Bungie released its annual Vidoc earlier this week, a part trailer, part mini-documentary that dives into the story, world, characters, gear, and new abilities coming to Destiny 2 in the Lightfall expansion later this month. It’s your best chance to get the lowdown on Neomuna, theCloud Striders, and everything else coming in Lightfall directly from the people that made it. For fans, this is the biggest hype moment of the year, and for the developers, this is their chance to show us what they’ve been working on all year long.
Two different types of players watched the Vidoc, and depending on which type you are determined what you saw. If you’re a normal person, you saw new worlds to explore, abilities to play with, characters you’ve missed (hello, Devrim) and enthusiastic developers talking about the game we all love. If you’re a hateful person, you saw everyone’s pronouns listed under their names and a trans woman being good at her job, and decided you have something to say about that.
The Vidoc’s live chat was a fucking nightmare, to put it lightly. I’m used to seeing awful chat activity during showcases, but usually people are complaining about the actual game being shown, not the people showing it. From the moment the Vidoc started, the live chat was full of people complaining about pronouns. Whenever a developer was on camera speaking, their name, title, and pronouns were displayed in the corner of the screen. This was too much for a lot of weak little boys to handle, apparently, as the chat was filled with complaints about how “unnecessary”, “cringe”, and “pathetic” pronouns are - the irony apparently lost how unnecessary, cringe, and pathetic their comments were.
Related:Destiny Content Vault Is Swallowing Up Some Heavy Hitters In Lightfall
I’m going to take the briefest moment to address the pronoun complaints in good faith. I don’t imagine a single one of these people will read this, but I think there are still some well-intentioned people out there that are confused about why we include pronouns when we introduce people now. I don’t have time to explain the whole ‘gender is a social construct’ thing right now, but if you consider yourself a good person, it’s important to understand how much pronouns matter.
The fact is that society is pretty unkind to gender-nonconforming people, as this saga clearly demonstrates, so when we take the time to acknowledge our gender when we introduce ourselves, it helps normalize the reality that there is a spectrum of gender identities, and that everyone should be free to decide what pronouns are right for them. When Bungie introduces its developers with their pronouns, its modeling inclusivity, which has always been one of the developer’s core values. For example, if only trans people did this, it would immediately single them out as trans, so everyone doing it makes for a more supportive environment.
Why does any of this matter in what is ostensibly a piece of marketing for a video game? This is where I’m going to lose some of you, but hear me out anyway. It’s because it’s the right thing to do. Bungie is a diverse studio made up of all kinds of people, and the Vidoc is, at least in part, a celebration of those people and their hard work. By including their pronouns, Bungie is showing respect for the people who create Destiny, while making an effort to normalize something that society is still quite resistant to. Mainstream adoption of progressive ideas, no matter how performative you might think it is, is a big component of how progress happens.
It’s baffling to me that some players aren’t willing to show the developers the same respect. How can you love this game and hate the people who created it? Seeing the names and faces behind Destiny is supposed to make you more empathetic for the devs. They’re not a faceless, shadowy monolith that nerfs your favorite guns to punish you, they’re a group of individuals who are passionate about telling stories and creating experiences for you. If you hate them because of their gender identity, then quite frankly you don’t deserve to enjoy all of the cool shit they make.
The genius detectives in chat decided they could tell that one of the devs was a trans woman, so decided they should announce they could tell in the most despicable ways possible. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
Real quick aside. Hey, Colombo? Fucking Benoit Blanc? What do you want? Congratulations, you figured out her ruse. Those sneaky transes can’t pull one over on you, bud. You can always tell, right? No matter how much effort trans people put into conforming to society’s beauty standards and gender expectations, no matter how obviously this woman is presenting as a woman, pricks like you are determined to misgender them. These are not disguises, and you’re not Nancy Drew.
I was dismayed by the comments, not just on YouTube, but on Reddit and Twitter too. The moderators on r/DestinyTheGame had to work overtime to delete anti-trans comments, and when former Bungie community manager dmg04 spoke up about the hateful comments on Twitter, his replies were filled with similar rhetoric. I was hurt by all of this, not just because it’s objectively wrong, but because this is my community. Being a Destiny player matters to me and I’m proud to be one. This moment made me feel like my own community is filled with toxicity, and it makes me sick.
But those people don’t represent the Destiny community. The hate in the YouTube comments was combated by messages of support, and both Twitter and Reddit are filled with Destiny players disavowing transphobia. There may be Destiny content creators and silos of fans with hate in their hearts, but the broader Destiny community does not, and will never stand by them. I’m proud of all the players that spoke up, and I want to do my part to tell all the transphobes that they are not welcome here.
Next:Lightfall Gives Destiny 2 The One Thing It Was Missing: Sexy Dudes
