🐱 GTA 5's Current-Gen Port Removes Transphobic Caricatures And Language

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Rockstar appears to have removed transphobic NPCs and jokes from the latest release of Grand Theft Auto 5, Expanded and Enhanced. NPCs who had long been criticized for perpetuating harmful stereotypes, often used against trans people in real life, still appear in the game, but have had their voice lines removed. Some jokes have also been replaced too, as spotted by players.

This comes after many had called for Rockstar to update the humour of GTA 5 for its latest release, reflecting the increasingly publicized acts of transphobia we have seen since its initial launch. While Rockstar has not commented on this move publicly, it is clear that the changes were purposely made, as the NPCs in question were specifically targeted to have their voice lines removed, and they no longer appear outside their usual spot in-game.

The discovery was shared on Twitter, and pertains to the recent upgrades of both GTA 5 and GTA Online. It was found that, while the NPCs are still present in the game - accessible via the Director Mode - they do not appear at their usual spawn point of an LGBTQ+ nightclub in normal gameplay. Players are unable to activate their voice lines, with a text box reading: "No available speech for this actor".

Visual gags have also been removed, such as a poster that describes an action figure as having "interchangeable genitalia". This has been replaced with another action figure poster.

While the characters are listed in the game as "drag queens" in the game, not necessarily trans women, their voice lines and design nevertheless perpetuated stereotypes and bigotry towards the trans community.

As we reported last October, advocacy group Out Making Games shared an open letter directed at Rockstar, calling for this content to be removed. At the time, they said that Rockstar should make the changes, so as to not "promote violence against trans and gender diverse people."
 
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NickDigger said:
He's a Democrat yid regardless.
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I had already said he was.

I'm not saying he was a nobleman, he was just a different breed of heeb than the current chosenites we have today.

NickDigger said:
Do not believe for a second it was only your meanie evangelicals who told you Pokemon was a gateway to Lucifer. Liberal politicians were the ones who came for your electronic time wasters in 1992, and they're ones who champion faggot shit for the last 30 years.
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This isn't news to anyone who's seen the statue of liberty in GTA IV.
 
Prophetic Spirit said:
But not the other one when you're helping one until his reveal.
So, i don't even know why.
Not even the part when one of the kiddos is straight racist. Lmao.
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Probably because they're used to teach lessons about how racism is bad or how trans women are women.

Minority groups can only ever be portrayed positively without nuance and any negative traits exhibited by a member is clearly the writer stating that all members of said group are like this.
 
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Belligerent Monk said:
Whatever.
The man who makes a mod that restores the lines... And gives some spicy new ones... Will receive all the praise.

The market will find a way. We always do.
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Though I'm not too fussed about modding anti-troon shit back in, I'm definitely at the point of wanting to mod troon shit out. Those mods don't tend to be easily findable, though - or maybe I'm just terrible at boolean searching.
 
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God of Nothing said:
people actually cried over that simp ass faggot jew getting his brains stomped in
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I mean, i love the aethestic motorbike-centred setting in TLaD and Johnny Kleibtz was a good protagonist in his own, but whinning about that is just stupid and ridiculous.
Remember when Rockstar retconned Victor Vance's death in GTA:VC 'cus for the lulz? Yeah.
 
God of Nothing said:
people actually cried over that simp ass faggot jew getting his brains stomped in
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It sucks because it goes against his story arc.
TLaD was about Johnny growing up, leaving the biker life behind, and cutting out tyaxic people like Ashley from his life.

Cut to GTA V where he's addicted to meth, still an outlaw biker, and still dating Ashley.
 
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Jack Awful said:
It sucks because it goes against his story arc.
TLaD was about Johnny growing up, leaving the biker life behind, and cutting out tyaxic people like Ashley from his life.

Cut to GTA V where he's addicted to meth, still an outlaw biker, and still dating Ashley.
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what else was he gonna do? become a biker jacket designer?
 
Ser Prize said:
After they crowbarred the fucking woke politics into RDR2 I knew they were well and truly dead.
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I felt like the Woke was better and more tolerable in RDRII than it is in most things, but it was definitely there.

However all of the "POC" members of the gang were Arthur's buddies, they never talked down to him or disrespected him or made him "check his priviledge", a way more Woke game would have had that.

Big Scumfuck said:
Censorship is censorship whether it comes from the right or left.
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That was my point, GTA is no longer free from censorship.

NickDigger said:
He's a Democrat yid regardless.

Do not believe for a second it was only your meanie evangelicals who told you Pokemon was a gateway to Lucifer. Liberal politicians were the ones who came for your electronic time wasters in 1992, and they're ones who champion faggot shit for the last 30 years.
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Notice how the left actually manages to get pushback, the controversy in the early 90s led to the creation of the ESRB, Sarkeesian led to a complete restructuring of how video games are made and sold in the west, now we have GTA being censored.

Meanwhile the right calling Pokemon Satanic or Jack Thompson were only ever laughed at and dismissed.

There's also a funny little thing Lieberman and Sarkeesian have in common too beyond just being part of "the left"
 
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In recent years, the press and LGBTQ+ groups have been putting pressure on Rockstar Games to remove or change content they see as "transphobic" in Grand Theft Auto V. Now, players have noted a few such changes to transgender representation in the "expanded and enhanced" upgrades to the game recently released for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Reddit user JayProspero was among the first to notice a change to the action figures lining the wall of the office in the in-game arcade. A hot-pink-clad "Captain Spacetoy" figure, in a box highlighting "interchangeable genitalia," has been removed in the new console versions of the game; an alternative figure with a more reserved outfit and "posable vomit direction" remains on the wall.

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Kirsty Cloud, who helps run fan community GTAnet, has also highlighted that over-the-top trans woman character models, apparently referred to as "drag queen" in the game's files, no longer spawn outside Cockatoos, an in-game nightclub. While those character models can still be accessed in the game's sandbox-style Director Mode, dialogue options that make explicit reference to their gender and sexuality have been removed.

A successful pressure campaign?​

Rockstar hasn't responded to a request for comment on the apparent changes. But the move comes months after content like this was labeled "transphobic" by Out Making Games, a self-described "group of hundreds of LGBTQ+ games professionals working in the UK games industry." In an open letter written in September, the group cited coverage from Kotaku's Carolyn Petit that called out problems with trans representation in the original 2013 release.

"Unlike other random NPCs, the way Rockstar designed GTA V's trans people actively plays into the hateful stereotypes harbored by many transphobic players," Petit wrote. "The trans sex workers you can encounter, with their garish makeup and prominent penis bulges, seem calculated to be ridiculous and repulsive to players who bring their pre-existing transphobia to the game with them. It’s as if they’re designed specifically so that some players could relish hurting and killing them because they are trans."

Some critics have been noting GTA V's reductive and derogatory treatment of trans characters since the game's original release. And in 2020, Engadget's Jessica Conditt expressed concern that the then-upcoming remasters wouldn't reflect how "the conversation around transgender rights, visibility and violence has changed significantly in the past seven years."

"I think there's a huge responsibility on all games, all types of media, to not rely on lazy stereotypes,” Birmingham City University lecturer Dr. Ben Colliver told Conditt in 2020. "In the Grand Theft Auto series, a lot of the stereotypes to me seem to be there just for comedic effect. They're just there so that trans people and LGBT people more broadly are a joke."

The new console remasters are "a great opportunity to remove transphobic elements from the game and have a positive impact on the new generation of players who will pick up a copy," Out Making Games wrote in its open letter. "Given the cultural impact GTA V has around the world, Rockstar has a social responsibility to your players (many of whom may be LGBTQ+), to your staff and to the world at large to not promote violence against trans and gender diverse people."

This isn't the first time questionable content has been edited out of GTA games over time. The Confederate flag was removed from certain locations in Grand Theft Auto V and from a character's shirt in the remastered GTA Trilogy. And Rockstar had to reissue a new version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas after modders unlocked an otherwise inaccessible "Hot Coffee" sex minigame included on the disc, leading to a ratings change from the ESRB.


 
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