Gender-free Romance Petition

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No.

ME3 "everyone is bi" is a bad idea.

It's not the case in real life, it shouldn't be represented in game. You detract from the character by wanting such things. The friendship you forge with the other person (because we are talking about Judy/Panam here), is just as valuable. If you want to romance the other, you can do so by playing the appropriate gender.
 
I respect your responses. I too realize that in real life, people have preferences. That's not in doubt at all.

What I will say, and what I hope you might consider, is that gender exists in a broader spectrum than what it presented in the game, and representing the full spectrum would require a huge amount of work on the parts of the developers. Work that may have been too delicate for a game with the sort of concept to release cycle that they had to work with.

As such, they have tried to fairly and broadly represent that spectrum in a manner that has ended up limiting choices in a way that specifically excludes people who are gender-neutral, gender-nonconforming, and trans.

The fact that I can, for example, play a character with a "feminine voice," breasts, and a penis, but am limited in my romance options to what we would, in 2021, consider to belong to the strictly "lesbian" category is really disheartening to me as a player and I know I'm not alone.

The reason I've started the petition isn't to force something on players that is egregious. I've started it because the solutions that were developed in the limited timeframe given to the game designers has left out and stigmatized people, myself included, who don't necessarily fit into a binary understanding of gender, and without years to work on just this one problem, it seems to me that just removing gender restrictions altogether is the easiest fix to remove that potential stigma.
 
again... NOPE...

I just had to find this on youtube:
judy-dont go there.jpg


:LOL:
 
That was Dragon Age 2. Mass Effect 3 had Kaidan becoming bi.
Ashley if you saved her instead, ofc. Tali was bi in ME3 too. Can't remember is Garrus was either, don't think so. Most of them were saved by the fact that they weren't actual characters and required an ME2 save.
 
But, like... why does keeping "choice and consequence" have to come at the expense of just wiping out the experience of gender-nonconforming, gender-neutral, and trans people? There are so many other things in the game that could be kept or added to increase a sense of control over the narrative, Honestly, ask yourself why excluding a ton of people and/or making them feel stigmatized is the hill you want to die on?

And I haven't even gotten into the fact that coding some of the characters as gay, lesbian, or straight, but then not allowing them to be attracted to certain character builds based on genital selection or voice selection completely erases the real life experiences of gay men who are attracted to trans men regardless of their surgical status, lesbians attracted to trans women regardless of their surgical status, and the whole array of gender-nonconforming or gender-neutral pairings...

We feel just the same as you do and my thought is that if you don't have time to accurately represent the entire spectrum of existence, open is a better option than restricted, that's all.
 
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I respect your responses. I too realize that in real life, people have preferences. That's not in doubt at all.

What I will say, and what I hope you might consider, is that gender exists in a broader spectrum than what it presented in the game, and representing the full spectrum would require a huge amount of work on the parts of the developers. Work that may have been too delicate for a game with the sort of concept to release cycle that they had to work with.

As such, they have tried to fairly and broadly represent that spectrum in a manner that has ended up limiting choices in a way that specifically excludes people who are gender-neutral, gender-nonconforming, and trans.

The fact that I can, for example, play a character with a "feminine voice," breasts, and a penis, but am limited in my romance options to what we would, in 2021, consider to belong to the strictly "lesbian" category is really disheartening to me as a player and I know I'm not alone.

The reason I've started the petition isn't to force something on players that is egregious. I've started it because the solutions that were developed in the limited timeframe given to the game designers has left out and stigmatized people, myself included, who don't necessarily fit into a binary understanding of gender, and without years to work on just this one problem, it seems to me that just removing gender restrictions altogether is the easiest fix to remove that potential stigma.

The problem isn't that they're restricting you.

You, as you said yourself, can make V into whatever you want. However, not everyone should bend to the player character. In fact, I think that creates a very disingenuous experience, where you are the "centre of the world", it's boring.

Judy is a lesbian, Panam is straight. They have been charactarised as such. That isn't a limitation on you. If CDPR see rightly they may make characters (Like Claire) potentially romancable in the future. That doesn't mean you get to change a character to fit your whim. No.
 
NO. Well made Friendship should take precedence over... so what you cant romance some character, why it makes it less valuable than well portrayed friendship??? Making Panam bisexual would just devaluate friendship plot in her storyline between woman V and Panam. Not everything needs to be about SEX SCENES...
 
The problem isn't that they're restricting you.

You, as you said yourself, can make V into whatever you want. However, not everyone should bend to the player character. In fact, I think that creates a very disingenuous experience, where you are the "centre of the world", it's boring.

Judy is a lesbian, Panam is straight. They have been charactarised as such. That isn't a limitation on you. If CDPR see rightly they may make characters (Like Claire) potentially romancable in the future. That doesn't mean you get to change a character to fit your whim. No.
I agree that it shouldn't be on a whim. Life isn't like that. I get it and I'm not at all opposed to what you've said. What I'm saying is that the game as it is fails to take into account the complexity of orientation. You can make a character who, for all intents and purposes, mimics the physical attributes of a non-surgical trans-woman, for example. Plenty of AFAB, cis-lesbians are attracted to non-surgical trans-women in real life but in the game, having a dick is a deal breaker, regardless of how the person who has that genitalia identifies. Do you at least see what I mean? You can disagree and I respect that, but am I at least making sense?
 
I agree that it shouldn't be on a whim. Life isn't like that. I get it and I'm not at all opposed to what you've said. What I'm saying is that the game as it is fails to take into account the complexity of orientation. You can make a character who, for all intents and purposes, mimics the physical attributes of a non-surgical trans-woman, for example. Plenty of AFAB, cis-lesbians are attracted to non-surgical trans-women in real life but in the game, having a dick is a deal breaker, regardless of how the person who has that genitalia identifies. Do you at least see what I mean? You can disagree and I respect that, but am I at least making sense?

Not really. What I get here is: A (non-surgical) trans woman and a man are the same and thus a lesbian should be attracted to a man if she's attracted to a trans woman. Correct me, if I'm wrong.
--> This is not how things work.
 
I agree that it shouldn't be on a whim. Life isn't like that. I get it and I'm not at all opposed to what you've said. What I'm saying is that the game as it is fails to take into account the complexity of orientation. You can make a character who, for all intents and purposes, mimics the physical attributes of a non-surgical trans-woman, for example. Plenty of AFAB, cis-lesbians are attracted to non-surgical trans-women in real life but in the game, having a dick is a deal breaker, regardless of how the person who has that genitalia identifies. Do you at least see what I mean? You can disagree and I respect that, but am I at least making sense?
Yes I see what you mean. Iirc what you're packing actually plays no impact in the romance choices, it's just the voice and body type.

However, my point is that these characters have been characterised in this way. I'm not saying the people who are attracted to non-surgical trans-women don't exist, but evidentially, Judy isn't one of them.

You can argue that maybe CDPR should have addressed this instead of saying "No". But I don't blame them for just straight locking it off. If she ain't interested, she ain't interested, y'know?
 
Yes I see what you mean. Iirc what you're packing actually plays no impact in the romance choices, it's just the voice and body type.

However, my point is that these characters have been characterised in this way. I'm not saying the people who are attracted to non-surgical trans-women don't exist, but evidentially, Judy isn't one of them.

You can argue that maybe CDPR should have addressed this instead of saying "No". But I don't blame them for just straight locking it off. If she ain't interested, she ain't interested, y'know?
I think that's where we're butting heads a little bit. I seem to have, by failure or misuse of language, characterized my desire for them to remove all gender requirements as a desire to negate realistic preferences, when in fact I'm just looking at it as the most probable and doable solution for the game designers to allow people who don't necessarily fit into a binary to be able to romance the sort of people they would actually be able to romance in real life, if all of the world's complexities were actually able to be represented in a video game that has a limited development schedule.

I guess where we really differ is that you see locking things off as the most realistic option and I'm the opposite, but it seems like we're both coming at the issue from the same angle, we're just ending up at a slightly different place.

I respect your take on it though, I really do.

I'm not looking at every character as a planet to revolve around my sun. I don't think that would be good storytelling, when it comes down to it. I'm just disappointed that I can create a character that has many similar attributes to me in real life, but then I go forth in this future world and the romance options I am given do not equate with my actual, lived experiences, and I'm trying hard to find some sort of workaround that the game designers might actually be able to implement.

I can see that it's a touchy subject but I also feel like my aim is being somewhat misunderstood. ::shrug::
 
I think that's where we're butting heads a little bit. I seem to have, by failure or misuse of language, characterized my desire for them to remove all gender requirements as a desire to negate realistic preferences, when in fact I'm just looking at it as the most probable and doable solution for the game designers to allow people who don't necessarily fit into a binary to be able to romance the sort of people they would actually be able to romance in real life, if all of the world's complexities were actually able to be represented in a video game that has a limited development schedule.

I guess where we really differ is that you see locking things off as the most realistic option and I'm the opposite, but it seems like we're both coming at the issue from the same angle, we're just ending up at a slightly different place.

I respect your take on it though, I really do.

I'm not looking at every character as a planet to revolve around my sun. I don't think that would be good storytelling, when it comes down to it. I'm just disappointed that I can create a character that has many similar attributes to me in real life, but then I go forth in this future world and the romance options I am given do not equate with my actual, lived experiences, and I'm trying hard to find some sort of workaround that the game designers might actually be able to implement.

I can see that it's a touchy subject but I also feel like my aim is being somewhat misunderstood. ::shrug::

I understand your point. But again, people exist which would not want to date or have a romantic relationship with a trans woman. I know that's a touchy subject in [CURRENT YEAR] but it's true.

Based on that, they have characterised Panam and Judy accordingly. Likewise, River and Kerry are more open. It's not that they're ignoring your experiences (in fact, I think in a lot of ways they're doing the opposite), they're just trying to convey the character's preferences.

I truly understand where you're coming from, and I do sympathise with your viewpoint. The actual workaround, imo, is more quality romance options with people who are more open and have a larger preference toward their sexuality, hence why I brought up Claire, she already has a subquest and it would probably be pretty interesting.
 
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