So I am going to add and expand on what I wrote, supra, about why people (meaning me) might care about this.
Let me start by saying that I do not want this to be read as a negative attack on Justin Alexander ("Alexander"). I am going to explain why in more detail below, but my overall thoughts on the topic are fraught and complicated, and it would not be fair to view him negatively. Moreover, given the nature of my real life, I acknowledge that I will read things carefully, so when I read the original post on the blog, I can fully understand that all of the things that I see as being intentionally vague (as in the corporate press release, "Mistakes were made,") could simply be an artifact of the imprecision of language.
So what's the issue? Well, I think it helps to start with acknowledging what I think is good. This isn't the best time for people in the trans community. While Alexander originally deadnamed Jennell Jaquays ("Jaquays"), and had a ... poor policy in terms of how that issue should be handled, to his credit he came around, corrected the issue, and has consistently used the proper pronouns and the correct name for her. In the blogpost announcing this change, he also included a link to her Gofundme for her health issues, and in the comments he has deleted posts that attack her and has stated that he will continue to do so, calling out people that do so in appropriate terms (as a**h***s.).
Now, you might say that this is kind of the bare minimum we should expect. But ... let's face it. There's a lot of people that aren't doing that. If every single person today would act with just that level of respect- imagine how much better the world would be! Moreover, even reading "between the lines" of some of the comments that remain, you can tell that there are people that do not have the same basic decency that Alexander is showing. Even if he wasn't always perfect in the past on this issue, he should truly receive credit for listening and changing and doing the right thing.
Okay, so why is this still bothering me? Other than not liking the term "xandering?" This gets a little more complicated. Let's start by acknowledging that Jaquays is a true pioneer in our hobby and our community. She is in the Origins Hall of Fame (that's a big deal- she's there with Gygax and Steve Jackson and Monte Cook and others you know). Her style was incredibly influential- she took the ideas she learned studying art (particularly classic architecture) and took them to dungeon design, continually returning to the idea of interconnected and lived-in spaces in her adventures (both in TTRPGs and later in videogames). This idea of living spaces, of what we would now call "non-linear" dungeons, was as revolutionary in its way as the "Hickman revolution" was in terms of narrative gaming.
It makes sense, then, for a modern designer and critic to go back and name this style after her. After all, if I want to talk about the Hickman revolution, or I want to say that I want to "Hickmanize" a 1e adventure- I wouldn't say that I was going to Snarf it, would I? Unfortunately, for reasons that I don't understand, it all got caught up in the small issue of Alexander ... not using her correct name. He missed the "s" either because he just missed it, or because it would sound better without it (I don't know). And that's ... well, you can imagine given all the issues Jaquays has had with her name that having her own concepts misnamed would go over like a lead balloon.
Which brings us to the instant issue. I can't tell from the blog post if Alexander discussed renaming it with her to her correct name and then chose to rename it after himself, or not. And why does this matter? Well- to put it bluntly, Alexander has a book coming out. And now that he is going to profit off of this, now that there is real money to be made off of this idea (however small it might be in the world of RPG hobby book publishing ... ahem), he is taking the contribution of a trans person, removing her name, and using his own name. And there is a long and not-so-glorious history of people in a dominant or majority community doing similar things.
In saying that, I am not saying that Alexander did this on purpose. I can imagine that there was a conversation with a lawyer at some point that went something like this, "Sure, you can totally correct the book and add the 's.' After all, you have her permission, and it's not like people can't use terms named after other people. Streisand effect? But ... maybe you want to trademark the term at some point? Maybe there's some money to be made? So, just to be safe, and to avoid any possible controversy, why don't we use a new term?"
I get it. And again, the blog post, being vague, doesn't answer the questions I have. I hope that there is more clarification forthcoming that puts these concerns to rest. And as I hope I described, I don't think that Alexander is a "bad guy" in this at all. Absent more, however, I can't help but think that this issue (getting the name correct) had been lingering for a while, and when it came time to do it correctly, and to provide proper attribution, he decided instead to excise her contribution in the way that we've seen happen repeatedly in history- by taking that credit for himself.
