Soldier 76 has recently been revealed through a mention in a short story that he is gay. Wonderful! Welcome to our community soldier.
For some insane reason, and with nonsensical ‘evidence’ or ‘complaints’ however, many aren’t happy. I wanna talk about these issues people are having and show how ridiculous they are.
Number 1. It came out of nowhere. No, it just didn’t come up in conversation with anyone. People act as though it has to be known right away or it can’t have been always planned. As if characters don’t develop or don’t have many years, more than 60 in soldiers case, which we do not see. If it was said right away, and he introduced himself as ‘Hi, i’m Soldier and i’m gay’ people would have accused blizz of ramming it down their throats. There was no win. He either announces right away and rams it down throats, or mentions when it would humanly come up in conversation and get accused of pandering to LGBT+
Number 2. Too much gay compared to too little straight. Yes, this is a thing i’ve seen. Torbjorn has a wife and a dozen kids, one of which we play as. Widowmaker had a husband, and she even has a spray of her wedding photo. Ana had her husband Sam, another straight relationship we get a spray of. Let us have soldier and his spray? it’s not pandering, it’s not under representing you, it’s just also allowing us a single spray of representation, a single reference.
Number 3. He doesn’t look gay. Yeah, that’s why it took three years and for him to say it for us to know. not all LGBT people are rainbow wearing drag queens, some are, not all.
All in all I think Blizz handled this announcement and the character in the most respectful way i’ve seen LGBT stuff handled in a while. Why? Because it felt normal. He didn’t go around telling everyone about his personal life, we only found out when he talked to an old friend. Thank you Blizzard.
Thank you, you’ve explained what Blizzard have actually done with this reveal and taken the news like an adult.
The people who are saying it is forced I am sure did not actually read the story it came from.
People are so quick to talk trash with nothing to back it up. Sad sad times.
And still the important question is; who cares?
Who cares, move on. Throwing fuel on the fire won’t help.
I think if you’re gay, a persecuted minority, seeing any kind of representation in a game as big as Overwatch is seen as a huge positive.
When you’re straight and gayness doesn’t bother you, you see all the other issues with this whole scenario like the maybe not so great timing for this reveal, possibly not the best hero to pick as the second gay hero, etc.
But honestly at the end of the day, we should be in a world where it makes no difference who is what. We have so many bigger problems in the world than who the person next door is shagging.
Anyway, I’m over this whole soldier thing. Time to move on.
I really hate those people who need to make a show out of someone being g4y, no matter in a loving or hating sense. People were blaming Blizzard for pandering or stirring up the political pot when in reality, they tried their best to make his sexuality as normal as possible. Media were the ones who cared about the money and put him on a spotlight, not blizzard.
Could everyone just stop caring when someone is (insert minority here) and enjoy soldiers backstory for what it is: a backstory?
No. I am way too invested in this fictional character to be normal about a change that has absolutely no impact on it. Hurr durr.
If you are so invested then why don’t you just marry him? ![:crazy_face:](https://d1kzxbyyijk9k6.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/crazy_face.png?v=6" ":crazy_face:")
That’s g4y.
Lowkey note, I shot you a friend request on BattleNet, I’d be interested in some one on one chat, if you’re in for it.
Not forced? Lore looks like an lgbt fanfic atm. Having 3 main events around lgbt stuff yet when it comes to the core of the lore they ignor it. like tf happen to sombras conspiracy, black watch, the new overwatch goal, and a ton more this is just forced by the media onto blizzard so it’s for real supper forced in a pg 13 game.
And sorry but this is my opinion.
And they picked the Cod hero out of everyone, its like they didn’t know how the cod communety will react to this.
I think it has all overblown thanks to the previous controversies with Activision/Blizzard that has happened.
You don’t throw wood into a forest fire to extinguish it, rather you use it to light a nice fire going to keep it interesting.
A great character is important, and sadly in the current year, a lot of media (thanks to pressure) forcefully make a character x to pander to demographic y.
Instead of developing a character from the ground up, with a interesting back story. Perhaps the next hero is one of the LQBT community that lost their loved one and this is their cause to action? etc.
Good post.
But im stuck on this idea…
You mentioned in point 3 how he doesnt look gay, and ive seen people upset with this quite a bit.
Im wondering about how the LGBTQ+ community feels now about almost immediately labelling Zarya as a LGBTQ+ icon, solely based on her appearance, and also wonder what there response would be if she was declared straight…
I think this may be a common ground for both sides. Its kinda like picking up a book with a cat on the cover, buying it for all the great cat info, and then realizing its about pickles when you first open it up. That would frustrate and disappoint anyone. However, the bright side is you now have an awesome book about pickles, and who doesn’t love pickles! 
All im saying is, maybe we shouldn’t disregard the opinions of people who are disappointed by this reveal so easily. All they really wanted was for their cat book to be about cats… Which at the most basic level, is what everyone seems to want anyway.
Hurr durr. I hate pickles! Never assume something being about pickles is the bright side!
I main him and i will continue playing as s76
What worries me the most its the probable future skins 
(Just kiding : yes you need to specify everything these days jeez)
Signing off o\
This line is wrong.
There is only one community and that’s the human being community. Segregation is bad. LGTB ect is basically a community / group / list of everything except straight people. This is not how things should be done. It’s primitive tribalism.
You people can have elongated discussions about these topics, but if you were REALLY advanced (like me), then you’d just realise how irrelevant sexual orientation is and how destructive it is to segregate people out into categories and then assign them to communities.
Soldier 76 is a h0m0-sapien. You are also a h0m0-sapien. Welcome to the h0m0-sapien community. It’s a 7.6 billion member club. Enjoy it. 
PS - Isn’t it lovely how the forum doesn’t allow me to type h0m0-sapien using the letter “o”. See, this is your doing people. slow clap
Aren’t you just discriminating Winston, Hammond, Orisa, Bastion and to degree Genji and Zen with your H0mo-sepian speach?
Releasing a gay character for diversity is great, making a character gay to be diverse is obnoxious
As far as I can tell people are not mad about Soldier being gay out of nowhere, that he doesn’t look like a gay person or because the community is homophobic.
I saw a lot of people being disappointed. But not because of the old guys being gay. Some where sad because this doesn’t change the game. Sure, some people might care about the lore and so on, but after all we are still playing the game for the game itself and not because of the lore.
I mean no one heard that there were two homosexual characters in this game and were like; “Oh my god! I need this game! I don’t care for the gameplay, but gay characters!”
I support gay rights, transgender and everything else. Everyones life is equal and also should be treated like this.
You can say that Soldier is gay, there is no problem with it. I don’t care who he loves or he doesn’t love.
But a fact is that this game apparently has some problems. Problems which a lot of players dislike, lets take for example the events.
More people would be happy to see a new event and not some character being gay.
A character being gay doesn’t change the game or the gameplay. And this is why some players didn’t like it.
And no, it doesn’t mean that they should not make characters gay.
But we get no changes and then the only change after, i don’t know, months - is that our beloved character is homosexual.
I mean okay, nice that Blizzard is not ashamed of gays and also supports them but yeah.
I hope you get my points.
#LoveWhoYouWantToLove <3
You can’t compare to completely differen things though.
Comparing story releases with even releases is like comparing an artist with a game designer. An artist doesn’t make games, they make art. A game designer doesn’t make art, they make games.
Blaming blizzard for “wasting time and money by adding story that lacks impact” is a faulty argument and even completely false becasue we actually got a small event based on the story.
Again, lore designers don’t create events. That is up to another team.