@finalstan First I just want to say that I don’t agree with anything you’re saying, but it’s given me a lot to think about and I really appreciate that. It’s an odd way to start a reply, but I think it’s important because I think if you and I were compare how we wanted the world to BE, we would agree on that lot more, maybe completely.

I don’t assume engaging with people who’s comments were blocked will result in a mature and intellectual conversation – you’re right, that would be naïve. My feeling is that being mature or intellectual (or not) is the thing that I do- it’s a portable set of values that I can bring with me. I decide how to engage or not with that information. The mature posture, in my mind, is to read a comment and if it’s some hateful nonsense, say, “that’s some nonsense not worth thinking about”, and moving on. Blocking those comments takes away that capacity. I think that is patronizing and condescending. Nintendolife is deciding I’m too immature to for that comment. They are taking away my personal responsibility and I don’t that’s a positive action, even if the intent (or result) is.

I disagree with you that criticizing games for their inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters and themes should be off limits. I think quite the opposite – if we want truly good, powerful, and beautiful works we have to hold them to a high standard.
I might be wrong about Celeste because I haven’t finished it, but I’m not critical of it for it’s inclusion of a trans character, but for claiming it after the fact, and not in the context of the game. I think it’s cowardly, and I think it’s pandering. If they wanted to make a statement, they didn’t go far enough. If they wanted to be subtle and “normalize” trans characters, they didn’t do that either. Again, I could be wrong simply by not having finished the game, but I think the principle, like what JK Rowling did, is the same. If she wanted to make her characters LGBTQ+, she should have wrote a story, not Twitter post.

Related, something I struggle with is the idea of giving a child character a sexual identity. I completely agree with you and absolutely understand that their are children who know that they are gay or trans at a young age – they DO exist in reality. I don’t doubt that at all. The friction comes when you say things like – “I never think twice about heterosexual identities being represented…”, I don’t think there’s a symmetry there with “straight” culture. We don’t give children ANY sexual identity, certainly not outside some more provocative literature. Maybe there’s a problem that we assume a heteronormative identity in children as a de facto, but I would say that we’re assuming – mostly incorrectly – an asexual identity.
Either way, the reason it cannot be addressed is not out of a bigotry, but a taboo about child sexuality. We have twin problems here – on the one side we’re conflating sexuality and sex, and the other we’re confusing bigotry for norms around children. That covers some examples, but I think you can extend that thinking to any content perceived as made for children as well.

Here is where I say again, how can we detangle these kind of conceptual quagmires without being able hear what people are thinking? How am I supposed to think these things through if I can’t talk about them with you?