Here is why people care about LGBT heroes

General Discussion
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Listen.

I am a gay guy. 26.

I was violently bullied out of public school. Hit. Spat on. Went home crying and begged my mother not to make me go back. Had no friends. Suicidal. For the first 17 years of my life I was completely alone with nothing but that as my life. Every day. Family screaming at me. People I looked up to disgusted by people like me while I was closeted.

LGBT heroes matter because this is what some of us have gone through and still go through. To see a character we love that’s gay lesbian bi or what-have-you portrayed in a POSITIVE LIGHT – not a token, not a tragedy, not a stereotype; but a normal person makes some of us feel…normal. Like straight people get to feel all the time.

Which is all we wanted in the first place and had to fight tooth and nail to get, and even still dont completely have.

Blizzard promised they’d reveal who the lgbt heroes were. That is why people are asking.

I’m not asking for you to dye your hair the Pride colors. But…freaking hell, understand the torture some of us have gone through before you mock us for wanting something so simple as to be included in a video game.

If you dont care about the LGBT heroes-- fine. You dont have to read the threads. You don’t have to comment on them.

But popping out of the woodwork to silence anyone who does want to know, who does care? Clearly shows you’re invested in this for some reason.

I don’t care if its annoying. Its annoying not to be allowed to talk, to be excited about something like this, or to be told “shut up and be happy with Tracer.”

If you can’t understand, if you don’t care, at the very least just leave us alone.

Please.

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LGBT title! In b4 1k views in less than 2 hours.

EDIT:

I should probably post something related to the topic here. I am sorry about your rough childhood, OP. I hope you get what you are looking for, and I hope it makes you happier than I imagine it would.

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I completely get that, I do. But you’ve got to let these things come naturally to the hero. Argue first for a new hero that is a good addition to the game, then see if you can naturally introduce their sexuality as opposed to releasing a gay hero.

Look at Tracer, she was the poster girl long before her being a homosexual was revealed and the community still loved her. People grew attached to her before finding all of that out. The fact that she’s gay is only a minor part of her character because you’re meant to value her as a hero and as a character more than you value her being gay.

Creating a hero and claiming they’re LGBT right from the start is only going to supply an endless amount of pointless arguments, not to mention its the trait of bad character writing.

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Your wish has been answered.
Tracer exists.
As a fellow gay male, I ask that you kindly move on and stop beating a dead horse.

It makes us look really bad.

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As a gay male, I ask that you let people care about things and stop the respectability politics.

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They released a straight hero in the form of Widowmaker and- surprise surprise- no one cared.

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And here is why the constant badgering annoys me:

We already have a bi hero. The sentiment you and others are expressing is that bi is not good enough to represent the LGBT spectrum – that every unique classification must be represented, otherwise LGBT is not truly represented.

Just admit it… you don’t think bi is good enough.

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a “PROPER MAN” thats extremely rude, gay men are real men too and if in 2018 you STILL dont think that, your the one that needs “a doctor”

to the OP: im a trans girl i dont care if theres a trans hero or not, but i can relate to your personal story, im extremely sorry you had to go through that

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There’s something I want to say in regards to this, but I can’t because it would most likely violate the CoC. Or you’re just trolling.

If you are trolling you do know this is not a good topic to troll about? The topic is very serious and important to many people.

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The people growing the divide are the people who wont let us have a conversation amongst ourselves to talk about something we’re excited for.

Not people like me, telling them to mind their own business if they truly are uninvested.

Like you’re doing now actually. If you think this is such a childish and selfish reason, then you’re free to leave this thread and find another one where you can talk about whatever you’d like. :+1:

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This reminds me of a friend I had in college. She was transgender and was shut down by pretty much everyone in her life except for us, her dorm mates. As soon as her parents found out that she was able to be out in the open and supported by us they made her dress in men’s clothing and pulled her out of the dorms and she looked miserable any time I saw her after that. She didn’t feel normal. I can never even pretend to know what she was going through and something that may not seem important to me may be important to someone else. She was a gamer and maybe being able to relate to a hero she really liked might have helped her with feeling like she was normal and would have gone a long way. This is why I will never judge someone or be bothered by anyone asking for more representation. It hurts me 0% to say nothing and move on with my life. I get plenty of representation and maybe what seems insignificant to me is a lot to someone else.

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I’m one of the people that thinks you guys are making too big of a deal out of this. But I have no intention of hijacking the thread or arguing. Because I really don’t care too much about the subject, and what you said is true - we should just ignore the threads if we truly have no interest in these things.

But I’d just like to say…

Thank you for at least making a heart-felt post and trying to get people to understand, rather than just demanding more LGBT character because reasons.

I like to try to understand other viewpoints, and posts like this help me do this. So, again, thanks for sharing that.

(PS: Sorry you had to go through all that crap in life too. :frowning: )

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I would like to see them go further with it though. More for the story aspect of it.
I mean, what exactly happens for a character like Widow to snap the way she did.

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I’m only bringing it up because of the unending flood of LGBT posts.

I would much prefer if we could all just live as people who like a game, I don’t see why we have to push an agenda and speak about it like it’s “for LGBT people.”

I personally find the notion despicable.

Do we really want to force the mods to start an LGBT megathread?

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This topic is now about the chocolate croissants from Starbucks.

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guess what, the doctors you talk about, encourage this because its 2018 and its normal these days to be LGBT

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She was kidnapped by Talon and psychologically reprogrammed.

Regardless, Widowmaker released immediately with a backstory that identifies her as straight and no one pitched a fit.

But apparently LGBT players have to do a ceremonial dance to the Lore Gods to earn the right to have Blizzard just identify a character as LGBT.

It’s a ridiculous double standard.

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I honestly don’t understand people who are like “Stop cramming it down my throat!” as if we don’t have heterosexuality literally the base assumption from the get go. Like - You want to talk about it as if there’s a ‘blank slate’ assumption, but that’s not true. If you presented a hero like Soldier 76 to a crowd of random people and asked them “What do you think his spouses name is?” I’d bet good money that 98% of them would suggest a female name just without even THINKING about it. That’s what our society tells us is the ‘baseline’, or ‘normal’. So when people want heroes that are outside of the baseline and you flip out about it, you’re basically saying that Heterosexuality is the only sexuality that can exist, because no one would assume a character presented to them was Asexual from the get go, that’s not the norm- it’s Heterosexual. That’s why representation and having CANON CONFIRMATION of LGBT representation is important.

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You chose to click on this thread.
Just like you chose to click on the other LGBT threads.

I did not come to your house, hold you at gunpoint, and force you to read any of those. You did that.

You bring your annoyance on yourself by continuing to engage when you’re clearly uninvested. This is like someone who hates boats that goes on a cruise every week and spends the whole time talking about how much they hate boats.

:face_with_raised_eyebrow: Now am I wrong?

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Yeah you are, because this is the first LGBT thread I’ve ever responded to.

You’re also no longer discussing the topic, you’re trying to discuss me.

What does that tell you?

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