one of my favorite NPCs in Inquisition. But Samus is already an icon because she completely bucked the gender norms for video game characters. Transwomen still had the "advantage" of growing up in a society that took them more seriously before they came out. The whole deal with Samus is that she is powerful and badass while still being in a female body and growing up female. It doesn't ruin the character so much as say that the characters influence on the canon is not as important.

a) Trans women face as much misogyny as cis women

b) can we stop it with this idea that trans women are privileged pre-coming out? Perception is a very small aspect of privilege, internalization plays a way bigger part of it. Don't assume trans women's experiences are the same as those of cis men, even pre-coming out.

Like really, Samus being a trans woman would be just as empowering. Trans women grow up as women, we face the same messages cis women face about womanhood. My mom constantly polices my appearance and hobbies and stuff, so please don't invalidate our experiences because of how you think they are like. :/

[Lentrax]

I stumbled again on a trans comic I'd seen several times in the past: Wildflowers. It hit me pretty hard from just reading the first tenish pages, but that might be because it's morning and I haven't taken my meds yet.

Linking it cause other people might like it / might be worth adding to the first page.

Also hi again everyone.

Added to the list.

edit: and hi.

[ThinkMinty]

a) Trans women face as much misogyny as cis women

I'd say it's probably more 'cuz transmisogyny stacks, but to each their own analysis.

b) can we stop it with this idea that trans women are privileged pre-coming out? Perception is a very small aspect of privilege, internalization plays a way bigger part of it. Don't assume trans women's experiences are the same as those of cis men, even pre-coming out.

This. Because being stuck crossdressing all the time just to fit in is something anyone's comfortable with, right? In this context, I say crossdressing 'cuz trans people not getting to be themselves is at least akin to forcing them to crossdress all the time, as per my admittedly limited understanding of transpeople.

[Heliomance]

a) Trans women face as much misogyny as cis women

b) can we stop it with this idea that trans women are privileged pre-coming out? Perception is a very small aspect of privilege, internalization plays a way bigger part of it. Don't assume trans women's experiences are the same as those of cis men, even pre-coming out.

Like really, Samus being a trans woman would be just as empowering. Trans women grow up as women, we face the same messages cis women face about womanhood. My mom constantly polices my appearance and hobbies and stuff, so please don't invalidate our experiences because of how you think they are like. :/

That's not something you can generalise about. I sure as hell had male privilege, until I came out. I may have had difficulties growing up, but I didn't grow up as a woman and I wasn't perceived as a woman, and I didn't suffer from images of and messages about women.

[ThinkMinty]

That's not something you can generalise about. I sure as hell had male privilege, until I came out. I may have had difficulties growing up, but I didn't grow up as a woman and I wasn't perceived as a woman, and I didn't suffer from images of and messages about women.

Huh. 's almost like transpeople have unique experiences with life and stuff or something.

Oh wait, of course they do, 'cuz they're people.

[golentan]

Huh. 's almost like transpeople have unique experiences with life and stuff or something.

Oh wait, of course they do, 'cuz they're people.

You are unique, like all the hundreds of billions of humans who came before you.

That's not irony. I don't think we've even begun to plumb the shallows of possible permutations of humanity.

[ThinkMinty]

You are unique, like all the hundreds of billions of humans who came before you.

You're special, just like everyone else.

That's not irony. I don't think we've even begun to plumb the shallows of possible permutations of humanity.

There's as many permutations as there are people, at the very least.

[Astrella]

That's not something you can generalise about. I sure as hell had male privilege, until I came out. I may have had difficulties growing up, but I didn't grow up as a woman and I wasn't perceived as a woman, and I didn't suffer from images of and messages about women.

Sure, but my point was mostly that assuming trans women have the same experiences as cis men is a harmful assumption to make, of course it can differ for individuals with how they experience things, but it's a thing often used to exclude and harm trans women.

[Heliomance]

Sure, but my point was mostly that assuming trans women have the same experiences as cis men is a harmful assumption to make, of course it can differ for individuals with how they experience things, but it's a thing often used to exclude and harm trans women.

But I did have the experiences of a cis male. Aside from some occasional thoughts that I would have made a better girl than I did a boy, and some... interesting pubertal fantasies, I didn't have the faintest idea that I was trans until half way through uni. My experience up to then was 100% male.

[Jeff the Green]

I have a story where I really embarrassed my dad if anyone wants to ask, which while it doesn't violate forum rules maybe runs a little close to the edge

I wanna hear it!

[Threadnaught]

EDIT EDIT: (And if I am misunderstanding your point, my apologies; I haven't really followed recent developments in Comic Books very closely at all, much less the fandom reactions to them.)

A woman gained the title Thor and male comic-book fans criticized writers for making her just to "appropriate his identity". There was a strip where Absorption man threw an anti-Feminist hissy fit while stating the same criticism and she beat him as punishment for it, with his crimes being an aside. "Oh and he stole something or whatever."

I remain unsure whether you have an actual point that you're merely wrapping in enough layers of irony and metaphor that it is obscured from my sight,

Not every character needs to be from a specific demographic.

[Astrella]

But I did have the experiences of a cis male. Aside from some occasional thoughts that I would have made a better girl than I did a boy, and some... interesting pubertal fantasies, I didn't have the faintest idea that I was trans until half way through uni. My experience up to then was 100% male.

I didn't say you didn't (or if I did that wasn't my intent), I just mean that the base assumption that it's like as a universal for trans women is harmful.

[ThinkMinty]

Tony Stark is only as much of a "name" as Thor Odinson and it has been made rather clear that Thor, is in fact a title, not simply a name. Ergo Tony Stark is a title.

Iron Man is a title, specifically what Empowered (unrelated, but I like the term) calls a supranym, which is an identity that is not necessarily constrained to being one person. Tony Stark is someone's name. So yeah, Iron Man can be whoever, but Tony Stark does have some pre-defined qualities to his identity, like being adopted, having chronic health problems, or a pretty low Wisdom score.

Thor is a supranym. Thor Odinson is the personal name of the character who recently passed (Mjolnir along with the Thor supranym) to an unknown woman. It's confusing because of the overlap, but they are distinct (if very overlapped) entities, as the latest plot has proven. Heck, there's a guy called Beta Ray Bill who's like Atheist Space Horse!Thor, and he's amazing. Then there's the more...'90's Thunderstrike, but eeeeeeh.

The character formerly known as Thor currently goes by Odinson, apparently.

Supranyms and other bynames just ain't the same as someone's personal name. Heck, Superman is Kal-El as a person, and holds the title Superman even if we're ignoring the Clark Kent part.

A woman gained the title Thor and male comic-book fans threw a hissy fit over her "appropriating his name". There was a strip where Absorption man threw the same anti-Feminist hissy fit and she beat him as punishment for his crimes.

Carl Creel is exactly enough of an ******* that I don't even need to look that up to verify it. Also, way to undercut criticism by putting it into the mouth of a jackass, Marvel. That's exactly how you're supposed to do that.

Not every character needs to be straight, white, cis, male or binary.

Agreed.

Huh. 's almost like transpeople have unique experiences with life and stuff or something.

Oh wait, of course they do, 'cuz they're people.

It's amazing how diverse people can be if you look at it. We have trans-gendered people, cis-gendered, black people, female people, whites, heterosexuals, bisexual people, demisexual people, asexual people, males, non-binary people, homosexual people, pansexual people and transracial people.
Just to name a few.

For some reason, it feels like I'm being chastised for agreeing with you. Dunno why that is.

[golentan]

I wanna hear it!

Can do! And inbox cleared some, hadn't realized I'd let it fill completely.

[BladeofObliviom]

Not every character needs to be straight, white, cis, male or binary.

I suspect you'll be hard-pressed to find someone disagreeing with that sentiment in this thread.

[Skeppio]

I hardly think some people headcannoning Samus as trans when there's a dearth of trans characters is a) completely altering the character to meet a diversity quota or b) taking stuff from people. Like could you explain to me how the possibility of Samus being trans ruins the character?

Headcanon isn't canon. And it's pointless to suddenly say "Samus is trans" after 25+ years of games haven't so much as even hinted anything on the matter. The only "hint" is an off-hand comment made by one dev in an interview like two decades ago. It doesn't "ruin the character", and I'll thank you to not strawman me like that again, but it's not necessary. She's fine the way she is (except for the atrocity that is Other M).
It's the same problem I'm seeing in stuff like Marvel comics, where they keep radically changing their iconic characters to appease whichever group is brow-beating them this week. It accomplishes nothing except alienating and devaluing their existing fans. Just make something new, original and interesting, rather than altering what's already been around and established for years to suit your desires. The world does not revolve around you.

Great, now I'm pissed off again. I don't need this **** so soon after what I've been through lately.

Edit: Also, with talk like this, I'm getting the impression that you're basically saying making a character a minority automatically makes them better than if they weren't one. Which is pretty damn hypocritical and raises some very ugly implications.

[Threadnaught]

I had a longer response, but there seems to be some hostility toward people who identify as LGBTAI+ here and I may have caused it by upsetting the wrong individuals. Sorry about the hostility guys, I'm bowing out.

[ThinkMinty]

Edit: Also, with talk like this, I'm getting the impression that you're basically saying making a character a minority automatically makes them better than if they weren't one. Which is pretty damn hypocritical and raises some very ugly implications.

Against some judgment, I am very curious what the implications are.

This is (among the many, many reasons) why I like writing fantasy. You can leave all the baggage behind and just...have characters be themselves. I've got so many caveats to just say, "Eh, **** it, they're people like anyone else in this setting, it's just easier to include everyone without all the possible baggage" without the whole "hypothetical, verisimilitudinous, fun-ruining sensibilities of snotty doctrinaire wankers" dealie turning into a normative cudgel like it would in something that isn't SF.

[BladeofObliviom]

Then why were your responses so against established characters learning more about themselves and experiencing new things?

...They weren't.



Anyway, lights out, we're done here. What we've all just witnessed, as far as I surmise, is a troll presenting themselves as a strawmanned-out interpretation of a person on the side of civil rights, presenting an intentionally warped ideology in the hopes of flame-baiting us, and finally accusing us of being prejudiced against ourselves when we didn't follow their script, before running off to dodge criticism. Just spectacular.

[Skeppio]

Against some judgment, I am very curious what the implications are.

This is (among the many, many reasons) why I like writing fantasy. You can leave all the baggage behind and just...have characters be themselves. I've got so many caveats to just say, "Eh, **** it, they're people like anyone else in this setting, it's just easier to include everyone without all the possible baggage" without the whole "hypothetical, verisimilitudinous, fun-ruining sensibilities of snotty doctrinaire wankers" dealie turning into a normative cudgel like it would in something that isn't SF.

The implication I'm seeing is that Astrella believes someone who's a member of a minority is automatically a superior being to a non-minority. Which is no different to how the bigots she complains about see the world, just with the teams switched.

I too prefer to write fantasy stuff. I just write what I like, or what I think works, and free myself from worrying about all this political bull****.

...They weren't.



Anyway, lights out, we're done here. What we've all just witnessed, as far as I surmise, is a troll presenting themselves as a strawmanned-out interpretation of a person on the side of civil rights, presenting an intentionally warped ideology in the hopes of flame-baiting us, and finally accusing us of being prejudiced against ourselves when we didn't follow their script, before running off to dodge criticism. Just spectacular.

I wouldn't be so sure. I'm not seeing anything that cements Threadnaught as a troll or someone just spouting nonsense to get a rise out of you. I've seen far worse things said in full seriousness, so I'm reluctant to dismiss them as a troll.

[ThinkMinty]

The implication I'm seeing is that Astrella believes someone who's a member of a minority is automatically a superior being to a non-minority. Which is no different to how the bigots she complains about see the world, just with the teams switched.

Positive discrimination is a thing, too. 's like how Wheeler was almost always wrong on Captain Planet, because he was the American and it was a preachy '90's cartoon. On the positive, he did get a lot of sexual tension with a Soviet gal. That was...probably really funny at the time.

Whoever the character is, whether they're a cishet white chicadee with a kickass robot hand or a genderfluid fox demon-wizard from the moon, gotta have flaws and ups. The flaws make them people, the ups make them worth the trouble. I think there was a whole episode of The Boondocks about this. 's...Season 3, Episode 11 if you wanna check it out.

I too prefer to write fantasy stuff. I just write what I like, or what I think works, and free myself from worrying about all this political bull****.

I mean, there's all kinds of other political bull**** that's fun to delve into for me in fantasy...but you can have stuff like gender equality or bisexual four-armed android ninjas for free, just because you wanted it there. Fantasy has no baggage, especially if you stop being "standard" about it. Save the political commentary capital for ya know, illegal wars n' ****.

I wouldn't be so sure. I'm not seeing anything that cements Threadnaught as a troll or someone just spouting nonsense to get a rise out of you. I've seen far worse things said in full seriousness, so I'm reluctant to dismiss them as a troll.

From where I'm sitting, it just looks like they have opinions and tone is very hard to convey in text without other context.

[BladeofObliviom]

I wouldn't be so sure. I'm not seeing anything that cements Threadnaught as a troll or someone just spouting nonsense to get a rise out of you. I've seen far worse things said in full seriousness, so I'm reluctant to dismiss them as a troll.

From where I'm sitting, it just looks like they have opinions and tone is very hard to convey in text without other context.

Perhaps, but this is the same person who started THIS similarly over-the-top argument a week and a half ago:

Spoiler: Quote

Show

If a cis actor has to be cast for both pre and post transition, couldn't they transition for the role?

They can just transition back to cis later if they prefer being whatever they were assigned at birth and as a bonus for all trans people, they'll learn not to be as transphobic in the future.
Actors have had diets and surgery to look the part for roles before and have even spent part of their lives trying to get into someone's mindset by "experiencing their life", so it's not unreasonable. They may not understand in the end what it's like to be trans, but they'll be more able to portray it.

It's possible that my own skepticism is getting the better of me, but I get every impression of someone who came in this thread to pick a fight; leaving it by accusing everyone here of being hostile to the LGBT community for not agreeing completely with their views has done nothing to blunt that impression.

[Comrade]

I get the same impression, frankly, but that being said I think it's best to drop that particular subject.

[ThinkMinty]

New topic, new topic...

Hmm. I dunno if this should be its own thread, but how would bein' transgender work in a setting with polymorph-style spells? I'm wondering if that kind of thing would have a significant impact on how that experience would be.

My immediate instincts (optimism!) say that it would be very helpful in disrupting the gender binary and be helpful 'cuz magic is awesome, but that's an outsider perspective and it might be kind of an unfair question for the sole sake of my own intellectual curiosity.

[Lentrax]

I think we had this conversation a few threads back, and iirc, the general consensus was that it would likely be an aid, but not be able to effectively treat or reduce feelings of dysphoria, but I may be recollecting incorrectly.