…is trans. Who knew? I love that Magic is being progressively inclusive. Now if only they could resist the urge to put women in boobs-and-butt twists and stick to making strong women look strong…
I haven’t looked at a Magic: The Gathering card since 1999. Does it say anything about me that I read the name in the thread title Aisha, and thought this was about the H. Rider Haggard novel? And I was like, oh snap. This won’t go well.
I didn’t catch that one. That’s cool. I’m glad they put up an Uncharted Realms story for it too, instead of shoehorning it into a flavor text somewhere.
Is there a more explicit revelation of this fact other than the “everyone saw just a boy” line? That particular one could be read vaguely or metaphorically.
How did you read only that part and not the whole thing? It’s preceded by an orc saying “You tell me this? A human boy who thinks he’s a woman?”
How about this?
A link to Doug Beyer’s tumblr, one of the main people in Wizards of the Coasts creative department. It includes the line “#to be clear: alesha is canonically trans”.
Huh, I can’t believe I missed that. Duh. That’s what I get for reading and watching TV at the same time.
(In my defense, I was also skimming specifically for the reveal in question, intending to read more fully later.)
Trivia: the main R&D hire from the first Great Designer Search is a transgendered woman.
I suppose that’s more canonical than the fact that I used to call Ashiok “she” all the time and my son would correct me. Of course, that was more about me taking a passing glance at the artwork than anything else.
I’m happy about this, and also very happy that the response on social media seems to be strongly positive. Trolls still exist, of course, but this is a lot more accepting that I expected.
I also think WotC handled it very smoothly. It makes a great deal of sense in the story that they published yesterday, and is a very natural fit. It doesn’t feel tacked on to check a box.
I’m happy because it seems to make a segment of the community feel happy and included so that is fine by me.
BTW the card plays really well in just about any color combination that matches her colors. I have tried Boros, Jeskai and Mardu builds.
I have never played Magic, or really payed much attention to it other than only on the periphery.
But I’m glad a game like this could be progressive given the demographic
And I’m always a bit disappointed that I didn’t get much into it because the art is beautiful!