I'm LGBT and I don't think the vanlentines quest is offensive.

[HakuroDK]

snip

Actually, if I may real quick, I gotta address this. (Note: This is NOT a rage post. It's just a very wordy explanation in an attempt to help the quoted understand things better.)

Discrimination actually occurs when one group of people is given preferential treatment over another, and prohibition is just one of the more extreme examples of discrimination. Just making that clear right now.
The reason representation of the LGBT community is important in any game where themes related to romance or sexuality is addressed would be exclusively for equality's sake. If a man can have relations with a woman, then a man should be able to have relations with a man and a woman should be able to have relations with a woman. Doesn't matter if the relations are sexual in nature, if they're innocently romantic in nature, etc.

The reason there are no handicapped-accessible buildings in Eorzea is because there are no handicapped individuals in Eorzea. If there were, it would be discrimination to not have ramps, absolutely. Besides, I have this gut feeling that no paraplegic actually wants to be paraplegic and would actually prefer to walk on a pair of legs due to the increased freedom of movement. If I'm wrong about that, please correct me on that because I don't wish to be mistaken in my beliefs. That makes it a completely different issue than the LGBT issue. I don't think very many people in the LGBT community actually want to be cisgendered heterosexual people. There are some who do, and most of them only wish to do so out of some sense of duty or need of acceptance based on religious faith.

There actually isn't THAT much of a virtual discrimination of corpulent people in this game. As a heavyset person myself, I feel adequately represented playing a Roegadyn. Should there be a weight slider? Of course, but mainly for diversity's sake since every person in one of the races look like a body-clone of every other person in the same race and there really should be more body choices for that sake.

And it's not really a competition of which minority is the most vocal, it's more like a constant conflict between the oppressors and the oppressed. Take the Civil Rights Movement for example. There were many, MANY religious groups who felt that integration would destroy America and they were extremely loud and vocal about it. At the opposite end of that extreme, folks like Malcolm X actually agreed with that sentiment, but for completely different reasons and actually wanted to section off a section of the United States for his followers to live in away from the evils of his oppressors. It wasn't until Martin Luther King Jr. stepped into the ring that there was a chance for integration and togetherness to actually have a chance.

Unfortunately, the LGBT movement has a lot of Malcolm Xs, but an extremely small population of MLKs. It's unfortunate, because it causes the LGBT community to come across as malicious when all we really want is fairness across the board.

All of that being said, FFXIV and its developers, while they adapt loosely to a heteronormative format for their definitions of romance and sex appeal, it's largely played off as a joke, isn't significant enough to really rally against, or it simply does not exist.

The fact that, with the exception of gender-locked gear (which is astonishingly rare to find outside of certain specific events and starting gear), every single piece of gear has the exact same design and model regardless of which gender or race equips it. That cuts down significantly on the objectification of women. Doesn't eliminate it entirely, but there is a lot of equality there, and while I am not a woman, I certainly appreciate it.

Every single race can pick their skin color from a very wide array of options. That appeals to race equality quite well, I think. I'm Caucasian so I can't really comment on whether non-Caucasian folks feel adequately represented in that aspect, but I think it's a step in the right direction at the very least.

As far as LGBT equality stuff goes, the only issues I usually ever see come from the playerbase itself. The Blockman Event and the Valentine's Day Event were somewhat heteronormative, but it wasn't disgustingly so like The Witcher and Leisure Suit Larry, it was the kind of heteronormativity that most LGBT folks are used to by this point. People using derogatory slurs and being outwardly insulting to anyone who dare call them out on those slurs. It's a minority of the game population that holds those beliefs, thankfully, but it is really hurtful when it does come across, and making a homonormative MMO wouldn't eliminate that behavior.

I just think you need to find and talk to some folks in the LGBT community who aren't virulently extremist, because it sounds to me like those are the ONLY LGBT individuals you have ever met, and I apologize for that, because I believe that's the culture rearing its ugly head and it should not be representative of everyone in the LGBT community.