D&D General Jaquaying the dungeon - a term to avoid

[darjr]

First off, I would really hope that pointing out transphobia in a public figure would not be against the rules of this forum. We shouldn't accuse other posters; that's what reporting is for.

Secondly, he got himself banned from forums for being an acerbic naughty word-hole, which is absolutely true.

Third, outside of refusing for multiple years to update his website, he has consistently referred to Jennell by her proper name and pronouns, and has appropriately called out other people for their transphobia (especially the pushback he got from saying okay when she finally reached out to him).

He's not a transphobe, full stop. But, not being a transphobe does not mean that you cannot be, at times, transphobic, and Justin certainly has been (and is currently doubling down on it). He's still not denying Jennell's identity. He's not parroting the openly transphobic garbage that suffuses the fetid swamps of Twitter. But he's handled this poorly, back in the day, and he's handling it poorly now.

I consider him a privleged bully, and stubborn, and unable to accept when he’s wrong.

After all it took Jennell her self reaching out to him personally to stop his prior shenanigans.

 

[the Jester]

Why are we trying to read her mind? If she wanted it used, I think she would have said so, clearly, since as you point out she wasn't timid. IMO, consent shouldn't need to be interpreted, even when we want to honour someone. "She didn't say no" is not the same as consent.

I don't get why folks are so determined to use this extremely obscure way of honouring her, especially given the lack of clear consent, but also because this entire conversation was generated by a person with whom she seems to have had a problematic relationship.

Here you go:

 

[Retreater]

First, I'd like to say I have the utmost respect for Jennell Jaquays not only as a designer but also as a human being. I spent yesterday listening to interviews with her about her journey, and it was certainly emotional. Her story has been invaluable to me as I am an ally to a loved family member who is transitioning. (Valuable to him too.)
In the interviews, she downplayed her role in creating this method of design. She said it was Alexander's looking at her design and extrapolating "best practices" - and that she gave him credit for creating that list of her design features.
Since she's sadly no longer with us, those interviews are all I have to go on about her wishes. So I'll use her examples to be a better game designer (and more importantly - a better, more understanding human). I'll also use Alexander's lists and articles to remind myself of why she was so good at design.
What will I call it? "Good design," I guess. That's what Jennell Jaquays called it, and that's enough for me.

 

[Gradine]

I consider him a privleged bully, and stubborn, and unable to accept when he’s wrong.

After all it took Jennell her self reaching out to him personally to stop his prior shenanigans.

Absolutely. The most significant problem right now is that he is still acting like he was doing the right thing back then, when he absolutely was not.

But there's a very significant difference between being transphobic (or sexist, or racist, etc.) and doing something transphobic. And when we blur those lines we give cover to bigots who use dog whistles and sketchy behavior to spread their beliefs. We also give cover to well-meaning but still ignorant people (like Alexander) who can rightly point to all the ways in which they do actually respect trans people without addressing the underlying bad behavior.

We like to think that just because we aren't a transphobe/homophobe/racist/etc. that we can't be transphobic/et al... but it's not that simple. We can mistakes. And when people use those mistakes to say we're a bigot, we push back, and I would argue rightfully so. Alexander isn't a transphobe; I truly believe that. But he's doing transphobia, and that's an important distinction, not just in the broader sense, but also to overcome the natural urge of defensiveness.

 

[Retreater]

In case anyone's interested, here are two interviews I watched recently. Not suggesting they provide the definitive answers to this debate, but they might be helpful to understand the history, design methods, and journey of this brilliant (and sorely missed) game designer...

 

[el-remmen]

As someone who ran an award-winning website/blog for nearly 10 years on comics studies, including guest posts, roundtables, interviews, and collaborations with critics, grad students, independent scholars, and established professors, did the vast majority of editing and layout myself, and had to go back and edit previous posts - sometimes years old - to change names of people who transitioned or remove references to/add disclaimers about work or people who had proved inappropriate or toxic since first published, and so on. . . I am skeptical of Alexander's implied claim about how much work it is and time it would take to have removed/replaced the deadname and add the "s" to "Jacquaying" to previous posts.

EDIT TO ADD: And in case the above was not clear, when you run a site with a big audience it is your responsibility to prioritize those kinds of changes once you deem them necessary. It is part of taking your work seriously, as Alexander very obviously does.

 

[Faolyn]

Is it weird? I don't think it is. Putting the "S" in makes the word flow less and sound a little awkward. My take is when he put the 's' in at Jennel's request, he didn't like how it sounded so rather than keep it as (since Jennel didn't want that) he changed the name.

I think it's weird. Plenty of "real" words don't flow well or sound awkward. I've never actually heard her name spoken aloud and I don't actually know if Jaquays is pronounced with a hard J, like jacket, or with a Zh sound (Js are tricky that way), but either way, I don't think it would sound all that much different from j'accuse, which is a word/phrase we all know and have probably said more than once in our lives.

I would honestly think that Jaquaying is more awkward, because you have two vowel sounds right next to each other, and that doesn't flow. With an s or z sound between the vowels, I think it flows much better.

Edit: I listened to a video linked here so now I know how to pronounce her name. "Jay-kway-zing" is not an awkward sound, while "Jay-kway-ing" still sounds awkward to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As someone who ran an award-winning website/blog for nearly 10 years on comics studies, including guest posts, roundtables, interviews, and collaborations with critics, grad students, independent scholars, and established professors, did the vast majority of editing and layout myself, and had to go back and edit previous posts - sometimes years old - to change names of people who transitioned or remove references to/add disclaimers about work or people who had proved inappropriate or toxic since first published, and so on. . . I am skeptical of Alexander's implied claim about how much work it is and time it would take to have removed/replaced the deadname and add the "s" to "Jacquaying" to previous posts.

Yeah, WordPress, if that's what he's using -- and it's one of the most popular platforms for all websites on the internet, so decent odds -- makes it trivial to search terms in old posts. Replacing a term takes minutes, not hours or days.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, WordPress, if that's what he's using -- and it's one of the most popular platforms for all websites on the internet, so decent odds -- makes it trivial to search terms in old posts. Replacing a term takes minutes, not hours or days.

Yes. Which is why his "I'll be sure to fix it as soon as I have time in my schedule" promise rang weird to me back in 2018, and why him NEVER FIXING IT annoys me to this day.

Five years later, AFTER he and his book editor decided they'd prefer to use a term referring to himself, he updated the website, using weasel wording to imply that he was doing as Jennell asked. When it's publicly documented in several places over the years that she wanted the spelling of her name corrected.

And MAYBE it's true that she told him if he wasn't willing to spell her damn name correctly she'd rather he take her name off it than keep the misspelled term. But that's still not him honoring or respecting her wishes by refusing to spell it correctly and then just replacing it entirely.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

because you have two vowel sounds right next to each other, and that doesn't flow

Both of them diphthongs, at that (yes, in typical English dialects /e/, /i/, /o/ and /u/ are diphthongs, whether you think they are or not), so three tongue movements. Adding a consonant in the middle, especially a sonorant one, double especially a voiced one (in typical English dialects voiced consonants have a longer duration than their voiceless counterparts, whether you think they do or not), makes the utterance a lot smoother.

Nobody thinks "amazing" sounds a little awkward. Nobody thinks "grazing" flows less than "graying".