Baldurs Gate and the transgender issue #Gamergate

We all know about the little "controversy" surrounding a particular character in this game and it appears quite a few rabid fans have been out attacking anyone trying to discuss this issue whether out of some misguided belief that it is the duty of all those who advocate progressiveness to fight this good fight or because people on the official forums including one of the velopers has been instructing people to come and wage war on the steam and GoG pages, I don't know as I can only know what motivates me.



And what motivates me here is the desire to make everyone aware of a serious issue with this particular character and that issue is that the character is actually quite offensive to the transgender community.



Allow me to explain. Transgender people in society have a hard time being accepted and many will take the secret of their birth gender to their grave for fear of being outcasted by friends and loved ones if they revealed the truth, a sad reality is many people who have come out as transgender has been led to suicide due to social stigma and abandonment. This is an unfortante reality of society and one which will most likely never be resolved, however, transgender people will build up a relationship with their friends and loved ones and if they feel the time is right they will reveal their secret knowing that the bond between them will be strong enough not to change anything.



So why is the character in this game highly offensive? Simple, because the character was clearly not written by someone who is familiar with issues of transgender as if they were they would have known that a transgender person would never and I repeat NEVER reveal their secret to a person who they have only just met as though the person they were speaking to would immediately accept them and be indifferent to their gender. As I just previously pointed out many transgender people are fearful to how people will react if they revealed their secret and as such would not reveal it until they are familiar with the person, I should remind you that some countries do actually stone transgender people or in their view homosexual people to death.



"But this is a game, it's just fantasy" Actually that makes it even worse, yes this is a fantasy game but as a fantasy game, like most, it is based upon a medieval style setting with many of the attitudes of such a time reflected by characters and therefore having a character immediately reveal they are transgender to a stranger in the type of society in which transgender people and such would be tied to a stake and burned makes the addition of such a character ever more jarring.



How could this character and matter have been better handled? The character should have only revealed their secret after you had built up a relationship with them over time just like how a Bioware game gradually has a companion open up about their past over time as you build up their trust.



I do not know why the developers felt the need to add this poorly written character, was it meeting a checklist to claim progressiveness? Was it pressure from someone on the development team? Or was it some honest, albeit, poorly implemented attempt at grandeur to make a push to help the transgender community?



I do not know, what I do know is that undeniably, the character is offensive and there's no mistake about that.

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