Diversity/LGBT: Zarya & 76

Zarya seems very gay. Soldier 76 seems very straight. This should be obvious… But somehow Blizzard flipped this??
You cannot convince me Zarya is straight, but the diversity chart says she is. And S’76 is somehow gay, when he gives off the straightest vibes. But Reaper could definitely be gay, ect.

Thoughts? lol.

Sexuality isn’t tied to how you look. It is that simple.

. I’m only responding because I’d rather the top reply be something that answers plain and simple without it devolving quickly.

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@Vex im LGBT and just making observations with my gaydar. not baiting. 76 is just the only one who seems uber-straight to me. my LGBT gf agrees

We never really get to see the personal lives of these characters, though. We don’t know how they go about life beyond shooting at robots, for the most part. Just because they don’t exude the most obvious traits of a certain sexuality while trying to murder each other doesn’t mean that in private they don’t act differently.

Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the most heroes are more or less a Schrodinger’s cat situation when it comes to sexuality. Until it becomes relevant, they are effectively unassigned.

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Sexuality isn’t tied to how you look. It is that simple.
it is not tied to your personality. It is not tied to your appearance. It is not tied to anything but your sexuality.

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@Zeruel Yeah, i get what you’re saying. I just think 76 was the absolute oddest choice. Literally anyone else would’ve made more sense IMO.
@Vex RE: “not tied to your appearance…” Yeah, I get that, but you can often tell.

In some ways, i agree. it certainly came out of left field for me too, but that was more because of the shoddy writing than anything.

But in another way, I think 76 being gay when he looks and acts totally “straight” is sort of the point. He’s not a caricature, it’s just the way he is. He can’t help it. He can’t change it. You can’t help the way your born. But lots of other things define him apart from that. He’s a war hero, a diplomat, a vigilante. Just one that also likes to kiss boys.

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@Zeruel “shoddy writing” Yeah, agree.
As for your 2nd paragraph… That’s pretty interesting!!
I’m coming around to the idea more now.
He just seems so conservative lol.

I know, right? I was sort of confused by it at first as well. But once you sort of rationalise it, it becomes a bit of a more simple equation. And as for him being conservative, I guess he has a lot of other traits that give him that sort of identity, so I can see your point.

I mean, if you presented me with a old, white US Army veteran who loves guns and freedom then i would probably make some assumptions too. And I did until Bastet came out and punched me in the face with one of the worst coming out moments I’ve read in written media in a while lmao.

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@Zeruel LLMMAAOO good post

Why? Because she’s buff? Because she has short hair?
Just because someone is buff who’s a chick, doesn’t make them gay. There are plenty of buff women and they aren’t instantly gay. If it’s the short hair, she is in an active battlezone/military for Russia. Short hair is standard, it’s why they shave guys alot or give them buzz cuts.

Given the context for the fact she needs to lift a big old gun and she’s in the military, it’s makes sense why she looks how she does.

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@JCglitchmast You are right: short hair and being buff does not make you gay.
But a girl who’s buff AND has short hair AND pink hair, seems pretty likely to be LGBT. I personally know 3 lesbians with pixie cuts.

If you think within your bubble yes. But if you look at the context of her situation, military and is forced to carry heavy ordinance, it’s perfectly reasonable. There was a program back in the day in the UK called Bluestone 42 which is about an army squad. One was a female (called Bird if you want to look her up) who is buff and has short hair but I never once thought “lesbian” (this was also some time between 2004-2012). Zarya is the same but more exaugurated in her muscles like every hero in Overwatch is exaggerated in some way.

The only thing that screams LGBT is pink hair and that’s because bright hair colour has been ruined by the crazy far left people who scream about anything and everything being whatever-ist so has turned away “normal” people away from that kind of style as to not be associated to it. Before someone gets triggered, yes being apart of LGBT makes you abnormal because you are in the minority. As in you are not apart of the “norm”. This does not being this is a bad thing and I don’t imply it to be.

@JCglitchmast I ALREADY SAID “short hair and being buff does not make you gay”. But that combined WITH the pink hair makes it seem LIKELY.

Oh shut up. Nothing is ruined. If you get colorful hair, people may assume you’re LGBT. (YOU EVEN ADMIT THIS HERE.) But there is nothing wrong with that! Get over yourself. You are acting plain silly.

:neutral_face:
well, i’m italian but my pizzaradar can’t clearly understand if people like lasagna or pizza more. or it is simply useless to affirm such a subjective thing justifying it with a “I am part of it, so I know it better than others to recognize it” :man_shrugging:. your “intuition” promotes the stereotype regardless of whether you are a part of it, you know?

It is too easy to tell you that “this does not interest anyone in the story” so I will answer you more directly in why as characters (and not as “represented”) zarya and soldier are fine like this:

you did not specify the signals you perceived about zarya, so I will be very vague: bodybuilding and the desire to protect those you love by making your athletic strength available (well, if you look at Zarya’s eyes, not even so masculine) is not a sign that you are a lesbian.

and surely in the world there are also three women with this hairstyle and colors who are perfectly straight :man_shrugging:. I think you are relying too much on objective data as a statistic and too little on subjective data. each person is a micro-universe of characteristics and preferences. it is literally impossible to say what a person looks like, and it is also one of the reasons why political correctness intrudes not a little overly in the creative perception of a writer when he writes or creates a fictional character. I want to make it clear so as not to get me wrong: you are absolutely entitled to say that to you zarya looks like a lesbian or that soldier is not very well written in his lore … but the opening of this topic seems controversial in your statement. “this should be obvious”. no … it is not and never will be in any context and topic. if i look at you i will never know that you obviously like mint, you are afraid of insects and you are allergic to peanuts. in a statistical view you can say “probable” but never absolute.

if your intuition is based on the representative characteristics chart organized by activision a few weeks ago … print it and burn it symbolically, please. there is a reason to be expected that activision is receiving very serious allegations about its representational perception (which is not the writing of the characters in Ow, hopefully that’s clear).

in the case of S76 I think the community does not understand that vincent’s is literally the representation of how the bigotry of the past of the LGBT community has ruined sincere relationships in the history of humanity. we do not know if jack and vincent have had this type of problem but … I find that it is no coincidence that a character of the older generation (s76) has had a bad ending and a younger character (tracer) has a good ending with Emily. it’s a better way to look at Soldier 76 either as a character in a sad story, or as a representative of a past that shouldn’t be accepted, or you are left in remorse for life choices.

I am very sorry that in the Overwatch community there is always someone who in a “representative raptus” forgets that this … is just a story. sad? beautiful? true? convincing? whatever you think is fine … but it remains a story. we have video games like the sims and its 100% customizable digital dolls for any kind of paranoia representative of the world. for me soldier was convincing in his remorse. personally it annoys me more when blizzard denies his previous claims in overwatch (useless as d.va non starcraft champion or subjective like jesse mccree name).

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@Mefionir I appreciate your well-thought-out post! I get what you are saying…
Lemme know if you get that pizzaradar working.
best wishes,
Nick

I had a marine vet AP Economics teacher and I didn’t know he was gay until pride month where the school randomly recognized him as a gay teacher.

Also wasn’t there a thing about gay soldiers in the US not being allowed to show any signs of being gay in don’t ask don’t tell.

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Insightful, thanks for sharing.

Yes, unfortunately.
“The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service.”
It was repealed in 2011, I think.
So, I could see 76 trying to keep it on the DL.

Lets face it. Zarya appears more masculine than a majority of the male cast. So yes she appears very butch. I think the only two male heroes she wouldn’t break are rein, hog, and maybe sigma.

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he’s wearing socks and sandals ! that’s your hint !

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