Now that the Overwatch 2 Beta is on it’s way I would once again like to turn the discussion to Representation. There are going to be new heroes coming to Overwatch 2 in the Beta, we know that for a fact. This is the perfect opportunity to add a Trans character to the roster. Representation is important in many ways, so please Developers, do what you have always strived to do. Increase representation in your game. You have a very diverse roster of characters now but there is always ways you can expand, and one place that is currently lacking is Transgender Representation. We exist and we deserve to be acknowledged and normalized. By simply adding a Transgender Character you would expose your players to a trans character, which has been shown to decrease transphobia and help trans people realize who they are. It is an opportunity to educate and lead by example. You could have a gender fluid character with voice lines pre-match with a character asking what their pronouns are today. You could have a character with a transgender pride flag skin. You could have a character who in a story experiments with different pronouns. The possibilities are endless. I trust the overwatch developers to get it right, you have gotten it right in the past and in the present when it comes to diverse characters of many different backgrounds. You have a chance to say “Transgender peoples existence is not controversial, political, etc. They are normal people who can do great things too. They are worthy of respect.” So do it. Show your support of my community
.6% of US adults are trans. So that means, on average, we will have 1 trans character per 167 heroes. There doesn’t need to be over-representation of groups when there are larger %'s that have no one.
EDIT: That number is only in the US, and likely much smaller throughout the world.
Bold of you to assume there aren’t transgender characters in the game already.
yeah because we can also resurrect and fly and clone people in real life
Your homework for tonight is a 5-paragraph essay on why “we shouldn’t solve some problem because a different unrelated problem exists” is a silly argument and why you’re silly for making it.
As someone who actually writes novels, people asking for a specific representation puts a bad taste in my mouth. They’re like “It’s so easy to include…”
But it’s really not. You have to build characters on psychological bricks, and making them actually feel cohesive and realistic takes a lot of work. Being trans isn’t something you can just shove on a character and call it a day, it’d have far-reaching implications to who they are.
Not every creator wants to write the narrative of transgenderism, not because they’re transphobes, but because it’s a tricky and specific narrative to write, and you really do have to build it into the character from a very early stage.
I think it’s one of those things where if you demand a trans character, you’ll get a character that they slapped transgenderism onto, which won’t do representation any real favors.
It’s hard enough to make a character genuine and realistic, when you start putting constraints on them like “They need to part of XXXX community” it often ends up with characters who feel fake.
I’m all for representation, but I really think we as a community need to start praising it when it’s good rather than just demanding it out of thin air like it’s super easy.
If the devs ever do this then I think it should be part of a hero’s backstory where it is a part of their life but not the only part.
Like the way they handled Tracer.
There are a LOT of under represented groups/peoples in OW (you’re not gonna cover them all in 32 heroes)….even just From a regional standpoint which is how they seem to have done with all the other heroes so far
I get the desire for representation but there are probably many other groups that are more glaring misses
We’re only just now getting an African-American woman for example
If they make a trans hero, great 
if they don’t make one, that’s fine
We gotta remember that it’s just a cartoony hero shooter game after all, Blizz isn’t congress and they’re not obligated or required to represent xyz from the real world
All they gotta do is make a quality product that works
I’d like to have a transgender hero, too.
Hopefully they’ll add one in the future.
We already have Moira
I honestly thought that Moira was going to be the trans hero when she came out. You know with the David Bowie skin. And it would tie in with her being a geneticist she could have altered her gender at one point. I bet one Christmas they will announce it, or not.
The “it’s too difficult for us to bother” argument holds no water.
Just because it’s harder, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. I’m not convinced it’s any more difficult that writing a backstory for anyone else anyway.
some people here are reacting worse to the idea of a trans character then they act to the idea of a hero like reaper who is literally a murderer, or to doomfist a man who quite literally is the head of an organization trying to ruin the world… smh
Probably because they didn’t have the idea for a African American female yet. Sojourn has already been a character since Storm Rising in 2018.
Sojourn is African-Canadian not African-American lol
OW takes place in the 2070s so it’s reasonable to assume that medical technology has advanced to the point where a transgender person would be indistinguishable from a cisgender person of the same gender. For all we know, anyone on the current roster could be transgender.
If that were the case, I would bet it’s Cassidy.
My main argument is that binding people creatively by saying “you need to make it this way!” leads to token representation that feels inauthentic. I don’t think a lot of people recognize how difficult it is to get ANY character to feel realistic and relatable.
Especially if you start with, “Hey, you need to make this next character trans.” It ends up as a caricature instead.
She’s actually Canadian, so no, she’s not African American. One day, we will stop labelling people by what country their ancestors came from.
america is a continent (2 actually)…but w/e…black woman…point was there are lots of groups