More Transgender Characters

She didn’t “reduce people”, she’s just annoyed we can’t use the word “women” anymore to talk about the people who menstruate when in 99.9 percent of the time it’s correct.
It’s exactly as if someone said “humans can walk” and a handicapped person told “bUt I cAn’T wAlK aNd I’M HuMaN tOo” and decreed we all have to say “humans who have two functional legs can walk” just so that their feelings aren’t hurt.
This is just stupid, you don’t change language just based on exceptions.

As for the store she linked to iirc she showed a t-shirt saying “this witch doesn’t burn” (so nothing problematic) and the store she linked to happened to have another category that sold the merchandise you talk about.

All the examples you give are based on short tweets and none on her 3600 words long essay where she explains herself, which conforts me in the facts that you’re just repeating what you’ve heard when you call her transphobic and didn’t read it yourself.

As for the rest I agree with you, the shows you mention about are examples of representation done well, because they weren’t made with a checklist in mind.

I agree games could do it too (“Hades” is a good example I think). When I say it is forced upon them I’m talking about this specific thread where OP says “Developers, do what you do best and represent the trans community”. Some time ago I saw another saying “How come there isn’t a black woman in the game already”? There were also people complaining when Sigma was revealed that it was “another white male”. This is the pressure I’m talking about.

Sure tell the devs what you would like to see in the game, why not, but do not what they should do. It should be their choice for the result to be good.

5 Likes

To bring this derailed argument back to Overwatch.

Whether or not a character is transgender should not be the defining reason to make the character, and a call for “more X characters,” whether X is trans, black female, ethnically Jewish, or another minority group that doesn’t get much representation in gaming is just writing them off as token diversity checks on an increasingly growing list.

Diversity is not a checklist, and a character should not be defined by their sexuality or gender or race. Overwatch is a celebration of the Earth and its culture, which leads to the scenario that you get characters from all walks of life. Symmetra is a hero who happens to be Indian and happens to be autistic. She is not defined as the autistic hero and isn’t made to check India off a diversity checklist. Tracer is a hero who happens to be a lesbian. Sojorun is a character who happens to be a Black Canadian.

If they do end up making a character who isn’t trans, it shouldn’t be to specifically make a character to check the trans representation off of a checklist to directly answer some rally call to put more transgender characters into the game. That would be a disservice to everyone involved, for or against the inclusion of a transgender character. It should just be that they were making a character, and they happened to be trans. But representation for the sake of representation sours what makes the diversity of Overwatch so great, and people take for granted a lot aspects of the cast we have already. This cast of 32 characters has only 2 characters that fit your generic Western FPS character design of youngish white male. One of them is an homage to Clint Eastwood, and the other is usually your dime a dozen psycho grenadier you would find as a common enemy in a game like Rage or Borderlands, but turned into a real character.

9 Likes

Exactly. That’s why there should be multiple gay, lesbian, nonbinary, and POC characters not just one of each in the game. Also, lgbt+ characters should also have their relationships represented in between characters of the main cast.

5 Likes

You say it’s not a checklist, then you proceed to give a checklist of what the game should have…

I’ll add that if a game wants to stay realistic, statistically there are not many chances in a cast of lets say 10 main characters that more than two of them would be LGBT+, except if the game is about an LGBT+ group.

2 Likes

I agree if my identity was to be represented id want it to benefit someone from the community as a job not just for outside consumption and profit.

I would say that 0 is just as valid of a result as multiple for specific groups of gay, lesbian, nonbinary, etc, so long as the LGBT+ group is represented in a natural feeling way that blends with the story. Having too little diversity results in a bland roster, and having too many oversaturates it and spoils it. Right now, ~8% of our human roster is LGBT+, and it feels like it fits into the game naturally. Having 1 or 0 in the grand scheme is tokenism or neglectful, and having a third of your cast would feel forced.

This I strongly disagree with, but not just for LGBT+ heroes but for heterosexual pairings as well. I think interhero relationships in general are not the right move to be making. Genji/Mercy is teased to be the only interhero relationship, and I hope it stays that way. Based on the current roster alone, we have:

  • Tracer, whose girlfriend is a non combatant.

  • Torbjorn, whose wife is a non combatant.

  • Widowmaker, who killed her husband.

  • Ana/Reaper, who left their partners when they “died”

  • Soldier, who is more or less doomed to be alone.

  • Mercy/Genji

  • Echo/Bastion/Orisa, who are all probably incapable of romance.

  • Hammond, a hamster that can’t talk.

  • 20 other heroes with unknown sexualities or relationship statuses (there are some hints among them, like Ashe seems to have had a thing for McCree in their younger years that he didn’t reciprocate, which we will probably see in her novel.)

Your interhero relationships would either come from those 20 unknowns, or from new heroes to be representative of the partners of either those 20, or of other new heroes. And among those 20, most of them are either wanderers or have settled locally.

The only two where it would feel plausible for them to have a partner that is also hero-worthy would be Pharah with another member of Helix, or D.Va with a squadmate. The first would be more preferable than the second, especially if they bring Helix in as an opposition to Overwatch who will enforce the Petras Act. It could bring an interesting dynamic between them and an extra conflict for Pharah, who would have to choose between duty ore responsibility towards her current engagements, or for her childhood dream.

That paragraph was more about how the diversity in Overwatch is circumstantial rather than representation for the sake of representation. It is a global game, so you will see characters who represent humanity throughout the game. Mei wasn’t made to be “the Chinese hero” or Lucio “the Brazilian hero”, but rather they were made, Mei ended up being Chinese and Lucio ended up being Brazilian. They could have just as easily have been from Canada, but they weren’t.

This goes beyond race as well, but into sexuality. Tracer and Widowmaker could all have been either heterosexual or not, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Tracer would have her partner in the present, Widowmaker would have killed hers. It doesn’t matter if Soldier or Reaper is gay or straight, but one of them inevitably would be to further the string of opposites they hold with each other (race, hometown, family, religion, blood, alignment, etc.)

5 Likes

Having multiple characters of varied ethnicities and sexual orientations at random(and not one of each) is the opposite of a checklist.

If you want to bring realism and statistics in a game about fantasy science I can indulge you.
Statistically, a cast of characters the represent the population of the world proportionally most of the cast would be composed of Chinese and Indian characters, and we wouldn’t need to buy a sequel to play as a black woman. (Also, OW has inteligent animals, so if we are going to take nonhuman into consideration, the cast would be made mostly of talking insects! Cool.)

Now, you were talking about statistics related to lgbt+, so you must know that the numbers we have are highly underestimated because of social/religious stigma people will avoid coming out. Also, many countries lack proper information about that because of a lack of research, persecution, and censorship. Among those countries that we lack information about are those highly populated that I cited above. The data we have about lgbt+ population are projections from the information we know. There’s also the fact that the scientific community is also passive of homophobia and transphobia.

I forgot to mention that the game takes place in the future that seems more accepting of lgbt+ people so who knows how these projections would look like.

I totally agree with you that they should’ve avoided relationships between the characters of the main roster, however, they already crossed that line with Genji/Mercy. It’s not teased, it’s directly implied and it wasn’t something that was established from the start. The writer liked the fan art and started writing it into the game. All the opportunities he got he added more about it, he even made changes to the story to do so, confirmed their relationship on twitter by answering a fan about it, and made ship fan art canon in the story.
If a straight relationship can be in the main cast, I’m saying it’s fair a homosexual can be made canon to.

Sorry I’m not sure if I was clear, I was replying to GreatUniter who said there should be multiple gay, lesbian, nonbinary, POC characters and them being in a relationship with another character of the main cast. What they’re suggesting looks like a checklist to me.

Currently as you explained it better than I would, the diversity among Overwatch characters feels natural because it is an international organization; but it would be strange if in a cast of 32 characters there somehow were 4 gays, 2 lesbians, 3 bi , 2 non-binary, etc… especially non-binary and trans people that are rarer in the global population, and nothing in the plot would justify those statistics. It would feel forced.

The interactions were there since the game launched, its not like it was added by the writer in response to fan fiction. Genji/Mercy were in their romantic bumble just as how Soldier was gay since day 1, even if we didn’t know it. But unlike Soldier, the hints for Genji/Mercy were there since the start while the only hint Soldier was gay was that either him or Reyes had to be gay for their series of opposites to persist.

Likewise, just because 1 relationship exists doesn’t mean “let’s start putting in more.” 1 is enough. It just happens to be heterosexual. It could have just as easily been homosexual, but it wasn’t. Genji is Hanzo’s brother and Mercy is a woman, and so it ended up as a heterosexual relationship.

Their only interaction at the start was Mercy being his doctor and saying that he was better now. She was also the one that saved his life and his physician, but later they made up the “cybernization team” that made him into a cyborg to avoid the doctor/ experiment patient controversy(even though she is shown as his doctor at the Uprising comic).

Soldier being gay was something that they could’ve easily made obvious from the start of the game.

What I’m saying is that they made stuff as they went along and took the fan ideas they liked as they went on.

1 Like

If you randomly selected 32 people in the world, you’d have to retry a LOT before you got both multiple lesbians, gays and non-binary people in your group. What you’re suggesting would not be random.

Yes I want realism in my fantasy game, since Overwatch’s plot imagines the future of humanity. Most fantasy/sci-fi game are rooted in our reality especially when humans are concerned.

The statistics of race you talk about are irrelevant since they are justified by the plot: Overwatch is an international organization working worldwide, it makes sense they would pick members from all over the world that could each share their expertise. The presence of a few mutated animals also is justified by the plot, so your joke about the insects is pointless.

Maybe you’re right and there are more LGBT+ people than the statistics show; but I doubt it’s as much as you’re suggesting.

1 Like

I did not suggest anything. You suggested that Overwatch would be unrealistic if it had multiple lgbt+ characters. What I said is that by applying real-world statics to the game the cast would not look as it does now, because, surprise, it already doesn’t follow real-world percentages and proportions.

I brought the race point because if you are taking random samples of the world population, statistically speaking, you have a way bigger chance to select someone from Russian, China, or India than someone from Guadalupe.

Now, you bring the point of Overwatch being an international organization and that’s what justifies its current diversity. However, being an international organization doesn’t mean it follows world proportions either. For example, in the lore, Russia didn’t join Overwatch, so there aren’t Russian agents(even though there are 2 important Russian characters in the lore). And, the people that join were selected by skill, so there wasn’t a random worldwide selection.

Looking at the current cast of characters the data pool is already very biased. For example, there are a lot of characters that are in the military, and the exact number of people in the military that are lgbt+ is unknown(I’m talking real-world) because they hide for fear of being persecuted. There’s also scientists/researchers in Overwatch, and in academic places, they are usually more accepting of lgbt+, surpassing national averages. However, it depends on which area of study the scientist is from.

Here’s my entire point. Using real-world data to analyze and justify the prevalence of a certain group of people in the cast of the characters of Overwatch(or any game), doesn’t make sense because the data is biased from the start, by the writers/developers*. And if you take the lore into consideration, the game takes place in the future, post man vs machine war, in a fantasy setting, which makes it impossible to know the populations distributions in that world.

*Hell, even the human/robot relationships are always a “male” robot with a white woman(usually blond), just because :crazy_face:

The whole “Chu made it a couple because he liked fan art” is a huge misconception that people keep making, here as well.

At launch they had multiple interactions, as well as being two of the very very few heroes to have voicelines that play when a specific ally (IE each other) died.

  • Mercy: You seem well, Genji.
  • Genji: I am a different man now. I am whole.
  • Genji: This reminds me of our time on base in Switzerland.
  • Mercy: You were the only one who stayed up so late. I enjoyed our conversations.

(Friendly Mercy is eliminated) Angela!

(Friendly Genji is eliminated) Genji… I was too late!

Then come Christmas, they added the Reflections scene, and to finally set it all in stone, they added the Valentines voicelines with Oasis. The key word here is added, they were already recorded before. From what I remember from dataminers back in the day, they were recorded around the time Mercy’s interactions with Ana and Sombra were made, setting it to before launch (and by extent, before the fan art/shipping).

As for your “they made up a cyberization team to avoid ethical concerns” thing… They never said to begin with that she made his cybernetic body, and it wouldnt have made sense. She did save his life, and she is his physician. Her claim to fame in universe was her work as the head of surgery in an important Swiss hospital and her developments in nanobiology (AKA that healing stuff used by her/Moira/Ana/Soldier/Baptiste.) Her developments were not in engineering or cybernetics, and she was never said to be the one who made his body or even her own Valkyrie suit. If anything, I would argue there was evidence against it based on the Ana Biotic Rifle teaser. It was left in an unknown void until Valkyrie confirmed that Torbjorn had worked on her armor.

And before I hear about it, because I find that people say it in an accusatory fashion whenever I try to talk about this… I do not even like Mercy/Genji. I don’t support it, and I don’t think its a thing that should be in the game. It really felt like it clogged up Storm Rising as well. But I am a fan of trying to understand the development and not spread harmful misinformation like “Chu is just copying the fans” or “they only started making it a thing after people liked it.”

It isn’t a misconception he made voice lines based on fan art from 2016. He even retweeted the fan art, you can look it up. (Unless he deleted his old posts)

This was the only one that was in the game during 2016 and the beginning of 2017.

This was added after the Storm Rising event.(These voice lines are based on fan characterization of Mercy in a couple of comics, where she stayed up late and some character that Mercy is shipped with would tend her)

These were added with the Valentine’s day voice lines. (These were datamined in the ptr that launched after or during the winter wonderland if I remember correctly)

You can’t say as a fact that when the voice lines were recorded. The voice actors said they call them when they need, there isn’t a set date. Mercy, for example, had a change in voice from the alpha to the beta/live(you can still hear her alpha voice on the official site), so she didn’t record when everybody else did. The same goes to Ana and Sombra’s VA. The only instance that we know for sure when a VA recorded for OW, was when D.va’s actress said that she had to hide for a year that D.va was getting her animated short(and even in this instance they could’ve called her back multiple times for re-recordings if necessary).

Because the extent of his injuries makes it impossible for her not to hook him on machines so he could survive, not even the nanobiotics could keep a human alive with the amount of trauma he received. Also, she’s the head of medical research so there’s no way she didn’t know or wast involved with it. And with her being a surgeon the procedures of implanting prosthesis could also have been perfectly made by her.

It’s not only Genji/Mercy content that they “took ideas” from the fans, changing the character as a result. Jeff said in an interview that they never imagined D.va as eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew, but they made it part of the character. Mei “having a bad temper” was also something that came from the Satan Mei meme that they made canon. McCree being a goofball for not realizing he had a bad Italian accent and blowing their cover because the “lady was rude”, also came from fan interpretation of the character. Talking about McCree, his voice line with Pharah were he talks about them playing with toy guns, also based on old fan art. I bet there is a lot more that I don’t know because other devs and writers that don’t have a big social media presence could’ve taken “inspiration” from fan stuff and put it on the game that we don’t have evidence of.

I’m not saying they are the worse person in the universe for doing this stuff. I don’t know them. What I know is their work, and I think it’s a bad thing to take stuff from someone else and not give the rightful credit.

If you or me, that are nobodies(at least I am), did something like this, people wouldn’t be merciful.

Hmm, I seem to have made a mistake on this one, thanks for the clarification on this.

This is another thing I double checked. I can’t find a specific time for when the Genji “Angela” line was added (some time between April and October), but the Mercy “I was too late!” was added in the Halloween patch. Which still puts it well before Reflections.

Either way, I adamantly disagree with this. You can make just as much argument that Genji/Mercy was spawned from fan demand and began its true cementation in Reflections as you can that Tracer being gay was spawned from fan demand and began its true cementation in Reflections. Tracer being gay wasn’t spawned from fan demand, and it just happened to reveal itself through Reflections to us for the first time. The same goes for Genji/Mercy.

1 Like

I think you are mixing up the resurrection voice lines with those. The rez ones were broken for a while when the live version was released but they were fixed in the Halloween patch(2016). The ones that you are talking about we added later(Chinese new year).

You misinterpret me, or I didn’t express myself well, which is more possible. I’m not saying he was answering to fan demand. I’m saying that he saw the fans having fun shipping their favorite characters, that he also wanted to play shipping his favorite character with the fandom bicycle too.

Nope. Here is a video from September 2016 about the Mercy line being added to PTR as a partner for an already existing Genji line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6rC6-BWU08
Hammeh’s Mercy video in the next month talks about how the Genji line is in the game and functional, but the Mercy line is the one that is broken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4gjnBCloa0
Both were added before Reflections.

I don’t know the source of it anymore but I am sure Sigma VA stated that OW Team loves their OW Community for making (free) lore where the game is lacking it.
They basicially look through OW Community ideas and make them official in one way or another. Of course that doesn’t mean they don’t make their own lore ideas official that just some fan thought the same before them.

1 Like

While what you are saying is true representation is still important. I want it done right and currently the representation I have seen of the trans community in games is 0. We need more trans representation. I’m not saying it’s a checklist to be marked I’m saying the complete lack of it is disturbing

1 Like

Holy moly, this thread went all over the place…

Anyway, yeah sure, a transgender hero would be neat. It would go pretty nicely with the whole “Everyone can be a hero” idea Overwatch has

2 Likes