A small PSA about Dawntrail
In the wake of all the harassment and blatant bigotry being hurled at Sena Bryer for her performance as Wuk Lamat in FFXIV Dawntrail, I really think it's time we have a conversation about knee-jerk reactions and how the inability to process them can very easily be a slippery slope to hate.
Like most people, I have sadly at a few points in my life heard a trans woman speak and then my brain takes a second to process it and then goes "That doesn't sound like a lady. That's not a lady"
These knee-jerk reactions aren't uncommon when for instance first meeting a character voiced by a trans VA in a video game. But what's important is that you stop and tell yourself;
"I just had a thought I did not like. Why is that?"
It's SO important that you interrogate yourself whenever you have thoughts like that. You need to dismantle those thoughts, pull them apart and refute them. Only then can you start to unlearn programmed prejudice.
Teach yourself that "they don't sound feminine/masculine" is an invalid train of thought. Ignore it and go on with your life until you stop having that thought. Then you've grown.
It's important that you DON'T indulge these trains of thoughts. Don't follow them, they don't go anywhere good. They go to a place that starts to make you irrarionally upset every time you hear trans people speak because you're not allowing your brain to ignore the disconnect it believes exists between voice and gender.
Thats how you end up with dozens of forum threads where gamers rant about how angry they get when a rather inoffensive character opens their mouth.
