World of Warcraft and the LGBTQ Community Member’s Experience
I am presenting this topic in good faith. I hope all respondents do the same and reply in the spirit of friendship and mutual respect.
I have noticed from reading the forums that Wow seems to have a large LGBTQ player population.
And I wanted to ask the players who happen to be part of this community a few questions out of honest curiosity.
What is it about World of Warcraft that keeps you enjoying the game. That makes you feel welcome in Wow’s Virtual World of existence? That allows you to throw off the shackles of the real world and feel free and safe, and perhaps liberated?
Those are my Base questions. Please feel free to Describe your own experience / reasons for playing Wow.
Also Do you play any other mmorpgs or single player games that put you into a virtual reality scenario which makes you feel comfortable and lets you be you and enjoy the game on your own terms. Without real world social implications.
P.S: Have you always been a fantasy and science fiction fan?
I’m noticing a trend. The threads like this are made, then the toon mysteriously never appears again… then another toon comes up and the threads are made.
I know it sounds nuts, but I’m starting to question things.
this wouldn’t be a problem if they hadn’t made our forum accounts specific per character. our post count, history, etc should all be account wide no matter what character we post on. would solve this problem overnight
I’m a gay male, but have never felt that my sexual orientation had anything to do with the portion i quoted. I’m sorry, but this is why the community always get back lash.
I don’t have an issue with LBGTQ folks, but it feels like the threads aren’t made in a way to be positive but more just to troll if the OP is the suspected troller.
If the OP is someone completely different, then we’ll see what comes of the thread.
It’s neither here no there for me.
When I come online to play,it’s to play.For all I know the player running by me could be a 1 eyed 1 horned purple people eater for all I know and my lifestyle has zero impact on how I play.
Seeing how there is no accountability from Blizzard, I keep my lifestyle to myself. Do you NOT see the open hostility on the forums and ingame, just from being asked “Be nice to each other”.
Oh, I’ve never felt welcome here. But I do feel tolerated, and that’s a marked improvement.
Oh, you mean flying mounts.
I have always been into high fantasy and I have an insatiable bloodlust to slaughter humans in effigy. WoW hits that sweet spot.
Werewolf: Heart of the Forest, the Tales Games (amazing JRPGs), The Elder Scrolls series, the Fallout series. I used to be heavy into RPGs. I’ve played every RPG title from Squaresoft, Enix, and Square-Enix. I play tons of single-player games. Biomutant is one of the best I’ve played in a while from an action game perspective. RPG-wise, that distinction goes to either Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire or Disco Elysium.
I don’t socialize at all in the “real world” and I do precious little socializing online.
Always. Since the first time I saw The Neverending Story.
My FF guild calls me a birl because they can’t lock down my sexual orientation. Not to binarily contain me, but out of a humor we all agree upon. It’s empowerment really.
That said, why does our sexuality even matter in a game. The only reason anyone knows mine is because I openly flirt with practically everyone. The rest of the folks there are just there to have a good time. I have met so many people who give two flying poops whether you’re male or female, gay or straight, AI or a living banana. Why does this forum care so much?
To be blunt, I am gay myself, yet I have the approach of I’ll just move on if someone is being obnoxious. In that if their being bigoted, then I’ll say something in trying to be nice, and if they keep going then I’ll leave, block them, or log off and do something else. Currently I only play WoW and OW, along with I haven’t really haven’t seen or experienced much hate honestly. I know there are some groups in game that are very hateful, yet it’s just as easy to block and move on from them and their hatred.
I’m trans (yet WoW has censored the full written word of my identity) and when I was younger I would use WoW and other games to live out the life I couldn’t have in real life. Perhaps an unhealthy coping mechanism, but a necessary one.
Overall I quite enjoy WoW, and the only real conflicts I’ve had with people are belligerent jerks in dungeons.
However I have found that people are much less accepting now that activists have taken over the discourse. Instead of letting the culture become more accepting gradually, they’re hammering it in like a nail that’s bent sideways; the message is full of incoherent capital-T Theory that people are meant to accept through social pressure rather than real dialogue. It’s been a playground for narcissists who want to avoid criticism, while the rest of our voices get drowned out.
It’s constant passive-aggression and social manipulation, yet shock and awe when anyone stands their ground. Meanwhile as long as I assure people that I’m not like the activists, I’m pretty much accepted with open arms.
My guess is that in-game people really don’t talk all that much to each other except in guilds. Aside from that. Many players run around doing quests solo and do dungeon finder groups which don’t talk much at all.
In the forums people have more time to discuss topics and share a lot of information they normally don’t talk about in-game.
Although I have heard there are guilds that are LGBTQ oriented. I’m not sure about it?
It is not possible to tell to what extent the posters in the forum represent the playerbase. I suspect the percentage of LGBTQ players in the general playerbase is probably about the same as the general world population.
