Dear Mr. Gaider,
The following is a response to your
Let me begin by stating my position. I am, by all accounts, an unabashed BioWare fangirl and have been since the release of Baldur’s Gate. More to the point, I have played the original Dragon Age upwards of 5 times all the way through. My playthroughs of its sequel number 3 or more. I enjoy your work. There isn’t a game that BioWare releases that I don’t buy after months of anticipation. A large portion of my appreciation of the games you write has to do with how they include LGB characters. Such characters reflect the diversity of people I know in real life as well as myself.
You’ll note that I did not include the T portion of the acronym. Unfortunately, you do yourself a disservice with your recent tumblr post about whether or not “the world is ready” for a Trans*character.
I read your tumblr post and found myself thinking about it; your rhetoric bothers me tremendously. On your blog you very quickly state your point of view:
No, I don’t think video game culture is ready for transgender characters— not as major plot characters, and certainly not as a lead. It’s not ready for major characters that are gay, either. Heck, it’s barely ready for ones which are female .
Does that mean the industry should wait until it is? Probably not.
I need to unpack this quote for myself as much as anyone else. It is tremendously conservative and, quite honestly, cowardly. You write on a team that is famous for having characters who are open-endedly bisexual, despite any backlash. Every romanceable character in Dragon Age II is potentially bisexual.
However what you have written above suggests several things about your posited gamer community. Firstly, that your community is white, heterosexual and male and that the entire gaming community is predominantly made up of people who fall under that category. I could tell you that such a statement is categorically untrue being a gamer myself and knowing fellow gamers. To infer that we are “unready” for such characters is to omit us from gaming community and its discourse.
Secondly, you defend yourself by asserting that, although there are gamers who do not fit your presumed audience, that “comparative size is irrelevant.” I agree. The relative size of the audience should not matter. But what bothers me is that, to you, it apparently does matter. It’s about financial risk/reward at the cost of moral courage. To quote you again:
But what if a publisher did take steps to make them included? There’s the real question, and it’s one without a clear answer. Lacking a clear answer, the prospect of a reward is purely hypothetical. Such risk attached to the unknown means that games which make major strides in that direction tend to receive tepid publisher support at best… and, if they fail, the fault is laid at the door of the direction rather than the tepid support.
I understand that you, as a lead writer on a video game, worry about being held responsible for a game’s success. And that success manifests itself solely as financial. Ultimately, the issue at stake here is not that the world isn’t ready – because it should be ready – for a Trans* character but that it does not serve a perceived monetary bottom line. If a publisher alienated its white, heteronormative, cisgendered, male audience, there would be no money and no support for a game; consequently, you are at the mercy of a publisher and a specific fanbase.
I can’t shake the feeling that you are hiding behind these fans and behind financial excuses. And I’m so very disappointed.
While I realize that it is your livelihood (as you are very clear to point out), representation of non-heterosexual, non-white, non-male communities is more important than simply your ability to support yourself. You credit the majority of your hesitation to include Trans* characters with an anticipated backlash that would, perhaps ultimately damage BioWare, EA’s, but, most especially, your bottom line.
I find your blog post especially frustrating as I get the sense that you’re hedging your bets, even though your blog disclaims that your opinions are not that of BioWare itself. You don’t seem to know which position to take as both feet are planted firmly in two oppositional sides and all you can do is scratch your head in puzzlement. You do well to comment on Mattie Brice and your interaction with her but it reads as an attempt to hide behind someone of the Trans* community, indicating your awareness of a developer’s unwillingness to support LGBT communities as well as women and people of colour is wrong. You attempt to align yourself with Mattie even after you state outright that the gaming community isn’t ready for Trans* characters. You even go on to lament that, “due to a bad line link and the fact we’d only ever included transgender characters as sex workers and comedic relief, it really seemed like she was there to be gawked at and laughed at.” As a writer and socially conscious individual, you’ve realized how you have perpetuated a certain stereotype about Trans* people. You acknowledge this and seem to have an understanding that some research is required so that you can accurately and sensitively portray individuals who do not fall into your demographic. I can’t fault you for being uncertain and hesitant to appropriate another’s life experience.
But your anecdote about reaching out a Trans* fan proves that you can include people of the community in your games as people other than sex workers. The rest of your blog post suggests that you don’t want to When you ask the question, “How would I go about [portraying] a Trans* character?” but in the end seem to just throw your hands up in the air and give in the status quo, eventually passing responsibility for the support of these characters – these communities – onto someone else:
Either someone eventually figures it out and answers that question for everyone, removing the perception of risk once and for all, or it will continue as it is.
Please realize that with this sort of attitude, you are letting things “continue on” as it they have been and thus far perpetuates one narrative that essentially ignores a huge portion of your fan base and a huge portion of lived experiences. Rather than ask whether or not the world is ready for a Trans* hero, or a POC hero, or whatever other supposedly “fringe” elements, why not take a stand and say there should be rather than passing on the issue? You’ve come so far with sexuality in video games, why stop now? You focus on a specific problem, comment on it and make it clear that lack of representation in video games is a problem but then follow up with this:
“Maybe having the option to do so would make more creators less nervous about writing outside their comfort zone? My own comfort zone is not very big. I know whereof I speak.”
Perhaps one should write what one knows. But you also always have the option of dialogue with other communities, or letting them write to their own narratives. No writer is partitioned off from the world; you are required to empathize, interact, and dialogue with the world, otherwise your world would be very limited indeed. Do not simply wave the problem away and remain in your small comfort area. Please, be braver than that.
You even go so far as to suggest that to have a Trans* character would subject him/her to “the court of fan opinion, and the ugliness that would inevitably get exposed.” Please don’t hide behind the fanbase and certainly don’t hide behind the characters you seem so afraid to actually portray. Please don’t use them as an excuse. Do you think biracial couples who fear their child will experience racism should avoid having children? Admittedly we are talking about video game characters but Trans*, POC, women, etc., represent real communities. To say that gaming culture isn’t ready for these people is to say that they themselves should stay silent because the culture isn’t ready or them.
But there are people – Trans*, PoC, women, etc., out there who are the “leads,” and major characters in their own narratives; these are actual communities you seem so hesitant to support. Regardless of the intention behind the games or whether or not everyone involved is inherently concerned with the economic outcome of the venture, being PoC, female, and LGB are all options in Dragon Age franchise when those options are tremendously rare in other games. However, I wish Trans* subjectivities were also included. BioWare’s games, more than many games, have provided an intersectional narrative through your character customizations. The tailoring of character and story give the option of voice and representation to real people who are traditionally denied either. You should be proud of that but you don’t seem to be, hence the source of my sadness and vexation with your blog post.
I end this letter with a gesture toward David Hume’s moral philosophy or the “is/ought” problem. This philosophy simply states that just because something is doesn’t mean it ought to be. Trans* prejudice – like any prejudice – may exist in the world but that doesn’t mean we should let it exist. What if the gaming world isn’t ready for LGBT, PoC, or female characters, a position that is questionable at best? Gaming communities sure as hell ought to be ready.
I say we make it ready.
Further Reading: EQUIP WOLF SHIRT; USE: WHISKEY// ON SURVIVAL (Medium Difficulty)
Gender Swaps: More Than Fanart? (Medium Difficulty)
Opening the Door: Exploring “The Closet” in Games (Medium Difficulty)
