So, I love Persona 4 - I do
but in my latest replaying - the first time I dated Naoto - I noticed some problematic shit that I either was oblivious to or willfully ignored in all my prior play-throughs. First - despite the fact that Naoto is clearly more comfortable with male pronouns, and in Japanese actually uses male-coded speech - as soon as they find out his “secret” identity, everyone in the game starts using feminine pronouns to describe him. At no point does his dialogue change to address this - by which I mean, Naoto continues to use masculine speech despite everyone calling him a girl.
So right off the bat, we have people disregarding the character’s preferred pronouns.
And then, during one of the numerous times you get to pick something your character says from a finite list, one of the options is actually just “I like your voice higher.” (not the exact phrasing), which leads him to meet you on the penultimate date - December 24th - in a seifuku, should you agree to spend the night together. Or, put another way, the character most clearly comfortable identifying as a boy wears a dress to make their romantic partner happy. In Japanese, this also leads to his asking if it is weird to use male pronouns to refer to himself.
And if the social link is maxed, as all the Investigation Team links are, in canon, then Naoto decides to ‘accept’ that he is a woman. And that just seems all kinds of harmful.
The whole thing just kind of smacks of the “we can cure queer” mentality that I hate so much. And for me, at least, it kind of tarnishes an otherwise great game.