LGBT and the importance of Tracer (Papa Jeff responds) 🏳️‍🌈

General Discussion
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A girl wrote an essay about Tracer and Jeff responded to it.

h ttps://twitter.com/bikesmash/status/982245134921121792?s=21

hello popcorn moira

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This was rad! Nice to know they are listening and are at least trying to integrate these characters into the lore whoever they might be.

:rainbow::pig::wedding::mouse::rainbow:

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Fast someone write a letter about Junk x Hog to Jeff (maybe he ship it like he ships McHanzo)

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Oh they do trust me lol out of all the characters they have the most hints and clues to their relationship.

Christmas/Valentines cards, matching skins and sprays, matching emerald rings for their pirate skins, living together currently, share a bed, I could go on lol.

They ship it…they just tease cause they like to make us suffer.

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Is like when Reaper have a Soldier photo in his monitor in the Retribution comic, gay hints

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It’s nice to feel connected with video characters like Tracer. She too changed my life for the better. I will always use her as an inspiration to keep moving forward on my life. I do want to cosplay for first time as her with this skin :point_down:

Gotta love Tracer :heart: :heart_eyes: :blush: :hugs:

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“we can achieve becoming an artform”

If game design isn’t art, nothing else is…

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btw h ttps://youtu.be/TuMgaK4IwhM?t=432

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Hahaha way ahead of ya my friend.

Their like Jumba and Pleakly there so darn cute and domestic lol

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This was so cool, I’m legit impressed.

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TIL those bracelets is where she hides her guns

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Could someone please summarize for me? I’m at work and they block twitter. Thanks

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Basically Jeff loves diversity, the girls an inspiration to him and the team, their working hard to include LGBT and Roadrat is real :mouse::rainbow::pig:

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Dear Mr. Kaplan,
I must’ve been about 13 or 14 when Overwatch was announced. I was in middle school. And at this crucial point of human development, I was struggling to realize I was, and still am, a butch lesbian. After all, I’m from Indiana, roughly the worst state to be gay, and I was badly bullied for my hyperactivity as well as my very blatant gayness. You see, Mr. Kaplan, I never hid, like others did. I never bothered, and I took what happened as it happened. And that included the bullying, the loneliness. My best friend, instead, was my Nintendo 3Ds and my laptop.
I will never forget when I saw Alive. And there was Tracer- Tracer, in all her glory. Tracer, with her yellows (my favorite color), her zippy positivity, her short hair, her leather jacket. And I was immediately hooked, I was hooked on the entire concept. I ordered the game, changed my icon on everything to Tracer, and continued as usual. I cosplayed her (still do!) and bought any merch I could snag of her. I doodled her on the sides of my notes. She was my Superman- I could project onto her and invest myself in the wonderful fiction of Overwatch.
Even before the canonization, Mr. Kaplan, we knew. Tracer embodied all I wanted to be, and all I loved, and I knew she was gay. And I was too, and that was okay. This was mostly dismissed as headcanon, though, as I knew no company would ever want a butch lesbian as the mascot of their game, much less of their company. I thought that Tracer would just be my secret little thing, and that I could pretend she was like me until she was eventually paired up with a man. I was content with pretending, like I had so many times before.
Well-written women are hard to find in videogames. Gay women, especially butch lesbians, are so out of sight and grasp in predominantly straight-made media. When gay women do exist, they are feminine and “straight looking.” They are designed to fit into the comfort level of the straight consumer, and their gayness is either sexualized or never mentioned. The idea of a butch lesbian is dismissed by these straight game developers as a “stereotype.” That not all gay women are “like that”- masculine and painfully not straight. However, Mr. Kaplan, I can assure you that we exist. The short-haired lesbian who wears men’s clothes and unapologetically loves women isn’t a stereotype, we are a reality that is unavoidable and so underrepresented.
Mr. Kaplan, when the comic came out that confirmed Tracer’s lesbianism I cried. I sobbed for two hours straight, and my girlfriend sobbed with me. We cried until we couldn’t cry anymore, so overwhelmed with positive emotion and disbelief.
Tracer is butch. Her hair short, she wears men’s clothing, she is a pilot, she wears tuxedos, and she loves women. Tracer is masculine, Tracer is brave and kind, and most of all, Tracer is a hero. Tracer saves kids, Tracer ignites hope wherever she goes and brings endless positivity and charm with her. Tracer is the face of Overwatch, and she is a butch lesbian. And, in the Overwatch universe, her lesbianism simply is what it is- it isn’t a point of controversy, it is who she is. She is designed, albeit by nonlesbians, to be butch. She is not a feminine, long-haired woman with “lesbian” simply tacked on as a forethought, she is an intentionally designed character who fits the made-up “stereotype” that has always been avoided by game companies to keep their audiences comfortable. She is a miracle. Tracer is the poster child of Overwatch. She is one of Blizzard’s most iconic characters. And she was designed to be something heroines never are.
Tracer helps so much, Mr. Kaplan. Tracer makes my younger brother giggle. Tracer made the kid who sits next to me in Latin more open to the idea of gay women, Tracer makes the biggest difference. Tracer changed my life, I will admit. I am currently in the tail end of my freshman year of high school, pursuing illustration as a major. But your game, Mr. Kaplan, makes me want to go into game art and development. I want to create more Tracers for the world. I want to make more Zaryas, more Pharahs, more Symmetras and more Efis. This game opens so many doors for women to get into gaming, with the cast of women being as big as the cast of men. Overwatch is the first shooter I ever played with the mic on consistently, and the first shooter where I wasn’t harassed every other game for my gender (although it definitely still happens.) Overwatch is definitely not without its flaws, but it has changed my life and so many others. The game needs other LGBT characters, specifically transgender characters, and those characters will be Tracer for someone else.
Thank you, Mr. Kaplan.
Sincerely,
Eva T.

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Or they could just really good buddies? I don’t see how any of those things hint at a romantic relationship.

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Hey it could happen. Tracer became gay out of nowhere so can they lol

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h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh1GmoUlhYI

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They are her gun holsters. She stores each of her pistol in both of them. You can also see the animation on her finger gun emote.

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You’re the best, thanks a lot

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Your welcome ^^, Jeff’s response is below the tweet, I can’t copy paste because is a screenshot

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