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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsProfanity filters, homophobic slurs, and Blizzard's shaky relationship with the LGBT community
by Fox Van Allen 
Jan 25th 2012 at 9:00AM
Yesterday on the official World of Warcraft forums, a poster brought up the fact that the word "transsexual" gets censored by Blizzard's mature language filter. Almost immediately after, another poster brought up the fact that the word "homosexual" is censored as well. The obvious follow-up question has stirred a hornet's nest of controversy: Why are these considered bad words?
Predictably, that forum thread quickly spun out of control. It was ultimately locked by a moderator, but not before Blizzard Community Manager Bashiok chimed in:
"Transsexual" censored by filter
We've reviewed our filter list and there are a few words there that should not be blocked as profanity; we'll be removing them in a future patch.
So case closed, right? Well ... hold on. Before we simply close the books on the matter, there are some important questions to be answered. Namely this: Why was "transsexual" censored in the first place?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard
He Said / She Said is a new feature at WoW Insider, which looks at the game from masculine and feminine points of view. Today, Amanda and David discuss the age-old question: are male night elves and blood elves "gay?" Does Blizzard intend to give us that impression, and if so, why? If that's not what Blizzard intends, then why is gayness such a big deal when people think of elves?
