Transphobic ’Starfield’ Modders Accidentally Made Everyone Non-Binary
Whoopsies.
Have you ever been so mad about trans people and pronouns that you accidentally made yourself non-binary? Probably not, dear reader. But one bigot was so furious with Starfield’s gender-inclusive character creator that they created a mod that would accidentally make players non-binary.
Jokes on you, bigots.
At the start of the game, Starfield lets players choose whether their character uses “he/him,” “she/her,” or “they/them” pronouns. Since launch, this relatively ho-hum feature has pissed off some of the worst people on the internet. One gamer was so mad over the pronoun option that he infamously went viral for screaming at his camera over it.
Transphobia truly does poison the brain, huh?
‘Current day political topics’ have no place in sci-fi? LOL
Earlier this month, one modder tried to circumvent Starfield’s pronoun options by removing them altogether. But according to Them writer Samantha Riedel (who, full disclosure, used to be my editor here at The Mary Sue!), that mod brutally and ridiculously failed its intended purpose. As it turns out, pronouns are hard-coded into the game. Or, to quote Riedel, “No matter how many light years you travel, you just can’t outrun pronouns.”
“I saw this mod on Nexus before it was taken down and the stupid thing is it doesn’t actually remove pronouns, it just removed he/him and she/her,” Redditor Kryosquid said, “meaning the game would then default to they/them pronouns. Effectively making anyone [who has] downloaded the mod non-binary. These bigots are so full of hate that they can’t understand basic English.”
I’m sure the original modder isn’t exactly happy about their “make all player characters have they/them pronouns” mod either, given that the now-deleted “Remove Pronoun selection in character creation” page on modding site Nexus Mods pretty blatantly complained about Starfield’s trans-inclusive character creator.
“In a world where one can change their appearance and sex with little to no cost, a pronoun selection feels.. off, at least for me since in the far future, current day political topics just make no sense whatsoever,” the original mod’s description states, according to a Nexus Mods RSS feed accessed by The Mary Sue. “If you feel offended by such a statement, please feel free to ignore this mod, it’s simply not for you then. More choice for the end user is not hate speech. That is all.”
Nexus Mods evidently saw straight through the creator’s intentions. According to Eurogamer, Nexus was “not sad” to pull the mod, as the site stands “for diversity and inclusion,” and a mod built for the “removal of diversity, while appealing to many, does not promote a positive modding community.”
“A reinforcement that this has been the best course of action has been some of the hatred, vitriol, and threats of violence coming from a very, very small minority of the community,” the mod site said.
This isn’t the first time transphobes have gone to great and goofy lengths to ridicule themselves. Earlier this week, Libs of TikTok essentially implied trans women have an unfair advantage at being popular. Several years back, one transphobic sexologist implied anime could turn cis men into trans women. Among the anti-trans crowd, intelligence apparently comes in short supply.
(featured image: Bethesda)
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