Despite it mostly seeming like a piece of short fluff, some interesting points were addressed in the article that do bother me. For one, the idea that if Birdo is a transwoman that means Yoshi is in a gay relationship. Yes, they do say "technically queer" but then I don't even really know what that means. Damn you LGBT community always coming up with new terms for things or me just being really out of the loop.
Regardless, calling Yoshi gay at all because he is dating a transwoman is an idea I encounter a lot. Well, not with Yoshi particularly but in general. As a transman currently dating a woman I know I might very well throw a fit if someone said I was in a "gay relationship" with her because it isn't! If I'm dating a guy then, yes, that's gay. But if someone is presenting themselves as a woman/man/etc, then for all intents and purposes they are a woman/man/etc. Are you a doctor treating them? If not, then what reason do you have to evaluate and mark someone as to their birth gender? If someone is presenting one way there's no need to go back and find out what "they really are".
If Birdo were just a crossdresser than Birdo would be a man. A man who likes to crossdress. If Yoshi dated him then he would be in a gay relationship. However, being apparently a transwoman then Birdo is a woman and she's in a perfectly heterosexual dinosaur relationship. As for what might go on behind closed doors... well, I'd prefer to imagine that nobody in the Mushroom Kingdom is sexually active.
Really, that's much more than needed to be said for such a tiny article played off for laughs. Maybe.
Edit: For those interested in a larger discussion on Birdo and this article, check out this GayGamer post!
4 comments:
Really interesting insights, Marcus. Honestly, as a gay man, I initially focused on the article's gay content and although I thought that (the gay content) was fairly uninspired, I didn't think it was offensive. Later, though, I thought about the writer's comments about Birdo being transgender, and THAT is when I realized, yes, the article could be offensive to some. Like you said, the article certainly could have been worse, which I guess is something to be thankful for. I hope the folks at IGN don't continue to write pieces like this, though, because it's clearly out of their depth (IMO).
Yeah, I looked over the Turok bit but really it just felt like it was tacked on to make the article be long enough for publishing. There wasn't much thought put into either of the segments, though.
It looks like this might be the first of "many" articles like this from the author. Hopefully he'll change his mind haha. Do you read those gay game character posts on GayGamer? Those are much nicer ways to showcase the characters. :)
Oh speak of the devil :P. http://gaygamer.net/2011/04/queer_characters_birdo.html
I have read the gay game character posts at GG. VERY well done, IMO. I'd like to do something similar on my blog someday, but at this point the crew at GG are doing so well there's really no point :)
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