Thread by @ghostsjogging, A thread about cyberpunk, written from the perspective of me, a trans [...]

A thread about cyberpunk, written from the perspective of me, a trans man. I've been asked to share my opinion a few times so here I am.
Before I get started, I want to say:
1. Other trans people might feel differently. This is strictly about how it's made me feel.
2. This is

not an invitation to participate in any kind of discourse. You're absolutely in your right to disagree with me, but considering this is sensitive for me (and possibly others), I ask you to avoid arguing with me about how it's made me feel etc. View this as nothing more than

an opinion piece, here to be considered by anyone who reads it, whether you play the game, or are trying to decide if you want to. That being said, let's get into it. CW: transphobia, all the way through.

Let's just start by saying making a character was difficult for me. Being told that this exists in a world with open sexual/gender/kink expression, I was hoping for some good stuff.

The two bodies you choose from are excessively cis oriented, regardless of the fact that you can swap genitalia. I don't feel represented by the giant hulking male figure (in comparison to my own body), and I can't build off of the female figure because apparently in 2077,

You can have no genitalia, but god forbid you want a flat chested "female" body. You're required to have breasts, but you can't slap chest hair on, you can't slap a beard on. Yes, the future is cybernetics and the ability to have Xs for pupils, but you gotta have boobs. On the

other hand, the male body can't have boobs added. And as an extra dusting of classic character creator annoyance, the hair styles are not shared between the models and yes, the female hair is much better in my opinion lmao. So, step 1 failed.

I cycled between the two models, the genitalia, the hairs, everything, and still felt cornered into a highly cis role.
Now, how that gets worse: the "gay" romance option requires you to have a male body and cis male voice, and the "lesbian" romance requires a female body

and cis female voice. So, if you're like me, gay and trans, it's going out of its way to harness a classic dilemma I've personally faced: a subtle nod that trans men aren't men, and trans women aren't women, because the cis gay counterparts will reject you as such.

Considering the world is all about sexual and identity expression, it's disheartening and downright annoying that cyberpunk's idea of what a liberated future looks like is nothing more than body mods and, apparently, a massive amount of d*ldos hanging out on a ton of public

surfaces. y'know, perhaps more could be forgiven if they hadn't made the mistake of presenting themselves as inclusive when it feels to me like they didn't actually ask anyone who wasn't cis how to do this right.
In fact, my husband said it best, a lot of elements read

like someone with a f*ta fetish made this game, and they made the genitalia swap on men possible just to level the playing field.
I knew there was risk involved with dropping my money on this nonsense, but when I hear there's trans representation, I wanted to decide that

for myself. I'm not particularly sensitive to failed or total lack of representation in games cause that's kinda the norm. This is the only one that's managed to stick in my brain and get under my skin because there's just this really insidious undertone.

I know I'm not the only one who's complained about this thus far, so I want to just also take a moment to point out that a k*taku article about how many d*ldos are in the game mobilized the team to patch some of them out, but it's been crickets about anything to do with the

cis biased, transphobic corners they wedge you into upon the start of the game. and to make the "gay" romances extra strict about how you handle your body and pronouns (read: VOICE, APPARENTLY) that's making me extra salty.
But wait, there's more.

Now let's talk about how the game itself (and I'm not referencing the near constant big and small glitches), and how it kinda feels like sh*t.
The button mapping is bizarre and makes me feel clunky when playing cause they don't map in a traditional way. The sound design? Bad?

I've never been distracted by the sound design in a game before. The music is loud enough to drown out my ability to focus on important things at times, the sound effects feel off, and the car engine is loud and the gear shifts feel too long and too many.

The forced first person feels outdated, and the combat feels stiff and strange. I would forgive more if it was actually the ps3 game it feels like (note: this is from the perspective of playing it on a ps5, btw).
Hell, I would forgive more if I didn't feel so keenly judgmental

at every turn about the weird perspective they place on you and the world with these cis gender norms.
I'm not even going to get into how I feel about their "dolls", sex workers that give their body to AI control to live out your individual fantasy and then leave them w/

no memory of what they did with you (i don't care if it's presented in the context that this is consensual on the sex worker's part, to me, it feels wrong). Apparently that's chill in the future, but complete gender expression isn't.
Lastly, I want to touch on:

[CW: mentions of death, dying, needles]
My first mission in Night City.
There's a woman in a bath tub, naked, actively dying. It's my job to help her. Which includes resuscitating her with a big old shot in the chest and calling an ambulance who point guns at you, lmao.

There's also a man in the tub with the same problem but, we're here for the lady.
So, I get to pick her up, and am immediately greeted with my first person perspective of her animated, moving t*ts as I carry her outside. It's little sh*t like that that gets under my skin.

I'm t i r e d of seeing women harmed in games, especially when it feels like a shock value introduction to the new world you live in, and had the cherry on top of feeling invasive and oddly sexualized.

my conclusion is it feels like a dudebro garbo interpretation of an "edgy!!" world with very limited expression. The reason why that last part really sucks is because it makes me sit in present day, in the challenges trans and gnc people face every day, and recognize

that THIS is what they think is "pushing the envelope". this sad, barely detached from the current parameters we have to live in world is "inclusive".
For those of you that play the game and enjoy it, good on you. I'm not gonna ask that you not. But, this was my take.

As the engagement with this thread grows, so does my fear of discourse, so I'm gonna be checking out in terms of further interaction with the comments on this. That being said, I am so grateful for the cordial openness and shared/additional perspective being added to this from

people of all backgrounds and gender expression. Thank you to those asking on how to be a better ally, thank you to everyone who took the time to read it, and took it to heart. Thank you to others who feel as I do helping out those with questions. All we can hope for is

more inclusive expression in the future, and I can only hope that between sentiments like mine since release, and the pushback leading up to release in regards to similar issues, that it will encourage CDPR to do better in the future, either with this game or the next. Thank you!

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