Xbox Live Now Allows Gender Expression 348
Last year we discussed news that an Xbox Live gamer was banned for identifying herself as a lesbian on her profile. Microsoft said at the time that nothing sexual in nature could appear in Gamertags or profiles. Now, they seem to have reconsidered their stance, and they've updated their Code of Conduct accordingly. Xbox Live General Manager Marc Whitten wrote:
"[The update] will allow our members to more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles. Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community. This update also comes hand-in-hand with increased stringency and enforcement to prevent the misuse of these terms."
So claim to be a... (Score:4, Funny)
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...transgender lesbian, and let Microsoft try to figure out what that means. They'd probably have to google it!
BTW, Google supplied this hint: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Transgender%20Lesbian [urbandictionary.com]
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This discriminates against androgynous, polysexual, pastafarian, anti-nationalists, you insensitive clods!
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They wouldn't bother, it'd be much easier to just permanently ban you outright.
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I’ll claim to be a black Mexican lesbian far-right jew, including the appropriate profile photo [radiantempire.com].
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Claim your nationality=Tibetan. See what happens...
...heard on XBox Live today. (Score:3, Funny)
"That decision is like, SO GAY!"
Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's about awareness and exposing injustice in all the forums it even tangentially applies. I point out its a civil rights struggle regularly to my friends and family. Usually they shut right up and change the topic rather than confront their inner demons. Shining a light of obvious truth kills all but the most degenerate evils.
Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:4, Insightful)
Bull crap. They're struggling for nothing then.
In real life, I barely care about you as human. I don't want you to tell me what you do, or who you do it with. I'm simply not that interested.
On a video game network, I'm even less interested. Don't tell me you're gay, or straight, or white, or black, or a hairdresser or a hobbit fetishist. I don't care. Either pull out the BFG and start fragging some bad guys, or stick your head in the way of my shots.
I got enough crap in my own life to worry about. Their gender issues rank about 0.1% on my care-o-meter. The only people I care less about are the ones who hate other people based on stupid crap like this, and them I actively hate.
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Not all gamers exclusively play shooters (Score:2)
Don't tell me you're gay, or straight, or white, or black, or a hairdresser or a hobbit fetishist. I don't care. Either pull out the BFG and start fragging some bad guys, or stick your head in the way of my shots.
You may choose to play first-person shooters exclusively, but not all gamers agree. I don't have an Xbox 360 console yet (I want one for XNA, but I'm waiting for hardware reliability issues to be solved; are they?) and therefore know little about its available games, but I'm certain that at least a couple games revolve around socializing, much like Nintendo's Animal Crossing 3 for Wii.
Right, you're banned (Score:2, Insightful)
I got enough crap in my own life to worry about.
Sorry, we don't care that you've "got enough crap in your own life". You're now banned from Slashdot for saying something that isn't approved of, and that no one cares about.
Don't go whining about it - there are more important things to worry about than a Slashdot account, right?
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Mod abuse - who the hell got mod points today? It's not redundant.
I see that plover doesn't want people to tell him things, but it's okay for him to tell everyone about things in his life.
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Sorry. I guess the mod's don't give a shit about your moaning about not giving a shit.
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That sounds more like your problem than anyone else's. Just because you're an apathetic asshole doesn't mean people can't talk about themselves, if you don't care then don't read their profiles.
Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what he's getting at is what the fuck does someone's orientation matter in an online game? And fairs fair, if everyone had that attitude what would be the big deal?
Re:He protests too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, dimwit, you guessed wrong. I don't have a preference. I don't care what your handle is. You can call yourself FlamingQueer69 and it doesn't matter to me. Fire or be fired upon.
It seems to bother the people running the XBox Live network, however. The whole point is they're afraid if someone tags themselves "lesbian" then the people in game will say stupid things like "you just got blown by a dyke" and that will make children cry. I figure if you tag yourself with labels that identify what you are, you are actively inviting the discussion, which includes bringing in evil people with slurs. And my whole point is "that discussion doesn't belong in the video game."
What belongs in the video game is game context chat: "I think he's hiding behind the west tower" or "watch out, FQ69 picked up the rocket launcher." If you want to discuss what or who you are, go buy a copy of "Sexual Orientation Discussion 2010", and for all you who are so very very interested in what other people do in their bedroom time, go there and chat.
"Don't ask, don't tell" is a great way to deal with it, mostly because the whole damn thing is irrelevant to anything outside the bedroom.
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Hey, would you want to know you just got pwned by some faggy sissy in a game you have been playing and practicing for months? ;)
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I fully agree with you. But it seems for some odd reason some people deem something that does not affect them their business. Like, say, priests voicing their opinion about condoms and abortions. It's not like they'll ever worry about either. Altar boys can't get pregnant.
Likewise, the people who shout the loudest about how much they do not want gay marriage are the ones that are the least affected by it. It's not like anyone would force them to marry a man (or woman, in case they are one).
How the heck is i
Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Rock Rape... (Score:2)
Having sex with an unconsenting rock.
Two consenting adults is very different.
PS: same goes for marriage.
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While the entire concept of "marriage" is just societal (religiously motivated) dogma, enshrining of which in law is frankly an unforgivable assault by religious wackos on the rest of us, I cannot exactly stand by your "equivalence" as there is this little problem of sexual reproduction involved that has no place in the fountain drinking you've referred to ...
I think all these "alternate"
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an unforgivable assault by religious wackos on the rest of us
Wait, which religious wackos are these? Did I miss the recent headline "NEW US LEGISLATION ESTABLISHES 'MARRIAGE'"? Care to tell me when this "unforgiveable" law was actually established?
Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
I could point you to scholarly dissertations such as these [royalsocie...ishing.org].... but why bother. The evidence is plain as day and so easy to see that even the greatest dolt could not miss it: homosexuality occurs in all naturally heterosexual species. Dogs, cats, mice, birds ... you name it. If it was all some sort of "Satan's sweet whispers to get the weak-hearted to stray from the Holy path" as the Bible-thumping boneheads would have you believe, it would only occur in humans and its prevalence would be orders of magnitude higher amongst the "Heathen non-believers (pick your Heathen religion here)" then the "pious".
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Can't claim each others income together when applying for the mortage?
I was under the impression you could apply for a mortgage jointly, regardless of marital status. I base this solely on the fact that when I was applying for my mortgage, they knew of my girlfriend (and that we were not married) and asked if I was applying jointly or singly.
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It's certainly the case in the UK (where civil unions are legal anyway, mind you). This discussion is about the USA but I would be pretty surprised if it wasn't the case there also. Banks care about your income. If you are half of a couple both earning, that's relevant regardless of the genders involved. Banks don't lend out of a social duty, they lend because they want to make money back off you. If something makes you a better bet, they'll be considering that.
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Whereas, the reasons I hear in opposition of same-sex marriage are simple: traditional marriage is intended to incentivize childbearing, which is how we perpetuate our species, a practice without which our society will inevitably terminate
If this is our intent, we could gather a lot of extra taxes from those people who are married but unable or unwilling to conceive. Why should they get the benefit when they have no intention or are unable to fulfill the requirements of the incentive?
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What I see is that you have given sufficient thought to come up with a justification of why those people were assholes but you, holding very similar views, are actually a rather enlightened fellow. This doesn't change anything of the reality of the situation; they're both the same shit.
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Re:Angry Much? (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. Abolish marriage as a legal contract. Allow civil unions to define legal pairings, and let individual churches choose whether or not to recognize certain "marriages". Everybody wins... ...that is, everybody except those that want to force their hangups on everyone else. I say 'fuck 'em'
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It's always a little disturbing when someone defends the pointless large-scale infringement of the rights of others and tries to pass it off as "rational discourse".
Yes, you plainly state it, a bit, in your post which largely consists of defending the stances of pe
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Choose your mood:
Insightful) I can raise you level of outside the box thinking: Lifelong marriage is an invention of churches anyway, and not the basic human thing that we all think it is. In nature it’s rather unusual for humans to stay together their whole life. Usually you stay together a couple of years/decades. Since humans were small communities where everybody was there for everybody else, your children usually were raised by the whole tribe. Look at those tribes who still live like that [nationalgeographic.com]. It
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Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:5, Interesting)
Morally, I have no problem with polygomy. But when we're talking about legal contracts that bind financial assets, things can get really complicated really fast.
Wait, what? So.. legal contracts between more than two people that bind financial aspects are by definition an intractable problem? Er.. don't most corporate charters involve more than two owners or stockholders?
Many have said "Marriage is a contract", I think I'll buy that. So, why cannot Marriage also be a corporate charter? Your home is a residentially-flavored company. Polygamous households would just have more owners. Single people are sole-proprietorships. You can't marry your toaster in any legally binding sense since the toaster cannot legally participate in a contract.
There, has that solved all of the slippery-slope foolishness for everybody now? I'm seriously getting sick of all the "you can't do this because of [insert boogeyman here]" arguments. It's time for people to open the god damned closet and realize there is nothing of consequence lurking there, and go the fuck back to bed with their three wives, two husbands and a cardboard cut-out of Elvis.
Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just no. The arguments for gay marriage can transfer to polygamous marriage, sure. I don't really have a problem with that. But how in the hell do you extend that to marriage of objects?
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Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may be a troll, but I think this is sort of important. In a further posting, the OP notes that the real deciding factor is consent. Consent is required for a marriage (and many other legal agreements). This is why, for example, I shouldn't be able to marry the Eiffel Tower: it is impossible for an inanimate object to offer consent. This is also a refutation of the common claim that allowing gay marriage inevitably leads to institutionalized bestiality. That's just a gross-out scare tactic. A dog or cat (or any other kind of animal) is not legally capable of consent, so there is no danger of codifying a relationship with an animal as 'marriage'.
So, this argument would seem to permit plural marriage. I don't have a problem with that. As long as all the people in a relationship are freely, understandingly consenting to their arrangement, what's the problem with that? Yes, it causes some trouble with things like spousal medical benefits and taxes and other things that are based on single-partner relationships, but I think we can come up with ways to deal with those problems.
There's kind of an idea in this country that we all know what marriage is, and it's this one particular thing. But is it, really? When we talk about 'protecting the institution of marriage', whose idea of the institution of marriage are we protecting? Many Catholics, for example, would say that there's really no such thing as a divorce; marriage is an eternal bond made before God, and when you swear that oath 'til death do you part, you don't get to change your mind, later. Still, about half of all marriages in the US end in divorce. It seems pretty silly for straight people to beat the 'sanctity of marriage' drum when they can't even get it right, themselves, half the time.
The real key, in my mind, is to disassociate the legal agreement of marriage with the religious ceremony of marriage. I don't see any special reason why religious marriage should be recognized as a special institution by the government. Civil marriage contracts should be required for legal purposes, and should only be potentially coincidental to religious marriage. Why did we make the Mormons give up plural marriage? Their religion defined it as acceptable, but the majority religion in the US did not. For a country that supposedly separated church and state, we have some pretty suspiciously Christian rules in place.
p.s. - I realize that many 'plural marriages' today are little more than excuses for disgusting men to have sex with a lot of young girls. That's not really a plural marriage, at all, because informed consent and freedom to dissolve the contract are completely absent from those situations. I absolutely don't support the practice of enslaving young girls and calling it 'marriage'.
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Just use the SMBC line:
"If we outlaw gay marriage, then we'll end up outlawing hetero marriages, and then we'll end up outlawing marriage to Jesus, and then we'd have no priests!"
See, slippery slope arguments work both ways.
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The real key, in my mind, is to disassociate the legal agreement of marriage with the religious ceremony of marriage. I don't see any special reason why religious marriage should be recognized as a special institution by the government. Civil marriage contracts should be required for legal purposes, and should only be potentially coincidental to religious marriage.
Well said. It happen that this is exactly how things work in France (and probably a bunch of other countries). Only civil marriage has legal value. Then, the catholic church choses to grant religious marriage only to couples who are already in a civil marriage, so catholics usually marry in two steps, civil wedding, then religious.
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You are an idiot.
Lets look at marriage to an "inanimate object"(referred to as obj from here out).
Can obj visits you in the hospital?
Can obj make end of life decisions for you?
Can obj inherit your estate?
Can obj have an income, require support and/or file joint taxes with you.
Can obj adopt/bear/raise children together with you?
Can obj love you?
The answer is fuck no to each of these. And for a traditional marriage the answer is fuck yes for each of these. These are the rights/responsibilities that same sex c
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You can want to be with your toaster, but your toaster can't want to be with you.
It can in Soviet Russia!
Re:Gay rights are civil rights. (Score:4, Funny)
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Except polygamy hurts society, especially men in general.
It's better for a woman to have 1/16th of a rich man than all of a poor one.
Gay guys who just want to be with eachother doesn't hurt anyone.
Marriage to objects or animals doesn't make sense since they're not human.
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So now women can't work for themselves? Marriages are all about financial incentives?
If I had to choose between being single and marrying a woman who was only interested in my money I know what I would pick.
PS while you might have had some traction if you had tried to cite social instability due to the imbalanced gender ratios that widespread might cause, but even then that assumes that all the marriages will be 1 man + multiple women there's nothing, however, preventing marriages of 1 woman + multiple men
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So if a woman (or a man) does want 16th of a rich partner vs 100% of a poor one I'm sure she can already find such a relationship today. In fact, I hear Tiger Woods has a few positions open these days...
He's already played all 18 holes and is in the dog^H^H^Hclubhouse now.
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Umm... yes? Marriage is all about financial incentive. Or rather, about legal incentives.
Look at it from a practical point of view. Can you have kids without marriage? Countless experiment in this area tell that indeed this is possible. Can you live under one roof out of wedlock? Again, zero problem here either. Can you do all the other things that the proponents of "hetero-marriage-only" field as a reason against gay marriage? Name one that you can't do without being married. I ask you to.
So what's left? I
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Except polygamy hurts society, especially men in general.
Er no - his comparison is not logical, but let's not defend gay people by trying to demonise other groups.
Certain religious groups might hurt society (although even there, I find it laughable that men are harmed - how exactly?), but there is nothing wrong in having multiple relationships, including wanting that to be recognised legally. There are many people who practice this for non-religious reasons (more generally called things like polyamory). I s
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There are many people who practice this for non-religious reasons (more generally called things like polyamory). I speak as someone who's both bi and poly.
Hey, you speak like that Greek guy. What was his name again? Polybius?
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All the arguments for gay marriage are transferable to polygamous marriage
I see nothing inherently wrong with polygamy. Complicated, commonly embraced by cultures that use it as a form of oppression, but it's not wrong in and of itself.
and marriage to physical objects.
Well, that's the stupidest fucking thing I've heard today. It's not noon yet, so there's plenty of time for a challenger to take the crown. Let's see how the day goes.
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Marriage is a civil contract. An inanimate object (or animals, for you people who fear it going in *that* direction) cannot sign legal contracts.
As for polygamy, sell them a "mini-group" insurance policy. Seriously, these companies can't figure out a way to profit from a paradigm shift in what we consider marriage? Weak.
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Not to mention the object would be covered by homeowner insurance anyway. ;-) Unless you marry your car, and then it's the auto insurance.
Can I have a polygamous marriage with my car and the Progressive Insurance chick?
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Re:Not even fucking close to race (Score:5, Informative)
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Sure... "Feedback from our customers" (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah right. Try "Feedback from our lawyers".
Even though protection is still wholly inadequate at the federal level; microsoft does business in a number of states where anti-gay discrimination is very illegal and very actionable. I don't believe for a second that they've had a sudden change of heart in the direction of equality and fairness. More likely, legal and PR informed the decision makers that they were about to be on the losing end of some pretty hefty legal action and bad press.
I'm heterosexual. (Score:2, Insightful)
What's with the urge to tell people that you're homosexual? I don't go around telling people that I am heterosexual and usually find it inappropriate when somebody tells me their sexual orientation. What do I care? When I make a move, shoot me down when you are not interested because you're homosexual or when you're just not interested. When we work or play, I don't need to know.
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I don't get it either. I don't tell the people at work or on Xbox that i'm a pedophile.
They are participating in a virtual enclave (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm heterosexual. (Score:4, Insightful)
What's with the urge to tell people that you're homosexual?
I think it serves two purposes. First it shows you that it is a lot more common than just a 'freak occurance'. Second is that it helps others feel more comfortable about coming out. The thing to keep in mind is that a lot of homosexual people feel like they have to hide it and a good chunk of those probably have a damn good reason to do so.
Somebody else said this, but it's worth repeating: It's for their sake, not yours.
Re:I'm heterosexual. (Score:4, Insightful)
We would have a lot more to worry about if Heterosexuals were in the minority
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I don't know that it would make any difference. I'm extremely supportive of Gay rights and advocate Gay Marriage. But I don't see a problem with the position of "who cares which way you are one way or another."
If Microsoft banned the ability to post my age, gender, race, sexual orientation, preference in cars, operating systems, hair color, eye color or anything about myself I wouldn't care. Mostly because I don't view XBox Live as a community where sharing any personal information is relevant.
Then agai
Well, duh. (Go Microsoft!) (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft is based in Seattle. We tend to be quite liberal and supportive of civil rights out here. Hell, I had two jobs with two lesbian managers in a row -- in IT! How often does that happen?
Microsoft learned about this the hard way in 2005: Originally opposed to a gay rights bill in Washington state, they quickly changed position. [seattlepi.com]
Said Balmer at the time:
I read that as "our employees [probably smart, talented, and many quite senior in the company] threw a fucking fit over our ignorance."
True to their word, in 2009 Microsoft donated $100k [oregonlive.com] to support partnership rights in Washington.
I agree with other commenters that this is a civil rights issue, and seriously doubt Microsoft will screw the pooch on gay rights ever again.
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Hell, I had two jobs with two lesbian managers in a row -- in IT!
What jobs exactly? 8-) *ducks*
Exhibitionism? (Score:4, Interesting)
[...] it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community [...]
How come? Did gay people avoid joining because they couldn't state that they were gay?
Re:Exhibitionism? (Score:4, Insightful)
[...] it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community [...]
How come? Did gay people avoid joining because they couldn't state that they were gay?
If a guy complained "my wife is making me go shopping for new curtains tomorrow" nobody would blink an eye. On the other hand if a guy said "my boyfriend is making me go shopping for new curtains tomorrow" is that "stating they are gay"? Is that "exhibitionism"?
I don't think the point is that the majority of normal, reasonable gay people want to interrupt Halo games to discuss the wicked cool anal sex they had last night - I think the point is that they don't want to have to conceal perfectly routine stuff about themselves in case it "gives them away". Also, how can you realistically deal with the annoying 11 year olds shouting "faggot" at people when the official policy is that being a homosexual is something that has to be concealed?
Gender expression? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lesbian and gay are not genders. They might imply one, but they aren't genders themselves.
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Correct, that is why the article describes them as "sexual orientation". It never states anything about gender.
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The story has two links. One [xbox.com] doesn't mention gender, the other one [tekgoblin.com] does. Agreed, "gender expression" is totally off.
Curiously, the TOS seems to be confused as well, since it says "You may use the following terms to express your relationship orientation in your profile or Gamertag" and "Other terms regarding relationship orientation are not allowed" [xbox.com], which means this is only about orientation, not gender... but then it includes transgender as an orientation.
GNAA? (Score:2)
more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation
Race, nationality and sexual orientation are totally covered by the GNAA. So will they be allowed to express themselves freely on XBox live?