The world continues to change. Even the gaming universe which a decade ago or more was rocked by a huge anti female scandal has long ago accepted being gay and lesbian. Those character settings and modifications are available in all mainstream big name games. But trans characters were haphazardly applied, hard to set or understand. Even though it was common for a trans person to choose a different gender character the game play was still cis gender. That is changing. Now before there are the grooming complaints and such, understand the buyers and users of the games drive big video game characters. So once there was a large drive by users that there be gay characters for them to play as gay characters were able to be chosen, that is now happening for characters to be trans. This is the world of the future, the world of acceptance. Hugs
Guilty Gear Strive has finally done right by one of its best characters.
Gaming still has a lot of baggage when it comes to femininity. The medium that largely focused on an audience of straight white men for its early decades has become one of the most diverse forms of media in the world. Such progress has different ethnicities, sexualities, and genders welcomed into the fold as the toxic echo chamber becomes more tolerable.
Things are changing, and we’re forced to confront long-standing issues before we can justify moving forward. Rampant sexualisation, thinly-veiled racism, and fear that supporting more inclusive audiences will see games reduced to political objects are all things we’re still grappling with. Progress is being made, but slowly, and not without forces holding us back. I don’t think this will change, at least not for a long time, but the steps being taken by games like Guilty Gear Strive give me hope for the future. More specifically, characters like Bridget.
Guilty Gear Strive confirmed earlier this week that series veteran Bridget is transgender. This had been part of a complex headcanon for years, but the continued use of masculine pronouns and the narrative’s unwillingness to explore this aspect of her character meant nothing was ever satisfactorily confirmed in the canon. Raised in an English village, Bridget was brought up as a girl due to a local superstition that twins born of the same gender were bad luck, but has remained in ‘girl mode’ well into adulthood.
Her parents believed this superstition, so she came to wear feminine clothes, use she/her pronouns, and presented herself as a cis women. However, the audience (and several other characters) knew she was born male, and she was referred to by he/him or other masculine titles on occasion too. Back in the day she wasn’t viewed from a strictly queer perspective, but was seen as a ladyboy hiding a penis under her clothes that male gamers could make fun of one another for finding attractive because dicks are scary apparently. It leaned into a ‘trap’ stereotype that claims trans people are merely trying to fool people into finding them attractive before their genitals expose the real truth. Like we’re a sick circus attraction instead of actual human beings.
This is a situation that in the real world has gotten trans people killed (and cis people have gotten away with it, under the Trans Panic defence), but given how juvenile and heteronormative games tend to be, burdening Bridget with this stereotype happened quickly and remained an inside joke amongst series’ fans for decades. As a closeted teenager I admired characters like Bridget because they were male beneath it all, yet exhibited all the signatures of an attractive, passing woman.
She was someone I wanted to be, so to see the character labelled as transgender with such explicit declaration feels like queer fans are reclaiming something that was once held over them as a twisted joke. Women have to look and behave in a certain way, or they risk being seen as a societal oddity or unworthy of attention. Bridget fell into this nebulous middle ground.
Her transgender identity is immediately embraced by the wider cast of Guilty Gear Strive, which only furthers how positive this reveal has been. One scene in the arcade mode has Bridget talking with Goldlewis Dickinson and Ky Kiske about a journey of self discovery that is far from easy, but she knows the final destination will be more than worthwhile. The two characters sit alongside her, nodding in agreement while providing the advice that every trans person needs to hear – leaving behind the fear of prejudice and failure to become the individual you want to be is worth the inevitable heartache.
Dickinson is unsure of what to call Bridget, given the complex layers of her gender identity, calling her “cowgirl” before falsely correcting himself to “cowboy”. She responds: “Cowgirl is fine. Because… I’m a girl!” So many games would be scared to define something so clearly, largely so the typical minority of vocal chuds can deny any semblance of queer representation in fear it will ruin the entire game for them. Guilty Gear Strive couldn’t care less, and the conviction it expresses in Bridget’s character and how unapologetic she is in being a trans girl is so damn liberating.
Players have already unearthed further instances of dialogue that only serve to reinforce Bridget’s transgender character arc in the game, making it clear that Arc System Works are fully on board with this new interpretation. It’s been a long time coming, and feels like fitting retribution for a character that for years has been the victim of transphobic punchlines.
While the games themselves might have never leaned into the idea of Bridget being a trap designed to fool eagle-eyed male players, the community embraced that idea and made it the most iconic aspect of her character. It sucked, and I wish I knew better as a teenager instead of leaning into such needless jokes. My internal fascination would eventually lead to me making strides with my own queer identity, but Bridget has always deserved better, and to see her receive that respect in Strive means so much.
its official!
bridget is transgender!
you cannot comprehend how hard i screamed its not intentionally vague its loud and clear and of all people to show her that its GOLDLEWIS pic.twitter.com/7kIAOArToH
She joins Testament, a character who was revealed to be non-binary earlier this year and has also been taken in by fans as a welcome example of queer representation. Fighting games aren’t always heavy on narrative, often leaving us to fill in the blanks or providing lore dumps outside the core gameplay for audiences to obsess over. That is also true for Guilty Gear, but it makes characters like Bridget and Testament so much easier to fall in love with.
Their queerness is deliberate and seldom up for debate, with small nuggets of dialogue between encounters and nestled between modes providing just enough context for us to rejoice over. Bridget is a cute, confident, and empowering trans character who for decades has been working towards this eventual destiny, and to see it capitalised upon while simultaneously subverting a culture of ingrained transphobia is a perfect storm of brilliance.
The move by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration came after the agency published a report claiming there was not enough scientific evidence to prove that the treatments improved health.
The new rule banning Medicaid from being used to cover gender-affirming medical treatments is the latest step by Gov. Ron DeSantis to restrict gender-affirming treatments. | John Raoux/AP Photo
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida’s Medicaid regulator has finalized new rules banning health care providers from billing the taxpayer-funded program for gender-affirming medical treatments, a move that comes as the state has sought to block such therapies for young people.
The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration on Thursday added new language to the rules governing the state’s $36.2 billion Medicaid program. The new rules declare that the program does not cover services for treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapies or surgical procedures as a treatment for gender dysphoria, which refers to the feelings of discomfort or distress some transgender people experience when their bodies don’t align with their gender.
The updated rule will take effect on Aug. 21.
The new rule is the latest step by Gov. Ron DeSantis to restrict gender-affirming treatments. Last Friday, Florida’s medical board voted to start the rulemaking process that could lead to the banning of gender-affirming medical treatment for youths. And the Republican Florida governor has become increasing vocal in his objections to such treatments.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association support gender-affirming care for adults and adolescents. But medical experts said gender-affirming care for children rarely, if ever, includes surgery. Instead, doctors are more likely to recommend counseling, social transitioning and hormone replacement therapy.
A coalition of LGBTQ and health rights groups, including Lambda Legal, Southern Legal Counsel, Florida Health Justice Project, and National Health Law Program, said the rule will leave thousands of transgender Floridians without critical care when they need it most.
“Ignoring thousands of public comments and expert testimony, Florida’s AHCA has finalized a rule that will deny Medicaid coverage for all medically necessary gender-affirming care for both youth and adults,” the coalition statement said. “This discriminatory and medically unsound rule will take effect on August 21, 2022, putting transgender people in jeopardy of losing access to critical gender-affirming health care services.”
The move by Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration to ban Medicaid from covering such treatments began in April after the agency published a report claiming there was not enough scientific evidence to prove that the treatments improved health. AHCA held a public hearing on the new language in June that attracted more than 150 people on a late Friday afternoon.
Florida’s Department of Health also accused the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the American Academy of Pediatrics of misleading the public into believing the treatments are safe.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, however, has ramped up efforts to protect transgender youths amid an increase in states pushing legislation aimed at preventing minors from accessing gender-affirming care or transgender girls participating in women and girls’ sports.
“It is critically important for every child to have access to quality, comprehensive and evidence-based care — transgender and gender-diverse youth are no exception,” said Lee Savio Beers, American Academy of Pediatrics immediate past president in a statement earlier this year.
You know what? It’s becoming clear that they have NOTHING to run on. 1) Their idol is a traitor and a criminal who is going down; 2) Most voters (even in deep red Kansas) hate the SCOTUS Dobbs decision and don’t think the 10-year-olds should be forced to give birth; 3) Most voters hate their snearing, cynical mockery of grade school gun violence victims; 4) Ron Johnson openly talking about the R’s sunsetting Medicare and Social Security is going to be about as popular as egg salad that has been sitting in the sun for 3 days; 5) Despite all their bullshit, spin and lies and whining about gas prices, Biden has outperformed all recent presidents on the economic front and job creation, unemployment is at record lows and the Democrats have actually passed a boatload of good legislation (which even some Republicans like Hawley or Sasse admit to being jealous of) and even the gas prices are coming down.
So they are going to run on hatred of transgender people and other minorities because they have nothing else. And they are going to keep getting uglier and nastier as it gets closer to November. Democrats need to stay true to their principles and call out their cruelty, but do not let them change the conversation.
It works… bashing gays, blacks, trans people, immigrants… plays right to their base. Its a party of hate and it drives their people to vote in every election
We need more younger democratic candidates willing to take the fight to the opposition and fight back hard. This was a group of Abbott supporters there to heckle and mock O’Rourke. He did not tolerate them and forcefully put them in their place. Hugs
The Democratic candidate for governor had a scathing response to a heckler.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic candidate for governor in Texas, didn’t hold back when a heckler laughed as he described the gun used to murder 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde earlier this year.
“It may be funny to you, motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me, OK?” O’Rourke fired back at the laugher, who was standing among a small group of supporters of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
See the full exchange from Wednesday evening in Mineral Wells, about 50 miles west of Fort Worth:
Tonight, in Mineral Wells, Texas
When a @GregAbbott_TX supporter laughs, yes, laughs out loud so everyone could hear, while Beto described the massacre of 19 children and 2 teachers in Uvalde, Beto quite appropriately lets loose with a MF. Yep. It was a pretty good one too. pic.twitter.com/t5LLMIPXeP
“You’re doing nothing. You’re all doing nothing,” O’Rourke told Abbott and other officials gathered on a stage for the event.
O’Rourke was escorted out.
“This is on you,” he said before leaving. “Until you choose to do something different, this will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”
After Wednesday’s event, O’Rourke tweeted:
The parents in Uvalde are demanding action to address gun violence so no more families have to go through what they are experiencing.
Say what you will about Beto, but there isn't a politician in the state that can get grandmas to applaud "motherfucker." Highly effective crowd work. https://t.co/jY38mAmNkV
I am not having a good morning at all. Thank dogs that love gravy for Ron. I had to go have my blood drawn and pee in a cup for my labs the doctor wants for my appointments Monday and Tuesday. My plan was to get up about 6 or 6:30, drink some water and go to the hospital outpatient lab.
My pain levels were so bad by 4:30 I couldn’t stay in bed. So I got up. I had a long time to wait so I had a cup of black coffee, no sweetener. And a big glass of water. I took my morning pills. Had a second coffee and large glass of water. I had to pee but that was OK as I had to wait a couple hours before the lab opened so I would need to pee again anyway.
For a while now I have been getting nauseous some mornings. I have developed a very bad habit years ago of taking all my morning pills all at the same time along with my morning pain pills. Some of them call for taking with food but I have ignored that for years. Now with my dieting I am doing it more often, taking them with no food. That is now upsetting my stomach some mornings.
So one last factor of my bad morning. Next to the hospital is a school. Both younger and even younger kids. In the morning the line of parents trying to get into the school parking lot to drop off kids stretches from the main road in front of the school for blocks blocking the far right lane for at least two stop lights. This is a three lane road. It used to be you could stay in the middle lane and after the entrance to the school move into the far right lane to get to the hospital entrance which is a block further down the same main road. The entrance to hospital is off the side road between the school and the hospital and now they have opened the school parking lot to drop off kids on that road as well. I did not know this. I was in the middle lane which was stop and go and wondered why that was happening and seen the far right lane blocked with traffic all the way to the side road entrance and then further into the school parking lot as cars waited to drop kids, move one car forward, wait to drop, move one car forward. Lucky the side road is two lanes so once on the side road you can get around the line of cars going into the school. The problem is you must be in that far right lane to make that turn onto the side road. Below is a snip of the area I am talking about. The blue line is the far right lane before the school and the turn into the side road, then the hospital. The line of cars to get into the school started further than I could show on the map. I was luck to be able to get over into the far right lane right after the middle large entrance to the school, but again the line of stopped cars waiting to drop off their children went along the blue line which was my route.
From there my morning got a lot worse. It took me nearly 30 minutes to go that short distance as cars would drop kids off, then everyone in line moved up one car, and repeat. Of course these are younger kids so they don’t get themselves gathered up and out of the cars quickly. The entire time I was getting sicker and sicker, waves of nausea washing over me. Every time I moved the car a bit then stopped I was in danger of vomiting. I just hoped I could get to the hospital parking lot in time.
I got to the side road and moved out of the line of cars and moved in to the left lane to turn into the hospital and was in real destress, I was going to vomit. I drove into the parking lot, and as fast as I could I pulled into a space and put the car in park, reached to open the door … and as the door was opening I vomited hard. While I was able to direct most of it downward to the road the door was not widely open and so I got vomit on the door, the floor door sill, my cane that rests there next to the door, my hand, grossly some on my long hair. I had to back the car up to be able to step out. As I got out of the car I managed to move around the door trying to get to the grass next to the sidewalk in front of the car. I did not get there. By the first step I was again vomiting. Lucky no one was walking on the sidewalk or I would have gotten them also. I went to the hatch and got a towel Ron leaves there and using one of the bottles of water rinsed my hand and dried it. I wiped my hair. Wiped my cane. Lucky my shirt was spared and the hospital still uses masks so my face would be covered. Then started to wipe down the door and other spots. The bending down triggered the need to vomit again and I stepped out of the car and soaked the area between my car and the one next to it. Whoever parks in either spot and has to get out on that side of the car is going to hate / curse me.
But never fear my day was not over with being shitty. Just inside the entrance to the hospital is a set of bathrooms. They are single person use so I waited until the men’s was free. That is where the shitty part comes in. A man exited the bathroom and I entered, and the smell hit me. Good thing that fellow was in a hospital because something vital was dying inside him. But I washed up as best I could include my cane and handle, while trying not to breathe. I made sure I was as vomit free as possible and went to the lab check in. When my turn came I went into the blood draw area, sat down where directed and chatted with the lab person as they got ready to take my blood. She prepped my right arm, she stuck the needle in, filled the first of five vials, replaced it with the second one. At this point the blood stopped flowing. She tried to wiggle the needle, moved it around, twisted it a bit, and if you think I was happy you would be incorrect. She slowly removed the needle in hope the blood would again flow. She then tried the other arm. I don’t know if the first try had made her nervous, but the second try hurt going in and was painful the entire time she was filling the vials.
Now here is where I start thanking dogs that love gravy for Ron. On the way home I called him and explained what happened. He met me when I parked the car, he took all the stuff I had with me into the house and as I was getting out of the car returned with a small wash bucket and cloths. I went to take them and he refused saying I should go in and rest while he would take care of it all. He washed the insides of the car and got them all cleaned up, brought in the yucky towel and other stuff I got vomit on, put a new towel in the car. Then after he got done he came in and got me a little food to settle my stomach. And that was my morning. Oh and the blood work coming back in seems good, the A1C is 6.6 down from 7.4 and all the results in so far look better than the results from last time. Have a great day, I am going to go lay down. Hugs
This is a national disgrace! This country is said to be the wealthiest on earth. We have billionaires and millionaires, and because of unrestrained capitalism the wealth gap gets wider every day. Rents too high for people to have a place to live, medications to expensive for people to get the life saving drugs they need, but no question at all for more money for the wealthy defense industry. Every year there is more money shoved into the defense / military budgets than asked for because most of that money goes to the wealthy executives and their shareholders. This must stop. We are creating a country of impoverished beggars and super wealthy. As one person said, it is a crime to be poor. Hugs
Officials in Tennessee passed a new bill making it a felony to make a campsite on public land, affecting people experiencing homelessness. CNN’s Nick Watt reports.
A Nebraska mother and her 18-year-old daughter are facing multiple charges in a case that involved police obtaining Facebook messages between the two that authorities allege show evidence of an illegal self-managed medication abortion, as well as a plan to hide the remains. CNN’s Victor Blackwell talks to Dana Sussman about the implications of this development
Indiana State Rep John L Bartlett proposed a bill that would ban erectile dysfunction pills. His reasoning? If unwanted pregnancies are gods will so is impotency. Comedian Ben Gleib breaks it down on Rebel HQ.
Scottie's Playtime 