In Destiny 2, the big ViDoc presentation for Lightfall should hype everyone up for the upcoming DLC. Instead, parts of the Destiny community once again showed how disrespectful and unopen they are towards pronouns and transgender people, flooding the presentation and Reddit with hateful comments of the worst kind.
Which video is it about? Last week, Bungie presented its big Lightfall ViDoc. In it, players got an insight into the creative development processes for the DLC, which will already be released at the end of the month on February 28, 2023.
As always, the ViDoc featured interviews with various Bungie employees. This allowed players to hear firsthand about the new content of Destiny 2 from the people who created it and worked hard on the aspects of the game until completion.
Since Bungie highlighted some employees in particular, it was also important for the developer that all featured employees feel comfortable in their identity. This includes support for Bungie’s transgender and gender-nonconforming employees. Therefore, the video documentation not only displayed the names and titles but also the pronouns.
“Transphobes don’t deserve Destiny 2“
Pronouns trigger anti-trans comments: Bungie’s use of pronouns in their ViDoc, however, seemed to be too much for some viewers and was labeled as “unnecessary” and “pathetic” by them.
In the live chat, the new DLC content completely fell into the background, replaced by hateful anti-trans comments and blatant discrimination, the repetition of which we will spare you at this point.
It got even worse when the haters branded one of the developers in the video as a transgender woman and expressed this in the most despicable way in the chat. In the end, Bungie’s moderators worked overtime to moderate and comment on all comments so that hate did not spiral out of control.
Respect for all people is not too much to ask: By including pronouns, Bungie showed simple and genuine respect for the people who created Destiny and normalized something against which society is still quite resistant.
Additionally, it avoids trans people feeling “misgendered,” which can often be hurtful and lead to great insecurity. However, Bungie employees can exist in public as themselves through the simple stating of pronouns and not as the version society prescribes for them.
Eric Schweizer, Destiny editor at thegamer.com, expressed his serious outrage over the behavior of these Destiny players in an opinion piece and concludes: “Transphobes don’t deserve Destiny 2”.
It puzzles me that some players are not willing to give the developers the same respect. How can you love this game and hate the people who created it?
writes Eric Schweizer disappointed in his article on thegamer.com
When you see the names and faces behind Destiny, you should have more compassion for the developers. They are not a faceless, shadowy monolith that weakens your favorite weapons to punish you, but a group of people who passionately tell stories and create experiences for you. If you hate them because of their gender identity, then honestly, you do not deserve to enjoy all the cool [things] they make.
[…]
All of this hurt me, not only because it is objectively wrong, but because this is my community. Being a Destiny player means a lot to me, and I am proud to be one. However, at that moment I felt like my own community was filled with toxic fanatics, and that makes me sick.
The former Destiny 2 community manager dmg04 spoke out on Twitter and shared the message: “Trans rights are human rights.”
Players stand up against hate: Nevertheless, there were really many players who openly opposed the opinions of the obviously transphobic haters. Both on Twitter and Reddit, Destiny players posted that they reject this transphobia and that this hate only thrives in the hearts of bad people.
The message was quite clear: “Transphobes are not welcome in Destiny 2” and it was emphasized at the same time that there is no place for hate in the world of Destiny 2.
If you want to take another look at the most important part of the ViDoc, the summary of the best Lightfall ViDoc content, you will find our top 10 with things you might have missed, including a YouTube link:
Destiny 2: 10 things you might have missed in the ViDoc about the new DLC Lightfall
