Some folk in this thread seem to have the view that BG3 shouldn't address gender identity at all. I know responding to that view may not be exactly on topic, but I think it's important to discuss and if you'll bear with me I'll try to get back to the topic of the thread by the end. Though I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for skipping this extremely long post
. Particularly as I'd said twice before I was going to shut up on this topic - oath broken!
In case you're still with me, though, here goes ...
One argument that has been made is that we shouldn't have trans characters explicitly in the game as debates about gender identity are a modern phenomenon and/or specific to certain locations. I don't think that's true, but even if it were it wouldn't be relevant. The Forgotten Realms is not a historical setting, and for all locations on the world of Toril are often inspired by real past societies it has no obligation to reflect them in any specific ways. The setting is a collaboratively created multiverse which has already changed significantly, and is continuing to be shaped and experienced in 2023 by people who quite naturally will want to explore themes and ideas of interest to them now within that setting.
Others have said they just want escapist fun. I personally don't see any reason why trans characters and escapist fun should be in any tension whatsoever, whereas some things others find escapist fun I find, for example, problematically sexist and therefore jarringly political. So, given that there will be a host of different ideas of what constitutes escapist fun, I consider it fortunate that BG3 isn't (just) trying to be that. While we all want some uncomplicated excitement and adventure in our fantasy, to my mind it would be shallow and uninteresting if it didn't also have deeper themes or encourage us to think about our own world differently by showing us aspects of it distorted through the prism of an alternative reality.
So I'm glad that the Forgotten Realms in general, and the Baldur's Gate series in particular, do aspire to be that more complex sort of fantasy, mixing fun with serious themes. They let us explore, as has been mentioned already in this thread, structural sexism in drow society and racism in how tieflings and representatives of races considered monstrous are treated. We can find stories of slavery, oppression, corruption, terrorism, misuse of power, murder, religion and nature versus artifice. And there's also your old good vs evil or chaos vs order and what those actually mean in practice. I can't see any obvious reason why, unlike these, themes of gender identity should automatically be considered off limits.
So, for me, the question then becomes what purpose exploring such themes in the setting would have. And there seem to be lots of possible things that a role-playing game like BG3
might want to do by including trans characters. For example:
- Enable non-trans people to put themselves imaginatively in the position of a character who doesn't feel comfortable with the gender they have been assigned, or the body in which they were born.
- Let trans people roleplay someone of the same gender identity as themselves and so fully express themselves through their character.
- Imagine for both trans and non-trans players what a world in which trans people are free to be themselves without fear or stigma might look like.
- Give trans players a safe space in which to be themselves (or someone else but with their gender identity!) without facing the stigma or abuse that many encounter in the real world.
- Help those of us who aren't usually forced to confront it consider how deeply gender, or a gender binary, is ingrained in our language and our thinking.
- Encourage players to recognise and question their preconceptions and prejudices around gender identity.
- Demonstrate to trans players and to everyone else that the creators of the game recognise that there are trans people and that they deserve representation.
- Imagine what life for a trans character might be like on Toril or the Realms more generally, and how it might resemble or differ from life in our own. For example, as people have mentioned, Toril has (rare?) magic that seems able to fundamentally change the sex of one's body, as well as spells like Disguise Self that let characters convincingly change their appearance to resemble that of different genders of various races. Would all trans characters actually want to use such items or spells? And if they wanted them, would they have access to them or would it be rare and restricted? And if the latter, how might that affect the choices that trans characters make? Might a wizard or warlock trans character have taken up magic or signed a pact to access such magic? Might a trans rogue have taken up crime to steal a magic item they thought might help them, or enough money to buy it or pay a wizard for a spell? How would a non-binary character feel about the fact that even that magic reflects a binary understanding of gender? How would the experience of a person previously comfortable with their gender identity but who was (unwillingly) subject to a curse like that on the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity differ from that of someone who was born trans, and how would their perspective be changed as a result of the curse?
In my view, any or all of the above are things a role playing game set in the Forgotten Realms could interestingly do.
Does BG3 in its EA form do all of these things? No. It does only a few of them, and then only very superficially.
Is it obliged to do all of them by full release? No, while I think all these would be valid for the game to take on if it wanted, it's also dealing with lots of other stuff and it would be unreasonable to ask all this of it too, quite apart from the fact that some of them are in tension with others.
Would it be okay to do none of them? I think the answer to that is also "no". In the context in which the game is being created, Larian cannot plead ignorance of questions around acceptance and representation of trans people, so ducking the issue entirely would seem either cowardly or pointedly dismissive. To lots of people, and especially I'd imagine to trans people, it would be a glaringly obvious omission in a game which lets us play as an elf, a halfling, a tiefling or a githyanki, to then have no variations on gender beyond allowing us to specify whether our character is male or female. Particularly, as I have argued above, given that there are interesting and valid purposes for including themes of gender identity in the game.
So, as per the question initially posed, is it worth having acknowledgement of gender identity in the game at all, if it's only what we have now in EA? I'd say yes, given I think having nothing at all would be unacceptable. It at least gives players wanting to play a trans/non-binary character (whether they're trans or not themselves) some in-game acknowledgement of who their character is, which always somehow feels more satisfying than having to entirely head canon something. And simply playing the game with those characters can help prompt some thinking about what being trans in the Realms (and in Faerun specifically) might be like. And it hopefully does something to help trans people feel seen and respected. And at the very least, it gets us thinking and talking about how a game like BG3 should actually deal with representation of gender identity, rather than ignoring the topic entirely.
As I've previously said in this thread, I really hope the full release will go further and do better in its representation of trans characters in the game world as, apart from anything else, I think there is a lot of interesting potential there. But in the meantime, I do think that the something we have in early access is better than nothing.
