Mass Effect hiatus speculation and reactions (consolidated thread)

Sure. But "transsexual man" is a subtype of "man." 

I understand the dislike.

But the reasoning is off, as it's not done to preach anything on a subject. All content in a BioWare game is more or less a-political. 

What makes it political is us precluding intent. Just like how a game like the Witcher gets flak for being sexist. It's not really sexist at all, but people presume intent based on the content involved. 

I remember playing GTA IV, and there was a whole mission about gays living in NY being bashed and the character of Niko Belic going on a tirade for a few minutes about "love who you want who gives a fuck" basically being the message. Good moral, but it was pretty much preaching to the audience in that instance. People talk about Krem as being preaching, what people forget is that there is an option to not even discuss Krem's gender in a conversation.

If BioWare was truly "preaching" I would argue they would force you to say something, or force a situation where Krem gets discriminated or distraught because of his gender. 

Here I think we also differ: BioWare has always been somewhat progressive in their content. Keep in mind, progressivism is also not a political ideology, it is social advocacy aimed to "reform" content. BioWare is one of the first to to include same-sex relationships, first to include romance, always attempting to subvert sexual and gender tropes....Krem as an example is a continuation of that. To say they are regressive then would to argue that their entire catalogue has been regressive since Baldur's Gate 2. Hell, he's not even the first transgendered character in the series, but he is the first with a personality though that elevates the character.

For all we know, BioWare wanted to include a character that was more dimensional who happened to be transgendered. That's not politics, that's a conscious choice by the writers. Politics would be using the character to preach something like you said, but what is really being preached here? As for the Qun, it still fits the lore regardless of retcon status, and since lore in any form of medium always changes, it's acceptable because it fits with established information, id argue.

Anytime folks argue politics in this form it feels disingenuous, as it self-injects personal feelings into what they perceive as an attack. I have to tell my students this all the time, liberal and conservative, that what you feel is irrelevant to what is presented, what is evidenced. 

Quite frankly, the evidence presented is not a justification to argue a political agenda. At least in Dragon Age in regards to the Qun. A better case can be made with Hainly Abrams, but that's been addressed of course...

ETA: Also a point of fact, I wasn't actually talking about gender studies, but rather social theory and psychology on gender roles. Some of that does overlap though, but it is not how I was addressing it.