The nonsensical phrase body type has replaced gender and sex designation in many popular RPGs in the past few years. This is a top-down initiative that has been implemented to more “inclusive” to non-binary players. For me, this is more evidence that the video game industry has become captured by woke activists who live in a bubble.
Pandering to non-binary people who will never play your game is stupid and only alienates your core fans. It’s an act of virtue signaling that has no return on investment. WoW’s Azeroth is a traditional fantasy world. Non-binary people do not exist in fantasy worlds. In contrast, male and female people do exist. The erasure of males and females in fantasy worlds is a serious issue that threatens the very foundation of the verisimilitude of virtual worlds.
A reader inspired by my previous articles on the topic decided to post the following on the official WoW Classic forums. His post has been downvoted by the community and it is now in a moderation queue where it will be determined if the post has violated any of the rules of conduct.
You can read the post for yourself as I have reprinted it.
For 18 years, WoW players could create characters and choose between male or female. However, this option has been removed and replaced with Body 1 and Body 2.
The term “body type” does not pertain to biological sex or gender. Scientifically, it refers to classifications introduced by psychologist William H. Sheldon—ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph—which describe physical builds that can apply to both sexes.
From developer interviews at the time, this change was intended to promote inclusivity. I believe this was a mistake. Rather than being inclusive, it removes the ability for players to select male or female, effectively reducing biological sex to a superficial appearance. Biological sex is not a mere “skin”; it is a core characteristic of individuals.
Even within a fantasy setting, biological sex plays a critical role. For living, breathing worlds, species reproduction is a natural and necessary element of world-building. Removing sex distinctions undermines this foundation, making a consistent, immersive experience harder to achieve.
This change contradicts the WoW Classic ethos. Players choose WoW Classic to experience the game as it was in November 2004, before modern-day social trends retroactively altered design principles. Choosing a character’s sex is a long-standing aspect of fantasy RPGs, going back to Dungeons & Dragons. Such traditions are part of what make these games timeless.
I respectfully urge Blizzard to reinstate the original male and female options in WoW Classic, preserving the authentic experience we play this version for. Thank you for considering this feedback.
From my point of view, there is nothing wrong with this post. It makes a convincing case for Blizzard to return the male and female designations at the WoW Classic character creation screen. It does not violate any of the rules of conduct on the Blizzard forums.
The majority of the replies are like the following:
What is it like to go through life where something so inconsequential eats away at you to the point where you need to tell everyone about it?
Using ChatGPT I detected the following fallacies in the reply:
Ad Hominem: The poster attacks you personally by suggesting that you are overly consumed by something “inconsequential” rather than addressing the merits of your concern.
Straw Man: The poster misrepresents your position as being overly obsessed with the issue (“eats away at you”), which may not reflect your actual reasoning or motivation for making the post.
Appeal to Ridicule: The response mocks or trivializes your perspective instead of engaging with it logically.
False Dichotomy: Implicitly suggests that if something is “inconsequential,” it is unworthy of discussion, ignoring the possibility that it could still be meaningful or worth debating to some people.
Another poster replied to the above reply:
Because it’s clearly not inconsequential.
Someone like you will dismiss it as inconsequential but if it gets removed suddenly you’re denying trans right to exist. You’re responsible for the disproportionate suicide rates through non-affirmation. You’re transphobic. You need to be cancelled etc.
It’s a ratchet problem. Once you’ve tightened the social fabric in this way it becomes really difficult to pull back against it.
We play to the most sensitive in our societies under the guise of ‘kindness’ without realising the most sensitive in our world are usually pathological in their psychology.
The original post is the victim of what is called brigading. A group of activists in the WoW community have ganged up and conspired to mass report the post so that it will no longer be visible to the community. Mass reporting still happens on X formerly Twitter. This is a clear case of censorship. They do not want anyone to discuss this idea. I believe the post has no errors, and nothing in the post constitutes trolling.
The Origin of the Woke Mind Virus
Clearly, the people at Blizzard who authorized this (Holly Longdale, Ion Hazzikostas, and John Hight) are doing this in deference to radical women and queer studies academics.
The following video from X illustrates how opposed they are to the reality of biological sex differences:
This ideology is demonic and should be rooted out in our culture.
Conclusion
If Blizzard wants to remove traditional sex/gender designations from WoW retail, they have every right to. I find WoW retail to be a distasteful childlishy woke MMORPG experience that I want no part of. However, WoW Classic is predicated on the fact that they are selling nostalgia and offering players a chance to relive the WoW experience when it was released in 2004. Removing sex/gender from the character creation process and replacing it with body type needlessly degrades that experience.
As DEI and other manifestations of gratuitous wokeness are relegated to the garbage heap of history, major video game studios will rethink the body type fiasco and return to norms that are consistent with RPG history and the expectations that players have to play video games free from propaganda and indoctrination.
–Wolfshead
I checked the forum without reading your article further and exactly the same reply stuck with me (…) “We play to the most sensitive in our societies under the guise of ‘kindness’ without realising the most sensitive in our world are usually pathological in their psychology.”
Bladetsar, if you read this, big thumbs up to you.
Everyone who replied, not only the op, had to deal with silly leftist nonsense-talk like “Why is it so objectional to you?” which is not really a question, it is typical leftist talk aimed at derailing the thread and attacking his point without having any valid argument against it.
I just watched part of the video and my brain hurts already… I will finish tonight and end my posting quickly, but brevity is often better than dwelling too long over the details.
President Trump just made my day with a Thanksgiving posting where he also congratulates the left-wing lunatics, oh my, that was much needed entertainment.
This culture war is sick and unfortunately it is real… yes, it is demonic and evil.
Grummz and Musk made me aware of a game I didn’t even know about, Avowed, where the Art Director is so unimaginable woke and racist, I can still barely believe it. You probably saw this yourselves already, too.
Well, I seriously hope he goes with his game and studio to the ash heap of history, this is insanity.
Russia just sent NATO a message with the Oreshnik missile. But western media are downplaying the game changing effect of a god rods from the sky. Oh well.
I can’t wait for Musk, Vivek, Kennedy to start working in January. Europe seems lost, Angela Merkel published her biography and named it Freedom… yeah, I can’t even know where to start objecting this.
But things are looking brighter, wokeness is losing. Dragon Age Veilguard lost, all across the field wokeness is being driven back. But they are still too powerful and must be driven back further. Back to he place with H they came from.
@AnonEntity,
Right now there is nobody who can stand against Russia. The west don’t have the means, they just know how to bully weaker countries out of their resources and extort and enslave them under the guise of “giving them democracy”, when there isn’t even a single soeck of democracy in the entire west.
The hypocrisy is insanely inconceivable.
In the end Russia will win regardless.
As for the main topic of discussion, I think I have a horse in this race.
Although my case was involving LOTRO when in spring 2023 they went woke and added beards for human women when lore-wise only dwarf women have beards.
Me and others who complained on their official forums had their posts deleted, warned and after posting again, I was permanently banned from the forums. On the other hand, there were woke defenders using very condescending remarks and their posts were left untouched.
Someone said it very well – “They enforce censorship and it creates the false impression that 100% of the community supports the changes, whereas more than 70% of people don’t support it”
I still ask myself why and when did this happen? Several years ago, all we cared about was if the games were good, now we have to look for signs if the games are woke.
My first experiences with this were in 2015 with the first Disney Star Wars movie and I think in 2017 when the new Mass Effect Andromeda game got released. Even back then I had no idea what I was dissatisfied with, I couldn’t formulate it into words, but I knew I didn’t like it on a fundamental level. Now we have some terminology, but it doesn’t change the fact that the creators of games and movies have actually doubled down on making everything even more woke and censoring everyone who speaks out against this.
Of course, there are woke brigades who pitch in everywhere to defend this nonsense and mock and belittle everyone who complains about it.
Gaming and other media have shifted from something enjoyable and addicting to something depressing and revolting.
In a way I’m thankful, because it kind of helps me overcome my addiction of these things whereas I can’t play or watch 95% of whatever comes out. Even the Japanese have started doing this with their games and animes.
This is why I found new respect for China, Russia and few others who just don’t give a flying f*ck about this and release their games and movies in the most unapologetic way. Russia is currently even enforcing some policy where they ban propaganda for families having no children and of course being anti LGHDTV+, I wish more countries would come to their senses and ban this degeneracy.
I even admire countries in Africa, where you face being fined and jail time for being caught being LGHDTV+. More of that, please.