to preface: as much as the title sounds like a critique, it's not. it's just a realization i had while thinking about baldur's gate 3, and it's good they provided the options they did, for me to have this realization in the first place
i'm a transgender man, and i've been on hrt for several years, i haven't had bottom surgery, and i'm intimately familiar with the effects testosterone has on a vulva. i've also been in trans femme circles long enough to know how estrogen affects a penis (if you are unfamiliar, you can read about each at https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/second-puberty-masc#genital-changes and https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/second-puberty-fem#genital-changes)
and it's really weird to realize that most people cannot visualize what i have going on in my pants. a cis woman's vulva is fundamentally not accurate (which is basically what's presented as your option). for me, obviously; for some trans masc people, it is accurate
i don't know how trans femme people feel, but i could see the argument for them going either way. i'd like to hear what you think, if you feel represented by feminine body shapes with a penis selected as your genitals
and also, it would be interesting to see bottom surgery options represented. even if that's just the same models but with the "is this from surgery" option ticked or something
finally. my concluding thoughts are that i'd really like to see how big a half-orc's tdick gets (presuming that half-orcs are subject to the same sex hormones humans are and/or that they can substitute their hormones similarly. i mean that's it's own can of worms there)
i know i'm not ending off on any kind of a question but i wanted to share my feelings about this with people and hear how this made others feel, as well
You wouldn't say that if it was you not being represented.
There's sex scenes in the game. I want a character to look like me. It's only controversial to uptight folk.
I'm all about representation and I don't think that it was an incorrect choice to have in the character creation, on its face. However, you don't ever see your character's genitals after creation, even in the sex scenes, from my recollection.
That is what I think was the point and what I meant. Uptight folk are loud about being offended by "naughty" things. Adding explicit content in the character creation that has no material effect elsewhere is fairly low-effort and does have a positive effect for some. But, it outages the most annoyingly vocal group who shriek "think of the children". So, more people heard about the game due to the few publicity.
Can't really fault them as they did something positive for representation but, if it had a material impact on gameplay or story, it would be much better.
The only thing I'll miss about my penis is peeing standing up outdoors. If my party has to pee at any point it'll come up.
I think you underestimate how powerful the experience of seeing yourself represented is. I'm 38 and I grew up in a time when just being gay was illegal. I found exactly one book in our school library on my search for the subject of "sex change" - and so paranoid was I about being found out that u would read it only in the library so as not to be the person who checked this book out.
That one book was an autobiography of a trans woman who discovered who she was sometime in the 60's. That's it. That's all I could find. That one story. Search engines sucked (yahoo mostly?) At the time. That's all I had to go by. Before I came across that I never even realized that it was possible.
If this game can spark conversations or be the "one thing" where they're represented then so what? Cyberpunk did something similar and I didn't see accusers come out saying 'twas for publicity only.
You know, you're right. I think it's more that I underestimated the magnitude of their contribution and focused more on my perception of authenticity and motive. I'm near the same age as yourself and while I've had personal struggles due to mental health, nothing that I am intrinsically has ever been illegal or unrepresented, to my knowledge, so, magnitude isn't something that I'm really equipped to accurately judge.
If you say that it was helpful in any way and made you feel more represented, that's what matters.
You can take off all your clothes and run around nude if you so desire. So you can definitely see them, if you make that choice.