I've been a fan of BG since the original, and I own BGEE and BG2EE on PC and on Android, so I guess that makes me a bit of an outlier or a fanatic. Anyway, so a few days ago I was checking out GOG and I was like "wow, a NEW expansion of BG?!" and immediately went to google to see what this was all about. What I found was... upsetting to say the least. Baldur's Gate for me is escapism. In playing it I get to leave behind all the stupid politics that I have been afflicted with in school and then work. I got so sick of what I feel are attacks on my identity that I ultimately threw away the TV and haven't watched TV in 15 years. Now I see that this politics has invaded one of my favorite games so the game designer can score a few points against people like me. I will be frank. I do not like the idea of a transexual character, but I could probably live with it as long as it wasn't the main character. I could have lived with Mizhena as an 'insertion' except that it was handled so insultingly ingame that I couldn't possibly support it with my money. Why insulting? Because in Baldur's Gate and in RPGs generally you have as a rule a variety of potential responses, often following the pattern of positive, neutral, negative, or sarcastic. In the main character's encounter with Mizhena, only positive responses are available, thus forcing your character to effectively endorse Mizhena. Basic RPG principles were violated to shove this down the throat's of your customers and to force your customers to affirm Mizhena's transexuality ingame. Had you given the option of a negative response, and not just a negative response that makes your main character look like a fool, then you would not be suffering this blowback. But lets get to the core of the inappropriateness of a transexual, post-op or pre-op in a fantasy setting in which there is magic to easily remedy these issues. Magic can be used to change the gender, for real, of someone like Mizhena, and thus Mizhena would no longer be transexual. Alternatively magic could be used to resolve Mizhena's gender dysphoria, and make Mizhena's feelings of gender identity match his biological sex. Either way there is no reason for someone like Mizhena to have unresolved gender dysphoria issues unless Mizhena didn't have access to appropriate clerical magic, which is unlikely since Mizhena also happens to be a Paladin. Perhaps after reading this some of you may feel that people like me shouldn't be allowed to exist. I mean, how dare I go against the zeitgeist and right-thinking? I see that there are millions like me, however, and most of them are game buyers, especially buyers of RPGs. A little bit of consideration would go a long way.
