Troy Baker is one of the video games industries most prolific actors, having stared in highly regarded games such as Resident Evil 6, The Last of Us, Far Cry 4, Call of Duty:Advanced Warfare, Metal Gear Solid 5 and Batman Arkham Origins to name just a few. It's actually very hard to play a modern game and not find his name somewhere in the credits.
A massively popular Actor Toy Baker had a huge following on Twitter, before yesterday choosing to leave the site for an unspecified amount of time. The reason why? He tweeted a comment that referenced Caitlyn Jenner and received a backlash because of it.
Now, the comment in question, it should be noted, was not something that Baker himself said, but a re-tweet of a comment made by Brian W. Foster. The tweet has since been deleted, but consisted of;
'Brett Michaels looks like Mickey Rourke tried to become Caitlyn Jenner.'
Following the criticism levelled at him for sharing the tweet Baker eventually tweeted that he was quitting the site, though his profile has not been deleted, which may mean that he intends to return to the site after an unspecified amount of time has passed.
A lot of fans of Bakers have come to his defence and have been decrying the criticism as an unjust attack. As is often the case when arguments spark on twitter the arguments range from the reasoned to the outright vicious on both sides. One of the most common comments raised by his supporters though is that it was simply a joke, and that people need to learn to get a sense of humour.
Now, this is a defence that we have all seen so many times before, and it may have actually been something that Baker saw to be funny and wanted to share with his followers. The problem comes, however, from the fact that a minority that still doesn't have basic human rights shouldn't be used as part of a joke.
Trans people are regularly discriminated against all over the world, with the laws stacked against us when we try to demand justice. To use a group that can still be legally fired simply for being born a certain way in America, the 'greatest country in the world', seems wrong in a lot of ways.
What a lot of Bakers supporters might not be aware of too, is that on the same day that this 'joke' involving a trans woman was made not just one, but two transgender women were brutally murdered. The trans community was acutely aware of that, they were grieving, so of course they lashed out.
Those kind of jokes aren't appropriate at the best of times, but making them yesterday was just crass and thoughtless. An equivalent would have been making racist jokes during the Charleston Shooting, or police brutality jokes when Sandra Bland was killed. So no, we won't 'lighten up' or 'get a sense of humour', how about instead you stop being insensitive and cruel to a minority that is literally being murdered on the same day you tell trans jokes.
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