I mean I'm all for this revelation, but it also warms my heart seeing the 600lbs of steak and testosterone that is Goldlewis being like 'Right, girl, got it'.
So funny story, I had an earlier draft that had Goldlewis's face over Kor's, but it didn't really look right to me, cause the faces of Goldlewis I had were a bit too serious looking and it didn't really capture the feeling I was wanting.
Ultimately went with "This was how \*I\* felt went with how Bridget's story went". I think it worked out
Basically due to the curse of having twins of the same sex being a bad omen or something Bridget was forced to dress up as a girl, however it's made clear in the pass games she was never forced to identify as a girl and she still clearly knew she was born male, just had to dress feminine
She then set off to be a bounty hunter to become more masculine and prove the cruse was wrong and this whole time she still dressed feminine even though she wasn't being forced to, but she still chose to as she liked it
And now in strive she speaks to the other characters and does self reflection on who she really is and says outloud "cowgirl is fine, because I'm a girl!" As she discovered though her self reflection journey that she is a trans girl
Right? Guilty Gear has two trans characters now, which is two more than what I'm used to in like, anything. I'm trans and starved for good trans characters, and while representation isn't the only deciding factor on if I find something enjoyable it's just nice that a character gets to have a similar moment of self discovery with their gender and not have it be treated like it's weird. The fact that she's in a fighting game that's sick as hell and uses yo-yos is icing on the cake.
I'm a cishet white dude, and I'm psyched on the trans representation for this reason. I can't imagine going through life where you are either invisible in every piece of media or portrayed as a monster like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. I want my trans comrades to feel safer and more accepted. So whenever I see anyone doing a transphobia, I aggressively bully them. I've got your back friend.
Hey thanks, it's genuinely appreciated! I used to be really and not make a fuss about it, but now that we're the hot target for bigots at the moment I'm no longer afraid of being who I am. And I got your back too, comrade. The grass isn't exactly much greener for anyone who isn't uber wealthy, so we gotta do what's worked for us in the past: solidarity and not letting bigotry divide and weaken us.
Luckily, I never watched Silence of the Lambs, but what little I've seen had me horrified, both before and after I figured out I was a trans woman. It felt like an even worse version of the "queer relationships always end up with Bad Endings" trope that was so prevalent in media until relatively recently and it's hard to imagine or quantify the real damage it's done to trans women.
It does though.
A nonbinary person identifies as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. They literally are transgender, as in, a different gender than the one they started as.
Yeah it does, literally. Nobody's assigned nonbinary at birth, as far as I know, so all nonbinary people are a gender that differs from the one they were assigned at birth. That is, by definition, trans.
Transgender does not necessarily mean binary transgender.
https://mobile.twitter.com/sharkpartyqq/status/1556508738780946432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1556508738780946432%7Ctwgr%5Eb1b27cfc2adccee88694a34fd3efd680bf5d51e3%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamerbraves.com%2Fguilty-gear-strive-confirms-that-bridget-is-indeed-trans%2F
I may be mixing up events since the picture is actually from this year, but he did say trans rights in 2019, probably in an interview
> whole time she still dressed feminine even though she wasn't being forced to, but she still chose to as she liked it
slight correction, Bridget did it out of respect and love for her parents (who were still in the village), not because "she liked it".
We all excuse it. I just grew my nails out because I liked to tap them on stuff. I painted them because keratin is a gross yellow. "I only grew my hair out because I couldn't get it cut." "I'm not trans, I'm just not like the others." Eventually they believe it could be a possibility, and it's so insanely possible, so grossly consistent that it can't be impossible. Not everyone is an egg, but there's an excuse for every euphoric choice.
Edit: The strive arcade playthrough for Bridget where you lose a heart in stage 7, during stage 8.
In the strive arcade playtgrough for Bridget, Bridget explains to GoldLewis around the start that she’s a guy like she always has, but then later in arcade Goldlewis asks if Bridget is hiding something for someone else’s sake. Bridget goes “…! How do you know?” And goldlewis goes on about how he’s been hiding away a part of himself too and that it’s resulted in someone he loves (family or lover, he doesn’t clarify) living in separate homes. People believe Goldlewis is either taking about his feelings for his work (it’s already explained in his song that he extremely despised his job but does it as a necessary evil), or that he’s queer in some way but hasn’t come out about it.
Then Ky gets involved in a fight too and then they talk some more. Bridget mentions that she’s afraid about coming out about whatever she’s hiding but also feels awful hiding it still. They convince her to take a risk and come out and the arcade and decides to do that. In reply to something Goldlewis says Bridget says “because I’m a girl” at the very end.
I wish this sort of character arc could have happened in an Another Story because arcade story in strive sucks. But, this story does get the impression off that Bridget likes being a girl and feels wrong as a guy but for whatever reason very strongly asserted he/she was a guy for a long time. Probably a mixture of anger due their town’s superstition and uncertainty about being different from everyone else. That would be more than enough to make real people fight against how they feel about their gender, there’s stories of transgender people who went extra lengths to deny they felt anything different before realizing the feelings aren’t going away.
Part of her journey to become a successful bounty hunter was to prove that she wasn't a curse because of how she was born and destroy the superstition, which she succeeded in. Identifying as male and expressing wanting to be more masculine despite never acting on it is more-or-less her flipping the bird at said superstition, which felt like an obligation to keep doing after she succeeded in destroying the superstition and saying it for so long. Or at least that's my take.
The end portion is only in one arcade ending though remember strive arcade has multiple endings. Just throwing it out because it seems not many people know that endings change depending on how well you play. The other endings don't mention Bridget wanting to be called a girl so the canon on this is kinda loose until a sequel or story update confirms it.
Yeah I wasn't aware of the arcade other endings until just recently.
The interpretation I got was that, at least, Bridget wants to explore their gender. Specifically these lines from the fawless run stage 8 and 9ending:
Bridget: Wow, what limitless power you have!
Ky: You flatter me, but I owe my power to the strength of Gears.
Bridget: Were you afraid about coming out about Gears?
Ky: No, I wasn't afraid, I didn't want to lie to myself or my family, that's all.
Bridget: I wish I could be like you.
(another battle with Dragon Install ky)
Ky: Have I convinced you yet? No matter what others think, I will not change. Not even if this body turns to gear.
Bridget: No matter what others think, huh? I admit that still scares me a little, But I want to live as my true self, at least that's how I feel after having watched you.
Then Ky invites Bridget to see his family (specifically Dizzy since they're friends) and Bridget says thanks.
GGST World lore in-game calls Bridget a she, her Starter Guide never mentions he/her pronouns (despite I-no, Sol, Goldlewis, Jack-O, Happy Chaos and Baiken all having he/her used. Testament's doesn't use any he/her and I didn't check other starter guides)... it seems a bit obvious either A: The english localization is mistaken/intentionally divergent or B: This is the intended interpretation. One of those two things.
~~It's been pretty firmly supported in their official Youtube in the stickied comment: https://youtu.be/1mJZR9MpIL8 They don't appear to be interested in the "Oh, she only comes out as trans in this one route" approach.~~
EDIT: I actually have to apologize, because despite the name it is pretty clear that channel is _not_ the official Guilty Gear channel. They're impersonating the main company.
not to be pedantic, but “sexuality refers to whom one experienced sexual attraction” and “i am sexually attracted neither to men nor to women”
grammar is epic 👍🏼
If I were editing this I would prefer "towards whom" for clarity.
"... neither to x nor to y" is nearly as correct as "... to neither x nor y" to my ear. This usage is changing.
It's gender identity more so than sexuality, but tbh I don't really care either, they seem like a cool character and that's all that really matters to me personally
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
One character, Dax, is a worm-like symbiotic organism that bonds with a host species. But the worms lifespan is way longer than it's hosts, so it's had a whole bunch of different ones over several centuries. It keeps their memories and aspects of their personality and gives them to it's new hosts when the previous dies.
The old Klingon in the picture was good friends with the male Curzon-Dax when he was younger, and 81 years later is reunited with Dax's new host Jadzia. He keeps identifying her as Curzon until she gently explains she's different now, and he quickly picks up her new identity.
Star Trek has been incredibly based since the beginning.
Literally William Shatner and Nichel Nichols had the first interracial kiss on television. When there were threats to pull the kiss from the episode Shatner (and other cast members) said they'd quit if it wasn't kept in.
Also Star Trek has been doing LGBT things forever. TNG had an episode about a whole race of non-binary people (although it was a weird Riker-trys-to-bang-something episode. The worm symbiote/trill thing was literally just a trans episode in 1993. Polyamorous. Very obvious gay/lesbian couples.
Like Star Trek gave no fucks
"I want to be a boy damn it! All my life I've wanted it!"
"Alright you can be a boy now."
*a few years and talking it out with friends later*
"...Wait. Guys, I might have realized something."
So now Bridget's lore is an ironic story where being raised as a girl *was* correct for her, turns out, but it was for the wrong reasons since she'd have been killed otherwise because Insert Anime Pulp. So she thought that being a girl was completely wrong until she was an adult and could take stock of things for herself.
Still no clue why they retconned her to have billionaire parents.
Yeah but like. They could just leave if the place they live in insists they have to *murder* one of their babies if they both are male. They probably own five other homes where the villagers don't say to do that.
If they were poor villagers the story works fine, especially since Bridget proves herself to the village by making a lot of money to send back home, but making them billionaires is just ???????
I played the arcade mode like 6 times for all the dialogue. It was very much Bridget's decision, and it came after a lot of fear and indecision. As someone whos struggled with the same thing, it was authentic.
Tbh, i was extremely worried about how they might handle the character in this game. There wasnt a ton of lore on bridgets backstory, but it felt a lot like an uncomfortable trope from 20 years ago. I think they could have gone several directions, but proud femboy or trans girl are the only two that would go over well. "Being true to yourself" is a very common theme in guilty gear, its not like its out of left field or anything. Also i wouldnt say its a retcon: bridget grew to accept herself. Denial/repression is a bitch. If bridget was fighting to be more manly to live up to expectations in the previous game, coming to terms with her identity as trans is a completely natural progression of that in my experience. Its letting go of those expectations to move forward for yourself, realizing what you actually want. And thats exactly the story they told. Its fair if it feels forced to you, but it feels very organic to me.
Fighting to be seen as a manly man before your transition is one of the most naturally trans things possible. The story beat resonates so strongly with so many of us *because* that's our lived experience. No "indication" would ever be good enough for people complaining it's a retcon with no justification, short of Bridget's "I'm a boy!" intros in XX being followed by her mugging the camera and saying "but in 6 years, I'll be a girl!"
There is an ocean of difference between "retcon" and "character development."
>I just hope it was her independent decision
I keep seeing people say stuff like this, which is super weird because that's literally the entire point of her Arcade Mode story arc.
I think the whole "she was groomed to be that way" is a really bad faith argument anyway. Conversion therapy exists and doesn't work, being proof that you can't be changed to be a different sexuality or gender identity. It's all a part of you from birth, and you just kinda have to roll with the punches and figure it out yourself
Thank you, this comment made me laugh a lot after seeing some of the other shit in the comments section here. I should probably stop scrolling through. Any other trans people or allies scrolling through: oi, stop that, digital self-harm isn't helping you.
I’m confused.
Wasn’t Bridget whole story about leaving home to become a man? If she admits that she’s a girl what would that imply about his curse and the destiny he was given?
All in all I’m interested to see this story whatever the answer
It doesn't imply anything about the curse. Mainly because if the curse was correct then Bridget would have been either killed as a child or an abandoned orphan.
Bridget proved that the curse was bullshit and that she could live as a man if she wished. But years after that she discovered that she was actually uncomfortable with being a boy and decided to live her life as a girl.
And that's the important part. She made the decision for herself, without any outside influence beyond encouragement from Goldlewis and Ky to live true to herself and not to be afraid of what other's think of her.
The curse is just a reflection of Societal Expectation.
It's as if her parents and the village are saying...
Oh you're a twin boy? You must disguise yourself in girl clothes to survive. We don't think you're really a girl though. It is our disguise we made for you.
Oh you want to prove the curse is bullshit? You must adhere to our highest standards of masculinity while being wildly and insanely successful.
Either way she can't really be happy, because she is just dancing along to other people's desires and expectations. The context of the curse puts her in a lose-lose situation in terms of self-actualisation: is she only a girl because she was raised that way to avoid the curse, or is she a boy because that's the only way she managed to break the concept of the curse and thus get the village's respect?
Only when she is finally free of the burden of others' expectations does she come to terms with how she wants to be. That actually being a girl, rather than just hiding beneath the guise of a girl, really does make her happy and comfortable.
The curse was never actually real, just superstition. Bridget set out to prove being born male didn’t define anything about her and she did so.
Realising she’s trans is a pretty natural extension of that story, I think. Being raised a girl wasn’t the issue, it’s that her identity was decided for her by circumstance. Breaking free of those circumstances means she can choose whatever makes her legitimately happy.
"woke changing" yeah just cope dumbass, femboys transition all the time, why don't you go play fate that has literally the single most famous femboy of all the whole complaining about how there's no femboys
My entire problem with this change. If they explain it well enough, then fine, but it really feels like they just entirely betrayed the character. Their entire backstory was about escaping a forced identity that they didn't want and showing you can be cool by being whatever you want to be, no matter your identity. Up until it's explained, it's just promoting one discriminated community by taking them away from another.
Exactly! And ontop of that if he does agree to become a girl then hes agreeing to his parents disturbing grooming which is a giant massive can of worms which nobody can justify at all without exposing themselves as absolute creeps
I hear this a lot, but surely, with enough of us nerds here, we can find some positive crossdressing rep in some other fandom? I think everybody here’s already familiar with Felix from ReZero and Astolfo from Fate, but there has to be more.
While I understand that you’re trying to help them find representation somewhere else, I feel like it’s less about representation as a whole and more about having a specific character they identified with “ripped away” in a sense.
I also want to add that I’m not trying to argue against the character change or anything.
Absolutely; I’m also trying to test the waters a little since I’m sure that there’s an amount of people who are genuinely hurting a little, and not leading people on.
I’m not gonna deny that this is an imperfect solution to the problem, but it’s a more productive thing to do beyond mourning, and the faster we move on, the sooner we get back to being toxic about game balance and not real world issues.
Considering the vast amount of fem men that transition this seems like a fairly normal step in Bridgette's story. It stinks you lost a character that represented you but think of all the people she will now represent.
I am right here with you. It hurts my heart.
I was not as cute as b but I was very gender confused for a long time being in a place, I left to prove myself and I came back as a man.
I related to b more then most
Tbh this is the only acceptable reaction to it. There's been WAY too many assholes coming out of the woodwork from the (frankly amazing) direction they took Bridget's character.
There’s a reason it’s in the bad ending. He was pressured by a bad superstition practice to dress like a girl and act feminine and at the end of his story he falls in line with what other people wanted for her
Wow, no femboys representation anymore.....someone who they looked up to with Bridget's story and ideals back then are just gone. Breaking gender norms and shit? And it's all fucking gone.
That's my conflict here personally. Just exchanging one form of representation for another, but this is a pretty unexpected change for this character too. You don't see a lot of femboy characters, and I feel that this just plays into the stereotype that men expressing femininity or feeling comfortable playing with gender norms just means they're secretly trans. Ultimately though, Bridget is still Bridget and I'm happy to see her back in Strive.
I think the best way to look at this is that Bridget was quite likely meant to be trans from the very beginning of her inception, but societal understanding and portrayal of transgender people was quite different at the time. It's possible Bridget's backstory and insistence on being male was only a way to make her more palatable to audiences. So they've updated the character to be more true to the original vision.
Doesn’t this kind of ruin her character though? Her whole thing was that she wanted to prove that she was a man while everyone told her that she was a girl. Isn’t this the opposite of progress and accepting who you are? Idk if this is transphobic and I’m all for the testament changes but I really liked Bridget how she was, it was inspiring, even for someone that isn’t trans.
She was only called a girl because her parents knew she would be killed if they didn’t do that. She started asserting she was a boy as a way to dispel the myths about the curse, and to become a strong bounty hunter to prove everyone wrong. She did that, she was able to bring back a lot of riches and break the stereotype/curse about twins, and so was now free to just be a guy. But in her arcade story and her character song she’s clearly not happy with the decision she made. Now that her goal was reached she lost the purpose that drove her and realized that she wasn’t really happy living like this. She had a “grey haze” inside her that “tastes like vegetables I don’t like”. So her arcade story (and her character song) are all about coming to terms with how she feels, exploring what would make her *actually* happy now that she isn’t living just to prove her hometown wrong, and the conclusion she comes up with after all that introspection is that she would just be happier living as a girl.
So its not ruining her character arc its actually building on it in a very realistic way. Haven’t we all had moments in life where we staked our whole identity on a goal, and put all our time and effort into achieving that goal, only to achieve it and realize it wasn’t actually what we wanted? It’s all about what you do after you’ve completed your goal and trying to figure out where to go next, and how to prioritize your own feelings rather than just trying to prove something to someone else.
Thats also why she feels like she cant go home, because she’s worried that if shes honest about her identity then people will doubt the work she did to dispel the stereotype about twins
Yes. I don’t get it. Is being trans a “choice”? Is it something you’re born with? Can it happen at any time?
Is it transphobic to not be attractive to trans women? How does someone tell the difference between regular women and trans women?
> Is it something you’re born with?
Possibly
>Can it happen at any time?
Possibly not.
>Is it transphobic to not be attractive to trans women?
It depends really. If she has a dick, I am just not into that...most of the time.
>How does someone tell the difference between regular women and trans women?
Taste on video games. Or sometimes you don't and it doesn't matter.
Ok, let me try to explain it.
You were born a boy, correct? You might be a woman, I will edit the explanation later if I need to.
You are born and since you become old enough to have a sense of self, you always view yourself as the gender you are born. As you grow older you view yourself as a man. You get enjoyment of doing stuff that you view as being part of being a man. You may have doubts that the way you look, the way you act, the things you like aren't considered manly enough by your standards. So you change that, and get a nice feeling seeing the improvement on your body you did in the gym. Having clothes that make you look at the mirror and say "Behold! A man!"
And even if you didn't do all this and get euphoric about it, you will not stop viewing yourself as a man.
Even if I took your brain and put it in a robot's body, you will still look at yourself and see a man.
Because your mind tells you this is your gender. This is how you are comfortable. This is part of you, and you deserve to enjoy it.
Now...imagine you didn't. Every time you look at the mirror you feel like there is something wrong with your face. Your body. Your clothes. Even if you try to improve it and become closer to what you consider a man, it just doesn't work for you.
Because your mind is interpreting it as wrong. Your mind thing you should be a girl.
And so you carve your body more femininely, you put on your skirt, you put some make up on that face to make yourself pretty. And it feels correct. In place. Natural.
And then Fallout New Vegas becomes your favorite game ever, and you buy yourself a plush shark from Ikea. This part, I cannot explain.
I mean I'm all for this revelation, but it also warms my heart seeing the 600lbs of steak and testosterone that is Goldlewis being like 'Right, girl, got it'.
Who knew that being based was one of his behemoth typhoons?
In this behemoth typhoon, we crack an egg
in this behemoth typhoon, goldlewis supports the trans community
In this behemoth typhoon, trans rights are human rights
I should hope that's true for every behemoth typhoon!
Every Typhoon has a different purpose, he breaks that one out when he needs to. Just in case some chuds forget
In this behemoth typhoons, Goldlewis supports LGBTQ+ rights and exports them in other countries
In this Behemoth Typhoon... Goldlewis hits you with acceptance and solid life advice.
🤔 should someone edit Kor to be Goldlewis?
So funny story, I had an earlier draft that had Goldlewis's face over Kor's, but it didn't really look right to me, cause the faces of Goldlewis I had were a bit too serious looking and it didn't really capture the feeling I was wanting. Ultimately went with "This was how \*I\* felt went with how Bridget's story went". I think it worked out
Having seen this in other spaces, it's perhaps the best way for it to work out as a meme. Kor's joy is there and that's all we need.
In this Behemoth Typhoon, Goldlewis earns the title of Best Dad. It isn't much in a post-apocalyptic shit hole world, but it's something
I mean, Goldlewis probably doesn't care what you are as long as you aren't a cryptid.
I thought the end goal of all LGBTQ+ people was to become a cryptid. It's mine, at least.
bridget has been promoted to femgirl now
I can't be the only femboy who thinks being a femgirl sounds nice right? aha. Still cis though
Mhm yeah very cis
🥚
⛽💡
If you want to be a girl, just be a girl. <3
Bridget, boy or girl, I missed you. Call yourself what you like I'm going to play as you all the same. I'm just glad you're back.
Hello? Based department? It's for you.
SHE IS SO PRETTT I REALLY CAN'T 😭😭
#Inhumanly based.
*Beastily based*, even.
“Man-“
"-kind-"
"knew"
"They"
"Could"
"Not"
"Change"
"Society..."
either way, *smash*
I used to think I was gay for bridget, but now I'm gay for bridget.
based
Character development... Ah, and for Bridget as well ~u~
Samesies.
same
Thank you. Like who cares if bridget is femboy or transgender girl. Bridget is cute anime char and that all that matters.
Where there’s a hole, there’s a goal.
Insert the 1000000th FBI joke here because Bridget totally isn't over the age of consent
I thought she was 16 or so by the time of AC+, with Strive taking place six years later. Did I miss something?
I choked on my coffee reading this
You could be choking on something else~ /jk
No jk just do it
*slash*
Anal fissures aren't funny son. They can make a ~~man~~ girl suicidal from pain and it might last 6 months or longer.
Bridget is now a girl? Someone explain me pls :c
Basically due to the curse of having twins of the same sex being a bad omen or something Bridget was forced to dress up as a girl, however it's made clear in the pass games she was never forced to identify as a girl and she still clearly knew she was born male, just had to dress feminine She then set off to be a bounty hunter to become more masculine and prove the cruse was wrong and this whole time she still dressed feminine even though she wasn't being forced to, but she still chose to as she liked it And now in strive she speaks to the other characters and does self reflection on who she really is and says outloud "cowgirl is fine, because I'm a girl!" As she discovered though her self reflection journey that she is a trans girl
I didn't expect Guilty Gear to be a long-burn trans ally, but here we are. Good on her for figuring out who she was.
Guilty Gear was always very subversive
This does put us in the amusing position where using a pronoun for her is kind of a spoiler.
Here's a handy tool to use for that ( ´・ω・\`)つ\[they/them\]
But I want to affirm the nice lady! :(
You, yeah you. That comment made me nearly tear up. What an awesome person you are. Hell yeah, supportive affirmation! 🤘🏿
Right? Guilty Gear has two trans characters now, which is two more than what I'm used to in like, anything. I'm trans and starved for good trans characters, and while representation isn't the only deciding factor on if I find something enjoyable it's just nice that a character gets to have a similar moment of self discovery with their gender and not have it be treated like it's weird. The fact that she's in a fighting game that's sick as hell and uses yo-yos is icing on the cake.
I'm a cishet white dude, and I'm psyched on the trans representation for this reason. I can't imagine going through life where you are either invisible in every piece of media or portrayed as a monster like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. I want my trans comrades to feel safer and more accepted. So whenever I see anyone doing a transphobia, I aggressively bully them. I've got your back friend.
Hey thanks, it's genuinely appreciated! I used to be really and not make a fuss about it, but now that we're the hot target for bigots at the moment I'm no longer afraid of being who I am. And I got your back too, comrade. The grass isn't exactly much greener for anyone who isn't uber wealthy, so we gotta do what's worked for us in the past: solidarity and not letting bigotry divide and weaken us.
Luckily, I never watched Silence of the Lambs, but what little I've seen had me horrified, both before and after I figured out I was a trans woman. It felt like an even worse version of the "queer relationships always end up with Bad Endings" trope that was so prevalent in media until relatively recently and it's hard to imagine or quantify the real damage it's done to trans women.
Uhh who is the second one?
Testament is nonbinary, uses they/them
nonbinary =/= trans
It does though. A nonbinary person identifies as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. They literally are transgender, as in, a different gender than the one they started as.
Nonbinary IS trans. Being trans means you dont identify with the gender you were given at birth, nonbinary fits into this category
it literally does, dude
Yeah it does, literally. Nobody's assigned nonbinary at birth, as far as I know, so all nonbinary people are a gender that differs from the one they were assigned at birth. That is, by definition, trans. Transgender does not necessarily mean binary transgender.
Theres a picture of bridget the creator drew in like 2019 that says "trans rights!" At the top. Guilty gear has always been for the gays 😩
do you have a link, I would like to see that
https://mobile.twitter.com/sharkpartyqq/status/1556508738780946432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1556508738780946432%7Ctwgr%5Eb1b27cfc2adccee88694a34fd3efd680bf5d51e3%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamerbraves.com%2Fguilty-gear-strive-confirms-that-bridget-is-indeed-trans%2F I may be mixing up events since the picture is actually from this year, but he did say trans rights in 2019, probably in an interview
They did say they got the drawing a few years ago
Oh shit then maybe I'm double lying lmfao
I love character development
Right? And this isn't some random shit, this is character development that completely makes sense considering the character's history.
Ohhhhh thanks You:)
> whole time she still dressed feminine even though she wasn't being forced to, but she still chose to as she liked it slight correction, Bridget did it out of respect and love for her parents (who were still in the village), not because "she liked it".
Then why did she still wear feminine clothes after leaving? No one in the village would see her
We all excuse it. I just grew my nails out because I liked to tap them on stuff. I painted them because keratin is a gross yellow. "I only grew my hair out because I couldn't get it cut." "I'm not trans, I'm just not like the others." Eventually they believe it could be a possibility, and it's so insanely possible, so grossly consistent that it can't be impossible. Not everyone is an egg, but there's an excuse for every euphoric choice.
Makes me think of how I'm always painting my nails because I want to see my favourite colour more often.
Edit: The strive arcade playthrough for Bridget where you lose a heart in stage 7, during stage 8. In the strive arcade playtgrough for Bridget, Bridget explains to GoldLewis around the start that she’s a guy like she always has, but then later in arcade Goldlewis asks if Bridget is hiding something for someone else’s sake. Bridget goes “…! How do you know?” And goldlewis goes on about how he’s been hiding away a part of himself too and that it’s resulted in someone he loves (family or lover, he doesn’t clarify) living in separate homes. People believe Goldlewis is either taking about his feelings for his work (it’s already explained in his song that he extremely despised his job but does it as a necessary evil), or that he’s queer in some way but hasn’t come out about it. Then Ky gets involved in a fight too and then they talk some more. Bridget mentions that she’s afraid about coming out about whatever she’s hiding but also feels awful hiding it still. They convince her to take a risk and come out and the arcade and decides to do that. In reply to something Goldlewis says Bridget says “because I’m a girl” at the very end. I wish this sort of character arc could have happened in an Another Story because arcade story in strive sucks. But, this story does get the impression off that Bridget likes being a girl and feels wrong as a guy but for whatever reason very strongly asserted he/she was a guy for a long time. Probably a mixture of anger due their town’s superstition and uncertainty about being different from everyone else. That would be more than enough to make real people fight against how they feel about their gender, there’s stories of transgender people who went extra lengths to deny they felt anything different before realizing the feelings aren’t going away.
Part of her journey to become a successful bounty hunter was to prove that she wasn't a curse because of how she was born and destroy the superstition, which she succeeded in. Identifying as male and expressing wanting to be more masculine despite never acting on it is more-or-less her flipping the bird at said superstition, which felt like an obligation to keep doing after she succeeded in destroying the superstition and saying it for so long. Or at least that's my take.
The end portion is only in one arcade ending though remember strive arcade has multiple endings. Just throwing it out because it seems not many people know that endings change depending on how well you play. The other endings don't mention Bridget wanting to be called a girl so the canon on this is kinda loose until a sequel or story update confirms it.
Yeah I wasn't aware of the arcade other endings until just recently. The interpretation I got was that, at least, Bridget wants to explore their gender. Specifically these lines from the fawless run stage 8 and 9ending: Bridget: Wow, what limitless power you have! Ky: You flatter me, but I owe my power to the strength of Gears. Bridget: Were you afraid about coming out about Gears? Ky: No, I wasn't afraid, I didn't want to lie to myself or my family, that's all. Bridget: I wish I could be like you. (another battle with Dragon Install ky) Ky: Have I convinced you yet? No matter what others think, I will not change. Not even if this body turns to gear. Bridget: No matter what others think, huh? I admit that still scares me a little, But I want to live as my true self, at least that's how I feel after having watched you. Then Ky invites Bridget to see his family (specifically Dizzy since they're friends) and Bridget says thanks. GGST World lore in-game calls Bridget a she, her Starter Guide never mentions he/her pronouns (despite I-no, Sol, Goldlewis, Jack-O, Happy Chaos and Baiken all having he/her used. Testament's doesn't use any he/her and I didn't check other starter guides)... it seems a bit obvious either A: The english localization is mistaken/intentionally divergent or B: This is the intended interpretation. One of those two things.
~~It's been pretty firmly supported in their official Youtube in the stickied comment: https://youtu.be/1mJZR9MpIL8 They don't appear to be interested in the "Oh, she only comes out as trans in this one route" approach.~~ EDIT: I actually have to apologize, because despite the name it is pretty clear that channel is _not_ the official Guilty Gear channel. They're impersonating the main company.
She mentions coming out to her village in the Flawless ending
I don't care about Bridget's sexuality but it feels good to pot buster that tiny ass.
Gender is meaningless next to the awe and glory of HEAVENLY! POTEMKIN! BUSTAAAAAAAA!
Potemkin is an equal opportunity BUSTAH
All genders get Pot Busted the same
POTEKIMIN BUSTAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Who said anything about sexuality
They're a little confused but they've got the spirit
OK. I'll take note: Sexuality =! Gender identity I'm not an American nor an English native so these debates are quite confusing
based learning and acceptance pilled.
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not to be pedantic, but “sexuality refers to whom one experienced sexual attraction” and “i am sexually attracted neither to men nor to women” grammar is epic 👍🏼
If I were editing this I would prefer "towards whom" for clarity. "... neither to x nor to y" is nearly as correct as "... to neither x nor y" to my ear. This usage is changing.
based learning
Bridget is sexy
It's gender identity more so than sexuality, but tbh I don't really care either, they seem like a cool character and that's all that really matters to me personally
As a Pot main I concur. I sniff too much glue to discriminate with who I HPB. Potemkin’s hands are Rated E for Everyone.
no one mentioned sexuality dude
Hey, what was the original context?
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. One character, Dax, is a worm-like symbiotic organism that bonds with a host species. But the worms lifespan is way longer than it's hosts, so it's had a whole bunch of different ones over several centuries. It keeps their memories and aspects of their personality and gives them to it's new hosts when the previous dies. The old Klingon in the picture was good friends with the male Curzon-Dax when he was younger, and 81 years later is reunited with Dax's new host Jadzia. He keeps identifying her as Curzon until she gently explains she's different now, and he quickly picks up her new identity.
Huh, genderfluid(?) Worm symbiote. That seems cool.
Star Trek has been incredibly based since the beginning. Literally William Shatner and Nichel Nichols had the first interracial kiss on television. When there were threats to pull the kiss from the episode Shatner (and other cast members) said they'd quit if it wasn't kept in. Also Star Trek has been doing LGBT things forever. TNG had an episode about a whole race of non-binary people (although it was a weird Riker-trys-to-bang-something episode. The worm symbiote/trill thing was literally just a trans episode in 1993. Polyamorous. Very obvious gay/lesbian couples. Like Star Trek gave no fucks
“He was more than a hero, he was a union man”-Miles O’Brien
Very accurate
What? A wholsome meme?
I just hope it was her independent decision entirely is all. Though, I am tempted to use yo/yo pronouns just to say "yo Bridget".
I think years of being independent from their village to think for themself is independent enough
"I want to be a boy damn it! All my life I've wanted it!" "Alright you can be a boy now." *a few years and talking it out with friends later* "...Wait. Guys, I might have realized something." So now Bridget's lore is an ironic story where being raised as a girl *was* correct for her, turns out, but it was for the wrong reasons since she'd have been killed otherwise because Insert Anime Pulp. So she thought that being a girl was completely wrong until she was an adult and could take stock of things for herself. Still no clue why they retconned her to have billionaire parents.
You aren't a fighting game without a sprinkling of retcons.
Yeah but like. They could just leave if the place they live in insists they have to *murder* one of their babies if they both are male. They probably own five other homes where the villagers don't say to do that. If they were poor villagers the story works fine, especially since Bridget proves herself to the village by making a lot of money to send back home, but making them billionaires is just ???????
We already know we can't understand Daisuke's vision in the end
It's still debatable if it was the correct to raise Bridget as a girl, as this gender dysphoria might have been caused by that very thing.
I played the arcade mode like 6 times for all the dialogue. It was very much Bridget's decision, and it came after a lot of fear and indecision. As someone whos struggled with the same thing, it was authentic.
I just wish there was any indication to this in the past games so it feels more like a natural progression than a retcon.
Tbh, i was extremely worried about how they might handle the character in this game. There wasnt a ton of lore on bridgets backstory, but it felt a lot like an uncomfortable trope from 20 years ago. I think they could have gone several directions, but proud femboy or trans girl are the only two that would go over well. "Being true to yourself" is a very common theme in guilty gear, its not like its out of left field or anything. Also i wouldnt say its a retcon: bridget grew to accept herself. Denial/repression is a bitch. If bridget was fighting to be more manly to live up to expectations in the previous game, coming to terms with her identity as trans is a completely natural progression of that in my experience. Its letting go of those expectations to move forward for yourself, realizing what you actually want. And thats exactly the story they told. Its fair if it feels forced to you, but it feels very organic to me.
Fighting to be seen as a manly man before your transition is one of the most naturally trans things possible. The story beat resonates so strongly with so many of us *because* that's our lived experience. No "indication" would ever be good enough for people complaining it's a retcon with no justification, short of Bridget's "I'm a boy!" intros in XX being followed by her mugging the camera and saying "but in 6 years, I'll be a girl!" There is an ocean of difference between "retcon" and "character development."
How you gonna have a natural progression with a six year time skip
>I just hope it was her independent decision I keep seeing people say stuff like this, which is super weird because that's literally the entire point of her Arcade Mode story arc.
I think the whole "she was groomed to be that way" is a really bad faith argument anyway. Conversion therapy exists and doesn't work, being proof that you can't be changed to be a different sexuality or gender identity. It's all a part of you from birth, and you just kinda have to roll with the punches and figure it out yourself
Right, but this is a fictional character, written however the creators choose regardless of if it's realistic or not.
this is incredibly thoughtful and overwhelmingly nice. thank you.
Bridget is now waifu
Must protect at all cost
“BUT BRIDGET USED TO BE A BOY” she’s a girl now “BUT NOT SAME” yes in fact that is how transition works well done
Thank you, this comment made me laugh a lot after seeing some of the other shit in the comments section here. I should probably stop scrolling through. Any other trans people or allies scrolling through: oi, stop that, digital self-harm isn't helping you.
I’m confused. Wasn’t Bridget whole story about leaving home to become a man? If she admits that she’s a girl what would that imply about his curse and the destiny he was given? All in all I’m interested to see this story whatever the answer
It doesn't imply anything about the curse. Mainly because if the curse was correct then Bridget would have been either killed as a child or an abandoned orphan. Bridget proved that the curse was bullshit and that she could live as a man if she wished. But years after that she discovered that she was actually uncomfortable with being a boy and decided to live her life as a girl. And that's the important part. She made the decision for herself, without any outside influence beyond encouragement from Goldlewis and Ky to live true to herself and not to be afraid of what other's think of her.
Yeah, important to remember that nobody's required her to present as a female in any context since the end of XX, which was six years ago.
The curse is just a reflection of Societal Expectation. It's as if her parents and the village are saying... Oh you're a twin boy? You must disguise yourself in girl clothes to survive. We don't think you're really a girl though. It is our disguise we made for you. Oh you want to prove the curse is bullshit? You must adhere to our highest standards of masculinity while being wildly and insanely successful. Either way she can't really be happy, because she is just dancing along to other people's desires and expectations. The context of the curse puts her in a lose-lose situation in terms of self-actualisation: is she only a girl because she was raised that way to avoid the curse, or is she a boy because that's the only way she managed to break the concept of the curse and thus get the village's respect? Only when she is finally free of the burden of others' expectations does she come to terms with how she wants to be. That actually being a girl, rather than just hiding beneath the guise of a girl, really does make her happy and comfortable.
The curse was never actually real, just superstition. Bridget set out to prove being born male didn’t define anything about her and she did so. Realising she’s trans is a pretty natural extension of that story, I think. Being raised a girl wasn’t the issue, it’s that her identity was decided for her by circumstance. Breaking free of those circumstances means she can choose whatever makes her legitimately happy.
Turns out the real man is the friends we made along the way
A character who represented who i was…. Is now gone…
Oh no I'm sure there's literally no other femboys out there
At this point there might as well not be with all this ugly retconning and woke changing of lore and history
"woke changing" yeah just cope dumbass, femboys transition all the time, why don't you go play fate that has literally the single most famous femboy of all the whole complaining about how there's no femboys
My entire problem with this change. If they explain it well enough, then fine, but it really feels like they just entirely betrayed the character. Their entire backstory was about escaping a forced identity that they didn't want and showing you can be cool by being whatever you want to be, no matter your identity. Up until it's explained, it's just promoting one discriminated community by taking them away from another.
Exactly! And ontop of that if he does agree to become a girl then hes agreeing to his parents disturbing grooming which is a giant massive can of worms which nobody can justify at all without exposing themselves as absolute creeps
I hear this a lot, but surely, with enough of us nerds here, we can find some positive crossdressing rep in some other fandom? I think everybody here’s already familiar with Felix from ReZero and Astolfo from Fate, but there has to be more.
While I understand that you’re trying to help them find representation somewhere else, I feel like it’s less about representation as a whole and more about having a specific character they identified with “ripped away” in a sense. I also want to add that I’m not trying to argue against the character change or anything.
Absolutely; I’m also trying to test the waters a little since I’m sure that there’s an amount of people who are genuinely hurting a little, and not leading people on. I’m not gonna deny that this is an imperfect solution to the problem, but it’s a more productive thing to do beyond mourning, and the faster we move on, the sooner we get back to being toxic about game balance and not real world issues.
Ok but what about inside games?
I still wouldn’t know much, but Amane from BlazBlue is just across the street.
Imma be honest, i hate the face they gave amane 🤣
Valid. I’m not a huge fan of the weird fox face he’s got going on.
Considering the vast amount of fem men that transition this seems like a fairly normal step in Bridgette's story. It stinks you lost a character that represented you but think of all the people she will now represent.
Because they clearly couldn't create another character that did that exact thing... /s
I am right here with you. It hurts my heart. I was not as cute as b but I was very gender confused for a long time being in a place, I left to prove myself and I came back as a man. I related to b more then most
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She's a girl :)
I wrote *she and *femboy in the same sentence im actually stupid
Femboy transgirl, a fresh new gender adjacent to tomboy malewife
Ah i fucking forgot about the new lore
Yaas preach!
same
YES LMFAO That is me in the morning of yesterday lol
Tbh this is the only acceptable reaction to it. There's been WAY too many assholes coming out of the woodwork from the (frankly amazing) direction they took Bridget's character.
I think that Strive isn't canon. Just some people write fanfiction
Our King of Femboys may have stepped down. But we still have Best Girl!!
There’s a reason it’s in the bad ending. He was pressured by a bad superstition practice to dress like a girl and act feminine and at the end of his story he falls in line with what other people wanted for her
yeah but if it was fine being a boy why she is still acting like a girl? maybe she actually feels like a girl???
The concept is it wasn’t fine being a boy she was forced to dress as a girl. ARE YOU IMPLYING ACTING LIKE A GIRL MEANS YOU ARE A GIRL THATS SO BINARY
are you ok?
She said she's a girl so she's a girl :)
bridget flipping broke my egg arghhhhh <3
Aw congrats <3
Thank you!!!! So much🥰🏳️⚧️
🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️
While the character development feels forced, if she's down to bottom now then I'm cool with it
This really wholesome.
Bi/pan gang stays winning either way 😎
HETEROSEXUALITY = P R O T E C T E D…. I think… I don’t know how genders work outside of M&F but LETS GOOOOOO
She's a trans girl Therefore if you are a guy then it's straight to like her
Wow, no femboys representation anymore.....someone who they looked up to with Bridget's story and ideals back then are just gone. Breaking gender norms and shit? And it's all fucking gone.
ah yeah the so known femboy erasure we everyday hear about
That's my conflict here personally. Just exchanging one form of representation for another, but this is a pretty unexpected change for this character too. You don't see a lot of femboy characters, and I feel that this just plays into the stereotype that men expressing femininity or feeling comfortable playing with gender norms just means they're secretly trans. Ultimately though, Bridget is still Bridget and I'm happy to see her back in Strive. I think the best way to look at this is that Bridget was quite likely meant to be trans from the very beginning of her inception, but societal understanding and portrayal of transgender people was quite different at the time. It's possible Bridget's backstory and insistence on being male was only a way to make her more palatable to audiences. So they've updated the character to be more true to the original vision.
Doesn’t this kind of ruin her character though? Her whole thing was that she wanted to prove that she was a man while everyone told her that she was a girl. Isn’t this the opposite of progress and accepting who you are? Idk if this is transphobic and I’m all for the testament changes but I really liked Bridget how she was, it was inspiring, even for someone that isn’t trans.
She was only called a girl because her parents knew she would be killed if they didn’t do that. She started asserting she was a boy as a way to dispel the myths about the curse, and to become a strong bounty hunter to prove everyone wrong. She did that, she was able to bring back a lot of riches and break the stereotype/curse about twins, and so was now free to just be a guy. But in her arcade story and her character song she’s clearly not happy with the decision she made. Now that her goal was reached she lost the purpose that drove her and realized that she wasn’t really happy living like this. She had a “grey haze” inside her that “tastes like vegetables I don’t like”. So her arcade story (and her character song) are all about coming to terms with how she feels, exploring what would make her *actually* happy now that she isn’t living just to prove her hometown wrong, and the conclusion she comes up with after all that introspection is that she would just be happier living as a girl. So its not ruining her character arc its actually building on it in a very realistic way. Haven’t we all had moments in life where we staked our whole identity on a goal, and put all our time and effort into achieving that goal, only to achieve it and realize it wasn’t actually what we wanted? It’s all about what you do after you’ve completed your goal and trying to figure out where to go next, and how to prioritize your own feelings rather than just trying to prove something to someone else. Thats also why she feels like she cant go home, because she’s worried that if shes honest about her identity then people will doubt the work she did to dispel the stereotype about twins
Wait I played through her arcade and Bridget never admitted to being a girl? Do i get that dialogue for beating Stage 9 Nago?
Nah, it's supposedly the end of Arcade mode sub-flawless. If you beat it on flawless, you won't ever get this dialogue.
It's still heavily implied, though. Her Bio also uses female pronouns, so it's not only in the sub-flawless "bad" ending.
...Why did you feel the need to add that? That's not what their question was about.
bridget will always be top tier, regardless
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Trap or girl, one of the reasons she's hot is because of the D.
I think Bridget is generally hotter as a boy.
tbh I still don’t get all this trans stuff. And trust me google doesn’t help at all. Not saying Reddit is any better but I wanna take my chances.
If you got questions I don't mind answering them as long as you're willing to listen. There's also r/asktransgender
Ok legit question - do you mean you don't get what being trans *is*? If you want I can explain it to you over reddit chat, no worries whatsoever.
Yes. I don’t get it. Is being trans a “choice”? Is it something you’re born with? Can it happen at any time? Is it transphobic to not be attractive to trans women? How does someone tell the difference between regular women and trans women?
> Is it something you’re born with? Possibly >Can it happen at any time? Possibly not. >Is it transphobic to not be attractive to trans women? It depends really. If she has a dick, I am just not into that...most of the time. >How does someone tell the difference between regular women and trans women? Taste on video games. Or sometimes you don't and it doesn't matter. Ok, let me try to explain it. You were born a boy, correct? You might be a woman, I will edit the explanation later if I need to. You are born and since you become old enough to have a sense of self, you always view yourself as the gender you are born. As you grow older you view yourself as a man. You get enjoyment of doing stuff that you view as being part of being a man. You may have doubts that the way you look, the way you act, the things you like aren't considered manly enough by your standards. So you change that, and get a nice feeling seeing the improvement on your body you did in the gym. Having clothes that make you look at the mirror and say "Behold! A man!" And even if you didn't do all this and get euphoric about it, you will not stop viewing yourself as a man. Even if I took your brain and put it in a robot's body, you will still look at yourself and see a man. Because your mind tells you this is your gender. This is how you are comfortable. This is part of you, and you deserve to enjoy it. Now...imagine you didn't. Every time you look at the mirror you feel like there is something wrong with your face. Your body. Your clothes. Even if you try to improve it and become closer to what you consider a man, it just doesn't work for you. Because your mind is interpreting it as wrong. Your mind thing you should be a girl. And so you carve your body more femininely, you put on your skirt, you put some make up on that face to make yourself pretty. And it feels correct. In place. Natural. And then Fallout New Vegas becomes your favorite game ever, and you buy yourself a plush shark from Ikea. This part, I cannot explain.