Nope, I would be, if I wouldn't accept born hermaphrodites but actually I do that other than the people that operate them into one direction when they are still young for example. I just don't think people with an unresolved identity crisis and horrendous lack of self-acceptance are the same as the ones born with both kinds of genitals or unusual chromosome settings (which are so few that they barely count at all but somehow are always used as shields). All the hipsters I know throw all of them into the same bucket, including you.

Thanks for another batch of claims und insults though.

I most likely won't respond to your aggressive, offending and illogical posts anymore, get some manners and accept that your opinion (which is most likely the same as the one that all the people around you have) isn't the only valid one. Cheers.

I'll bite.

We can sit and blame Gamergate for terrible behavior all day, but it is disingenuous to pretend this sort of behavior is not coming from both sides at the same time. I have seen hatred and sexism spewed by all kinds of people on both sides of the fence. The anti-Gamergate side though especially likes to ignore the many moderates that are out there, focus only on the most vile people who do exist purely to troll others, and make sweeping generalizations that these people represent the majority of gamers when they obviously do not.

If you want to talk about people being disregarded and marginalized, let's do that. I'm a female gamer and I have been for over a couple of decades now. I have attempted to speak up to defend the hobby I dearly love against this new crowd of chronically offended people, but guess what, I'm being disregarded and marginalized by them. I have been insulted, told I harbor internalized misogyny, told I am naive by a journalist, or outright told I am lying and really a man. For people who want to speak up for women and promote their voices, they are doing a fine job of silencing them. The only ones that get a voice are those that fall in line with a certain narrative. To hell with the rest of us apparently. Does this seem right to you?

Agreed, so why are we getting all bent out of shape? If they are harmless, as you yourself claim, why are people flipping out over all the little details they can find and trying to shame developers? I can honestly say there have been times I got annoyed with a game (usually overabundant cursing or religion bashing), but there are so many different and wonderful products out there, I never have trouble finding something else that suits me instead.

I am also a little saddened by the general behavior of people, mostly because I see them as where I once was. I generally played anything, but I remember when I heard about sex cards in The Witcher, I was immediately turned off. I thought what a juvenile game, and I am better than this. I was really wrong though. I gave it a try, found out I could avoid most of that crap to start with, and I found an amazing game in the process. I went so far as to read the books and play the second game.

People need to learn not everything is an attack against them, to relax a little, and maybe discover something amazing along the way. It was the best damn thing I ever did when it comes to video games. I wasn't really offended by stuff, but I admit I could be more on the conservative side of things at times. Yet, I would have missed out on so many wonderful games and moments if I kept focusing on the pointless little things than the awesome adventure that awaited me.

I honestly do not believe people are against diversity, although thanks to everyone shouting at each other, the message has been muddled. I think people are simply tired of being pointed to as the villains. For thirteen years I have been friends with a group of wonderful gamer guys who are as nice as can be, and I have met a ton of other awesome people along the way. Yet, all I hear is about how terrible my friends are according the media. Their "reality" does not match up with decades of my own experience, and I imagine that is what is frustrating so many gamers. The media looks at trolls, makes generalizations that all gamers are crappy people, and constantly reminds them of that. That is just not cool. Click-bait journalism sucks.

Your understanding of "transphobia" (stupid word, no one is afraid of trans people) is unwillingness to look at facts rather than emotions. Humans are born with one of two possible sexes, aside from some very rare genetic anomalies. The concept of "gender" does not apply to humans, it applies to inanimate objects in non-English languages: a chair in French has female gender even though there is nothing particularly female about chairs. In English all inanimate object are of neutral gender so it's not relevant.

Ever human will die with the same sex they were born as. A trans-woman is still a man in every respect, he has the DNA of a man, he has none of the organs a woman has, he has all the health-related risks and non-risks that a man has. For some reason something in the brain is not wired up properly and has is not content with being a man, and to ease their discomfort society can to an extent pretend that he is a women. But factually he will remain a man.

There is nothing hateful about that, it is simple mechanical facts. A hole drilled between some's legs is not a vagina. Denying that is simply factually dishonest and it is always more harmful to support someone's delusions than to confront them with the hard truth. Yes, the truth can be uncomfortable, but you must never let emotions win over reason.

How dare you suggest this??

"Well, I hate to fall back on technical details, but wouldn't Wu also be suffering from white male privilege? I mean, we're damn near certain it's not ovaries she's carrying around in her purse."

"Wu hated men so much that she stopped being one."

Obviously these comments were made because ethics in games journalism.

No, they were made as retorts because some people are stupid. And wrong. Sometimes wrong and stupid at the same time. Some people are really good at multi-tasking.

Really? A retort refers to presenting a counter argument or replying/answering. Who were you and Scotchmonkey arguing with? It seems like you were in agreement with both of the people you quoted.

I'm never really in agreement with anyone, so therefore virtually every word that comes out of my mouth could be construed as a retort (if you feel so inclined).

That's what makes us misanthropes unique. But most importantly, we don't feel the need to reach consensus with others about our own views or words (since after all, we don't really care if we're offending). Misanthropes are usually the first line of defense in any cultural war or aggressive moves against free speech.

I guess we are just going to have to agree to disagree...

Anyway, ethics in games journalism... I wonder, what is the latest complaint #gg'ers have?

I think you're missing the cultural war that Gamergate is but one campaign in. A war of creativity & diversity vs. something like this...

http://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt

I've had that discussion with htown a few times already, in this thread even. Eventually we agree to disagree. He simply does not see, or refuses to, that the ethical dispute is over ideological battlefields of freedom/equality that reflect on feminism, activism, subjectivity. The commonality in all these topics (not just GG of course) really is quite obvious to me. I guess the frame that it is all really about the pure arguing against the assholes, or the victims against the privileged, is just too strong. Hence seeing the ethics and censorship flags as nothing more than camouflage.

Edit: reading the web, found this
http://reason.com/blog/2015/04/10/at-umich-a-libertarian-muslim-student-un
Tell me it doesn't 'rhyme'?

My oh my, you do go on. And I see you've gone and done several more of them... So many generalizations, so much prejudice, so much mendacious polemic. Especaially for one who presents themself as a champion of social justice, egalitarianism and the enemy of biggotism* everwhere. And what's more you don't know anything about anyone here, you just presume so much and away you go. Anyway, have at it. It seems to amuse a few of the punters here. They've been a bit bored since we broke [Vainamoinen]. ;-)

* X^D

Except for the other misanthropes.

I'm not missing that at all, I've said that I think #gg is more about that culture war than it is about journalistic ethics. My understanding was that it was the pro-#gg people who were claiming it was about ethics in journalism.

It's grown to be about so much more than the original journalism and ethics concerns (but they're still part of it). Some pro-gamergate people want to keep the focus on that. But it appears that its mostly the antiGGers who keep trying to herd everybody back into the journo-ethix corral.