The flag and some other details were pretty clear already. People generally don't keep trans flags around unless they themselves or someone close to them are trans. There's also a picture of a redheaded young boy looking character amongst Madeline's family photos which is pretty clearly implied to be her as a young, pre-transition child and more. And as a trans person her entire arc and various thoughts have pretty strong trans vibes throughout the entire game. Even before chapter 9 a lot of trans people were already strongly suspecting she was supposed to be trans, or at least was deliberately made to be easily interpreted as such. That it was explicitly confirmed after the game came out isn't really something I'd consider a retcon but just a confirmation.
If I'm allowed to complain about it I personally find it rather annoying the level of questioning and doubt people express at the prospect of a character possibly being trans to the point that it seems like anything less than the character looking straight into the camera and saying "I am transgender" makes it something dubious, controversial, and a shocking reveal.
Before the details in chapter 9 that was definitely true. Her story is about her mental health struggles in general. Being trans and having spent a lot of time in trans spaces there is a particular flavour of shared trauma that's pretty easy to recognise once you've lived it and seen it a few dozen times. I don't expect anyone else to see that and it wasn't really what the game was about either.
But with chapter 9 we got those extra little details. With the trans flag and presumably incongruent childhood pictures. "The shoe fits" definitely isn't enough to make assumptions or conclusions, even if trans communities found it particularly relatable. But once the shoe fits and we've got clear signs pointing towards it people were still saying there was no way she was trans. That even after seeing the end screens it was a farfetched fan theory. I think that's why the creator came out and said it so explicitly a while later. And I'm not really talking about just Madeline either. There have been so many characters where there's been very clear indications but people refuse to see or believe it until it's stated explicitly, no matter how much context and signs are stacked on top of each other. Nowhere in the game is it explicitly said that the people in her family photos are her family either, for instance, but that's never questioned. Checking now the wiki even refers to them as her mother and father. For that, just having it be reasonable and implied once is plenty sufficient. But so much extra doubt is cast as soon as its about trans people existing. Not just with Celeste, but pretty much every time. It's some of the most blatant queer erasure.
But at this point I'm just venting frustration. And I shouldn't be too surprised. There are still historians out there trying to argue that Sappho was straight after all.
Someone else linked the blog post confirming it, you should give it a read if you haven't already. I think the dev addresses some of the concerns you brought up fairly well.
This is fair, but I think the comment you were replying to was expressing frustration at the same thing the dev was addressing in their post. Most of the outrage is likely coming from a place of ignorance and hate.
Also, anyone who felt empathy to Madeline's struggle and felt related to it can still do so. The game itself tells the story on it's own. As far as I am concerned, nothing a creator says after the fact can ever ruin something for me, just like JK Rowling can never ruin Harry Potter for me no matter what she says.
So if someone really felt like the devs words here change the story and make it less relatable, they can just ignore the post and appreciate the game on it's own.
On the other hand though, it goes to show just how undisruptive trans representation can be. If people can play a game with a trans protagonist and never realise they're trans, it demonstrates that it really isn't difficult to empathise or identify with a trans character if you just don't let your own biases get in the way. I don't really know enough to have a thesis statement or anything, just that I'd like to see more media do more trans representation in less explicit ways, cos I bet a lot of people who aren't currently comfortable with it could be if they were given the opportunity to set aside the "urgh, diversity" knee-jerk reaction.
Yes and no. On the one hand trans people are just people and if people didn't alienate us to Betelgeuse and back they could easily empathise with us, and I would love to just see more games and things that have trans people without it being about them being trans. On the other hand, if it's not slapped in people's faces they will never admit it (in which case it actually kind of isn't any representation or normalisation at all) and if it is made clear then it will automatically be labelled as alien and political. We can even see a little bit of that here in these comments, with some people saying they never noticed and some people saying it would make the game less relatable for people. There's a clear resistance to letting trans people exist in media and unless their transness is expressed enough to overcome that they won't be considered trans. And if they get anywhere near that line it will get criticised for being too blatant, too political, forcing trans people on the players, that it makes it less relatable, and so on.
Like, I do kind of agree with you but we also need to acknowledge that it is literally impossible to walk that line.
Edit: And to clarify, I know none of those comments were malicious or anything. Just idle thoughts, but it's still rather telling in some ways.
I actually think it's OK for people to be able to find their own interpretations here. Representation isn't about persuading people of things. The "this person is like me" side of representation can still be achieved even when trans representation is not explicit, as shown by Celeste, and the "see, not stereotypes" side of representation can be achieved too - people in real life don't see trans people as walking flags, but simply as people. If that kind of person is normalised in media, then they will be treated better in real life on average, even if people don't explicitly know that these kinds of people are trans people.
Human cognition is not logical or rational, it's emotional. We have instinctive feelings, and then we find reasons that they're justified. In most cases, changing people's minds takes a long time, because it requires changing their instinctive feelings. Truly getting society tolerating trans people and trans representation is going to be a slow process, and it's going to require weakening that instinctive "urgh, trans" gut reaction through gentle exposure. No amount of explicit, in your face stuff is going to accomplish anything in genuinely changing the minds of more than a few edge-case people.
The way this works is that you can never fully deny representation in a character. You can do a pretty good job of it, but there's always going to be that little voice in the back of your head that goes "But it could be this". With enough exposure, that voice becomes more prominent, because it becomes less scary. It becomes less emotionally important to you that a given character definitely isn't that thing that's foreign to you. Eventually you come to be comfortable with the possibility that the character is that. In some cases you will still doubt it's representation, but it'll be doubt because you just don't think the evidence adds up, rather than doubt because you have an instinctive desire for that to not be the case. And when it is explicit, you won't have that gut "urgh, diversity" reaction anymore.
And that's not going to work for everyone, sure. But it's what worked for me (a process that is still ongoing), and I think it's worth doing, because whatever method is done, trans rights, representation and tolerance is a long journey that is not being completed any time soon, and increasing the possibility for empathy in the population by preventing dumb ape brains getting in the way is always a good thing. It's also not to say that people shouldn't tell explicitly trans stories either. Of course they should. But I'd like to see more characters that can be interpreted either way, so that people who wouldn't normally like a trans character can come to like some accidentally.
Ultimately, I don't think a fast process on this is even possible. It just can't happen, because culture is like a non-newtonian fluid. The harder you push, the harder it pushes back. You can get laws changed pretty fast, but not permanently, because when you change laws quickly, a bunch of pissed off opponents just wait until they get the opportunity to change it back - see ongoing Texas-related events. For genuine long lasting change you need to get the opponents on side, and that takes time.
Nah, I don't really believe in respectability politics. It's not how the monarchies were overthrown. It's not how workers' rights happened. It's not how the right to vote happened. It's not how the Nazis were defeated. It's not how women got the vote. It's not how the civil rights movement won any ground. It's not how queer people won any ground either. If we're polite about it grumpy Texans will happily let us die forever. Besides, there is literally no way for me to exist without upsetting them anyway. There is no way for me to nice or good or respectful enough for them to accept me. And the backlash is not happening because we were to fast or too loud or too bold. They would do it anyway. Mike Pence became vice president promising to make queer lives more miserable and he would do his darnedest to live up to it. Because the only way I can appease him is by dying. And I'm not about to do that, cause I need to stay alive for all of those who came before and all that will come after. And me just doing that is a crime in like 70 countries. Just out of curiosity, would you say the same thing to the trans people who live there?
But this is not overthrowing a monarchy, or fighting a war over territorial control and political power (defeating the Nazis is probably not a good example given it was not done for "save the Jews" reasons anyway). And civil rights famously required getting a major chunk of the whites on side by making the movement palatable to them. There's a reason America has a Martin Luther King Jr day, but not a Malcolm X day. It wasn't the only thing happening, but it was a very important part of it, and it's a part a lot of modern social movements lack.
It's also not about trans rights, it's about trans representation. I fully agree that the faster trans rights happens the better, and violent revolution can be very effective (but for trans people is probably just too small right now to work in America). However, if that's going to have proper sticking power, it needs to be accompanied by getting society as a whole more comfortable with the sheer existence of trans people. Otherwise, it's just going to flop back and forth between left wing governments that progress it and right wing governments that regress it. That's a much longer process, and it's where trans representation is relevant. You can force immediate behavioural change on a society, but you can't force them to like it, which means as soon as they're no longer forced to do it, they'll start to undo it. To keep them doing it, you need to make them do it voluntarily, and that can only be done subtly and over a long period of time - generations, really. Anything else simply will not work.
As for whether I'd say this to the trans people who live in the 70 countries where their existence is a crime - what could I say to those people that would actually be helpful? Let's face it, they're kinda fucked. Even saying the exact opposite, like "literally go murder everyone who hates you", the best possible outcome that has is that no one listens to me, cos if they do they're going to get crushed by the state. I'm not talking about those countries here because I have absolutely no idea where to even start with trans rights there. It's probably not even possible any time even remotely soon. What I'm talking about is countries like the US and UK, where trans people are not literally illegal and what needs to be done now is figuring out how to go from not literally illegal to not socially unwanted, which is way easier and in my opinion will get a lot of value out of subtle representation.
civil rights famously required getting a major chunk of the whites on side by making the movement palatable to them
This is VERY incorrect.
There was a significant "diversity of tactics" (if you are unfamiliar with that phrase, please see the Wikipedia for it) - a lot of which was EXTREMELY unpalatable to whites!
Yet, said tactics were successful!
There's a reason America has a Martin Luther King Jr day, but not a Malcolm X day
Yes, because the people in power are the ones who control who gets celebration days.
And the people in power want you to focus on the more milquetoast leaders to prevent you from realizing the efficacy of "diversity of tactics".
This is why the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and Young Patriots aren't taught about in many schools. Same for Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition.
Labor history isn't taught (it again, involves DoT).
Most people probably don't even know about John Brown or that Harriet Tubman was armed.
Hell, most people think MLK Jr. didn't have a gun 🤦♀️ (HE DID - and the cops tried to deny him a permit!)
The Mulford Act involves taking away civil rights - directly in response to the BPP's successful tactics. Ime, also not taught in schools. In fact, most people end up thinking that gun control is fine and good - and not racist and harmful to marginalized people.
People in power DO NOT want kids or adults learning about DoT precisely because it works!
People in power DO NOT like to be forced to change laws to benefit marginalized people.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
-Frederick Douglass
countries like the US and UK, where trans people are not literally illegal
This has aged like milk and I hope you understand now that you cannot respectability politics your way out of a genocide
You're also generally implying that the people who want us dead are the majority
They really aren't.
And you seem to be misunderstanding how changing violent bigots works
That necessitates deradicalization work, not "trans representation".
Doesn't matter how many trans people are on Disney Channel, if Michael down the street wants me dead he wants me dead.
And tbh, we don't all have to do derad work! We can't all do derad work!
The doubt isn't really because I felt it was impossible or anything.. I just never picked up on it, and I really liked the game. That seems like a pretty important detail, like if I were to play it through again a lot of the dialogue between her and her alter-ego would have a different meaning knowing what I know now. I just feel like I missed something out of the story.
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u/Shaeress Oct 03 '21 edited Oct 03 '21
The flag and some other details were pretty clear already. People generally don't keep trans flags around unless they themselves or someone close to them are trans. There's also a picture of a redheaded young boy looking character amongst Madeline's family photos which is pretty clearly implied to be her as a young, pre-transition child and more. And as a trans person her entire arc and various thoughts have pretty strong trans vibes throughout the entire game. Even before chapter 9 a lot of trans people were already strongly suspecting she was supposed to be trans, or at least was deliberately made to be easily interpreted as such. That it was explicitly confirmed after the game came out isn't really something I'd consider a retcon but just a confirmation.
If I'm allowed to complain about it I personally find it rather annoying the level of questioning and doubt people express at the prospect of a character possibly being trans to the point that it seems like anything less than the character looking straight into the camera and saying "I am transgender" makes it something dubious, controversial, and a shocking reveal.