The idea of "bending existing characters" to be queer amuses the hell out of me. You can probably count on two hands how many characters in Transformers were in actual "romantic" relationships. Transformers (in better fiction) tend to act pretty human anyway, so why not have romance, queer or otherwise? Hell, given how male-dominated Cybertron tends to be in some shittier takes on the franchise, you'd think homosexuality would be the norm.

 

Gay people start having crushes at a young age, too. It's not all about sex. "Sometimes boys like boys and girls like girls" is perfectly fine to explain to a 7 year-old.

 

Can't believe people care this much about gender and Transformers. Is it really that hard to just roll with the fact there are bots refered to as he or she and you're just not supposed to question it?

 

Both breezing past the fact that I'm specifying sexuality. Pretty sure we're about to hit infinite loop here, just like every other thread.

 

Pretty sure the issue here is that the way you word this shit makes no sense. Like what you did earlier in this thread with the genocide and sexuality in kids movies comparison thing

 

I don’t know if that’s the case my friend.

There is an abundance of evidence in support of representation having a positive impact on society at large. Whether we are talking LGBT, ethnic minority, religion, etc. exposure to things, through direct interaction or arts (in this case art) can have economic (a more innovative economy) and civil (less crime) net benefits.

On the contrary to this point a lack of exposure has been shown to deliver the opposite, through stagnating economies and an increase in crime.

I would put references, but a lot of this stuff is pretty easy to find and it may violate tfw rules to post. Usually in economist based circles.

 

And that’s all it should be. But some people want to project aspects of their own humanity onto fictional beings that are not human whose design is not compatible with those aspects of humanity. Gender and sexuality issues for humans are a big deal, but to Cybertronians they are a non-issue to practically being incredibly minor or non-existent. The act of a “Male” Cybertronian now identifying as “female” is just that. No surgery required or anything. Maybe a reformatted form which is something Cybertronians do all the time.

 

How far would you extend that, though? If we want Transformers that are treated 100% as their robot forms would dictate, they'd be impossible to kill. Their core programming would be backed up on some sort of super cloud and even if you destroyed their physical body, they'd just get uploaded to a new one. None of them would have special skills that were unique to them, because everyone would have a hologram projector and a jet pack and Perceptor's intelligence built in. I mean, if the tech exists why limit who gets it? At the very least, all of that would be modular so that anyone could plug it in and use it. But they're written that way because we relate to working with other humans who have different skill sets from us.

The Transformers have been written as human analogues from day one, and I think it's disingenuous to argue otherwise.

And, let's all be honest with ourselves: it's not like any of us is unfamiliar with romantic stories about things that have no IRL romantic capability. If you don't object to Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, how is Chromedome and Rewind a bridge too far?

 

I might be reading this wrong, but I'm pretty sure you're implying anyone who explains homosexuality to a child is a pedophile. Surely, a fine upstanding member of this community like you would never do such a thing.

 

Yeah I wouldn't expect a response from this guy

 

Okay, I think that's enough of that. Let's keep on topic.

 

...

How in the blue fuck did you even come to that?!?

 

Well I've got seven year old twin boys. And I for one and not ready to have the sex talk with them, let alone the homosexuality talk with them.

 

How is homosexuality worse than talking about sex. Like I get not wanting to talk about stuff like this to kids that young but I fail to see how homosexuality is on a another level than sex

 

The sex talk is one thing...of course it's early for that. But romantic pairings is a completely benign topic. They're aware that people couple up, right? "Sometimes boys and girls couple, sometimes two boys couple, sometimes two girls couple." I mean, that's basically the talk. At least, it's all the talk you'd need from them being exposed to it from a cartoon like Transformers. It's easy.

 

Just a thought, but saying you can't explain same gendered relationships and attraction in a simple and concise way in the same way you're not ready for The Talk carries the unfortunate implication of believing that LGBT+ relationships are purely sexual in nature...

I mean, if your kid even has questions in the first place at the sight of, say, two cartoon ladies holding hands how difficult is "people like who they like. Sometimes boys like girls/girls like boys, and sometimes boys like boys/girls like girls, it's just how they are"? You don't gotta go into how those relationships work in the fuckin' bedroom.

 

"Now little Timmy, you know how mommy and daddy love each other and how mommy is a woman and daddy a man? Sometimes some men love other men and women love other women like how mommy and daddy love each other"
Pretty sure this is all you gotta do