[click for a response from a concerned friend and take two of this whole idea]
Fortunately for me, I’m pretty much your typically privileged, white, middle-class, heterosexual male. I try to keep an open mind, though, especially after moving to Ottawa where diversity is the norm. At least, when I realize there’s something I have a limited point of view on - something easier said than done. Depression, perfectionism, and a handful of similar mental health issues are about the only things I can really understand. One thing I have a lot of trouble with wrapping my head around is gender and sexuality issues, because being a straight man makes me about as far removed from them as you can get. Part of the problem is the us-vs-them mentality that seems so prevalent among people who have to deal with these issues first-hand. While I can’t claim to be extensively educated on the subject, it does happen that a couple times per year I run into a piece like the linked article.
The formula seems fairly predictable: the author stands alone against the tides of unforgivable ignorance and spits vitriol at those of us who have the misfortune of being - and I think this is important - more or less incapable of understanding their position. There’s just no way for me to conceptualize being of a different sexual orientation or gender than I am. What I do understand is being hurt, and having a desire to lash out at injustice, and taking one’s frustration out on innocent bystanders. And that’s what I always seem to see, and it kind of sucks, because I don’t think it makes things better for anyone. It keeps the injured parties in a cycle of rumination and anger, and it drives away people like myself who would really like to hear their stories and try to understand just a little bit more.
If you read the article, take a moment to read through the comment thread. It’s not horrifically long, actually. You don’t need to read a whole lot - just enough to see NonsyM (the original author) only make aggressive/negative comments and say things like “it is not my job to explain to you why this is a problem”. I think that last comment is actually the opposite of the case - it seems to me that the whole reason that trans characters are treated the way they are in Atlus games is because no one on the team knows it’s an issue. They’re ignorant of their ignorance. If no explains to them that, say, their treatment of Erica and Naoto is harmful, why would they stop? Obviously making a minority the butt of a joke is wrong, but with those two characters, the transgression is more subtle.
From my point of view at the time that I played Persona 4, the thought of Naoto as a transgendered character never entered my mind. I didn’t consider it because it wasn’t part of my view of the world. I saw Naoto as a girl who didn’t want to be a woman because of the way it lead people to treat her - the only motivation for presenting herself as a man was to get the respect she deserved. If she could get that respect as a woman and be more comfortable with herself, all would be well. So my take on the romantic path with her was a familiar sort of white knight role - help her gain confidence and overcome what I perceived as insecurities over being a woman. So the comment that frames the final scene with Naoto as “peer-pressuring those you love into changing their gender presentation to better suit your sexual preferences" comes as a complete surprise to me - I thought I was doing the right thing.
I really don’t think that makes me a bad person. Now that it’s been suggested, I can understand a reading of Naoto as a transgendered character. If I had looked at the character in that way, I would have made a different choice. But this is an argument based on a handful of lines of dialogue, and not the rich discussion you would have with a real human being. You have a limited number of dialogue options with Naoto, and they’re offered to you by the game’s writers. In real life, you could suggest that someone try to work out whether they’re a woman who is uncomfortable with themselves or a man who is stuck in a woman’s body. Rather than having to guess or impose your own desires on them, as you have no choice but to do with Naoto, you could follow their lead. At a guess, I would imagine that the developers are people like me - people who can’t help but see Naoto as a woman made uncomfortable by society, and don’t necessarily think a discussion about their gender is necessary.
Ignorant folk like me won’t know any better unless someone can explain it to us in a relatively reasonable manner, and saying "you have nothing to contribute to this discussion and I will not educate you” doesn’t help anyone. If the people with first-hand experience are too fed up to enlighten the rest of us, how can we possibly do the right thing? You can kinda sorta enlighten yourself if you extrapolate through the profanity and the other anti-pleasantries that arise in internet debates, but it shouldn’t be so hard. The easiest, and probably only, way for us to really understand is for someone to swallow their frustration and teach us.
Leaving people to wallow in their ignorance only perpetuates the problem. It means someone else will probably have to put up with them the next time they feel entitled to share their opinion. You can’t make ignorance go away by avoiding it; greater education is the only permanent solution.