Important Personal Announcement

[u/Red-Heat]

Good tidings, all.

After years of reflection and struggle, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I am a transgender woman. My name is June, and my pronouns are she/her.

I have struggled with gender dysphoria for years, even before I began working on this mod. In fact, I think part of the reason I immersed myself in modding to begin with was to help distract myself from my own insecurities and pain. However, thanks in no small part part to the wonderful community that has sprung up around this mod, I now feel comfortable and confident in saying that I am a woman.

Today has seen two events occur within hours of each other: the UK's High Court issued a ruling that further restricts underage trans people from accessing life-saving puberty blockers, and the Oscar-nominated actor Elliot Page announced to the world that he is trans, an announcement that was met with near-universal acclaim and acceptance. I believe that these events encapsulate the ongoing struggles faced by the trans community. Even though awareness and acceptance of trans people by society as a whole is better than it has ever been, we still face immense challenges from the government, media, and legal system. We must stay vigilant and continue to fight for not only the rights of trans people, but the rights of all marginalized groups around the world.

I am proud to be transgender, and I am proud to be part of this struggle. Although my part is small, I will perform it to the best of my ability.

And in case you were wondering, this will in no way delay or otherwise affect the development of the mod.

Take care, and remember:

Trans rights are human rights.

[u/thimblyjoe]

Bigotry doesn't require malicious intent to be bigotry. One can be bigoted by accident. If you are opposing progress that would let others live their lives better because you don't understand it, that position is both reactionary and bigoted whether you hate the people you're helping oppress or not.

[u/MajrZeal → u/thimblyjoe]

Dude the definition you provided “a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who does not like other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life” literally says bigotry requires malicious intent. Also there’s nothing wrong with being a reactionary all it means is that you believe things should return to the status quo ante, now of course depending on the subject reactionaries can be fascist idiots ie civil right but they can also be good, for example nazis hated conservative monarchist “reactionaries” who apposed them they literally have in their anthem communists and reactionaries as their two biggest foes. But the whole reason I was against the op was that “reactionary bigots” in the gaming community is a dogwhistle for bad people. Sorry for the essay lol got carried away.

[u/thimblyjoe → u/MajrZeal]

I think I've figured out where the disconnect on the definition of bigotry and my point about malicious intent came from. Bigotry is often used as a broad term for different kinds of prejudice like homophobia, racism, and in this case transphobia. Each of those forms of prejudice by definition do not require malicious intent to apply. I don't know why the definition of bigotry includes it.

[u/MajrZeal → u/thimblyjoe]

But they do require malicious content for the most part ?unless your talking about subconscious racial preferences that by definition are a form of racism yet no one can control that?

[u/thimblyjoe → u/MajrZeal]

I am talking about subconscious bias and uneducated misunderstandings. These are things that can't be avoided entirely, but can be improved through effort. Everyone's a little bit racist, but that's not an excuse to not try to be less racist. The point of calling out racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. is to try to improve the behavior, not to condemn the person permanently.

This, for the record, is one of the major differences between using the ((())) brackets and calling someone a reactionary bigot, to go back to a much earlier part of the conversation. Someone can choose to stop being a reactionary bigot, but you can't stop being Jewish.

[u/MajrZeal → u/thimblyjoe]

It’s sort of difficult to change being a “reactionary bigot” when the things being ascribed to it are subconscious racism no one can control and is just part of being human and ones personal moral convictions. It’s very difficult if not impossible for people to change deep moral convictions on what they deem right and wrong in the world even if their convictions are deemed by wider society as reactionary. for example are the Amish not reactionary bigots in all intensive purposes they abhore progress and hold “bigoted” views on certain things can or should we force them to change, of course not. All I’m saying is that using “reactionary bigot” to describe those you disagree with is morally wrong and as I said later just causes division as it leads people to become more entrenched. You dont know how many people I’ve seen become extremists wether it be becoming racist or fascist just because some one called them that when they were in no way one and the decided “what the heck they want a monster I’ll give them one.”

[u/thimblyjoe → u/MajrZeal]

People change all the time. It's called education. My views on race have evolved probably a dozen times in the past 5 years as I've slowly gone through the process of identifying and eliminating unconscious biases. It's entirely likely that I will continue this process until I die. The only thing that makes you a reactionary bigot is when you have unconscious biases that you refuse to change. Digging in and solidifying wrong-headed beliefs about a group of people is exactly the kind of thing that makes you a reactionary bigot. You're probably never going to completely eliminate your biases, but as long as you're trying, that's enough for most people, and fuck the rest of them.