LGBT+ characters in video games

[Lucca]

vivster said:

Please don't. The biggest issue with LGBT integration is the constant singling out. Sexuality is not a character trait. Sexuality, especially in video games, has little to no actual meaning to the story. So even mentioning it comes off as attention grabbing rather than being progressive. If you want to have LGBT characters in games, great. Advertising it as if it's a big deal is simply exploitation.

I was always under the impression that the greatest goal for LGBT people is to be accepted as equals in the community. How are we gonna do this if you are constantly singling them out as if they're special? News flash, having a sexual orientation or gender does not make you special. It makes you equal to everyone else. Pointing out certain sexualities is helping no one but desperate attention whores. That includes all people and especially the media. You're doing a disservice to everyone.

Sexuality and gender does not matter and as soon as people get that into their thick skulls we can move on with our lives and actually improve society instead of trying to split it at every opportunity.

I was going to respond to you, but @danasider said it all.

As long as people still think that LGBT+ characters (and people, for that matter) should hide their sexuality but straight characters don't, we will still need to talk about it. Wanting these characters to not show their sexuality means you don't really accept non-straight relationships as normal. When straight relationships are not considered the only acceptable kind of relationship, then we won't need to highlight LGBT+ characters anymore. You're trying to skip a stage and go directly to not highlighting LGBT+ characters, but by doing that you're just leaving people in their comfort zone and ignoring all the LGBT+ people that are out there.

Representation of a group of people in the media is and has always been a key factor in social acceptance. That's why it's so important to have social minorities in movies, tv shows and games. Just saying "we're all equal, therefore these people shouldn't appear" is really easy to do when you're part of a social majority (I'm not saying for sure that you are a social majority, but social minorities usually don't say these kinds of things).