“It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that,” as if that gives them certain rights. It’s not more than a whine. It has no meaning. It has no purpose. It has no reason to be respected as a phrase.” — Stephen Fry

Words Don’t Cause Violence: But Offended People Do

Offensiveness is a delicate thing. Some people aren’t offended by anything. Some people are only offended by the most aggregious actions. Some people are offended by things for highly personal reasons. Some people get offended when they think it might hurt other people.

And then some people get offended over a single joke in a full-length game which has no bearing on the gameplay and was inserted as a thank you to a donator who helped make the game happen.

Obsidian has become the latest victim of such offense, after a player stumbled across a tombstone joke, written by one of their Kickstarter backers, jokingly referring to a man who flung himself off a cliff after discovering, in a drunken stupor, that he had slept with another man.

The joke in question from the game Pillars of Eternity, developed by Obsidian.

The offended parties argue that this image promotes hatred of transgender individuals, and have demanded it be removed from the game entirely. Some even go as far to argue that it endorses the murder of trans individuals (despite the fact that the only person to die in the story is the pruportedly cisgender man who killed himself).

This is possibly the pettiest incidence of crying foul at a game in recent history. Not only are these arguments only true if the joke is interpreted a certain way (since as many have pointed out, there isn’t any way to confirm the woman in question is trans, or if it was simply the drunken man mistaking a cisgender man for a woman or any other number of situations) but they are demanding these changes when this has no bearing on the game. It is an incredibly tiny portion of a very large game.

Critic Jim Sterling claims the poem has “gotten trans people murdered”. In a game where, ironically, you murder a bunch of stuff all the time. This is apparently not as big a problem as a joke where only the supposedly trans individual makes it out alive.

“Well then there should be no problem changing it!” You say. Actually, that is where the problem is. If this had been a half hearted joke inserted by developers, you may have a point (emphasis on may). But this is a backer reward. An individual donated money to help support the creation of this game, and as a thank you, the developer allowed them to write a joke for the game within certain guidelines. The backer made the poem, the developer approved it, and put it in the game. To remove or alter it would be a backhand to that person, and indicate to them that a bunch of people on Twitter who may not even have an interest in the game are more important than someone who donated a considerable sum to make their game happen.

Obsidian has not released an official statement of if they are going to do anything about the poem, though some believe they’re likely to cave simply based on history. Considering that Obsidian were also the creators of South Park: The Stick of Truth, I have more faith that they will wave it off.

For the record, it is disgusting and simplistic to claim jokes like this are what get trans people murderer. It minimized the actual struggles of trans individuals not to mention humanity in general to even insinuate that someone could see this joke and take it as an advocacy for a brutal crime. Words do not cause crimes. Actually, I take that back. Words can cause crimes — when offended individuals take it too far and turn to violence against those who say the words they don’t like. Historically it is the censorship of words that has caused the most violence. Governments who make people who speak against them disappear. Hateful people who threaten those who dare speak up for themselves. It is never the person making the so called offensive joke.

Violence, in itself, is an act of censorship. It is the permanent silencing of an individual. Those who oppose censorship at its core are not going to engage in violence, let alone support it. You needn’t look to far to find the same people who claim to be against violence, yet are for censorship, are often very violent themselves.

A prominent critic of #GamerGate endorsing death camps for those who support it.

Take the joke for what it is: a joke. Those who tell jokes like this are not violent individuals. The only joke a violent person is going to tell is one which is inherently violent in itself. But this joke is not violent. It refers to no living person, former or current. It pokes fun at an awkward and ambiguous situation in which a person so embarrassed decided to fly himself off a cliff (which is about as tame a death can get in a joke, or so say those who believe telling people to set themselves on fire is funny).

Anti-harassment provocateur Randi Harper gleefully telling critics to set themselves on fire.

But don’t demand it be removed. It serves nothing, helps no one, and puts a developer in a situation where they have to either betray their most loyal fans to appease you, who claim they are bigots endorsing murder otherwise. Or they stick with their fans (the most righteous solution) but you do everything in your power to shatter their name.

Meanwhile trans people ARE actually murdered with alarming frequency by people who will likely never even see this joke nor any other joke, and already have it in their mind that this is an appropriate reaction. So why not dedicate your time towards fighting that in a productive way. You might start by teaching people that trans individuals are just like everyone else. Starting by not treating them like delicate flowers who can’t handle the slightest negativity, and instead treating them like you’d treat every other human being. If we can’t joke about others and ourselves, this keeps us apart, because it makes us think “Why are they special? Why are they different?” It compartmentalizes people and makes us see the groups we’re not allowed to joke about as abnormal. “I joke about myself all the time, and my friends joke about me, and I joke about them, but I can’t joke about this person? Why?”

Let me tell you a story. In my youth, I came out of the closet as a lesbian. The same time, I found out I have Jewish heritage. When I told a friend of mine, he blushed and said “I have a joke, but it’s really offensive, so I don’t know if I want to tell you”. I told him to let it out, because my curiousity is powerful. He said “So, that technically makes you a kyke dyke?” I laughed. I’m still laughing. It was offensive but it was so witty (and of course, it’s a stupid pun, so it’s automatically funny) and I started telling the joke to everyone. It didn’t diminish my identity in any way. I’m not less Jewish, I’m no less lesbian. If anything, it reaffirmed it, and made it stronger. It made me confident in my identity. So you can choose to let a joke get to you, and make you feel worthless. Or, you can choose to take it as an affirmation. That same friend happened to have a grandmother who we found out was a Nazi Youth — the Nazi vs. Jew jokes were nevereneding. We equally took the piss out of each other. And it was glorious. That’s how you get real true equality. Not through censorship. But through understanding, and a tolerance so strong that you can share even the nastiest jokes and wear them with pride.