D&D 5E 5e's new gender policy - is it attracting new players?

[Tia Nadiezja]

And here is where I feel the crux of the point is. You are comparing wanting to play an alternative gender to wanting to play a Racist, a predator, a... the sense I'm getting is as though you feel they are attacking you somehow, but in this situation you are not the Jews or the women being beat by drunk husbands. That's the other side.

Yeah. This is kind of a thing at the moment - the anti-gay movement behaving as though they are the persecuted minority and LGBT folks the persecuting masses. It's not true, of course - gay mobs aren't beating and killing Christians, in much the same way that transgender women aren't harassing cisgender women in bathrooms. Public bathrooms terrify me because neither the men's nor the women's room is safe for me; if I have to use one, I'm just going to do my business and get out and hope not to see anyone else.

I can agree it was handled very poorly by the judge. No matter how much I could agree with the idea behind his actions, he turned the game into a political statement by not dealing with it before the game. However, hypothetically, what if he had talked to the player, told him he would have to change his shirt, and the player refused to do so? Would the judge be then okayed to act as he did? I ask because I know we don't have the full story, and I could see someone trying to make a statement by refusing to change and then the judge booting them when they saw the player had not.

Yes. The judge was right that the shirt was unacceptable (and, by the by, to discuss the whole thing about the church being threatening and it being compared to a swastika without invoking reducio ad Hitlerum to shut it off: For the individual person being killed because of who they are, there's not a ton of difference between being one of ten people killed that year in that place for it and being one of a million; you're equally dead, and I don't want to be around people advertising on their chests their common cause with folks who are actively arguing for putting me in an internment camp then murdering me), but should have handled it less visibly. Among other things, that the judge announced the shirt's presence would make me, as an LGBT person, pretty much guaranteed to not feel safe - and if I'm sitting down to play Magic, I don't want to be thinking about that. I want to be thinking about how much I miss two-blue-mana Counterspells.

 

[Celebrim]

Neither what I said nor what I meant. I specifically said "some." I also thought it was clear that I was implying "individual judgment following certain broad but set guidelines," but apparently not. So I'm saying it now.

What does that mean? Does it not apply to the case in question? Your not having any kind of rule that participants can refer to is also not going to end up with where you think it does. That standard ends up being, "Anything that could remotely cause offense, I'd better be safe by not wearing." But that attempt to not cause offense, also ends up getting you nowhere.

I also have zero interest in discussing more and more specific corner cases.

No. We are moving from the specific to the general. We aren't getting to more specific cases. We started with a very specific case. Now we are moving out to more general ones. You claim to be defending a general principle earlier. You made lots of specific statements. You spoke boldly earlier as if you had convictions you believed in.

You said things like: "Openly gay people are still at risk of being berated, excluded, even beaten and killed, for who they are. To you, wearing that shirt may just be making a statement, but to them, it's very literally a threat. Sure, maybe only 1 in 100 of the people wearing that shirt would actually harm them, but they have no way of telling who that one is.

Plus, even if it's not a direct threat, it's still an emotional assault, no different than someone wearing an openly racist or openly antisemitic shirt. Again, those may seem different to the people wearing them, but it's exactly the same to the audience."

Now you are telling me: "I don't know, and I haven't pretended to know."

You sure spoke like you knew the answer earlier. I didn't read your former statements as being the statements of someone that was unsure of their position and advocating for erring on the side of not assuming that a t-shirt was offensive or threatening.

The same will happen with homophobia, and I'm simply not going to get caught up in the idea that this time we have to draw rigid, always-applicable rules just because some people demand them.

So maybe we shouldn't have a rigid always applicable rule that just because someone feels offended (including the judge) that we throw someone out of a tournament.

But in any event, so it would appear that your firm convictions are now "context-specific" cause it's "tricky" and we aren't sure now whether or not we should throw out the Assembly of God guy that has just publicly affirmed all the things that you earlier said were threatening and offensive? This time maybe we over look it? Why is "Marriage is between a man and a woman" not tricky on a t-shirt, but tricky when someone says it?

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

But in any event, so it would appear that your firm convictions are now "context-specific" cause it's "tricky" and we aren't sure now whether or not we should throw out the Assembly of God guy that has just publicly affirmed all the things that you earlier said were threatening and offensive? This time maybe we over look it? Why is "Marriage is between a man and a woman" not tricky on a t-shirt, but tricky when someone says it?

Okay, I'll give you your general rule.

In the country in which the event is happening:

1. Has the group being spoken negatively of in the shirt been considered property under the law? Don't wear the shirt.
2. Has the group being spoken negatively of in the shirt had to fight for access to the vote? Don't wear the shirt. (Yes, I'd say not to wear a shirt that speaks negatively of white male non-landowners, though I've never seen one)
3. Has the group being spoken of negatively on the shirt routinely been murdered in the last 50 years for simply existing? Don't wear the shirt.
4. Does the group being spoken of negatively on the shirt make up less than 10% of the elected lawmakers in spite of making up around half the population? Don't wear the shirt.
5. Does the group being spoken of negatively on the shirt have a law currently being considered in at least one state that would allow doctors to throw them out and let them die if they come in sick? Don't wear the shirt (It's LGBT individuals in Florida I'm referencing here, for the record).

That's probably not an exhaustive list. But, in general, in spite of Christians being overrepresented rather than underrepresented, powerful rather than powerless, and, in America, far more likely to be the ones killing someone for their beliefs or identity than the ones being killed, I'd still suggest not wearing your hilarious Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster shirt because it makes you look like a jerk. Christians who want to express their Christianity can wear a cross or something that talks about Jesus being awesome or even God's love; they don't need to wear "Gays are awful and God says so" across their chests. We can all wear shirts that say how great what we are is*; we need to avoid shirts that say how awful someone else is.

*There is no way of saying how great white people are without being awful. Sorry, white people, but the racists and a history of slavery, colonialism, and other such awful things have ruined literally every slogan.

 

[Lanliss]

But in any event, so it would appear that your firm convictions are now "context-specific" cause it's "tricky" and we aren't sure now whether or not we should throw out the Assembly of God guy that has just publicly affirmed all the things that you earlier said were threatening and offensive? This time maybe we over look it? Why is "Marriage is between a man and a woman" not tricky on a t-shirt, but tricky when someone says it?

I think the clearer question to ask would be "If you saw a gay man, would you be willing to kill him?". That seems to answer the core question, and I am not one for beating around the bush. Also, though take this with a grain of salt, as I am not LGBT, I think informing the gay man that he is overreacting in this case would be somewhat acceptable, as this particular shirt does not say anything negative about anyone, nor imply it.

On another note, further up your post you asked what the "general guidelines" part meant, right? Most places have at least a cursory dress code, amounting to things like no XXX shirts, no hate shirts, things like that. Even when they don't, I would not personally decide, when I am going to a game convention, to wear a shirt that is likely to start a political/religious fight. That just seems like common sense to me, though it may be different for others. If I misunderstood your question, I apologize.

 

[Mouseferatu]

As my words are being twisted, I should probably just bow out, but...

What I don't know is exactly where to draw the line or how to define it. That is context-specific. The general idea of "don't wear a shirt that's going to make genuinely victimized people feel unsafe or unwelcome" is not something I'm at all uncertain of. The fact that I don't know how to exercise it in 100% of circumstances isn't the same thing as being unsure about where I stand on the topic.

And yes, I feel a shirt where the meaning is obscured, and requires specific knowledge of a specific private group, is a corner-case.

And I'll say one more thing: When society as a whole has accepted that homophobia is bad, then we can start drilling down to specifics on exactly where to draw the line at what is or is not offensive. Right now, I'm far more worried about the fact that huge swathes of people still think it's okay to be bigoted against gays and trans people. Until we've gotten past that major hurdle, I find efforts to argue the corner cases to be nothing more than an effort, deliberate or otherwise, to shut down discussion of the larger issue. And I have zero respect for it.

And with that, [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], I'm done with this particular tangent of the conversation. I will be happy to discuss the overall topic with you, but not the "tee-shirt" or "what is and isn't offensive" angle.

 

[Sunseeker]

Looks like it was Mouseferatu used it as an example.

But really it is not appropriate to compare a t-shirt to real atrocities.

He was comparing a t-shirt to a t-shirt. What's been done to homosexuals outside the holocaust hasn't exactly been nice either.

It is not facetious, it is called being fair and equal since, as you point out, you do not get to decide what is upsetting to me as long as there is a bigoted Judge who can miss use his authority it is better just to avoid the whole issue.

It IS being facetious because it is an unrealistic exaggeration. A rule against shirts with statements would do the job.

 

[Lanliss]

.
*There is no way of saying how great white people are without being awful. Sorry, white people, but the racists and a history of slavery, colonialism, and other such awful things have ruined literally every slogan.

What about "Everyone is Awesome"?

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

I think the clearer question to ask would be "If you saw a gay man, would you be willing to kill him?". That seems to answer the core question, and I am not one for beating around the bush. Also, though take this with a grain of salt, as I am not LGBT, I think informing the gay man that he is overreacting in this case would be somewhat acceptable, as this particular shirt does not say anything negative about anyone, nor imply it.

It absolutely does say something negative - it says that the gay man's relationship or marriage is not a marriage, can never be a marriage, should never be a marriage. It calls his love and his family inferior to those of the t-shirt's wearer, inferior to those of all the other straight people in the room.

It's blatant, and I don't understand how anyone could not see that.

 

[Lanliss]

It absolutely does say something negative - it says that the gay man's relationship or marriage is not a marriage, can never be a marriage, should never be a marriage. It calls his love and his family inferior to those of the t-shirt's wearer, inferior to those of all the other straight people in the room.

It's blatant, and I don't understand how anyone could not see that.

No, I was referring to the second shirt case, with the shirt that simply says the name of the guys church group. Not the marriage one.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

No, I was referring to the second shirt case, with the shirt that simply says the name of the guys church group. Not the marriage one.

Ah! Oops. Missed context.

What about "Everyone is Awesome"?

I can dig it.