So, are there people that have a reason to be against the inclusion policies? What do you think? Because from your message I get the vibe that you are clearly putting "people for whom the mere inclusion of transgender content is upsetting" to the foreground. I've read news about people whose life's were ruined because they didn't want to address seemingly men/women by certain pronounces. I think those people have the right to feel prejudice and concern and we should do our best to include them, and calm them, as well. Or else this is hypocrisy, imo.
I do have views on this, but that’s straying into real world issues rather than talking about the game. So apologies for not engaging with this question. It’s not that I don’t think it’s valid or important, just that this forum isn’t the place. I will just say that it is not hypocrisy to view trans inclusion in the game as being more important than the upset felt by people who don’t want to see such representation. It’s a substantive moral position with which people can and do disagree, but would only be hypocritical, or at least inconsistent, if the reason I was advocating for such representation was that I believed everyone should feel equally validated and unchallenged by the game, and that’s not where I’m coming from.
I get that, I'm not saying the option shouldn't be available to you, just that without it being meaningfully integrated into the world, what are you really being given? A lot of people create elaborate head canons about their characters, and this seems like little more than that.
I agree it’s not much, but it’s a lot more than nothing if only because it’s generating this debate. And personally, I find it important and rewarding when the game gives me concrete hooks on which to hang my head canon, however minor. Is it enough? Not in my opinion, though obviously some people already think it’s too much.
One last thing before I shut myself up on this topic, as I’ve seen at least one post making the unfortunately too common suggestion that excluding trans representation would be excluding “politics”. Even if the latter were desirable - and I think it would make for a very dull game - it’s not possible, and thinking that a game or other product that doesn’t challenge your politics somehow isn’t political seems to me to be like someone thinking that only they and people who talk like them don’t speak with an accent. Given that trans folk exist, choosing in 2023 to show the setting as one in which they don’t or where they are hidden or without stories worth telling is just as politically loaded as including them, and there are plenty of people who will find their lack just as jarring as others find their presence.
