Okay, two things. Firstly, remember how gamers were howling in offence when they saw women in Battlefield 5 and the EA head suggested they didn't need to buy the game if they didn't like that?
Because that sure was offensive. But you know what isn't offensive? Making a cruel joke on an oppressed people who have spent years facing violence and ridicule just to have the right to exist as they are. That is free speech, obviously.
Careful not to give yourself whiplash guys.
Secondly, I would like to answer some people who are asking how someone could make a statement like that out of ignorance. I'm not defending the tweeter, just relaying my experience. To give some context before I start- I'm a cis-gendered straight male from India.
For many years I thought that the phrase "Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams" was a motivational quote. Seriously. That said, I don't think that's what happened here.
It took a long time for me to understand that women were human beings just like me, despite growing up in a family with two women- my mother and my sister. It took college education for me to realize that being gay was seriously a thing. Or that patriarchy was a thing. Or that trans people were human beings just like me, and they were suffering societal rejection and terrible violence in my country.
These might sound like obvious concepts to anyone above the age of 5 growing up in a western country, but in deeply patriarchal India, every moment like this was a revelation to me.
So I do understand how statements like this one can be made in ignorance. Doesn't make them any less hurtful or offensive of course, but they aren't always coming from a place of malice, and I think that matters in how we engage with the person making the statement.
Of course, I can never truly feel what a trans person would feel on reading that tweet, so I won't argue with anyone who disagrees with me.
