Bridget - Guilty Gear Strive

There has been a previous Topic about this (forum #218463) but a lot of the discussion was around the intention of the creators. In the most recent Developer's Backyard post Guilty Gear creator Daisuke Ishiwatari states that Bridget identifies herself a woman and uses she and her pronouns.

We've received many inquiries about Bridget's gender. After the events of Bridget's story in Arcade Mode she self-identifies as a woman, So, as to whether "he" or "she" would be the correct pronoun for Bridget, the answer would be "she."

I know many people want to continue using the 1boy tag for Bridget both because of the history of the character, the need to change many tags, and various explicit images that will have the character at a glance more resemble a guy. My suggestion is that due to the character's costume changing that we tag images with that costume as 1girl and any future images with a costume different then either canon ones (meme images, swim suits, casual wear) also as 1girl. Previous images and new images with the guilty_gear_xx costume can stay marked as 1boy. Any thing SFW that doesn't fall into one of those categories can be hashed out on a case by case basis (ex: Bridget in the XX costume remarking that the clothes she wore when she thought she was a boy no longer fits would be seen as 1girl.)

For NSFW images it seems in the history of this side on marking transgender characters in nsfw images by their genitalia which I believe will continue on for this case. This is just my thought process and what I've seen represented by previous discussions in the thread above and others like it. Ant other suggestions are welcome. If I should not have made a new thread and should have asked a mod to open the old one up then I apologize.

As was covered in the previous topic, as a general rule we don't tag gender identity. There are a few exceptions for certain reasons, but Bridget doesn't fall under any of those. Daisuke confirmed that she self-identifies as a woman, not that she's become a woman.

I'm still open to creating some tags specifically for gender identity, so that maybe people will whine less about the boy/girl tags but, just like I know Daisuke's confirmation isn't going to stop people using male pronouns, I know it'll just give people more tags to vandalize.

I'd wait for another costume change before changing new SFW posts since the current one has an androgyne symbol, and Bridget is male for the majority of GGST's storyline (even if that's currently only Arcade for Bridget).

Alternatively 1other + ambiguous gender on SFW posts would be much preferable.

LQ said:

Alternatively 1other + ambiguous gender on SFW posts would be much preferable.

That is not what 1other tag is used for, the tag doesn't apply to characters with clearly identifiable gender features (which Bridget most often does have).

I'm aware, though I'm not sure most Bridget posts have clearly identifiable gender features.

Edit: I don't think forum #218707 applies to SFW Bridget art most of the time (especially not by face alone), especially considering the GGST costume's breast ambiguity.

blindVigil said:

As was covered in the previous topic, as a general rule we don't tag gender identity. There are a few exceptions for certain reasons, but Bridget doesn't fall under any of those. Daisuke confirmed that she self-identifies as a woman, not that she's become a woman.

I'm still open to creating some tags specifically for gender identity, so that maybe people will whine less about the boy/girl tags but, just like I know Daisuke's confirmation isn't going to stop people using male pronouns, I know it'll just give people more tags to vandalize.

Part of my belief that we did is that hoshikawa_lily is marked as 1girl in SFW art or in some NSFW that doesn't show her genitalia. She has a female gender identity and self identifies as a woman but has not "become" a woman.

LQ said:

I'd wait for another costume change before changing new SFW posts since the current one has an androgyne symbol, and Bridget is male for the majority of GGST's storyline (even if that's currently only Arcade for Bridget).

Alternatively 1other + ambiguous gender on SFW posts would be much preferable.

There's no "majority of GGST storyline", it got confirmed by ishiwatari_daisuke (creator, composer, artist of the series) that the character that had previously appeared in one major game, guilty_gear_xx thanks to personal development, has transitioned to a woman. They even clarify that no matter what the route you consider canon, she has accepted herself and other characters accepted her as a woman.

By the way, although the difficulty and story dialogue of Arcade Mode change depending on your match results, this
doesn't change the main plot, nor are there alternate endings such as "good" or "bad" endings. The same goes for
other characters' Arcade stories as well. In general, these variations show other aspects of the characters.

Canti said:

Part of my belief that we did is that hoshikawa_lily is marked as 1girl in SFW art or in some NSFW that doesn't show her genitalia. She has a female gender identity and self identifies as a woman but has not "become" a woman.

That was done because of spoilers. See forum #152601.

Kamsthetics said:

There's no "majority of GGST storyline", it got confirmed by ishiwatari_daisuke (creator, composer, artist of the series) that the character that had previously appeared in one major game, guilty_gear_xx thanks to personal development, has transitioned to a woman. They even clarify that no matter what the route you consider canon, she has accepted herself and other characters accepted her as a woman.

Not quite. He said, "After the events of Bridget's story in Arcade Mode, she self-identifies as a woman." Bridget has not transitioned, and for the majority of her story in Strive self-identified as a boy. It's only at the end that she finally accepts herself as a girl.

maybe this is a sign that danbooru needs to develop a system of tagging for gender that isn't based on a grade school level understanding of it,

megahatterene said:

maybe this is a sign that danbooru needs to develop a system of tagging for gender that isn't based on a grade school level understanding of it,

As opposed to a college level complete misunderstanding of it?

This story is just so boggling bad. Either way, it's gonna be decided based on the artist, I suppose. Many japanese artists might simply choose to keep drawing Bridget as a "femboy", like they have been for the past month. In this case, there'd be no need to change anything. Checking the tags on the original source and whatever other insinuations the artist said must be enough.

Achelexus said:

This story is just so boggling bad. Either way, it's gonna be decided based on the artist, I suppose. Many japanese artists might simply choose to keep drawing Bridget as a "femboy", like they have been for the past month. In this case, there'd be no need to change anything. Checking the tags on the original source and whatever other insinuations the artist said must be enough.

Pretty much. If the artist on pixiv (for example) tags their art as otokonoko or boy, it's because that's how they are drawing the character. We can't tell what the artists feel about the characters, but we can at least know whether a character is being genderswapped or whatever and just respect that decision by them, just like we always do with any other character out there being whichever gender.

blindVigil said:

Not quite. He said, "After the events of Bridget's story in Arcade Mode, she self-identifies as a woman." Bridget has not transitioned, and for the majority of her story in Strive self-identified as a boy. It's only at the end that she finally accepts herself as a girl.

Being trans is not a choice. If she's a woman, she's always been a woman and she'll continue to be a woman.

Kamsthetics said:

Being trans is not a choice. If she's a woman, she's always been a woman and she'll continue to be a woman.

I did not say it was a choice. Bridget self-identified as a male, and now she doesn't. Not everyone just automatically understands who they are and who they wish to be without complications. Most trans people are not just born into the world identifying as a separate gender from their biological sex. They reach this conclusion with time. Sometimes they realize they were mistaken, and change their mind. People are complicated. Being trans is complicated.

It's honestly insulting to a trans person's struggle to pretend like the path they took to get there never happened.

Kamsthetics said:

Being trans is not a choice. If she's a woman, she's always been a woman and she'll continue to be a woman.

Once a man always a man. #chromosomesmatter

Bionicman76 said:

Once a man always a man. #chromosomesmatter

You're not helping anyone by saying this about pixels on a screen. Please stay on topic and keep your obviously biased comments to yourself.

This is Danbooru, an anime image sharing site. Not a Twitter thread about politics where you would get the reaction you clearly want here.

I use this site as much as anybody else. But it is rather sickening to see this many arguments over something so simple. Being trans is not a toggle you can put on or off, neither is gender affiliated with biological chromosomes or genitalia. And yet, every single person in here has to go out of their way to say these things, just making it difficult for everyone else to just tag things as how they are.

If so is everyone so terrified of gender identity, why don't we change gender tags to biological chromosomes? At the end, if you don't respect anybody who identifies as a woman after transitioning, you can also have the same energy towards cis women or men too, right? If we get rid of gendered tags and create chromosome_xx, for characters that bear a vagina and chromosome_xy, for characters who bear a penis. (Or even chromosome_xxy for characters like kaine_(nier) who are confirmed to be intersex!)

Sounds dumb and complicated? Well then, just replace her gender tag to 1girl. Simple as that. There's no denying that she is not a woman in the latest entry of the game because the creator of the series himself said that she's a woman.

If the thread is going to devolve into this again it's going to get locked again and nothing is going to get done. Please refrain from this kind of absolutist "I'm right and everyone else is wrong, end of discussion" posting.

Kamsthetics said:

If so is everyone so terrified of gender identity, why don't we change gender tags to biological chromosomes? At the end, if you don't respect anybody who identifies as a woman after transitioning, you can also have the same energy towards cis women or men too, right?

Bridget has not transitioned. This point is irrelevant to the discussion, nor has anyone insinuated that being trans is some kind of on/off switch.