Leo Kliesen.
Here’s some snippets from the Tekken wiki:
Was first confirmed to be female by Harada, but he later redacted his statement, saying that Leo was female character named Eleonor Kliesen in the initial concept, but later the gender was changed to neutral.
In Tekken 6, Leo can equip a sledgehammer which is a male item, but Leo also can have pigtail hair bases which is usually for female fighters only. Also, Leo’s continue and next round animations are those of male characters.
Leo cannot be attacked by Anna and Nina’s Slap Happy (b+2), which is usable against females; but by Heihachi’s Headbutt Carnival (f,F+1+4), which is usable against males.
In the Tekken 6 Limited Edition Art Book’s Designers’ Sketches, Leo is under the Male Characters section.
In TTT2, Leo has got two swimsuits: a bikini revealing Leo’s cleavage, giving a more feminine look, and the surfer swimsuit that gives Leo a masculine look, flat-chested and looking like pectorals.
In Tekken 7, Leo has 3 female tops in this game, as opposed to only the winter coat in TTT2. Strangely, Leo has both Training Jacket (male) and Tracksuit Top (female), which are somewhat similar and it would be redundant for Leo to have both. However, all of Leo’s bottoms are those of male characters. This is most likely to enhance Leo’s gender ambiguity.
Not quite what I would want from an actual trans character, but a good point to bring up. I wouldn’t want it to be some Game Theory mystery you only hear about on Did You Know? Gaming. Though. Harass intentionally designed Leo to be neutral and ambiguous. Not quite the same thing.
No. But hiding it isn’t representation. Leo isn’t transgender representation. If anything they’re representation for people who identify as androgynous.
Leo’s genderfication isn’t hidden though. Leo is genderfluid. Sometimes called a she, sometimes called a he, uses customisation items from both genders. But at the time Leo was created as a character, it wasn’t as established what genderfluidity and transgenderism are as they are today.
It’s okay to disagree. But I think if we took Sonya’s MK11 body proportion measurements it would be a lot closer to the Marilyn Monroe “36, 24, 36” than to the actual measurements of a Holly Holmes or Ronda Rousey.
I mean, plenty of Japanese fighting
Games have transgender character but I’m not sure that would translate the same. If NRS released a memo saying “Cassie Cage was born XY male,” would that give you what you want? I’m not challenging you I’m just trying to point out that there may well already be a transgender character in MK. Why not? So what you’re looking for then is a statement by NRS that they are including a specific explicit reference to a character being transgender rather than simply the inclusion of the character. You want the agenda. Which is fine, but other people are also free to not want it.
I tend to agree with @FallofSeraphs76 that it’s going to be hard to do and if they choose to do it they have to do it deliberately and then point it lot to the players. I don’t know if NRS wants to do that or not. They certainly did it woth King Jin. It was subtle but also deliberate. There was no real “need” to get into that aspect of his character except that NRS chose to make that statement “one of our fighters is openly gay.” And that’s totally fine with me. But as @FallofSeraphs76 points out you have to play the story mode to notice. He doesn’t just act stereotypically gay and run around like Jack from Will and Grace. I think we can all probably agree that would be out of place.
So now you get your shot to put in a single transgender character. Like it or not that character is now the representative of all transgender people - which is a plenty diverse group in and of itself. So do you go with “Ru Paul, Drag Queen” transgender Or “I am XY chromosome But I compete in women’s wrestling” transgender. In this context I think it carries the sort of “Jackie Robinson” challenge where they can’t just pick the best ball player they need to somehow satisfy everyone.
I don’t think you have this same problem on a game
That has more story, and is narrative driven.
Sorry for all the typos. I’m
On a standing room only bus and it’s
Really difficult to type.
That is something I forget all the time. The fact that people think that every time a character from a minority is used they have to represent all of them all at once. That’s just so confusing to me. Johnny Cage doesn’t have to represent all white people does he?
I’ve talked to my other transgender roommates about this (four trans men and one other trans woman) and they’ve all told me that as long as the character isn’t offensive or disrespectful they can get behind any of those specific circumstances. It’s better than nothing at all.
I’m sorry you think I’m making excuses. That’s not my intention. As I said, it wouldn’t bother me to have a transgender character so I don’t really need excuses. I am also not making the game and Ed Boon does not care what I think. So I’m not somehow working against your goals. I’m just trying to have a conversation about why I think this would be hard.
Well, I learned something new. It’s not terribly surprising because Japan has very different cultural ideas around transgender (or gender identity or whatever the preferred language is). I own Tekken 7 and I had no idea. Granted I’m not a huge Tekken player, but still. So @CausingThought6 does this type of representation - forgetting for a moment whether Leo is transgender or gender fluid or asexual - work for you. Is it okay if the character IS transgender but it can go largely unnoticed by people playing the game?
From what I can understand, it’s just that little fact that matters. Just that one word is more than enough.
Kung Jin doesn’t “act” gay. But that one little fact that he is indeed gay… that’s enough.
Same with Poison. Same with Leo.
They’re just people, after all. They’re individuals who have individual lives. Their sexuality and gender don’t define them, they just so happen to be what they are. And knowing that little fact about them is enough for people to feel represented in the game. No need for a fanfare, no need to make a big deal about it. It just… is.
I mean yeah. It’s basically the same thing Poison does. It would be nice if they payed attention to detail with things like body sculpt and voice. But like I said before. I don’t want transgender to be the only thing they are. That would be one dimensional and offensive. The more layers I have on top of it the better.
This is one of the reasons I would describe my views as fluid. Prior to Kung Jin I would have more or less said “why does MK need to delve into whether the characters are gay or not?” If you came up and told me Sonya was a lesbian I would more or less say. “Okay… so what “ I recognize that this is going to be more meaningful to you if you are a lesbian. I also recognize that it takes a special kind of hypocrite to say “I don’t want MK getting controversial” when the whole point of the game and reason it’s famous was because it upset politicians woth it’s boundary pushing violence.
But when it turned out Kung Jin was gay and I saw how they addressed it, it just made me feel like “well, I don’t see why anyone could complain about this.” It’s not that I was ever opposed to it and NRS miraculously changed my mind. It’s just that I thought it would be distracting from other aspects of the game and it really didn’t. I was wrong, NRS handled it in a classy way that could only offend people who are offended at the mere existence of “gayness” and certainly didn’t divert me into a lot of social issues that detracted from my straight, white male enjoyment of MK. So maybe they can do that woth a transgender character too and I’m wrong. It’s happened before. I still think it will be hard to do but I’m happy to be proven wrong.
And that’s the thing. To most people, it doesn’t matter. To those who care about representation, it is the world. Makes them feel inclusive. And that little fact is all it takes.
Edit:
Not sure if “inclusive” is the word I mean. XD
I tweeted at Tyler for the Kombat Kast questions and asked if they’d ever consider adding a trans character. No idea if they’ll answer or not. But i’ll keep asking till they do!
This topic is getting a bit too broad for me and I’m not even sure why a transgender gender ABSOLUTELY needs to be made in the first place, but the one thing I will say is, “Don’t get your hopes up.” If you do, you’ll just end up being more disappointed when it doesn’t happen.
The safety of our team is very important to us. Due to the dangerous incoming storm, we’ve decided to move the Kombat Kast to Tuesday, February 5th, at 3 pm CST. We thank you for your understanding!
Why are there always people like this? How does me hoping for something negatively impact you? I don’t need to be saved from hoping for a certain character or type of character in a game!
Plus, as I’ve said before, game developers always “never do something like that” till they do.
