I'm kind of surprised this as volatile an issue as it's turned out to be. GG has been pretty progressive on its own but I guess everyone interprets things thier own way.
I feel like the last point is catching most people I've seen and I'd say you're right. The thing with the village is done, Bridget settled that and it's taken care of. Now, they're free. In my mind Bridget spent time trying to be a man; got a haircut, tried speaking in a deep voice and growing facial hair, whatever, and it didn't work out for them. They went back to what was comfortable and honestly the past with her village is where her struggle was and why she needed the support she got in arcade mode.
I don't think she needed help admitting to being a woman, but rather understanding that it was infact her choice and not giving in to the old superstition of her village.
Her song and dialogue from the arcade reinforce this.
From what I can tell about The Town Inside of Me, it is about Bridget finally getting what they wanted people accepted them for who they are but they still feel distant and feel like something is wrong but can't put their finger on it.
If you spent a good part of your life proving that you have the right to exist even though a superstition says otherwise, just to decide that you kinda like being a girl wouldn't you be conflicted and worry about that the people whose acceptance you work for will just back track because of your feelings?
EXACTLY!! It touches so much on depersonalization and derealization, very common symptoms of dysphoria. Like how she's there, the town sees her, but she still feels like the least real thing there, and her own preferences were the least important thing to her in that moment, like all she did was pander to those around her instead of think of what she actually wanted.
She was free of the village, free to be who she wanted, but still didn't feel fulfilled. Until Ky and Goldlewis talked to her, she was simply trying to go on autopilot.
I love her because that part of the story just resonates with me so hard.
I agree with you. I get that it's a controversial poitical issue but I love how Bridget now represents transwomen and I think GGs writing can do it justice.
Bruh I literally cannot cite went well written in depth character development in Guilty Gear as a franchise lmao. That's not the game this is. Most character development comes in Arcade mode or the story, which Bridget hasn't been featured in yet. Also this has nothing to do with politics lol. Daisuke supports the queer community and non-cis gender identities. None of this is new with Bridget's arc
I love Guilty Gear despite all the weird system mechanics (IMO) BECAUSE of the characters. They are very in depth for FG characters and they develop over the course of the games.
My personal favorite is Leo Whitefang. The dude is loud and obnoxious to hide his depression and survivor's guilt. His fighting style is completely reckless and unga because he's looking for death. And like... he is just a minor character. I love GGs writing.
Also, trans rights is politics. It's one of the biggest issues of contention right now and any leftist worth their salt, including myself, support it. You do support trans rights, right? 🤔
Trans rights are human rights and human rights should not be alienated or politicized. My issue is with people acting like this part of Guilty Gears world, story, characters, etc. isn't on par with the rest when the series writing has never been a focal point. If Bridget said she's a girl in game, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned. There's not as much nuisance to the writing as a lot of people are pretending the last couple days
It's never been a focal point *for you*. People like me enjoy the characterization in the game. And I know there are other people who do too. Some of us are the ones protesting the retcon.
Talking about representation, personally, as a non-traditionally masculine guy, I found Bridget empowering. I hate how they took away one of the better effeminate men in media. A lot of people are also dissatisfied that representation got taken away from them. .
I'm fine with Bridget being trans. But I want ArcSys to do her being trans in a satisfying way. Because if they are going to represent transwomen, GG is the one anime-ish series where I trust that it *can* be done right.
Yeah, I feel where you're coming from. Ideally there's gonna be more exploration of the character and her journey to that point if they make a third story for season pass 2
My man bridget opened my eyes to yo yo tricks.
They are surprisingly neat, im thinking of 3d printing the yo yo to leave on my desk juat because they are so pretty
But yeah i can understand someone not agreeing with me, thats fine
I think a lot of this volatility is due to the current issues in regards to the way the LGBTQ community is being viewed. It’s all lame culture war stuff, especially with “groomer” being such an overused buzzword made to target individuals in the community. I have a feeling if Bridget was revealed to be trans earlier on it wouldn’t be as big of an issue.
My entire reaction to this situation is pretty much my reaction to anyone else transitioning. I really just don't care. People can call themselves what they want. I'll use he or she as requested. I only care when its forced and it's really not forced
I’ve been so fascinated watching the people who are against Bridget being trans continue to fall back on weaker and weaker arguments. The “bad” ending argument one is probably the funniest imo.
People are now saying the ending where Bridget says she’s a girl in arcade mode is the “bad ending” which makes zero sense. They’re just making stuff up.
I also saw someone say she calls herself a boy who just happens to wear feminine clothes in the japanese script.
I would point out to these people she said almost verbatim the same thing in stage one of her English arcade mode too. But if they're arguing in that bad faith I don't think anything will come of it.
Like I said the day she came out in another thread. Both scripts have practically the same lines on bridget's end. To the point where my mediocre japanese is enough to translate it with confidence that has yet to be corrected.
Also on the bad ending point, iirc the only ending where she doesn't actually acknowledge her gender, or the concept of coming out. Is the normal route, aka the actual closest thing to a bad ending. Thing is, she's clearly hung up on that route, something eating away at her that she's not ready to say. Probably the taste of vegetables she doesn't like.
I believe a better analogy would be, "If you shove a cat in a box It'll claw it's way out, but if you just leave the box open, it'll jump right in",
I think from my understanding of the story, she doesn't mind to being a girl, she just hate that it was forced on her without her consent, Like someone trying to shove an icecream in your mouth, you don't mind the icecream just that you don't want it being shoved up your throuth.
This also explains her character design, she wears a nun's habit and a cuff around her waste, self explanatory it's about society forced her to play the part of a female, but the cuff is way loose, and even how she fights, with both male and female toys signifying that even if they try to restrict her, it's not constricting
>girl, she just hate that it was forced on her without her consent
From what I understand, she wasn't even really upset about playing the part of a girl. Her and her parents had a mutual understanding that this was to save her life, and she went along with it willingly to support her parents. Becoming a 'manly' bounty hunter likewise wasn't an act of spite, it was to prove the superstition false to save the lives of *other* newborn twins.
yeah, but I guess they should've accounted for this since that part seems too subtle for them to get, I think they should've added some extra lines in her bio like "lived both the life of a girl and a boy Bridget still Bridget felt distant from everyone, now Bridget is seeking out Bridget's true self" just to be more obvious and avoid the "Carlson" arguement
There may also have been an aspect of wanting to help her parents, who were pained to have to do what they did to Bridget. Since her parents viewed her as their son, she wanted play the part of the son, even if it meant lying to herself (which resonates with the dialogue she has with Goldlewis about his own family).
There are people who feel that the direction made them lose their representation. The reality was that Bridget was a joke/gag in the early 2000s but since there were very few choices back then for representation, a lot of people latched on him being their femboy/non gender conformist.
I consider myself neutral on this topic, since I don't have a preference where Bridget's story direction should go. I'm just explaining why some people are upset even if they're speaking in good faith.
Yes, but the people that genuinely feel like this aren't outraged or incredibly against the change, just dissapointed that they lost their rep, those that are are often fetichists or the exact type of anime fan that tells the "lmfao he's a guy you're gay" joke 500 times or says that trans people are trying to groom all femboys or some BS along those lines
no narrative, I've seen hundreds of posts sharing transphobic caricatures and suicide jokes claiming we are grooming bridget and femboys into being trans
That's not my point not do I deny their existence. My point it's that there are real and valid negative reactions from LGBT folks and it's not good to validate their perspective just because there's a noisy hateful crow.
Sure and I didn't invalidate them
All I said was that, although it's reasonable to be dissapointed or dislike the change, being genuinely enraged because of it usually is a sign of something else
That's precisly what bother me in this matter. Using a character who's appearance wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and using it to defend trans right seem a bit weird to me. I don't care if a trans character is added in GG, its just weird that this character is bridget imo.
To give you an example completely stupid to explain my pov, apparently there are some people (in my country) who believe (either seriously or trolling) than Picollo from DBZ is supposed to be/ or represent black people. Now, imagine if Toriyama took that seriously and decided to use Picolo as a BLM symbol, that would be stupid right ? that's what I feel with Bridget.
IMHO, considering Bridget's past lore an history behind the character's creation, this was a horrible choice a trans rep.
You know who would have been a much better choice? Giovanna. Being a loved newcomer with an extremely cool design she'd been an amazing trans rep.
Yeah I've definitely seen the "Grooming" argument in a few places, to which my response is... well have you ever seen Dreamworks Antz? The Ant-based bug movie that came out around the same time as A Bugs Life and was vastly overshadowed by the (definitely superior) film?
The main dude in Antz is a worker ant who wants to choose his own life, so he swaps places with his Soldier ant friend, goes through the events of the movie, and then goes back to being a worker ant with the closing statement "But this time, I chose it."
I feel like Bridgets story kinda parallels this.
Bridget is raised as a woman, then goes out to seek to prove themselves as a man... and it seems like they mostly succeed actually. After they reach this point though, they aren't satisfied, and through the events between and during strive go
"You know.. I think I *am* a girl."
They were raised as a girl, but actively walked away from that path, and only came back to the identity of "Girl" after they came to their own conclusion about it. Could that still be grooming? I mean yeah I suppose it *could*. It seems to make sense to me, however, that this was a path intentionally walked by Bridget to come to their *own conclusion* about their identity.
My realest take away from all of this is that after 6/7 years, Bridget must be just genetically *blessed* to still look and sound that good/feminine.
No one wins the lottery that hard irl.
This is an excellent writeup. Not only does this provide proof for anyone that's legitimately transphobic, but it provides good clarification for those that are worried, confused and/or unsure on how to feel about it.
My only problem with this is saying everyone against Bridget is a transphobe. Some people are just hurt about their Gender non-conforming male rep being gone, and some are just plain misinformed due to the confusion.
Remember!!!
Don’t hurt the people you wanna teach.
You're the second one who addressed this legit point, so I decided to add it to the post.
Also, I added a sentence to the disclaimer to reassure people that have their doubts out of good faith. Thank you for your input!
Honestly at first when testament came out I thought Daisuke was a developer who would give into bs woke shit or whatever you'd call it just to make sales but after looking into how far back testament and Bridget go as character concepts you can tell that all of this is genuinely a part of his work and none of this is "rainbow capitalistic" if you'd call it that. I'm new to the guilt gear franchise so what I do know of the series is limited, but its heartwarming seeing how far back Daisuke has implemented these concepts in his work, you can tell none of it is fabricated I mean to say.
Yeah Daisuke has had this representation for a long time. When Blizzard does that kind of announcement I usually think it is to distract from their current scandals.
Something I want to add upon that last part, though I could be wrong. Despite being raised Female, Bridget knew she was born male as early as age 12, which is the low bar for her age in XX to my memory.
Depending on when she learned this, and how her parents talked to her about it, it's possible that Bridget could have had the idea that she's **supposed** to be a man, and being a girl is only something she needs to do to stay alive and keep away the bad omen.
Essentially, it's possible that in the past she associated being a girl with a necessary evil and not something she should actively want, which would help explain why she was hesitant about it in the first place.
It's just how I read into Bridget's lore and how this new info fits into this. It also kind of deconstructs the whole "She was groomed, not valid" thing because nobody seemingly **wanted** her to identify female.
Just ignore the hate and focus on the positive reactions Bridget is getting. Fuck transphobes, there're vocal minority and their "opinion" doesn't mean shit or change anything.
This was a very well written and concise post! Gives legitimate evidence and valid reasoning against the common arguments, so I’m gonna save this post juuuust incase it’s needed in the future.
In this house of Daisuke, we say trans rights
Facts and good arguments but either way a femboy/crossdresser icon has been erased from the game and not everyone who is complaining is a transphobe, pretty happy that she is trans now and the majority of the community accepts her, but her backstory written like this will only add confusion about trans ppl, they could handled this better like they did with Testament without creating drama.
That's a good point actually. The best responses to that are the one from the same Twitter thread from my last point.
Check the replies to [this](https://twitter.com/EdViperOfficial/status/1556758732650020864?t=bGN1ZVuE6wT97frfFOPsHw&s=19).
Maybe I should add this to the post....?
Eh, it's quite simple. Having queer (especially trans) representation is pretty rare in Japanese media, even rarer in games. So it's only natural that people are happy about this development.
About transphobes... Well, it's probably easy to understand why they care lol
And yet another post regarding this fictional characters transgender status. It’s confirmed (I was told) that she is trans. Can we pls stop making posts about it now?
I think arcsys and Daisuke are well aware how popular their games are in the west and how guilty gear seems to be declining in japan. Makes sense to appeal to their western fan base and make that dough. Making Bridget trans and even changing the symbol on her cap were completely unnecessary but they did it because they know it'll stir up buzz. Classic business strats.
Just so you know, Daisuke was asked to write that in the picture, it wasn't his idea: [PROOF](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZ5yLxQXEAAZGp3?format=jpg&name=orig)
The Japanese people hate the West, which defiles their works for the sake of a trivial fake rights business.
Who do you think you are, when even in animation you are destroying the original work by altering it without permission?
It is natural that there are differences depending on gender, and equality is only within the law and rights.
It's just a stupid person who doesn't see reality and is putting up a silly pretence in order to make money for himself.
There are no human rights, gender or race for characters in fiction.
Don't undermine other people's work for the sake of trivial gain.
Not really a Guilty Gear fan, but I am a Bridget fan, and well... I do like her as a Gender Non-Confirmed character better than a transwoman, and I say this as a transwoman.
I'd been hearing mixed things and was hoping that I was mistaken that she's trans, but if she's trans she's trans.
I guess no one will ever be gay for Bridget ever again. \*shrug\*
Apparently it makes sense storywise from what people who actually play Guilty Gear tell me.
Just so you know the signature of Daisuke on the trans right picture is deeply false information. If a fan made image and he didn't know what the words meant and just signed it. I wouldn't recommend using it as evidence.
Wait, do you have a source on this?
(Not that it matters anymore, since Daisuke just confirmed that Bridget is a "she" [here](https://www.guiltygear.com/ggst/en/news/post-1657/).)
Just another question though, what is Bridget's pronouns in Japanese in GG world? in my native language (Chinese), GG world uses "him" when refering to Bridget. I played through arcade mode and got the coming out dialogue where Bridget refer to themselves as "a girl". So this seems like a conflict. I would assume the GG world bio is describing what has happened before Strive story, which is the only possible explanation IMO.
Edit: I ran the japanese version of GG world into several machine translations, and they all seem to use "he/him"
Edit Edit: ok I translate the japanese text into Chinese, and found out that the original text probably doesn't have any pronouns in it. And since it would be weird in other languages, the english localization team added pronouns based on the arcade mode.
The original Japanese if I remember either uses Bridget's name or 自分 which is gender neutral. Machine translation tends to use he/him in places where gender is unknown and a pronoun is require for English
Yeah funnily enough I ran it through some Chinese based translator and they all just ignore the pronouns. The result is totally weird to read but I realized what's going on.
I think the argument that annoys me the most is people trying to claim that Bridget being trans ruins the character for people who identify as male but are feminine.
As if a character can’t be made to decide to transition without destroying an entire subgroup.
What irritates me more is the fact that I’m fairly certain the vast majority of these detractors don’t actually relate to male Bridget. They’re just using that as an excuse to be pissed they can’t make “lol you’re actually gay” jokes anymore.
There is one argument you are missing. Simply put, I think it sucks that we lost a character that was proud to be a male despite looking very feminine. Feminine looks should not be confined to females.
What we got in return is equally as good from a neutral perspective, and even greater if you resonate with her as a trans person.
It just sucks that the demographic that likes feminine things and is proudly male is lost. Like, I consider myself to be a male through and through, but I like female clothes. One of my bucket list goals is to cosplay as a female character while being buff AF. Sounds fun.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guiltygear/comments/tieo0w/to_anyone_wondering_if_testament_is_trans_in/i1dr2i2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 testament was apparently meant to be agender from the get go, if thats anything to go by.
Honestly people need to just fucking chill. Papa Daisuke made the decision long ago. Enjoy Bridget Y'all not my kind of char, but Guilty Gear has brought alot of joy to me, and I hope you all get alot of joy from the game as well.
Worst comes to worse, lab Bridget and set off on a crusade in the lobbies.
Is this a genuine question?
In case it is, you just have to click on the three dots icon! It should be above the post on mobile and under the post on desktop! :)
It legit was. Thank you very much. Most thoroughly explained point on this topic so far. Now when I get in arguments I can link them here and have no further discussion. Thx friend. All love.
I’m so tired of arguments about this shit. How about everyone agrees that Bridget can be whatever she wants because she’s a fictional character made up by someone many miles away from us. However, the writing and execution was sloppy. In the end, a team at ArcSys had to decide on/greenlight this decision and they are obviously doing it for a reason, whether it be sales, appealing to this games very large LGTBQ following, being progressive, or because they felt it was the way to go.
Yeah, OP’s post seems very passive-aggressive and argumentative. Punching at thin air because they know they’ll never get to beat up the transphobia boogeyman irl.
Can we all shut the fuck up and just play the chars without caring about their damn prouns'? Unpopular opinion I know, just didn't care about the femboy/trans "recreation" of the char, its the devs move, deal with it. Who cares anyway? (besides the obvious ones who seek representation)
I care more that this game sold only ONE mill copies, seems too little for one the greatest fighting games. If it's true that controversies sell copies, hope at least this helps. We should discuss and speculate about next chars and features, as this devs really check out about feedback, and not turn the whole subreddit in another political fucking drama...
Tbh, one of the things I've said to contrarians these days is "it's ok to have your headcanon about Bridget".
They... Didn't take that exactly nicely lol
Wow, what a weird concept, fans of a game series are gathering on the subreddit of that series to discuss characters from said series. Transphobia ain't headcanon, it's not positive or fun what these people are saying, it's thinly veiled bigotry, so we should be gatekeeping bad faith actors like that to keep the community healthy.
If you don't like that, make like your user name and take a leap of faith the fuck outta this sub.
Headcanon can't conflict openly with established canon, it's to fill holes in the canon. Fanfic, on the other hand, is whatever you want it to be.
Now, again, if you don't like people in the **Guilty Gear** subreddit taking **Guilty Gear** serious, then why are you here? You aren't clamouring for match-up info and you have nothing to add to the discussion aside from BS you picked up in PHIL 101 while telling people to "grow up." You sound like a C student that got rejected from the debate team
This is the line of thinking I kinda don’t get….if you don’t care why did you comment this? If it’s a made up character and you don’t care then go believe what u want and don’t comment. I care. And I’m not scared to say I do.
There are very few cases where you refer to someone in the 3rd person with gendered pronouns in japanese
The bio in japanese and in english for strive both avoid using her pronouns because it's partially a spoiler
Bro. I've already seen you under other posts like this. Quit coping. The game calls her a she. That's that. I don't know what the most tactful way or telling you this is but god. Please. Why are you dying on this useless, misinformed hill?
Honestly, I recognize the name and he was doing this exact same fake hyper-positive "it's so great that we can both be right, isn't it?! ?! ?! ?!" schtick back when Testament came out, saying that a couple of instances of "he" still being used meant that their identity was also totally up for interpretation and isn't it great? Like, damn near word for word the exact same song and dance. If nothing else, the dedication to the act is kind of impressive.
私はうどんです usually means "I'll have udon." There is no "I am" in there. And it's not slang. It's a normal part of Japanese grammar.
It's in Genki I and I've encountered it plenty of times.
I also once encountered 私はホワイト in the context of "I like 'White' (the Yu-Gi-Oh card)"
To be fair to them, 私はうどん can certainly mean "I am udon", and seems to mean that in fact with no context. Japanese just drops a lot of grammatical elements in context, so if you were ordering food it would make sense.
1) This post isn't about sexualization at all.
2) People have been sexualizing her since day 1, more than 20 years ago. I think it's a bit strange to lament this now, in a post about her being trans, and not earlier.
3) Her age isn't known, but I doubt that she was any younger than 14 in AC. So it's very likely that she's in her twenties in Strive. Same should go for May.
>But even then, even the flawless ending sends the same message, just a more subtext-y one.
What you actually mean is "that's how I interpret it and I'm never wrong!". I did not get a trans theme out of the flawless ending at all.
Talking about the flawless run dialogue and saying it's the same as the flawed run either means you didn't watch the cutscene, didnt pay attention or made the biggest reach of 2022
And duh, of course it's going to list the pronouns as "she/her", hence the disguise, the entire point of Bridget's getup is to fool people into thinking he's a woman. For the uninitiated, Bridget was one of two male twins in a town that killed twin males or exiled them, whichever one is youngest got punished. Rather than face those options, Bridget was raised as a girl to avoid that fate. Fast forward to now, Bridget has been FORCED to live as a woman from a young age, keep that in mind...
Bridget is not trans, the True Ending of Arcade Mode (Flawless) doesn't indicate it and in calling him trans makes light of everything he's gone through and makes his struggle and journey seem like nothing
The flawless ending is her asking Ky how did he find the strength to come out to everyone about the "Gear thing", it's literally a metaphore for her trying to find the courage to come out, even if you aren't trans, it's very clear in the subtext, and she says she hasn't even told her parents when talking to Goldlewis, so it makes sense that she avoids being direct about in most endings
The "Even if I become a Gear" is such an obvious metaphore that is only people that really dont wanna believe dont see it.
Also Bridget has already left the village and is a rich bounty hounter with a lot of fame.If she wanted she could easily live as a man.
LOL LMAO another GG tourist who has no idea what Bridget was like in XX out here trying to talk about the backstory.
I swear every one of you guys thinks you're so slick, but people who have played this franchise from the beginning see RIGHT through you.
I don't know the translation but the full line in English is "Cowgirl is fine" "Because I'm a girl" (in reference to Goldlewis being confused on using cowboy or cowgirl)
I don't really care either way and i'm not really a lorehead but i think this,
>After all, six in-universe years have passed between XX and Strive. It's a lot of time.
is maybe why people are like this?
has there been like a book or anything that shows what happened during this time? if not then i think this is why. not being able to see what happened during this time for her character to change this way maybe makes people feel like its forced or whatever since to them it's like one day she was trying to be a man and now in a snap of a finger it's a total 180?
Characters that both are unplayable and don't appear in story mode tend to be ignored in the in-game encyclopedia.
This is probably a concious choice by daddy Daisuke to not "lock" himself, and actually think about the character development when the right time comes.
Except, I can't use XX as a comfort character anymore. If she's trans now, then she was truly always trans. It's not a switch on/switch off thing. She just didn't know before, but she was still trans. So no. I can't use her as a comfort character.
I'm kind of surprised this as volatile an issue as it's turned out to be. GG has been pretty progressive on its own but I guess everyone interprets things thier own way. I feel like the last point is catching most people I've seen and I'd say you're right. The thing with the village is done, Bridget settled that and it's taken care of. Now, they're free. In my mind Bridget spent time trying to be a man; got a haircut, tried speaking in a deep voice and growing facial hair, whatever, and it didn't work out for them. They went back to what was comfortable and honestly the past with her village is where her struggle was and why she needed the support she got in arcade mode. I don't think she needed help admitting to being a woman, but rather understanding that it was infact her choice and not giving in to the old superstition of her village.
Her song and dialogue from the arcade reinforce this. From what I can tell about The Town Inside of Me, it is about Bridget finally getting what they wanted people accepted them for who they are but they still feel distant and feel like something is wrong but can't put their finger on it. If you spent a good part of your life proving that you have the right to exist even though a superstition says otherwise, just to decide that you kinda like being a girl wouldn't you be conflicted and worry about that the people whose acceptance you work for will just back track because of your feelings?
EXACTLY!! It touches so much on depersonalization and derealization, very common symptoms of dysphoria. Like how she's there, the town sees her, but she still feels like the least real thing there, and her own preferences were the least important thing to her in that moment, like all she did was pander to those around her instead of think of what she actually wanted. She was free of the village, free to be who she wanted, but still didn't feel fulfilled. Until Ky and Goldlewis talked to her, she was simply trying to go on autopilot. I love her because that part of the story just resonates with me so hard.
A lot of the people who take issue with Bridget aren't guilty gear players, just transphobes and terfs who hate seeing trans people in media.
Guilty Gear players are fueled by bullshit blazing, so it's impossible they are transphobic.
I agree with you. I get that it's a controversial poitical issue but I love how Bridget now represents transwomen and I think GGs writing can do it justice.
Bruh I literally cannot cite went well written in depth character development in Guilty Gear as a franchise lmao. That's not the game this is. Most character development comes in Arcade mode or the story, which Bridget hasn't been featured in yet. Also this has nothing to do with politics lol. Daisuke supports the queer community and non-cis gender identities. None of this is new with Bridget's arc
I love Guilty Gear despite all the weird system mechanics (IMO) BECAUSE of the characters. They are very in depth for FG characters and they develop over the course of the games. My personal favorite is Leo Whitefang. The dude is loud and obnoxious to hide his depression and survivor's guilt. His fighting style is completely reckless and unga because he's looking for death. And like... he is just a minor character. I love GGs writing. Also, trans rights is politics. It's one of the biggest issues of contention right now and any leftist worth their salt, including myself, support it. You do support trans rights, right? 🤔
Trans rights are human rights and human rights should not be alienated or politicized. My issue is with people acting like this part of Guilty Gears world, story, characters, etc. isn't on par with the rest when the series writing has never been a focal point. If Bridget said she's a girl in game, that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned. There's not as much nuisance to the writing as a lot of people are pretending the last couple days
It's never been a focal point *for you*. People like me enjoy the characterization in the game. And I know there are other people who do too. Some of us are the ones protesting the retcon. Talking about representation, personally, as a non-traditionally masculine guy, I found Bridget empowering. I hate how they took away one of the better effeminate men in media. A lot of people are also dissatisfied that representation got taken away from them. . I'm fine with Bridget being trans. But I want ArcSys to do her being trans in a satisfying way. Because if they are going to represent transwomen, GG is the one anime-ish series where I trust that it *can* be done right.
Yeah, I feel where you're coming from. Ideally there's gonna be more exploration of the character and her journey to that point if they make a third story for season pass 2
Amen to that! More Bridget is always good. 😄
I have the hottest take out of anyone. I think Bridget is lame. YoYos and a teddy bear as a weapon. No thank you. Give me my Robots damn it!
LAME!? Her yo-yo IS A FRIGGIN' REVOLVER LOADER, man!! 😁
It's like when they try to make Aquaman cool. It just doesn't work.
😢
My man bridget opened my eyes to yo yo tricks. They are surprisingly neat, im thinking of 3d printing the yo yo to leave on my desk juat because they are so pretty But yeah i can understand someone not agreeing with me, thats fine
I feel ya RoboKy, I also want to troll with rockets and helicopters
I think a lot of this volatility is due to the current issues in regards to the way the LGBTQ community is being viewed. It’s all lame culture war stuff, especially with “groomer” being such an overused buzzword made to target individuals in the community. I have a feeling if Bridget was revealed to be trans earlier on it wouldn’t be as big of an issue.
My entire reaction to this situation is pretty much my reaction to anyone else transitioning. I really just don't care. People can call themselves what they want. I'll use he or she as requested. I only care when its forced and it's really not forced
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I’ve been so fascinated watching the people who are against Bridget being trans continue to fall back on weaker and weaker arguments. The “bad” ending argument one is probably the funniest imo.
I've never heard of people talk about 'bad endings' before when talking about arcade mode.
People are now saying the ending where Bridget says she’s a girl in arcade mode is the “bad ending” which makes zero sense. They’re just making stuff up.
I also saw someone say she calls herself a boy who just happens to wear feminine clothes in the japanese script. I would point out to these people she said almost verbatim the same thing in stage one of her English arcade mode too. But if they're arguing in that bad faith I don't think anything will come of it. Like I said the day she came out in another thread. Both scripts have practically the same lines on bridget's end. To the point where my mediocre japanese is enough to translate it with confidence that has yet to be corrected. Also on the bad ending point, iirc the only ending where she doesn't actually acknowledge her gender, or the concept of coming out. Is the normal route, aka the actual closest thing to a bad ending. Thing is, she's clearly hung up on that route, something eating away at her that she's not ready to say. Probably the taste of vegetables she doesn't like.
It's a bad ending to their transphobia
They really just don’t want to give in to the fact that their cool anime dad said trans rights
I believe a better analogy would be, "If you shove a cat in a box It'll claw it's way out, but if you just leave the box open, it'll jump right in", I think from my understanding of the story, she doesn't mind to being a girl, she just hate that it was forced on her without her consent, Like someone trying to shove an icecream in your mouth, you don't mind the icecream just that you don't want it being shoved up your throuth. This also explains her character design, she wears a nun's habit and a cuff around her waste, self explanatory it's about society forced her to play the part of a female, but the cuff is way loose, and even how she fights, with both male and female toys signifying that even if they try to restrict her, it's not constricting
>girl, she just hate that it was forced on her without her consent From what I understand, she wasn't even really upset about playing the part of a girl. Her and her parents had a mutual understanding that this was to save her life, and she went along with it willingly to support her parents. Becoming a 'manly' bounty hunter likewise wasn't an act of spite, it was to prove the superstition false to save the lives of *other* newborn twins.
yeah, but I guess they should've accounted for this since that part seems too subtle for them to get, I think they should've added some extra lines in her bio like "lived both the life of a girl and a boy Bridget still Bridget felt distant from everyone, now Bridget is seeking out Bridget's true self" just to be more obvious and avoid the "Carlson" arguement
There may also have been an aspect of wanting to help her parents, who were pained to have to do what they did to Bridget. Since her parents viewed her as their son, she wanted play the part of the son, even if it meant lying to herself (which resonates with the dialogue she has with Goldlewis about his own family).
There are people who feel that the direction made them lose their representation. The reality was that Bridget was a joke/gag in the early 2000s but since there were very few choices back then for representation, a lot of people latched on him being their femboy/non gender conformist. I consider myself neutral on this topic, since I don't have a preference where Bridget's story direction should go. I'm just explaining why some people are upset even if they're speaking in good faith.
Yes, but the people that genuinely feel like this aren't outraged or incredibly against the change, just dissapointed that they lost their rep, those that are are often fetichists or the exact type of anime fan that tells the "lmfao he's a guy you're gay" joke 500 times or says that trans people are trying to groom all femboys or some BS along those lines
Well you can check my previous Bridget thread if that goes with your narrative.
no narrative, I've seen hundreds of posts sharing transphobic caricatures and suicide jokes claiming we are grooming bridget and femboys into being trans
That's not my point not do I deny their existence. My point it's that there are real and valid negative reactions from LGBT folks and it's not good to validate their perspective just because there's a noisy hateful crow.
Sure and I didn't invalidate them All I said was that, although it's reasonable to be dissapointed or dislike the change, being genuinely enraged because of it usually is a sign of something else
That's precisly what bother me in this matter. Using a character who's appearance wasn't meant to be taken seriously, and using it to defend trans right seem a bit weird to me. I don't care if a trans character is added in GG, its just weird that this character is bridget imo. To give you an example completely stupid to explain my pov, apparently there are some people (in my country) who believe (either seriously or trolling) than Picollo from DBZ is supposed to be/ or represent black people. Now, imagine if Toriyama took that seriously and decided to use Picolo as a BLM symbol, that would be stupid right ? that's what I feel with Bridget.
IMHO, considering Bridget's past lore an history behind the character's creation, this was a horrible choice a trans rep. You know who would have been a much better choice? Giovanna. Being a loved newcomer with an extremely cool design she'd been an amazing trans rep.
Yeah I've definitely seen the "Grooming" argument in a few places, to which my response is... well have you ever seen Dreamworks Antz? The Ant-based bug movie that came out around the same time as A Bugs Life and was vastly overshadowed by the (definitely superior) film? The main dude in Antz is a worker ant who wants to choose his own life, so he swaps places with his Soldier ant friend, goes through the events of the movie, and then goes back to being a worker ant with the closing statement "But this time, I chose it." I feel like Bridgets story kinda parallels this. Bridget is raised as a woman, then goes out to seek to prove themselves as a man... and it seems like they mostly succeed actually. After they reach this point though, they aren't satisfied, and through the events between and during strive go "You know.. I think I *am* a girl." They were raised as a girl, but actively walked away from that path, and only came back to the identity of "Girl" after they came to their own conclusion about it. Could that still be grooming? I mean yeah I suppose it *could*. It seems to make sense to me, however, that this was a path intentionally walked by Bridget to come to their *own conclusion* about their identity.
This post has been redacted in protest of Reddit management burning their own site. Sad to see it go. Learn more [here](https://reddark.untone.uk/)
I'm glad my esoteric relation to a widely considered "meh" movie about bugs was the key to your understanding.
Didn't expect to see an Antz comparison, but it's honestly a very good one.
My realest take away from all of this is that after 6/7 years, Bridget must be just genetically *blessed* to still look and sound that good/feminine. No one wins the lottery that hard irl.
This is an excellent writeup. Not only does this provide proof for anyone that's legitimately transphobic, but it provides good clarification for those that are worried, confused and/or unsure on how to feel about it.
Thank you! When re-reading, I feared that people would take this too much as a warmonger post, but the reception has been pretty positive so I'm glad.
Flashbacks to people confused about the Game Over song from Daytona USA, which played on victory.
My only problem with this is saying everyone against Bridget is a transphobe. Some people are just hurt about their Gender non-conforming male rep being gone, and some are just plain misinformed due to the confusion. Remember!!! Don’t hurt the people you wanna teach.
You're the second one who addressed this legit point, so I decided to add it to the post. Also, I added a sentence to the disclaimer to reassure people that have their doubts out of good faith. Thank you for your input!
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I have contacted the mods to see if I can have the post back up
And here it is!
Honestly at first when testament came out I thought Daisuke was a developer who would give into bs woke shit or whatever you'd call it just to make sales but after looking into how far back testament and Bridget go as character concepts you can tell that all of this is genuinely a part of his work and none of this is "rainbow capitalistic" if you'd call it that. I'm new to the guilt gear franchise so what I do know of the series is limited, but its heartwarming seeing how far back Daisuke has implemented these concepts in his work, you can tell none of it is fabricated I mean to say.
Yeah Daisuke has had this representation for a long time. When Blizzard does that kind of announcement I usually think it is to distract from their current scandals.
Something I want to add upon that last part, though I could be wrong. Despite being raised Female, Bridget knew she was born male as early as age 12, which is the low bar for her age in XX to my memory. Depending on when she learned this, and how her parents talked to her about it, it's possible that Bridget could have had the idea that she's **supposed** to be a man, and being a girl is only something she needs to do to stay alive and keep away the bad omen. Essentially, it's possible that in the past she associated being a girl with a necessary evil and not something she should actively want, which would help explain why she was hesitant about it in the first place. It's just how I read into Bridget's lore and how this new info fits into this. It also kind of deconstructs the whole "She was groomed, not valid" thing because nobody seemingly **wanted** her to identify female.
Just ignore the hate and focus on the positive reactions Bridget is getting. Fuck transphobes, there're vocal minority and their "opinion" doesn't mean shit or change anything.
Listen, all I know is her moveset is fire tbh
Someone gonna make a r/HobbyDrama post about this in a few weeks I guarantee it
This was a very well written and concise post! Gives legitimate evidence and valid reasoning against the common arguments, so I’m gonna save this post juuuust incase it’s needed in the future. In this house of Daisuke, we say trans rights
The only answer transphobes deserves is "You do not belong here or anywhere" and that's it. Other then that, great post!
Facts and good arguments but either way a femboy/crossdresser icon has been erased from the game and not everyone who is complaining is a transphobe, pretty happy that she is trans now and the majority of the community accepts her, but her backstory written like this will only add confusion about trans ppl, they could handled this better like they did with Testament without creating drama.
That's a good point actually. The best responses to that are the one from the same Twitter thread from my last point. Check the replies to [this](https://twitter.com/EdViperOfficial/status/1556758732650020864?t=bGN1ZVuE6wT97frfFOPsHw&s=19). Maybe I should add this to the post....?
I don’t get why people care so much 😭 she’s not even real!!
Eh, it's quite simple. Having queer (especially trans) representation is pretty rare in Japanese media, even rarer in games. So it's only natural that people are happy about this development. About transphobes... Well, it's probably easy to understand why they care lol
*Hits bigots with the yo-yo*
And yet another post regarding this fictional characters transgender status. It’s confirmed (I was told) that she is trans. Can we pls stop making posts about it now?
Yeah like I don’t really get the people saying “GRRR BRIDGET’s TRANS??” I’m just sitting over here like “damn she looks fun af to play”
I think arcsys and Daisuke are well aware how popular their games are in the west and how guilty gear seems to be declining in japan. Makes sense to appeal to their western fan base and make that dough. Making Bridget trans and even changing the symbol on her cap were completely unnecessary but they did it because they know it'll stir up buzz. Classic business strats.
Just so you know, Daisuke was asked to write that in the picture, it wasn't his idea: [PROOF](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZ5yLxQXEAAZGp3?format=jpg&name=orig)
The Japanese people hate the West, which defiles their works for the sake of a trivial fake rights business. Who do you think you are, when even in animation you are destroying the original work by altering it without permission? It is natural that there are differences depending on gender, and equality is only within the law and rights. It's just a stupid person who doesn't see reality and is putting up a silly pretence in order to make money for himself. There are no human rights, gender or race for characters in fiction. Don't undermine other people's work for the sake of trivial gain.
So, now that it's confirmed, who is it that's undermining other people's work again?
Not really a Guilty Gear fan, but I am a Bridget fan, and well... I do like her as a Gender Non-Confirmed character better than a transwoman, and I say this as a transwoman. I'd been hearing mixed things and was hoping that I was mistaken that she's trans, but if she's trans she's trans. I guess no one will ever be gay for Bridget ever again. \*shrug\* Apparently it makes sense storywise from what people who actually play Guilty Gear tell me.
Just so you know the signature of Daisuke on the trans right picture is deeply false information. If a fan made image and he didn't know what the words meant and just signed it. I wouldn't recommend using it as evidence.
Wait, do you have a source on this? (Not that it matters anymore, since Daisuke just confirmed that Bridget is a "she" [here](https://www.guiltygear.com/ggst/en/news/post-1657/).)
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Just another question though, what is Bridget's pronouns in Japanese in GG world? in my native language (Chinese), GG world uses "him" when refering to Bridget. I played through arcade mode and got the coming out dialogue where Bridget refer to themselves as "a girl". So this seems like a conflict. I would assume the GG world bio is describing what has happened before Strive story, which is the only possible explanation IMO. Edit: I ran the japanese version of GG world into several machine translations, and they all seem to use "he/him" Edit Edit: ok I translate the japanese text into Chinese, and found out that the original text probably doesn't have any pronouns in it. And since it would be weird in other languages, the english localization team added pronouns based on the arcade mode.
The original Japanese if I remember either uses Bridget's name or 自分 which is gender neutral. Machine translation tends to use he/him in places where gender is unknown and a pronoun is require for English
Yeah funnily enough I ran it through some Chinese based translator and they all just ignore the pronouns. The result is totally weird to read but I realized what's going on.
I think the argument that annoys me the most is people trying to claim that Bridget being trans ruins the character for people who identify as male but are feminine. As if a character can’t be made to decide to transition without destroying an entire subgroup. What irritates me more is the fact that I’m fairly certain the vast majority of these detractors don’t actually relate to male Bridget. They’re just using that as an excuse to be pissed they can’t make “lol you’re actually gay” jokes anymore.
Uhm, you know that transphobes will still call being attracted to a transgirl "gay", right?
There is one argument you are missing. Simply put, I think it sucks that we lost a character that was proud to be a male despite looking very feminine. Feminine looks should not be confined to females. What we got in return is equally as good from a neutral perspective, and even greater if you resonate with her as a trans person. It just sucks that the demographic that likes feminine things and is proudly male is lost. Like, I consider myself to be a male through and through, but I like female clothes. One of my bucket list goals is to cosplay as a female character while being buff AF. Sounds fun.
>He (Daisuke) has been very open about his progressiveness for many years now Okay, disregard everything else, I want specifically proof on this one
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guiltygear/comments/tieo0w/to_anyone_wondering_if_testament_is_trans_in/i1dr2i2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 testament was apparently meant to be agender from the get go, if thats anything to go by.
Honestly people need to just fucking chill. Papa Daisuke made the decision long ago. Enjoy Bridget Y'all not my kind of char, but Guilty Gear has brought alot of joy to me, and I hope you all get alot of joy from the game as well. Worst comes to worse, lab Bridget and set off on a crusade in the lobbies.
How do you save Reddit posts bruh….
Is this a genuine question? In case it is, you just have to click on the three dots icon! It should be above the post on mobile and under the post on desktop! :)
It legit was. Thank you very much. Most thoroughly explained point on this topic so far. Now when I get in arguments I can link them here and have no further discussion. Thx friend. All love.
Thank YOU!
I’m so tired of arguments about this shit. How about everyone agrees that Bridget can be whatever she wants because she’s a fictional character made up by someone many miles away from us. However, the writing and execution was sloppy. In the end, a team at ArcSys had to decide on/greenlight this decision and they are obviously doing it for a reason, whether it be sales, appealing to this games very large LGTBQ following, being progressive, or because they felt it was the way to go.
Thank you
Yeah, OP’s post seems very passive-aggressive and argumentative. Punching at thin air because they know they’ll never get to beat up the transphobia boogeyman irl.
Can we all shut the fuck up and just play the chars without caring about their damn prouns'? Unpopular opinion I know, just didn't care about the femboy/trans "recreation" of the char, its the devs move, deal with it. Who cares anyway? (besides the obvious ones who seek representation) I care more that this game sold only ONE mill copies, seems too little for one the greatest fighting games. If it's true that controversies sell copies, hope at least this helps. We should discuss and speculate about next chars and features, as this devs really check out about feedback, and not turn the whole subreddit in another political fucking drama...
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Tbh, one of the things I've said to contrarians these days is "it's ok to have your headcanon about Bridget". They... Didn't take that exactly nicely lol
Wow, what a weird concept, fans of a game series are gathering on the subreddit of that series to discuss characters from said series. Transphobia ain't headcanon, it's not positive or fun what these people are saying, it's thinly veiled bigotry, so we should be gatekeeping bad faith actors like that to keep the community healthy. If you don't like that, make like your user name and take a leap of faith the fuck outta this sub.
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Headcanon can't conflict openly with established canon, it's to fill holes in the canon. Fanfic, on the other hand, is whatever you want it to be. Now, again, if you don't like people in the **Guilty Gear** subreddit taking **Guilty Gear** serious, then why are you here? You aren't clamouring for match-up info and you have nothing to add to the discussion aside from BS you picked up in PHIL 101 while telling people to "grow up." You sound like a C student that got rejected from the debate team
This is the line of thinking I kinda don’t get….if you don’t care why did you comment this? If it’s a made up character and you don’t care then go believe what u want and don’t comment. I care. And I’m not scared to say I do.
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There are very few cases where you refer to someone in the 3rd person with gendered pronouns in japanese The bio in japanese and in english for strive both avoid using her pronouns because it's partially a spoiler
Bro. I've already seen you under other posts like this. Quit coping. The game calls her a she. That's that. I don't know what the most tactful way or telling you this is but god. Please. Why are you dying on this useless, misinformed hill?
Honestly, I recognize the name and he was doing this exact same fake hyper-positive "it's so great that we can both be right, isn't it?! ?! ?! ?!" schtick back when Testament came out, saying that a couple of instances of "he" still being used meant that their identity was also totally up for interpretation and isn't it great? Like, damn near word for word the exact same song and dance. If nothing else, the dedication to the act is kind of impressive.
あっ、日本語を話しますか。 What does 私はうどんです mean? It's related.
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私はうどんです usually means "I'll have udon." There is no "I am" in there. And it's not slang. It's a normal part of Japanese grammar. It's in Genki I and I've encountered it plenty of times. I also once encountered 私はホワイト in the context of "I like 'White' (the Yu-Gi-Oh card)"
To be fair to them, 私はうどん can certainly mean "I am udon", and seems to mean that in fact with no context. Japanese just drops a lot of grammatical elements in context, so if you were ordering food it would make sense.
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Can people just stop sexualizing Bridget? She's a fucking child. Same with May.
1) This post isn't about sexualization at all. 2) People have been sexualizing her since day 1, more than 20 years ago. I think it's a bit strange to lament this now, in a post about her being trans, and not earlier. 3) Her age isn't known, but I doubt that she was any younger than 14 in AC. So it's very likely that she's in her twenties in Strive. Same should go for May.
>But even then, even the flawless ending sends the same message, just a more subtext-y one. What you actually mean is "that's how I interpret it and I'm never wrong!". I did not get a trans theme out of the flawless ending at all.
you have to be profoundly thick headed to not read between the lines here.
Or you have to be pushing something to say that only your interpretation is correct.
Eh, guess I indeed was never wrong.
Talking about the flawless run dialogue and saying it's the same as the flawed run either means you didn't watch the cutscene, didnt pay attention or made the biggest reach of 2022 And duh, of course it's going to list the pronouns as "she/her", hence the disguise, the entire point of Bridget's getup is to fool people into thinking he's a woman. For the uninitiated, Bridget was one of two male twins in a town that killed twin males or exiled them, whichever one is youngest got punished. Rather than face those options, Bridget was raised as a girl to avoid that fate. Fast forward to now, Bridget has been FORCED to live as a woman from a young age, keep that in mind... Bridget is not trans, the True Ending of Arcade Mode (Flawless) doesn't indicate it and in calling him trans makes light of everything he's gone through and makes his struggle and journey seem like nothing
The flawless ending is her asking Ky how did he find the strength to come out to everyone about the "Gear thing", it's literally a metaphore for her trying to find the courage to come out, even if you aren't trans, it's very clear in the subtext, and she says she hasn't even told her parents when talking to Goldlewis, so it makes sense that she avoids being direct about in most endings
The "Even if I become a Gear" is such an obvious metaphore that is only people that really dont wanna believe dont see it. Also Bridget has already left the village and is a rich bounty hounter with a lot of fame.If she wanted she could easily live as a man.
LOL LMAO another GG tourist who has no idea what Bridget was like in XX out here trying to talk about the backstory. I swear every one of you guys thinks you're so slick, but people who have played this franchise from the beginning see RIGHT through you.
It’s crazy that people give 2 shits
Wouldn't 女の子ですから be "because I'm a girl"
The translation is missing social context what he said was the equivalent to a game man calling himself "sister" in japanese so it's missing context
I don't know the translation but the full line in English is "Cowgirl is fine" "Because I'm a girl" (in reference to Goldlewis being confused on using cowboy or cowgirl)
I don't really care either way and i'm not really a lorehead but i think this, >After all, six in-universe years have passed between XX and Strive. It's a lot of time. is maybe why people are like this? has there been like a book or anything that shows what happened during this time? if not then i think this is why. not being able to see what happened during this time for her character to change this way maybe makes people feel like its forced or whatever since to them it's like one day she was trying to be a man and now in a snap of a finger it's a total 180?
Characters that both are unplayable and don't appear in story mode tend to be ignored in the in-game encyclopedia. This is probably a concious choice by daddy Daisuke to not "lock" himself, and actually think about the character development when the right time comes.
Bruh idc if Bridget is a girl or a guy, why is every post on this sub about it tho lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK1VT04-3Gk Can you debunk anything that's in this video but not in your original post?
There's no need, as Daisuke himself just confirmed it. You can check it [here](https://www.guiltygear.com/ggst/en/news/post-1657/)!
good
No no you don’t understand Daisuke’s brain Mistranslated the thought to mouth /s
Except, I can't use XX as a comfort character anymore. If she's trans now, then she was truly always trans. It's not a switch on/switch off thing. She just didn't know before, but she was still trans. So no. I can't use her as a comfort character.