A recent article at Border House highlights the transgender issues of a current Kickstarter campaign for Alpha Colony. Meant as a tribute to the late Danielle Bunten Berry, a video game pioneer formely known as Dan Bunten, the new video game license granted by Dani's family comes with the footnote "*Dan Bunten was the creator of the original M.U.L.E. game in 1983 and the family would prefer that we refer to him as Dan instead of Dani."
As the article points out, Dani "suffered through being treated like a second class citizen, and even talked about how her family and old friends abandoned her as a result of her transition, making access to her children more difficult." I am deeply saddened that Dani's family could not accept their child's true identity.
I have known people who didn't like their first name and struggled for years to get their family and friends on board with using a new name more to their liking. While much more trivial in nature, it does depict how difficult it is to accept a person's new identity. I can understand Dani's family's struggle over raising a son and burying a daughter, but that's not an excuse disrespecting a person's wishes after death.
Please note that the views of the family does not represent the views of the development team. This Kickstarter project is a lovely tribute to Danielle's contribution to the video game industry and the developers are doing their best to build the game Danielle wished before her death.
