So lately there's been a lot of fuss over gaming "forcing diversity" and people getting upset that a character is gay, trans, etc. and I want to take a moment and try to explain this to folks that are having trouble understanding the issue, as a straight white dude myself.

As a straight white dude my whole life has been filled with cool white dudes in gaming and comics. Iron Man, He-Man, Spiderman, Cloud, you get the idea. There's literally a million different choices you could pick from and think "oh I want to be like them, I can relate to them".

And now we're seeing more women, more people of color, more people of varying sexual orientations, and dudes are asking, "Why does my character have to be gay?", "I like this character but why do I have to play as a black girl?"

And to be honest, y'all been playing as the "straight white dude" for so long you're treating that as the default setting in life. But that's not true. The world isn't made of nothing but straight white dudes. There's billions of different people out there.

And you'll say "well why does my character have to be gay, it doesn't matter to the gameplay" and you're right, it doesn't, so why the fuck do you care? Playing as a gay character doesn't mean cocks start para-dropping into your room to assault you.

But to that 13 yr old kid that's gay and still in the closet, he suddenly has a role model. He has someone he can relate to the same way you looked up to Tony Stark or Mario or whoever. That little black girl who was too shy of gaming has a character she sees herself in.

The point is while it might not impact the gameplay AT ALL, it's not hurting you and it's potentially helping someone else. And if you still disagree with that, then the real problem is just that you're an asshole.