Character pronoun and identity discussion

Thread created as a spin-off of an Ask The Tropers thread.

There have been some recurring problems when it comes to how to refer to a character due to them being potentially transgender, such as Yamato or Snapdragon, or has other circumstances that make their gender identity/pronouns unclear. While in the past each character has gotten their own dedicated thread, the latest problem when it comes to how to interpreted Bridget has raised an opinion that there should be more of a general thread discussing these topics in case any future problems come up. Preferably we should discuss one character at a time before moving up to the next character.

Queries about references to a character's deadname are also on-topic here.

Spoilers in the thread must be tagged.

As a rule of thumb, using they/them in cases where the character's gender is unclear is acceptable.

If someone disregards consensus that was established here, particularly if a character is clearly trans and someone is trying to deny that, it's something to report on Ask The Tropers rather than here.

Spoilers in this "Resolved characters" folder are unmarked.

Edited by Bisected8 on Apr 22nd 2024 at 1:16:38 PM

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

The reason I suggested a general thread for this type of issue is because of how commonplace it's becoming recently, likely due to Society Marches On being in effect as creators are now coming out of the open to reveal some of their characters as transgender. It used to be a one-off occurrence with Yamato, but once Snapdragon, the Toaster, and now Bridget are brought up, I noticed a common pattern that deserves its own central thread at this point, given that creating separate threads for individual characters would be redundant.

Edited by CytoZytokine on Aug 10th 2022 at 12:02:37 PM

Off topic, but please, Society Marches On is a defunct trope and you're misusing it. Yes, I do care about this.

As for the game itself, I don't know much about Bridget or the circumstances surrounding both endings. The debate seems to be regarding whether or not the "flawless" ending should be taken as more canon than the "bad" ending, as the bad ending is the one that confirms Bridget is trans.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

transplanting TPPR's post from the Guilty Gear XX discussion page:

and another relevant point from ~No Username in the first ATT thread:

i think this is enough evidence to confirm that Bridget's canonical pronouns are now she/her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W5ezv_xxOk&t=1s

The whole sequence of events of her Arcade mode for reference.

Edited by IkeaHan on Aug 10th 2022 at 12:10:01 PM

Character Specific Page cleanup

To expand on , this is other factors that made people pick up on Bridget being a transwoman now:

• Bridget's bio in the official website not using any pronouns to refer to Bridget.
• Bridget's profile in-game using she/her pronouns when talking about her likes and dislikes.
• The Mars symbol that adorned Bridget's nun habit being replaced with the ⚨ symbol used as androgyne or transgender symbol, albeit positioned like Mars symbol.
• In the normal run of Arcade Mode (i.e. losing a stock before beating the Final Boss) has Bridget say to Goldlewis "Cowgirl is fine... because I'm a girl!"

The only thing in Flawless Arcade Mode that seems to "contradict" this is how Bridget says "...No matter what others think, huh?" When Ky talks about how he refuses to change even if has become a Gear. However, one could intrepid this as Bridget being more genderfluid with how she views herself as, as her previous conflict has been to prove that they are a guy even if they were Raised as the Opposite Gender, and now not having a goal to strive for.

Edited by TPPR10 on Aug 10th 2022 at 10:14:15 PM

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

Keep in mind that a lot of that is localization-specific.

In the original Japanese, Bridget is, has always been, and remains 100% male.

wouldn't it be subject to the same policy as names, though? we trope what the translation gives us. She's a Man in Japan exists for a reason after all, although it's not usually the same circumstances as this.

The translation policy only covers names. (And for good reason - just because a trope is removed in localization doesn't mean it can't still be troped.)

What is this based on? Because I've heard similar claims but with no actual text from that version to back it up.

Also keep in mind, pronouns differ greatly in non-english languages, many times not even being gendered. What we think of as "gendered" pronouns in Japanese are way more universal/androgynous than the way we treat he/her in English.

Edited by IkeaHan on Aug 10th 2022 at 1:07:49 AM

Character Specific Page cleanup

that's fair, but not particularly germane to this discussion, i think.

maybe we need a crowner to expand the policy to cover pronouns (or not). it would probably be beneficial to have a standard for characters that have different pronouns and gender identities in localization than in their native language. it seems logical to me that it would follow the precedent of the name policy, being similarly personal and similarly central to the character's identity, but i guess it's fair to say that pure logic does not policy make.

Japanese language when compared to English language is not as strict when it comes to "genders", for lack of a better word.

Example, Bridget's calls herself "Otokonoko" at the end of the normal Arcade Mode where the English versions just has her call herself "girl. While the term "otokonoko" usually refers to the character being a crossdressing male, Otokonoko Genre does point out that this is also used to talk about transgender issues. English doesn't really have a same kind of word for Bridget to use.

Japanese Pronouns also have the thing where while many of them are gendered, specific pronouns can be used by opposite gender to express how they feel about themselves. Bokukko is a "A girl who uses grammatically masculine pronouns to refer to herself", and there are some effeminate men who use female pronouns. I remember someone saying that Faust, Guilty Gear's resident Fighting Clown, uses feminine pronouns to refer to himself.

Edited by TPPR10 on Aug 10th 2022 at 10:38:03 PM

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

If that's true then I suppose this could be a case where the pronoun depends on which localization we're referring to, but that feels like it could get complicated.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Otokonoko is a tough concept to translate, but how the GGST localization handled Bridget is basically an exercise in how not to handle it, as kinda-but-not-really-maybe turning him into a trans woman creates more problems than it solves.

(I'll be sticking to male pronouns for Bridget for consistency. Not only am I not entirely sold on Bridget being trans in GGST, I'm talking about older versions of him as well, where using "she" would make little sense.)

• The English website and promotional material played the "name as a pronoun" game, as if they were afraid of committing one way or the other. JP!Bridget's promotional material and in-game profile both definitively state him to be male. (Personal pronouns are a red herring.)

• There are multiple endings, of which only one has Bridget (most likely) start to identify as female.^note The "most likely" is in there because it's only one line of dialogue and it's ambiguous to the point where it can be quietly walked back if it has to, but we know the localizers' intent.

• Bridget's backstory is about him being forcibly raised as a girl against his wishes. Unfortunate Implications abound. (Ever heard of David Reimer?)

• In the '00s, Bridget was very well known for being "that guy who looks like a girl." (He's the former Trope Namer for Unsettling Gender-Reveal for a reason.) Although his out-of-fandom "fame" for this has lessened over the years (thanks, Astolfo) he is still well known for this among fighting game fans. Changing that makes him less distinctive as a character.

"Bridget is only trans in the localisation!!" has been thrown up by a lot of folk who're upset that she's confirmed as a trans girl, but it's not true. Ambiguity in her pronouns in promotional material can be chalked up to the fact that her accepting herself as a trans girl is major spoilers in her arcade mode story, not uncertainty.

It's possibly RalleyBot simply heard this being repeated and reported that in good faith, though.

This twitter thread attempts to summarise everything in regards to the endings

The cliff notes are:

• The GG series doesn't have "Bad Endings", just detailed or less detailed ones.
• The flawless ending suggests that Bridget might be worried about coming out as a trans girl because (to summarise her lore), it would undermine the acceptance she'd gained for asserting her assigned gender at birth in previous games (which was discrimination for being an identical twin). Not that she isn't trans.

For trans people Bridget has been the goto example of "trans coded character with a contrived backstory to explain why they can't possibly be trans (but we still love our problematic fave)". Every trans person I've seen or spoken to (myself included) is thrilled she's become the poster girl for that being fixed (much in the same way that Testement is now canonically going by they/them).

With respect, the comparison to David Reimer is actually quite vile (and misses the entire point of what was horrible with the situation), and carries a lot of (transphobic) baggage.

Edited by Bisected8 on Aug 10th 2022 at 11:18:41 AM

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

First, I never said "bad ending." GGST doesn't have "bad endings." If Bridget were only to stay male in bad endings, this wouldn't be as much of an argument.

Second, the Japanese version is clear about him being a man, so yes this is a localization change.

Third, I said "most likely" because it's only one line in one ending. There's just not enough to go with within the actual content of the story.

—-

Edit responding to your edit: You actually make part of my point for me, in this is very much the fans seeing a character as trans-coded and pushing for it even when the evidence isn't completely there. If not for the other endings, I'd say it's clear as day that EN!Bridget is trans, but because of them I can't really say that; because of the "all endings are canon" philosophy, Bridget is stuck in the weird middle zone as being both a man and a woman.

Edit responding to your edit #2: I feel the comparison to Reimer is apt, as it's the best known example of someone being born male and raised as a girl from infancy. The circumstances were quite different, but the Unfortunate Implications still exist.

Edited by RallyBot2 on Aug 10th 2022 at 6:31:37 AM

When in doubt use They/Them,saves a lot of argument

New theme music also a box

That doesn't really help in this case, since no matter which version or ending, Bridget isn't a "they." The end result is that both sides essentially lose the argument (as we just saw with Snap.)

Bridget is transgender and they/them is an acceptable and non offensive,it's common sense,no?

New theme music also a box

If a trans woman says she uses she/her, then using they/them is misgendering.

They/them and other gender neutral language is fine for situations where you aren't sure, but when you should know someone's pronouns it's as rude as not using their name.

---

Anyways, once again, no Bridget coming out as trans is not a creation of the translators.

The original Japanese line translated as "Cowgirl is fine... because I'm a girl!" has the same meaning.

The scene in question, for good measure.

Edited by Bisected8 on Aug 10th 2022 at 11:37:22 AM

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer

I know a few trans people who are offended by being called they/them. They want to be seen as a specific gender, not a compromise.

(Everyone's mileage may vary, fictional characters are not real life people, and all the other usual disclaimers.)

That's not a trans thing so much as it is an otokonoko thing. As I said above, it's hard to translate.

Edited by RallyBot2 on Aug 10th 2022 at 6:39:10 AM

Its really the first time I'm hearing of They/Them being offensive as the whole point point of said pronouns is that they're not deliberately misgendering

But since it seems that Bridget uses she/her pronouns then let's continue to use those then

New theme music also a box

For going with they/them, mainly because Testament is also in the series who is non-binary and is the character who uses those pronouns.

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

That isn't as set in stone as we think, which is the whole reason we're having this discussion.

I don't see how Testament's pronouns are relevant to Bridget's.

If you do not like Bridget being trans, you are free to do so, and I'm not going to "debate" the merits of it.

The fact she is canonically trans is not, however, debatable. She comes out as a trans girl in-story, her bio uses she/her, and despite your repeated claims, it's not something added to the English translation (the onus is on you to prove otherwise).

I will reiterate that making a comparison to Reimer is in poor taste (and resembles a lot of attempts to undermine trans kids who're being allowed to live as their preferred gender). Please just don't.

TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer