"I have no problem with the reviewer personally, but I dont want to see what is obviously a man, trying to look like a woman, its just too weird and I find it offensive, I dont want to be bombarded with gay/lesbian/transgender stuff on a gaming website, just have a regular guy or woman reviewing the games." – airwalker2000 in Gamespot comments


Carolyn Petit, one of Gamespot's game reviewers, is transsexual. She's just posted (what I believe to be) her first video review on the site. And she's catching a lot of nasty commentary.

Whether or not you believe in a greater gaming community, being a gamer means laboring under a presumption of immaturity from those that don't play games. And while much of that prejudice is unfair, it's too often right on the mark, like when gamers ignore that a very nice video review of L.A. Noire was made by a real human—and not, as some have attempted to terrorize in the comments, a person who should be ashamed of themselves or the choices they've made.


Or as Carolyn Petit says in her own blog, in the wake of the negative comments:

Denying my true self was like carrying a stone in my soul everywhere. There was a hole inside me, like the one you feel when you really miss somebody, but the person I missed was me. … To help ease the pain, I lost myself in books, in music, in movies, and in games. … I don't need games to teach me that lesson anymore. I've applied it in enough real-world situations that I now have the confidence in who I am to no longer be shaken by the sometimes hateful words of others.

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Carolyn doesn't need our support (or the support of the dozens of positive commenters on her L.A. Noire review), but she's got it. And big compliments to GameSpot for giving everyone an equal opportunity.