Yas!
Rockstar has quietly removed transphobic content from current-gen versions of Grand Theft Auto 5.
First, GTANet’s Kirsty Cloud discovered that trans caricatures have been removed from current-gen versions of GTA 5‘s Cockatoos Night Club (though the characters do remain in Director Mode). Dialogue options pertaining to hormone usage have also been removed from the game entirely.
The Cockatoos NPCs were the focus of a campaign by Out Making Games that called for their removal. The group wrote an open letter to Rockstar in September of last year, saying that “unlike… other random NPCs in GTAV, the game appears to purposefully play into extremely harmful stereotypes of trans and gender diverse people to encourage players to be repulsed by them and even to relish hurting and killing them.”
“Given this is an ‘enhanced & expanded’ edition, change is a selling point,” the letter continued. “This is a great opportunity to remove transphobic elements from the game and have a positive impact on the new generation of players who will pick up a copy.”
Out Making Games has since responded to the caricatures’ removal, saying “this change can have a huge impact on the way that those players see trans people.
“Thank you to everyone at Rockstar who prioritised this issue – we ourselves are game developers and understand that even small changes like this take coordinated time and effort.”
Finally, Reddit user JayProspero has also discovered that a Captain Spacetoy action figure has been altered to remove trans references; the toy once wore a hot pink outfit and came with “interchangable genitalia”. The figure has been removed from Grand Theft Auto 5 altogether, replaced by a similar Captain Spacetoy figure with a Han Solo-like outfit and “posable vomit direction”.
Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA V) is available on practically everything — Windows PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS3, PS4 and PS5. The changes detailed above are only inside its Xbox Series S & X and PS5 versions.
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