One of my best friends, Alexandria [name changed] is MtF. I knew from day one (she told me) and IDGAF. She's my gamer friend an isn't above making "I identify as ______" jokes about the tumblr crowd. We're both friends with a guy who I swear has a 4chan chip embedded in his brain. Alexandria's transness has come up like twice (3 times?) during our friendship. 1) When we met 2) When she confessed to me that she hadn't used to be a girl, forgetting that when we first met three years ago she told me (She passes like a boss). 3) Me chastising her for not having a plan to take care of herself after her upcoming surgery.
Alexa is also my main DM, when we can get our table together.
Now, one day when our main campaign was canceled I decided to check out Pathfinder night at another shop. The DM I ended up stuck with was also MtF, but made me very uncomfortable.
When she arrived at the shop, she told me to "have a chat" with her outside while she had a smoke. It was raining. Think stereotypical wild west opening. I was worried for a second that she wanted to beat me up.
The whole time we made awkward small talk and I felt like she was daring me to say something bout her being trans. I kept my mouth shut and just talked about games. Weird.
Next, she kept bringing her problems to the table. The guys I was playing with were shop veterans and had clearly known her for awhile. Between running out to go take a smoke break every 30 seconds minutes, she berated the other players whenever they mistook her pronouns. One of them was pleading with her to give them a break, saying that they were trying to adjust but had known her for years as "boy name" and were having some trouble getting it right.
Okay, that sucks yeah. I had a friend struggling with gender in High School and boy was it hard to change Theresa to Maximillian in my head when I had known him as Theresa up until the end on senior year.
Then, she dragged me into all of this. After one of her poor friends was pleading for forgiveness, she turned to me and said "For fucks sake, it's not that hard is it?!" Referring to her name and pronouns
ohgodwhymeleavemeoutofthis
I pretended not to understand what she meant and just said "Is what so hard?"
I really didn't want to get involved.
also, she was a terrible DM. I dropped in and was playing a premade character from a pathfinder book. She told me that she "knew the character I was playing", because she played that one before. Which, apparently, meant I should play this chick the way the DM liked to, and ONLY that way. Okay, my character sheet specifically says in the background that my rogue is quick tongued and uses that to get herself out of trouble, and you just told me I shouldn't say anything for the whole session because "Your character doesn't talk much". What?? You also just told me my character would have no inkling that this dude in the middle of the RED LIGHT DISTRICT does shady deals, when her backstory mentions being a thief/experienced with the underworld and it's dealings. Half of the session was her telling me "no, your character would do this". Also, she was just pissy at everyone in our party in general.
I'm not sure if I was more pissed at the "Bad DM" part or the "Dragging my personal stuff into the table and trying to get you involved in my drama."
IDGAF if you're trans. Just don't make it the focal point of a Pathfinder sesh. Because your new player will be very uncomfortable and never play with your group again.