Trans characters in Mass Effect Andromeda

Aaahhh, so much this!!! And yet, Krem and Dorian come up way more as a source of annoyance for people on the forums. By ones who really don't care about all that stuff, honest.   I meant to mention Krem in my post, actually, but forgot. I liked his character, and had no issue with him being trans (supposed lore hand-waving included - I didn't really see it that way), just by how it was presented. And like you said, it had more to do with the tone of the conversation than anything. A real problem for a players who wants to hear all the dialogue so not clicking on an available question is not an option  

a transgender person in charge of the Andromeda Initiative, well that's new, but i'm not surprised
i hope she is capable for the mission

Allow me to return the favor: so? Apathy isn't news, especially the kind that resents anything that requires them to adapt or accept foreign concepts. That's where the large majority of people fall "Oh my god can we just stop talking about LGBT, it's 2016!" Yes, in a bit. I just wanna protest these bathroom bills, the people pushing for it don't seem to have received the memo of it being 2016.

Generally, when I'm apathetic about something and am confronted by it I shrug and move on. Ultimately, if I don't protest the core message, it interfering with my daily life is irksome but I also recognize that this thing means something to a large amount of people that aren't me and can then, from a empathetic PoV, understand its importance.



Like is often the case when this particular vein of criticism pops up: that's objectively not true. The bulk of Krem's dialogue and characterization is oriented towards the Chargers, Bull and Tevinter. Bioware didn't include a character who primarily proselytizes about transgender identity, that's baggage you are bringing to the table.

It's reaching for the closest justification to make the reactionary dislike okay for the person, reasoning from the school of I'mNotRacistBut:"I don't hate The Gays^TM or anything and think they deserve equal rights I would just prefer it if I never saw them."



I'm pretty sure this is done to alleviate cognitive dissonance, a person likes to see themselves as progressive and open-minded but, at the same time, wants to maintain the status quo. As soon as the former requires the latter to adapt or compromise (ie effort) there's a reflexive kickback, to then maintain the image of open-mindedness and fairness a justification for the attitude is required which seems, 9/10, to settle on: the inclusion of [thing] fatally dilutes [form of media I'm consuming].

Nevermind the fact that this:


Has been the most prolific form of artificial representation/depiction of the 'real world' in fiction since... ever. You'd think someone, who's primary objection to broader inclusion in media is that it's artificial, would be as vociferous in their critique when media is unrealistically uniform but nope. Cuz that isn't their primary objection.

Genuine apathy isn't great but this disingenuous mindset of those who want omni-buttered bread is just the pits. At least open bigots are intellectually honest/consistent.

PS I realize some of this post is ascribing motivations you didn't necessarily express, sorry about that and I'm using your post to talk about a commonly held mindset as much as I'm talking to/at you.

Krem says "Women are allowed to serve, but only in certain ranks and disciplines." That sounds more like "You can only be healers" etc. than sex-segregated units. I agree that doesn't sound like "women can only rank up so high", with "ranks" in this case referring to certain stations rather than place in the command structure. But we have no in-depth info, so who knows?

I agree that it would be about the last thing she'd need or want to talk to us about. That's why I really hope it gets handled properly if it gets handled at all. To be honest, I'd be perfectly fine with any given character being trans and it not being mentioned in dialogue at all, only in the codex or, hell, on Twitter (Though let's not really do that, the backlash would be utterly predictable and depressing).

Actually, Destructive Deer asked you questions, so no assumptions were made

This topic always turns into a minefield, regardless of your stance

I can explain my own argument, can't speak for anyone else. Misunderstanding is rife in this topic even without me trying to summarize something I wrote more clearly in the past, so I'll certainly try to minimize it.

I wasn't saying there would be no trans people, since they'd still go through some stuff during childhood as you said, just that it would be a non-issue. However, I meant "non-issue" from a societal PoV, not a personal one, of course. They'd still have to deal with a lot, but the difference would be akin to a curable disease versus an incurable one, since they could literally transition perfectly in this hypothetical. After that and with a natural progression of cultural acceptance, being transgender in the ME verse would be a bit of trivia in most circumstances.
If you still have questions, feel free, because I know I must have forgotten something/not explained something well enough as usual

I'm also totally fine with trans characters in ME, happy even since I'm all for representation, but only if it's done right both by trans people and by the game's lore. Though personally, I hope it's someone other than Jien Garson, because I think it would be cooler of Bioware to just let her play a character rather than a trans character because she's trans.

No, trans is just the latin prefix for "across", "beyond", or "through". But you could be right that a transman would no longer be considered such at that point, and instead will have been trans instead, past tense.

Glad you mentioned it's not a sexuality, because that gets a lot of confusion. So do most of these terms, unfortunately, such as people mistakenly calling orientation "sexual preferences". I prefer vanilla over chocolate, since I like both. I don't prefer women over men, since I don't like men. Like that. I still like men as friends Anyway, preference is nowhere near synonymous with orientation.

However about the bolded, I don't know any trans people who would use the incorrect pronouns voluntarily after finding out their problem. Seems pretty odd to me, since it goes against the core of what transgender means. But everyone's different I guess. I wouldn't recommend doing that in general. You probably know that.

It's partly that, and also partly because trans people go through similar discrimination to non-straight people, so it makes some sense to fight together. Internal prejudice is... unfortunate and rather hypocritical

They did, apparently, though I wonder how extensively. For instance, Bull's description of Aqun-Athlok was "Someone born one gender but living like another" which is actually not a description of a transgender person, and that always bugged me. It would be a better description of a cross-dresser by today's cultural standards. Bioware, if you're going to do something like this, do it right. It's possible they never intended Aqun-Athlok to be the same as transgender and therefore that's not a mistake, but here's the rub:

We all know Bioware did this partly for representation. The problem is, if you have your representation explain something to someone who's ignorant on the matter (most people) in an incorrect way, it does much more harm than good. So someone who wasn't sure what transgender meant and listened to Bull will have the wrong info, which helps no one. That's why it bugged me.

Ah yes... that dialogue. IIRC it's something like "You want to have a relationship with me, even though we're both women?" Crazy idea, Shepard, I know

It's more of a meta thing than anything else, since at the time of ME1 Bioware was scared to even do lesbian romances (which is why that's gone, but "But we're both men!" lines are still there, and hopefully on their way out too). It's a weird progression, but it is progress. But yeah, it's beyond inconsistent in terms of the setting. Anyway, you're right that prejudice of all kinds will probably still exist in ME, but would probably be extremely rare for most things.

Agree about the parts I snipped. Can't wait til the day we no longer have to have these tiresome discussions... though I doubt I'll live to see it. We're advancing, slowly... and sometimes going backwards. Gah, I hope we figure it out eventually, it's not hard.

Oh, don't worry, it takes a lot more than that to be a fight Anyway, I also said basically all I had to say, and you made some good points, so I'm good. Mentioning qunari mages reminded me of our cut companion, Shokrakar. She sounded so cool as a character, and might have been a mage. Being able to hear about the Qun from her PoV would have been a necessary counter to Bull, and their banter should have been good. Ah, what could have been... Hope we can bring that up in the next game.

You're not wrong, but think about this: Better medicine will naturally help societal views change, because let's face it, some (not all) transphobia comes from the "ickiness" factor and "weird" factor that comes from transitioning and being what people see as a "freak" etc. (just like a lot of homophobia comes from the "ickiness" factor, particularly when it comes to men)*. I hate to say it, but we all know trans people who pass better and look more attractive will have an easier time than those who don't. So the better the transitioning methods available, the better the results, and that will tone down the phobia that comes from that. Get to the point where you can be identical to a cis person, right down to your DNA, and that factor will be all but gone.

It's just one factor of course, but it would help change.

*Which I think is shallow and hypocritical, in case it needed to be said. Guess what? I think straight sex is "icky" in a lot of ways, but I don't go around whining about it or demanding they stop. And I certainly don't think they're disgusting. Just like most people think at least some form of sex/act is icky. That's okay, but discriminating against others for liking things you don't is not. Obviously.

*Raises hand* I need to hear all the dialogue, and do everything! So yeah, that line is doubly annoying for me.

BansheeOwnage

With my transgendered friend, he still went by a male pronoun for the first year he was transitioning. First, he wasn't living as a woman yet. He was starting the process of transitioning and was getting ready to move to Texas to begin living as a woman. That can be an interesting journey on it's own. I'm not going to say it's better or worse than living as a man, but it comes with it's own challenges and advantages.

Secondly, purely practical reasons. It takes awhile to have your name and listed gender changed. Changing a name isn't a huge deal, but the gender thing is kinda rough. That involves getting all of your IDs changed, your social security card changed and the like. It was a lot of paperwork and frankly, a royal pain in the ass. He was waiting to start living as a woman before changing his official documents.  Plus, he was getting ready to leave state and wanted to start the process when he was moved.

After he moved, he started living as a woman named Desiree. If I see Desiree again (it's been years and I haven't seen her since she moved,) then I'll be referring to her as a woman.

I live in Denver. 195 miles to the south is Trinidad, CO. It was listed as the Sex Change Captial of the United States a few years back. Seriously. I had spent a lot of time in the LGBT+ community when I was younger and I had the privilege of learning more about what it was like to be transgender. Several head up to Denver if they like Colorado and stick around after reassignment. Trinidad is a small town and Denver (or Boulder) just has more things to do.

Colorado Springs is closer, but that place has it's own sets of issues. A whole lot of issues that I'm not dragging into the thread.  I'll share one:  The government there tried to institute a ban on books like Charlotte's Web and Aesop's Fables because "animals don't talk."  I can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, it's amazing how much boring and practical stuff goes along with gender reassignment.

I never intended to include everybody's opinions in my post. But the people that are loudest in this forum are complaining about the gender and how they look. When it became official that we had 3 women in Nexus HQ (one which was krogan) some people complaining about that.

And about representation, I understand that people not always like it, but just because the minority is a minority, don't make it unrealistic that they are in our squad. I find it more jarring that I can slaughter 1000+ of people (including krogan warlords, asari matriarchs and asari commando) with a 3 man squad. Compared to that I have no problem to accept that the people that are capable to do this in my squad are homosexual, trans, bi or whatever.

One reason that we see more open people in our squads (and overall) may be because they are more accepted in ME-universe that today. (There is still stigma today in ex. the military about homosexual people).


Anyway. I never meant to say that everybody "just" complained about gender and sexuality, but that is what this thread was about.

People are not only one thing. You can be transgender, an engineer, a horrible chef, a little lazy in the mornings, bad at jokes, good at singing, all of that at the same time. 

It's like saying Joker is pandering to disabled people. Joker is not only a disabled kid with brittle bones. He loves making jokes, he is the best pilot in the Alliance, he is cocky, defiant sometimes, easy to get by, a lazy bastard and he dances as bad as Shepard. Reduce him to his condition would be frankly unjust and annoying.

I don't think "trans" is treated like a "fashion level". The whole point of the  transgender identity is a lot of cis-people don't accept easily you can be a woman if you have male genitals.

I'm thinking one aspect of this is that transgendered people will still have a history of being the other gender and some will be trans without losing all their past gendered traits, so they have to move on as the opposite gender self-aware of this and other people taking notice of that they're not their gender by nature, so there is a need to proclaim the fact that they're trans and thus it becomes sort of its own gender, even if the point was to move from one to the other, and that's why there needs to be more awareness.

As for the motivation for going through becoming the other gender is of course up to the individual. I've seen people who did it because they felt like it and nothing more as well as people who seem to want to hang up a sign and do it for attention or people that used it to victimize themselves.

...the difference is, science hasn't come up with any credible proof for this "conditions" to be actually existing, so they are just another fantasy, like the believe in god or unicorns. Don't get me wrong, people are - as always - free to believe in whatever they want, they just shouldn't bother others with their private delusions, let alone push for representation or, even worse, for legislation (Canada anyone) to validate what they believe.

The trans in transgender doesn't come from transition, it's a common Latin prefix that means across/through. And my point was that there are trans people with no gender dysphoria and therefore no desire to transition. I don't know how you got the opposite of that from what I said.

Gender and sexual identities are also separate topics.  

You can believe what you want, but gender and sexual identities are separate from each other. For example, being a man doesn't dictate whether you want to have sex with women, men, both, neither. 

There's a whole lot I could argue with in the above, like, ten posts that cropped up this morning. But I'm not sure I could do it without my anger over the blatant ignorance and insensitivity present clouding my ability to remain civil.

So I'm just going to address the bolded part, because I see it a lot and it just gets me every time.

Really? His 'only quality' is that he's trans? Did you happen to miss the other, like, 95% of his dialogue or something?