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Striving for equality: Why Bulbagarden is taking a pro-LGBTQ stance

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TeraDyne

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No, don't compare being homosexual or transsexual to being part-dragon. :/

Because dragons don't exist, and there's no way you were born a dragon in a human's body, sorry.

Can you prove that? Can you prove someone is actually male in a female body (or vice versa)? Is there physical proof that someone is gay, bi, straight or otherwise? No, as it's something only that individual can know for sure. That's what makes it so difficult for some people to understand those concepts, especially if they themselves haven't felt that way before.

Regardless, my point stands. Bullying and hate take on many forms, and all of it needs to be acknowledged as a whole rather than placing one of the larger problems higher than the others. Whether it's racism, sexism, homophobia, or even something that currently lacks a label, hate as a whole needs to be stopped. As I said in my other post, I feel the original announcement should have been written in a way that does acknowledge all aspects instead of putting homophobia out front.
 

JamieMcG

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Hey there,

My name is Jamie McGonnigal and I am a Pokemon voice actor who is openly gay and happily engaged to be married next year. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking this stance and for helping young LGBTQ people know that there are safe spaces for them. This is more important than you may think or ever even know.

Best,

Jamie
 

HeinousActsZX

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Hey.
I'm pro-gay, a little bit effeminate, and really don't know whether I'm heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, bisexual, asexual or what.
I've gotten a lot of gruff about being gay at my school, though.
I'm sometimes scared that I am gay, because I know that if I am, there are people out there who will hate me for no other reason than that.
But I've always held out hope that someday it would get better, so everyone could feel safe
So I want to say that reading the announcement and people's subsequent responses made me cry tears of pure joy.
So thanks Bulba staff and other posters in this thread.
It's people like you who make the world a better place.
 

Satoshi-chan

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Hey.
I'm pro-gay, a little bit effeminate, and really don't know whether I'm heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, bisexual, asexual or what.
I've gotten a lot of gruff about being gay at my school, though.

I was pretty much the same way growing up as well. I was always a bit effeminate, and I would catch hell for it in school. I never understood what was the issue, though, but so many people around me (especially in school) felt that they needed to go out of their way to call me gay, just because I was kinda a girly boy.

I'm sometimes scared that I am gay, because I know that if I am, there are people out there who will hate me for no other reason than that.
But I've always held out hope that someday it would get better, so everyone could feel safe

Maybe you are, and maybe you aren't (or maybe you're bi, and like both). Just follow your feelings, and eventually you will find out for yourself. The most important thing to do is to surround yourself with great people. Choose your friends wisely, because true friends will not care if you are gay, bi, straight, or if you devote yourself to a life of celibacy. True friends love you for who you are. From the point in my early teens when I finally realized that maybe I am bisexual, I would probably have fallen apart mentally if it wasn't for friends.



So I want to say that reading the announcement and people's subsequent responses made me cry tears of pure joy.
So thanks Bulba staff and other posters in this thread.
It's people like you who make the world a better place.

YAY! That's just what we like to hear, because everybody deserves to have a happy and fulfilling life, and everybody deserves to have a safe refuge where they can be themselves without worrying about some of the crap that some members of society like to dish out.

Keep your chin up, and I hope that your life is a wonderful journey.
 

Reshiram Lv. 9 and under

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And to the religious guys: I sympathize, but just let it go. There are far worse things in the world to be concerned about, and LGBTQ concerns isn't one of them. It doesn't matter if you think they're in the right or just making noise; fundies and radicals are even worse for all religions, and I think anyone that knows about history would agree with me.

As the religious guy who posted directly after you, you're totally right. For me, homosexuality is not an issue (I'm not so big a fan of gay marriage as it exists now, but if it passes like this in more states, good for the gays. They totally deserve it). I also think there are much, much more dangerously immoral things out there, like abortion and fundamentalism.

I may disapprove of their actions, but those actions can't stop them from being fundamentally good people. Also, keeping them from getting married won't discourage those actions. I think there's a compromise that needs to be reached on this issue.
Why is anyone's choice of partner an "issue" that requires your approval or compromise? Why do you even feel the need to proactively announce your judgment of who other people should be dating? Fairly presumptuous of you.

I have a list of criteria a prospective girlfriend of yours must meet for me to approve of the relationship, if you'd care to hear it.

I'm talking about compromise and approval by the world in general, not my own personal judgement.
I was just trying to present what I think is a very conservative-moderate viewpoint, so that other, more volatile right-wings don't butt in with more extreme and narrow-minded ideas (Looking at the thread, that fear may thankfully have been mostly unfounded).
In fact, I'll go ahead and turn the tables to say that A) it's pretty judgmental of you to assume that because I'm religious, I must be a pompous ass who hates homosexuals, and B) I'd love to hear those criteria, but I'm actually more or less asexual by nature, so HA!

So, to recap, Gays=Alright. Religion=Totally Alright But Please Keep It Clean, Discrimination and Bullying=Not At All Alright. This Recent Stance by Bulbagarden=Thumbs Up.
Excellent work on all fronts.
Well, I've pretty heavily violated my blood-oath to never debate on the internet, so if you don't mind, I'm going to go discuss Keldeo's Resolution Form. So long, and thanks for all the judgement.
 
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Kman555

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First of all, I would like to say Kudos to Bulbagarden for the stance they took. To any of those who claim that homosexuality is a "disease", I only have this to present to you. It states that studies have shown that genetics do play a large part in determining sexual orientation, and to "cure" someone of being gay could be similar to those who would try to "cure" someone for being black, or for having green eyes, etc. There are some things that we cannot help, and no human being deserves to be treated with cruelty and injustice for any reason at all. In this day and age, it is high time that we all simply learned to understand each other and leave each other to be the way that they were made.
 

8BitPoipole

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Religion is more alright than homosexuality? Oh HELL no. Religious people choose what they believe in, but gay people have no choice in who they are.
 
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DearZeus

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I am another gay dude who's just signed up to express my thanks. I've been reading the debate over the past couple days, but, really I'm just glad a forum is willing to take a stance against hate. I don't think everywhere needs to be nannied and told what to do, but this is something that really does impact people. Hopefully some of our fellow gay trainers won't feel so stigmatized and can continue on their journeys in peace.
 

skinst

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No, don't compare being homosexual or transsexual to being part-dragon. :/

Because dragons don't exist, and there's no way you were born a dragon in a human's body, sorry.

Can you prove that? Can you prove someone is actually male in a female body (or vice versa)? Is there physical proof that someone is gay, bi, straight or otherwise? No, as it's something only that individual can know for sure. That's what makes it so difficult for some people to understand those concepts, especially if they themselves haven't felt that way before.

Chemically and genetically, yes, you can physically prove that you are of a certain sexual orientation to a degree. As for gender however, no you cannot.

However... I think if someone were part dragon it'd be able to be genetically proven. :x
 

TeraDyne

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Can you prove that? Can you prove someone is actually male in a female body (or vice versa)? Is there physical proof that someone is gay, bi, straight or otherwise? No, as it's something only that individual can know for sure. That's what makes it so difficult for some people to understand those concepts, especially if they themselves haven't felt that way before.

Chemically and genetically, yes, you can physically prove that you are of a certain sexual orientation to a degree. As for gender however, no you cannot.

However... I think if someone were part dragon it'd be able to be genetically proven. :x

Not genetically, no. Otherkin are beings of another race born into a human body, not "part-dragon" in the genetic sense. I apologize for not clarifying that in my original reply.
 

Fig

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Drop the otherkin talk, people. It's not going to get anywhere, and this isn't the place for it. Not sure there is a place for it on Bulba, really.
 

TeraDyne

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Drop the otherkin talk, people. It's not going to get anywhere, and this isn't the place for it. Not sure there is a place for it on Bulba, really.

Very well.

On another note… Not meaning to be rude, but if dissent and debate are barred as far as the rule goes, why are the announcement and news topics allowed to remain unlocked? There really isn't a point to them staying open other than having people congratulate the staff and show their support for the rule, and leaving it open seems to only spark problems in one form or another.
 

Fig

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We will be closing them shortly (we don't want to have to keep monitoring these threads durign the B2W2 release madness) but for now it's been useful.
 

Goodbye Blue Monday

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Just to clarify something: There actually is a lot of proof that transgender identities are a thing. They've done brain scans that show that transgender people's brains are closer to the brains of cisgender (non-trans) people of the gender they identify as, rather than the gender they were assigned at birth. So a FTM person basically has a "male brain" and an MTF person a "female brain."

Also: Why do people keep insisting that this shouldn't matter because it's not Pokemon-related? I have never been on a single-topic-focused board that did not have other "off-topic" boards. I've discussed soccer on music forums, politics on Harry Potter forums, etc. Also, we do have a shipping forum, and some of the more popular ships in the fandom (such as Ash/Gary) are same-sex. And a fanfiction forum, and what, are we just supposed to tell people that they're not allowed to post slash there? So yes, it is kind of Pokemon-related, or at least Pokemon-fandom-related. (I could also make an argument for queer themes in the Pokemon anime/video games themselves but that's getting way off-topic.)

Lastly, for those asking why we need to specifically mention this rather than have a generalized policy on discrimination: The problem is that doesn't work. When you don't spell it out specifically, a lot of people don't get it. There are a lot of anti-gay people out there who think they're somehow not part of the problem if they're not beating up gay people or calling them "fags" or "dykes," but just saying stuff like "well golly gosh I think gayness is weird and immoral but I'll tolerate the presence of gay people around me!" But those kinds of statements are still very much part of the problem. As an LGBT person who has had friends in the past who were like that, I can say firsthand that you can't really love the sinner but hate the sin, when the "sin" is very much part of who we are. I can't even go to those "friends" with stuff as mundane as relationship advice most of the time, because it's "gay-related" and therefore opening me up for their moral condemnation. Their "hating the sin" is getting in the way of them truly being a friend to and loving "the sinner."
 
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Satoshi-chan

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Just to clarify something: There actually is a lot of proof that transgender identities are a thing. They've done brain scans that show that transgender people's brains are closer to the brains of cisgender (non-trans) people of the gender they identify as, rather than the gender they were assigned at birth. So a FTM person basically has a "male brain" and an MTF person a "female brain."

And also, cases like this happen as well. Man Admitted to Hospital for Kidney Stone, Discovers He’s a Woman - ABC News
 

Goodbye Blue Monday

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Just to clarify something: There actually is a lot of proof that transgender identities are a thing. They've done brain scans that show that transgender people's brains are closer to the brains of cisgender (non-trans) people of the gender they identify as, rather than the gender they were assigned at birth. So a FTM person basically has a "male brain" and an MTF person a "female brain."

And also, cases like this happen as well. Man Admitted to Hospital for Kidney Stone, Discovers He’s a Woman - ABC News

That person is intersex, which is a separate issue from being transgender (which has to do with your mental conception of your gender, not your biological sex). But yes, those people exist, too.
 

Synre

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Not really interested in joining the debate here, but just wanted to say thanks to the staff for doing this. I've tried a few times to get this sort of thing going on Smogon(along with stopping stuff like racial slurs and that sort of thing) without much success, which obviously has been pretty frustrating. It's heartening to see you guys having taken steps where we've failed.
 

Goodbye Blue Monday

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I also wanted to say that as someone who was introduced to the concept of homosexuality when I was six, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "buuuuuut I'll have to explain it to my kids!!" argument. Why does explaining what it means to be gay or bi have to mean telling them the birds and the bees? Kids know what romance, marriage and dating are. When my mom explained it to me, it was basically "Sometimes boys want to date other boys instead of girls, sometimes girls want to date other girls instead of boys. And some people will tell you that that's wrong but you shouldn't listen to them." It was several years before I understood what sex was, and many, many more years before I learned about how gay people have sex. (Specifically, I didn't figure out how gay men had sex until high school, and I don't think I realized how lesbians had sex until college, around the time when I discovered my own attraction to other women.) Explaining "the gays" to your kids without telling them what sex is is NOT rocket science, people.

And as Iteru said, if you really are concerned with your kids being exposed to that content, that's why Bulba requires parental permission for people under 13 to sign up. Over that age, most kids have already started having crushes and coming to terms with their sexualities anyway, and have reached a level of intellectual maturity where they should start learning how to think for themselves rather than have everything they read pass their parents' approval first.

(ETA: Reviewed the thread and realized I was crediting the wrong person for the earlier post. Sorry about that!)
 
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Guillaume Piché

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I also want to thank you for your stance on Anti-Discrimination. I think it's very important that you make it clear that it doesn't have it's place here (or anywhere for that matter). I also had to register to write this message as I have been using Bulbapedia for very long, but never felt like I had to register. I usually let the angry people make comments, but I had to say something today. Thanks again
 
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