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 insaniak wrote:
And here's the thing - if they were to rewrite the background so that Marines could be recruited from anyone rather than just 'biological males', what exactly changes?

The Emperor is no longer a suspiciously gynophobic donkey-cave. I think it's important to show that he's not free of biases or bigotry.

 insaniak wrote:
Those who want to play their Marines as an all-boy's club can still do so, by only including those models in their armies. Those who want a more varied force, or an all-woman force can do so without receiving those inevitable sneering 'But that's not canon!' comments from the peanut gallery. It's difficult to see a downside here, unless one is against change purely because it's change.

Some people are attracted to Astartes *because* they're an all-male warrior brotherhood. If, say, the Ultramarines are no longer all-male, that definitely changes the context for people who bought into it for that reason.

I'd probably be down for the reasoning behind male Astartes to have more to do with the Emperor's psychic legacy than his biological one; let trans men become Astartes too, make it so a male soul is more important than a male body, but explicitly lock the door on female space marines forever (including transwomen).


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 TonyH122 wrote:
Two points:
1) The fictionality of the world is entirely besides the point. Song of the South is a fiction; Birth of a Nation is a fiction. But there's a reason why they don't play on Sunday Afternoon Disney.

Importantly, however, GW explicitly *does not* endorse the universe depicted and the actions taken by the characters involved. It's supposed to be the Big Book of What Not to Do, not an instruction manual for society. The makers of Birth of a Nation explicitly endorsed the anti-black racism of the film. That's the difference; you can depict a racist or bigoted character and have the overall fictional work be anti-racist.

 TonyH122 wrote:
2) Indeed, I see little issue in suggesting 'only men can do become space marines'. But that's not the problem here. The problem was that this statement said that what it is to be a man is a matter of 'chromosomes' and 'biological makeup'. Not only are such claims false and distortionary (see the lecture I posted above), but intersect worryingly (even if not intentionally) with established modes of hate-speech.

Your assertion that such claims are "false and distortionary" vastly overstates itself. To put it bluntly, it would be very plausible that the people who don't fit into the traditional box of "male human" are probably the group for which the process of becoming an Astartes fails at one stage or another.

 TonyH122 wrote:


Something that doesn't resonate with the discourse of hate-speech. Same as the way we might speak of cultural difference without referring to people being more or less 'savage'. No-one is asking for the world here; nor even biological precision. But just be careful, if you are going to give a distortionary biological account (and, see above, it is distortionary), don't do it in a way that engages with hateful discourse.

The problem is you're making the argument that any attempt to make a biological process that only works on male humans inherently resonates "with the discourse of hate speech." Which is a thought-terminating cliché.

CadianSgtBob wrote:
What happens is that the lore changes from "marines are a male-only brotherhood of warrior monks" to "marines are often men but women are also marines".

Or, more accurately, the lore would change from 'Marines are a male-only brotherhood of warrior monks' (which isn't actually accurate, but let's go with it for now) to 'Some marine Chapters are male-only brotherhoods of warrior monks...'

Your all-male brotherhood is still there. They've just opened up the universe a little. Kind of like they did when they added dreadnoughts. And tanks. And renegades. And flyers. And super-heavies. And centurions. And Primaris Marines. Even this basic idea of marines as panhuman supersoldiers is itself a retcon of the original Marine background.

 Rihgu wrote:
"Space Marines are created from human stock via Arcane Genomancy few if any understand"

That's not just changing the wording, that's changing the fundamental concept of space marines.

 TonyH122 wrote:
2) Indeed, I see little issue in suggesting 'only men can do become space marines'. But that's not the problem here. The problem was that this statement said that what it is to be a man is a matter of 'chromosomes' and 'biological makeup'. Not only are such claims false and distortionary (see the lecture I posted above), but intersect worryingly (even if not intentionally) with established modes of hate-speech.

No it didn't. Read the actual quote:

“The process by which Space Marines are created relies inherently on the hormonal and biological make-up of the human male, meaning that only males can be subjected to the transformation.”

The quote very clearly uses the word "male", not "man". And nowhere does it say that all men must be male with XY chromosomes and male-typical phenotypes.

Something that doesn't resonate with the discourse of hate-speech.

We already have this. None of that in any way resonates with hate speech. You have to really reach to find the slightest superficial connection to a particular form of hate speech and then build that superficial connection into layers of meaning that are simply not found in the GW quote.


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 insaniak wrote:
Or, more accurately, the lore would change from 'Marines are a male-only brotherhood of warrior monks' (which isn't actually accurate, but let's go with it for now) to 'Some marine Chapters are male-only brotherhoods of warrior monks...'

Your all-male brotherhood is still there. They've just opened up the universe a little. Kind of like they did when they added dreadnoughts. And tanks. And renegades. And flyers. And super-heavies. And centurions. And Primaris Marines. Even this basic idea of marines as panhuman supersoldiers is itself a retcon of the original Marine background.

And, again, you can argue all you like that it is a desirable change. But it is dishonest to argue that this is a trivial change that no reasonable person can object to. It would be a major retcon and reasonable people can absolutely oppose it without being sexist/transphobic/etc.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Rihgu wrote:
"Space Marines are created from human stock via Arcane Genomancy few if any understand"

That's not just changing the wording, that's changing the fundamental concept of space marines.

 TonyH122 wrote:
2) Indeed, I see little issue in suggesting 'only men can do become space marines'. But that's not the problem here. The problem was that this statement said that what it is to be a man is a matter of 'chromosomes' and 'biological makeup'. Not only are such claims false and distortionary (see the lecture I posted above), but intersect worryingly (even if not intentionally) with established modes of hate-speech.

No it didn't. Read the actual quote:

“The process by which Space Marines are created relies inherently on the hormonal and biological make-up of the human male, meaning that only males can be subjected to the transformation.”

The quote very clearly uses the word "male", not "man". And nowhere does it say that all men must be male with XY chromosomes and male-typical phenotypes.

Something that doesn't resonate with the discourse of hate-speech.

We already have this. None of that in any way resonates with hate speech. You have to really reach to find the slightest superficial connection to a particular form of hate speech and then build that superficial connection into layers of meaning that are simply not found in the GW quote.

My response:
1) 'Male' vs 'man' seems to me like a distinction without a difference. A man is male, a male is a man. The question is what constitutes 'maleness' or 'man-ness'. And that is exactly what the sentence goes on to specify. And so my next point:
2) As mentioned in the article, the discussion of 'hormones' and 'biological make-up' very much is the language used by transphobes in relation to what constitutes male/man. And it's just factually inaccurate (see linked lecture). Hence the issue.

That's not just changing the wording, that's changing the fundamental concept of space marines.

Uhhh... how, exactly? Even if you think being a fraternal brotherhood of men is part of the fundamental concept nothing about that rewording signifies that that's not the case.

 insaniak wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
Does that have to bend over backwards to make people feel more comfortable about their crazy murder faction?

I feel like you're maybe overstating the difficulty involved in making this change.


To be clear, though... no, obviously they don't have to 'bend over backwards' to accommodate different people. But whether or not they have to, and whether or not it might be a good idea are not automatically the same thing.

And here's the thing - if they were to rewrite the background so that Marines could be recruited from anyone rather than just 'biological males', what exactly changes? Those who want to play their Marines as an all-boy's club can still do so, by only including those models in their armies. Those who want a more varied force, or an all-woman force can do so without receiving those inevitable sneering 'But that's not canon!' comments from the peanut gallery. It's difficult to see a downside here, unless one is against change purely because it's change.

Right, but then you start diluting their background for the sake of modern popular ideology or takes on things rather than it being based around the established narrative and telling a story. This always doesn't age well. Would you be fine if BL books started using modern slang in their dialogue? What confuses me is this focus towards marines because they're the flagship faction but part of their identity is that they are largely divorced from their origins as humans and as living weapons they don't have the perspective or often lack the humanity of regular people. So if women that change into Astartes would functionally be the same (and arguably look as masculine after the changes from all the hormonal changes) as male astartes, it doesn't provide any real differences in terms of aesthetic options beyond mayyyybe some facial differences (again not likely if the changes make everyone look inhuman) AND it doesn't provide any unique female perspective because marines are sterile and act as living weapons, you're back down to it being purely there because people want it to, which IMO is not a good enough reason to change something. There are a lot of Harry Potter fans that want Malfoy and Harry to go boink uglies, you don't see JK Rowling going back and retconning to give them their BL love flick.

If they were making the faction from scratch now, I doubt any of us would bat an eye. But with over 20 years of lore built up over the years, that's actually a fairly large retcon. Where are all the female space marines prior to this? Are we just going to say that Cawl said, "Let's use women, make it so" and that's all that was needed this whole time? Either way, it smacks of lazy pandering and adds nothing to the actual setting.

We live in a world were people are upset that make believe space super soldiers that are genetically altered to have their ribs fuse together, spit acid, and put on more muscle than a silver back gorilla. A setting where people are killed by the billions in the blink of an eye, where your only release from this living hell is death, and people are brinigng real life issues because someone hug out a sign that says "Boys only"

Ladies and gentlemen and anyone in between, we are a collection a adults, if anything by age at least, that push around plastic dollies on a table while makining pew pew noises and CHOOM sounds.
We play with our action figures in a setting that has dozens and dozens of races and characters spanning gender, race, species and even what you would call "Life form"

If you can not find a faction that suits your desires, and instead must take an established on and alter it or demand it be altered to fit your real life outlook, agenda, afiliation and ideals, then you are not actually here for the health of the hobby or the sake of the hobby, but more or less just to cause problems.

We welcoem anyone and everyone who wants to join our table and make pew pew noises and dakkadakkadakkadakka sounds. But the imperiam is a dark reflection of humanity that has ascended in technology, yet decnded into techno fudilism. It is not meant to be a representation of reality, and trying to inject any form of reality into it outside of the established does not add to it in any way.

The story and setting is what it is. Space marines are what they are, if you do not enjoy that, the answer to the problem is, find another army out of the many that are here, if you dont want ot accept that answer, then i think it would be best for your health, our health, and the hobby health to find another hobby.

 TonyH122 wrote:
1) 'Male' vs 'man' seems to me like a distinction without a difference. A man is male, a male is a man. The question is what constitutes 'maleness' or 'man-ness'. And that is exactly what the sentence goes on to specify. And so my next point:

It's absolutely not the same thing. It's not the same thing in a scientific context, it's not the same thing in a linguistic context. And the entire point of being transgender as a concept is that gender and sex are not the same thing. You can't just substitute in words and then claim that your substitution is offensive.

But really, what's hilarious here is that "sex and gender are the same" is a standard transphobe talking point. You claim to be fighting against transphobia in the GW quote but in doing so you're parroting the exact things transphobes love to argue.

2) As mentioned in the article, the discussion of 'hormones' and 'biological make-up' very much is the language used by transphobes in relation to what constitutes male/man. And it's just factually inaccurate (see linked lecture). Hence the issue.

It's also the language of a lot of other things. "Male" is defined by a particular region on a bimodal distribution that includes things like external phenotypes, hormone levels, etc. Whether it fits your ideological purity test or not talking about "male" and "female" in a very superficial mention of sex is perfectly fine and has nothing to do with transphobes.


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 Rihgu wrote:

That's not just changing the wording, that's changing the fundamental concept of space marines.

Uhhh... how, exactly? Even if you think being a fraternal brotherhood of men is part of the fundamental concept nothing about that rewording signifies that that's not the case.

It's changing it because you've removed the entire "male only" limit. Please do not pretend that this is not a major change.

 TonyH122 wrote:
My response:
1) 'Male' vs 'man' seems to me like a distinction without a difference. A man is male, a male is a man. The question is what constitutes 'maleness' or 'man-ness'. And that is exactly what the sentence goes on to specify. And so my next point:

Just to be pedantic, but being a Man is a combination of factors that's different than just being male. For example, a 5 year old human male is not considered a Man by society. So depending on societal norms, a Man and male are two different things.

Hecaton wrote:


I mean it's also a scientific term, which seems appropriate for talking about a fictional biological modification technique.

It is not really a scientific term, as science has been moving away from a binary understanding of sex.

 TonyH122 wrote:

My response:
1) 'Male' vs 'man' seems to me like a distinction without a difference. A man is male, a male is a man. The question is what constitutes 'maleness' or 'man-ness'. And that is exactly what the sentence goes on to specify. And so my next point:

Speaking as a biologist, these are very different terms.

 TonyH122 wrote:

2) As mentioned in the article, the discussion of 'hormones' and 'biological make-up' very much is the language used by transphobes in relation to what constitutes male/man. And it's just factually inaccurate (see linked lecture). Hence the issue.

It's not really that factually inaccurate; you'd actually say it's a surface level take. GW can't pack an entire human endocrinology lecture into their books.

Removed comment because i said my piece and dont even wanna be a part of this.

Remember when GW made that public statement about "The Imperium are a bunch of fascist jerks, that's a BAD THING, people" ?

Because the simplest thing for GW, if this particular statement is deemed to be a problem, is to issue a statement pointing out that this is what the tech priests in the Imperium believe to be true, inaccuracies and mistaken principles included. Do they need to hire someone to write a story about Fabius Bile turning a family of apes* and a pack of monkeys* into Space Marines to prove a point or something? (* Please assume that any errors in terminology in this statement are deliberate and in character.)

I think the addition by GW was unnecessary and only really served the purpose of satisfying the overly vocal purists. It does nothing to enhance the lore or the game.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I think the addition by GW was unnecessary and only really served the purpose of satisfying the overly vocal purists.

It's not an "addition". It's simply part of the fluff, and has been for longer than most people have been playing.

All Space Marines are Female to Male trans. They are the strongest of all genders.

Alternatively, Space Marines are Male to Alpha Male trans.

I listen to BBC radio and podcasts on a daily basis. They do interview trans folks or people from trans supporting groups on a regular basis.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
All Space Marines are Female to Male trans. They are the strongest of all genders.

You may joke, but the way it is described there is actually no in-universe against transmen Space Marines.

It may actually be the only way to explain GW's obsession with keeping Space Marines boy only in a way that kinda makes sense.

Oh ffs not this. Christ.


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 Backspacehacker wrote:
We live in a world were people are upset that make believe space super soldiers that are genetically altered to have their ribs fuse together, spit acid, and put on more muscle than a silver back gorilla. A setting where people are killed by the billions in the blink of an eye, where your only release from this living hell is death, and people are brinigng real life issues because someone hug out a sign that says "Boys only"

Ladies and gentlemen and anyone in between, we are a collection a adults, if anything by age at least, that push around plastic dollies on a table while makining pew pew noises and CHOOM sounds.
We play with our action figures in a setting that has dozens and dozens of races and characters spanning gender, race, species and even what you would call "Life form"

If you can not find a faction that suits your desires, and instead must take an established on and alter it or demand it be altered to fit your real life outlook, agenda, afiliation and ideals, then you are not actually here for the health of the hobby or the sake of the hobby, but more or less just to cause problems.

We welcoem anyone and everyone who wants to join our table and make pew pew noises and dakkadakkadakkadakka sounds. But the imperiam is a dark reflection of humanity that has ascended in technology, yet decnded into techno fudilism. It is not meant to be a representation of reality, and trying to inject any form of reality into it outside of the established does not add to it in any way.

The story and setting is what it is. Space marines are what they are, if you do not enjoy that, the answer to the problem is, find another army out of the many that are here, if you dont want ot accept that answer, then i think it would be best for your health, our health, and the hobby health to find another hobby.

Well said.

 Tyran wrote:
It may actually be the only way to explain GW's obsession with keeping Space Marines boy only in a way that kinda makes sense.

No, you could definitely explain it without that.

 solkan wrote:
Remember when GW made that public statement about "The Imperium are a bunch of fascist jerks, that's a BAD THING, people" ?

Because the simplest thing for GW, if this particular statement is deemed to be a problem, is to issue a statement pointing out that this is what the tech priests in the Imperium believe to be true, inaccuracies and mistaken principles included. Do they need to hire someone to write a story about Fabius Bile turning a family of apes* and a pack of monkeys* into Space Marines to prove a point or something? (* Please assume that any errors in terminology in this statement are deliberate and in character.)

GW should do this more often, especially with things like this.

In its current state, it’s rather trashy lore. But if you do push it into the way the imperium is, and as often quite a horrific thing. It can be used to add interesting flaws.
Hell it’s better to have the emperor state only men, and it’s just that. The only reasons men are used is that the emperor said so, is better here as a flaw as some scientific statement with the lore.
The issue also comes from the narrative of these men as super intelligent, but really kind of stupid. 40k can do better than dredge up its worst lore.

It also has been picked up by some of the worst people I have seen, you can in fact write villains and interesting story’s why not supporting there points of view with Language used to harm. Or using that language carefully within character.

Can a space marine transition?
I'm a trans woman. The fething "biologically male" crap gets thrown at me constantly. The whole "only men can be Space Marines" thing has always made me uncomfortable, not because of the setting, but because of the intensity of Space Marine players.

If I ever make a marine force, they'll probably wind up as Heretics for allowing all the marines to transition.

Hormones do AMAZING things to the body.

 Blndmage wrote:
Can a space marine transition?

Can a space marine voluntarily adjust their hormone levels to female-standard ranges instead of the off-the-scale mix of testosterone and steroids they normally have, thereby degrading their performance as weapons in service to the Emperor and prioritizing their own desires above the efficient destruction of the Emperor's enemies? I'm going to go with "no".

 Grimskul wrote:
Right, but then you start diluting their background for the sake of modern popular ideology or takes on things rather than it being based around the established narrative and telling a story. This always doesn't age well. Would you be fine if BL books started using modern slang in their dialogue? What confuses me is this focus towards marines because they're the flagship faction but part of their identity is that they are largely divorced from their origins as humans and as living weapons they don't have the perspective or often lack the humanity of regular people. So if women that change into Astartes would functionally be the same (and arguably look as masculine after the changes from all the hormonal changes) as male astartes, it doesn't provide any real differences in terms of aesthetic options beyond mayyyybe some facial differences (again not likely if the changes make everyone look inhuman) AND it doesn't provide any unique female perspective because marines are sterile and act as living weapons, you're back down to it being purely there because people want it to, which IMO is not a good enough reason to change something. There are a lot of Harry Potter fans that want Malfoy and Harry to go boink uglies, you don't see JK Rowling going back and retconning to give them their BL love flick.

If they were making the faction from scratch now, I doubt any of us would bat an eye. But with over 20 years of lore built up over the years, that's actually a fairly large retcon. Where are all the female space marines prior to this? Are we just going to say that Cawl said, "Let's use women, make it so" and that's all that was needed this whole time? Either way, it smacks of lazy pandering and adds nothing to the actual setting.

The fact that some concepts don't age well is precisely why it's a good idea to update a 20+ year old franchise occasionally...

 Blndmage wrote:
Can a space marine transition?
I'm a trans woman. The fething "biologically male" crap gets thrown at me constantly. The whole "only men can be Space Marines" thing has always made me uncomfortable, not because of the setting, but because of the intensity of Space Marine players.

If I ever make a marine force, they'll probably wind up as Heretics for allowing all the marines to transition.

Hormones do AMAZING things to the body.

I will also add that it makes me uncomfortable, it’s pervasive in a lot of groups.

It’s the justification of it, within the setting and allowing so many groups to justify it externally.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
If you can not find a faction that suits your desires, and instead must take an established on and alter it or demand it be altered to fit your real life outlook, agenda, afiliation and ideals, then you are not actually here for the health of the hobby or the sake of the hobby, but more or less just to cause problems.

This really should be the final word in this thread.

[EDIT]: And it will be mine...

Apple fox wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Can a space marine transition?
I'm a trans woman. The fething "biologically male" crap gets thrown at me constantly. The whole "only men can be Space Marines" thing has always made me uncomfortable, not because of the setting, but because of the intensity of Space Marine players.

If I ever make a marine force, they'll probably wind up as Heretics for allowing all the marines to transition.

Hormones do AMAZING things to the body.

I will also add that it makes me uncomfortable, it’s pervasive in a lot of groups.

It’s the justification of it, within the setting and allowing so many groups to justify it externally.

As opposed to having a fictional story be required or expected to validate one's group identity? I think people are overstating and giving far too much power to one line in a faction's backstory. If something this little is seen as a weapon to be wielded by other people to "hate" on certain groups, I have no idea how you've survived on the internet for this long, never check youtube comments or anything on twitter.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:
Can a space marine transition?

Can a space marine voluntarily adjust their hormone levels to female-standard ranges instead of the off-the-scale mix of testosterone and steroids they normally have, thereby degrading their performance as weapons in service to the Emperor and prioritizing their own desires above the efficient destruction of the Emperor's enemies? I'm going to go with "no".

Space marines have there own chapter culture, transition could be so many things. They could within a chapter support it without any necessary changes to hormones or other things.
Being that a lot of space marines get described as sexless, it could be as simple as some marines have different rites and preparations, or hobby’s to keep the mind sharp in relaxation.

Congratulations, you've turned this from being a legitimate concern over language being shared with that of transphobes to a discussion about whether Marines should be girls. Way to go.

I could see Iron Hands and other Flesh is Weak obsessed Chapters transitioning into non binary because Flesh is Weak.