It’s the power of bunny!
But thank you!
As I don’t play the game anymore, all I can do now is contribute bunnies to places where happiness is needed!
I did find it to be almost like one of these optical illusions where the picture seems to look at you even if you move to the side. But that’s okay, bunnies are gentle creatures, they take good care of souls.
Here is a basic breakdown on why some progressive people are not supporting the trans movement. FYI I personally don’t care one way or the other, but it may help someone to get a big picture perspective.
Historically kids are brought up believing that boys and girls should act a certain way and be interested in certain things or attracted to certain people based simply on their gender. If the kid doesn’t fit into the mold then they’re pressured into it or emotionally or even physically abused for being “abnormal”. These kids generally end up feeling like “a freak” or like they’re “wrong” because they don’t match the expectations. That way people overcome this upbringing is where things get tricky.
For decades the gay world has been fighting to be accepted as “normal” even though their sexual attraction doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold. For centuries women have been fighting to be considered “normal” for having “male” interests or for simply being interested in sex. Fairly recently men have been fighting to challenge the views of what a “real man” should be. For these groups the ultimate goal is to destroy the gender and sexual stereotypes of the past. The idea is that people should be able to have their own interests and attractions without being labeled as “wrong” just because it doesn’t fit the stereotypes. That’s where the conflict arises. The current trans movement is based on the idea of each gender having a specific set of rules and attractions. Anyone who doesn’t fit into the stereotypical mold is ultimately the “wrong” gender and either has to change genders or has to be classified as a completely different “catch all” gender. This goes against the very core of the progressive movement to eliminate gender roles entirely. Ultimately everyone has the same end goal, to be loved and accepted as you are, but the directions these groups take are at odds with each other.
This is the primary reason why gay/lesbian, women’s rights groups and progressive mens groups aren’t very supportive of the trans movement.
Then you have the Bible beaters who generally just hate everything anyway 
I’m transgender.
Never shared that with anyone in the Gems of War community before, and never thought I would. But this thread inspired me to be a little braver. So here I am, no longer hiding it.
I’ve got an awful lot of trans friends and it’s about a lot more than gender roles for them. It’s about their brain not agreeing about their body. It can make one suicidal until Hormone Reassignment Treatment gets the balance right again. And once that happens, they take on physical characteristics of the gender their brain agrees with, so they tend to want to dress and act like that too.
Hell, I’d argue there’s a lot more to gay/lesbian rights than “gender roles”. It’s about being able to choose who you love, and not getting treated differently because it doesn’t line up with someone else’s idea of what is “right”.
It is not good for anyone to try and divide the community into “more important” groups to fight for. The DOJ, right now, is advising our government to make it legal to discriminate against transgendered people for housing and employment. If we twiddle our thumbs and decide “trans people aren’t different enough”, then it’s going to be harder to fight when the next swing is, “OK, let’s remove protections for gay/lesbian people.” If you think that isn’t the plan, you aren’t paying attention.
It’s like saying, “Well, black people shouldn’t care about Hispanic rights because it’s a different group of people.” Like, what the Hell? We’re supposed to believe nobody can be discriminated against. Nobody. The moment you start to compile a list of who “doesn’t deserve” rights is the moment someone with more power than you can decide you belong on it.
You can’t say you “have the same end goal” if you want to set some people in the group aside and say “but their opinions clash with mine so they don’t matter”. I agree that, if gender roles are eliminated, life gets easier for everyone. That doesn’t make trans rights any less important than other rights.
I’m so glad that something positive came out of this thread. Thank you for sharing with us.
The counter arrangement is that subdividing people creates more opportunities for people to be oppressed. If people aren’t broken down into their base demographics then it becomes much harder to have a dominant group. The problem with this argument though is that people are programmed to group together based on a shared common trait and we haven’t evolved beyond that yet. A large group will always subdivide into smaller groups of people who share some random trait.
Yeah at a base level I think the problem is our constitution means “all people deserve these rights” but there has been a 200+ year struggle against people who pick some random demographic and say, “Well they don’t deserve it, right?”
If we’d discriminate against “nobody” it’d be a lot easier to understand and implement.
I can agree that far. We shouldn’t need labels for legal reasons.
I’ve always said the laws should be simple and easy to understand. The problem is if the laws are easy to understand there’s no need to have all the politicians and lawyers so they wouldn’t agree to that. As long as laws are ambiguous and convoluted the politicians get to keep their jobs.
Just in case people get lost scrolling up, here is a link to the top to get to the poll easier
Good idea. After a bunch of posts it gets choppy scrolling from bottom to top. Mind if I steal the idea?
I’m cleaning up this thread, please stand by!
I am more than happy to leave this thread up if we can have a civil discussion that doesn’t devolve into unnecessary arguments. Name calling, mean comments and abuse will not be tolerated moving forward, so please be warned. You are, of course, welcome to contact each other privately, but I wouldn’t recommend doing so. Please treat all viewpoints (that are presented civilly) with respect and kindness.
Gems of War attracts a diverse playerbase, and I adore that! We are also a team with a fairly even gender split, and have people that identify as part of the queer and LGBTQIA community amongst our staff. (One of which is myself. Why do you think I talk about wanting to marry Mab so much?)
Games that require or encourage co-operative play (which we do through our guild system!) mean that people with similar playstyles, backgrounds, or even interests typically flock together to form communities and enjoy the game together. I love the fact that more queer and gender diverse guilds and groups are popping up in-game, as it means players that identify with these groups can create safe spaces of play together.
Everyone is unique, and has had their own life experiences. Please keep this in mind when conversing and you might even learn something new, or make a friend!
TLDR, this thread can stay as long as it is PG-13 and we treat each other well. 
Thank you for your ruling, Salty. I’ll do my best to keep this as clean and minor friendly as possible.
I can’t say that I agree with this thread remaining open, but if a dev has chosen thus; so be it.
i respectively state my objection, for the record.
Thanks for sharing! Big respect! 
The poll is biased against residents of Lesbos (in the Aegean Sea) who are Lesbians because that’s where they live but not as a sexual preference.
It also completely excludes heterosexuals.
I am not complaining. I’m merely pointing out a couple of possible incongruities I noticed.
Edit: I made the following changes and comments with regard to the above silly message:
The first sentence was too vague and left too much room for [mis-]interpretations of various sorts. Talking/posting about changes now seems silly, so I won’t. I’ll leave my message as part of the thread/conversation because other posts reference it and because I’m adding to it now, but I think it would have been better if I had said nothing at all 
… The reply added nothing of value or significance to the conversation. 
I split the last sentence into two sentences and added the word possible for a bit more clarity.
I acknowledge AmberPeacemaker’s kind response and I agree. The second “potential incongruity” was neither an incongruity nor an exclusion (as I had claimed), because it wasn’t within the scope of the original poll/question. My erroneous/hasty interpretation of the original post and its responses led to the inappropriate response (My faulty interpretation of the poll’s responses and the poll led to my misunderstanding!). I am responsible for my errors and I apologize.
A friendly response to AmberPeacemaker’s thoughtful edit: No worries! 
From my perspective and in my opinion, we’re all friends here. (Others’ opinions might differ.) I have a tendency to read too much into things even when I’m NOT tired, and, as my original response demonstrated, sometimes I don’t read as carefully as I should before replying. Oops! I—figuratively—put my foot in my mouth rather frequently. :sigh:
[I think we’re on the same page here (have the same opinion); no need to reply]
I don’t even know how to respond about the first half of your statement, other than that one would infer that we are meaning Lesbian as women loving women and not Lesbian as inhabitant of Lesbos based off of the fact this is a poll about the queer community and not a poll of, “what are you called as a citizen of x, y, or z?”
Second, seeing as heterosexuals are not part of the LGBT community, one would also infer that heterosexual would not be listed as an option in a poll for LGBT representation.
To be perfectly honest I am getting the feeling you are attempting to act the part of a troll with the potential for a flame war, rather than point out “incongruities” that would actually help make the poll better.
Edit: of course, I am writing this at 0023Lima, so I could be too tired and reading too much into this 
