Alexandrina

Pink, purple, every colour in between. A rainbow even

Lego will be taking sooo much of my money

Someone had better tell my doctor then! And my family too! Look, I'm not sure why you felt the need to come here and insult people's identity, but it's not appreciated and it won't win people over to your side. But the crux of the matter is this: I am a woman. In any case, my gender is neither up for me debate nor relevant to Lego, so I don't think we need to continue this point of contention any further.

One of those facts is that I am a woman. So with all due respect, I don't care what your feelings are on that issue, because it won't stop being a fact.

Then say something that's true for a change, instead of hateful lies.

In that case the statement is doubly wrong - since not only is acknowledging that LGBTQ+ people are welcome not a matter of politics but rather of human decency, neither the Danish company Lego nor any of their LGBTQ+ fans in the other 191 countries of the the world are beholden to US political divides.

I'm sorry, but it absolutely is neutral. Either Lego signals support for everyone or Lego indicates that a chunk of the population are welcome. And I don't know who you mean by the Liberals - but I can assure you that my gender is not an "idea".

Is it jumping on a bandwagon? Or is it saying that everybody is welcome in the Lego family? That's a pretty neutral statement tbh and one that's hard to argue against.

Indeed! I remember all the fear early this year when we had no idea what the summer sets would be beyond "disappointing", and a lot of them turned out to be pretty good in the end.

My intention wasn't at all to downplay overt bigotry at all - and I'm sorry that you've had to deal with that. It's a stain which should no longer exist in the world. But generally speaking this overt abuse is recognisable as overt abuse, horrible as it is. The bigotry disguised by careful wording also exists, and it's not readily obvious to people not in the community, so it more often goes unchallenged. That's the thing, though. If someone doesn't recognise the flag AT ALL, they won't see it as political, because to them it's just a rainbow of colours. (And indeed, the secondary selling point of the set is the variety of monofigures). If someone is not sufficiently aware of the flag/colours to KNOW that it's not a political statement, then by all means they can express uncertainty - but at that point, anybody who's taken that view through lack of awareness can no longer use that, because it will be explained that the set is not a political statement. In any case, I'd make the argument that somebody who's aware of the colours but is unaware enough to think them political is probably misinformed by the media - and Lego's policy on political issues should not be influenced by the shortcomings of news media in fairly educating its viewership.

Yeah, I think a doe is essential. But looking at the 'reindeer', I suppose it does fit as a deer - certainly it doesn't have Rudolph's red nose! I think I was sucked in a bit by the knowledge that it is meant to be a reindeer.

Bit late to the party here, but wow. I've just sent off for a sample, and I'll have a good ole read later on. Books take time, don't they? I don't know about you, but I went into my first book fully expecting it to be done in eighteen months - eight years on and I'm still preparing for publication. You're ahead of me! Your premise is genuinely fascinating, and I like that it's part of a series. I hope you've got plenty of things planned for future books.

I'll preface my comment by saying that I have never engaged with the Pokemon franchise at all, so any lore/references you've included will fly over my head! That said, I think this is a beautiful build! The building would work as a modular, there's plenty of interesting detailing both inside and out. And I really appreciate the technique you've used for the skirts on the two women stood out front. Maybe it makes them look a bit like they're on springs, but I don't think there's anything better you could do in the absence of an official part for that purpose.

Ah. Yes. That's obvious now I read it back! It's certainly an egregious omission, since the animal exists and it's just a matter of colouration. Perhaps there'll be an unexpected Hobbit renaissance that brings with it a Radagast the Brown set... On the topic of animals we've never had, I don't recall there ever being a deer. (The reindeer excluded, since that's a separate animal). I have certain creative projects for which a deer is a must.

I've been away from the Harry Potter thread for a few months - and all I can say here is what? My purse'll be thankful if this turns out to be the case, because honestly I don't see the appeal. On top of that, I can't even work out what objects might be included beyond the Sorting Hat (that shape in that colour would look very bad imo) and maybe a Sword of Gryffindor (which would look iffy unless they use a LOT of chrome pieces imo).

Have we really never had a rabbit? I could have sworn I had a few white bunnies in a joblot not too long ago.

Is set 40516 not as true a toy as any Lego set? It's got plastic bricks that can be rebuilt in a variety of ways (no parts list yet afaik but it looks like there are some 1x2 bricks, which have been in about 5500 sets over the past sixty-seven years, as well as plenty of other parts in a variety of colours) - there's nothing about 40516 that suggests it isn't a Lego set just like any other construction set (in fact you could make the argument that it's more in keeping with Lego than constraction lines like Bionicle, since its pieces appear to be entirely system-compatible). Or is it not a true toy because it's intended as a display piece? If so, it's nothing new. I have a Ship in a Bottle on the shelf behind me which is foremost a display set. Had Lego abandoned their true toys in 1978 when they released set 398 USS Constellation, complete with display stand and label? Or perhaps it was earlier than that? I don't know the early sets well enough to be sure that was the first display set. Or is there anything else about set 40516 that you think makes it not a true toy?

I think the fundamental issue here is that anybody in the LGBTQ+ community is likely to have a very hard time seeing how this set can be defined as political, without there being some underlying bigotry involved. There are 100% political issues at play in various parts of the world that involve trans people (and the rest of the community too, but I'm less plugged in there so I can't speak as confidently on what those specific issues are) - but set 40516 doesn't mention those issues. Matthew Ashton's statement on the set ends with "This sends a signal to everyone that this is what we stand for at The LEGO Group and that we want to embrace all of you, because creativity is for everyone. We do truly feel that everyone is awesome. We all have the right to be accepted, to be loved and also to be creative. With this set, we hope to show that we care, no matter who you are." That's not saying anything about any political battlegrounds. It's saying that everyone - both within and without the community - is welcome in the Lego family. And we're going to be defensive. For years and years we've had the same discussions, where the mere suggestion of an LGBTQ+ presence in something is fuel for a barrage of online trolls telling us that our very existence is political, and they use the same arguments that are carefully worded for plausible deniability. At its core these arguments come from bigotry, in the form of "LGBTQ+ is wrong". Again, let me be clear - I'm not ascribing these motivations to you or anybody else in this thread, but merely pointing out that those of us in the community are intimately familiar with these arguments as we have heard them many times from people whose motivations are bigotry. In any case, set 40516 is very explicitly in keeping with corporate policy on diversity and inclusion. That link isn't dated, and it's not on the Wayback Machine so I can't be sure exactly how long it existed - but it certainly wasn't posted upon announcement of this set. I found the same/a similar page back in January when - as a trans woman early in her transition who has to be careful about her choices of prospective employers - I looked to see whether Lego had jobs going/whether Lego as a company was trans friendly.

See that I genuinely didn't know! The oldest reference I could think of was the Slade song, which is definitely said as "Christmas" even if it was spelt differently. That's a very valid point, and in light of it I might even reframe my own view. I would suggest that if somebody were to say, for instance, that I am not a woman - that would be a bigoted statement, but the person saying it would not necessarily be themselves a bigoted person. If they were then corrected and proceeded to double down/continuously say that I am not a woman, at that point they would cross the line into being bigoted themselves. (Obviously bigoted statements can be directed at any group - I'm just using a personal reference for example's sake). Equally, if someone didn't explicitly deny that I am a woman but said that I am a bad/immoral person because I am a woman - that would also be a bigoted statement. In the reverse, I'd agree that it would be a bigoted statement to say that somebody is bad/immoral because they are Christian, or any other group.

I don't want you to feel like I'm skirting around replying, so if you want to continue the discussion later on I'll happy answer you through DMs - but I'm worried that the ins and outs of trans discourse in the UK are a bit beyond the breadth of this topic That being said, I don't know what you mean by "what Lego is really saying", since the set in itself is merely an acknowledgement of the LGBTQ+ community. That in itself is not an inherently political statement. It's a fact that we exist, and that we're human beings, and Lego do not ascribe motive to the LGBTQ+ community or anybody outwith the community, either in the set itself or any official commentary around the set (that I've seen, feel free to link me if there's something I haven't seen). As for JK Rowling, I'll touch on it briefly here, in this comment alone, because I don't want to get the topic out of hand. I haven't seen the interaction you refer to, so I don't know the specific wording used - but what you have JK Rowling saying is something which by extension denies the identity of the vast majority of trans women AND some cis women. Whatever someone's personal stance on JK Rowling as a whole, the specific statement that trans women are not women is something which frankly isn't deserving of support. I am a woman. Anybody saying that all women have periods is saying that I cannot be a woman - in short, they are saying something which is factually untrue about me. For Lego to endorse such a statement would be to take a decidedly political view that's in opposition to the existence of an estimated 2% of the population (153 million people, roughly). Anyway, as I said at the beginning of the comment, I don't want to derail this thread any further with conversation about the LGBTQ+ community beyond how it's connected to Lego. But that being said I would be more than happy to continue this discussion privately if you wish, where we don't have to worry about getting way off topic. One final note - which I almost didn't mention because I'm worried somebody (not saying you) will quote it later on and say it's moving the goalposts, so treat it is an ADDENDUM to the comment rather than the crux of my point. Statements made by Lego in the past being political does not mean that set 40516 is political, even if on the surface they're about the same issue. To that end, if Lego were to make an unambiguously political statement or comment somewhere in relation to set 40516 (by that, I don't mean saying that LGBTQ+ people exist or that we have the right to respect) I would then concede that the set was political. In the absence of such a statement, dredging up old Lego comments would at best prove that Lego have a stance on the issues related to LGBTQ+ people and that they have expressed that stance in the past. This would of course invite discussion on whether Lego's political neutrality exists, but that wouldn't be tied to the existence or otherwise of set 40516.

I don't think this is the case at all. What this set - and Lego's comments behind it - say is that they're acknowledging their LGBTQ+ fans and giving us some representation. That doesn't extend into a say in the political views and debates that exist as a result of our identities/the backlash against that.

I'm compelled to point out this unfortunate typo! And I have to say, you have nailed it with your post. Either it's a corporation who have done the maths and stand to profit, or it's a corporation that stands to lose out and yet have released the set regardless. Either way, the support is so so welcome.

I have to say, I found your whole post thoroughly interesting, and I'm glad you posted it . I'm going to make one final remark here - not out of a desire to keep arguing with you, but more just to make sure I got my initial point across - I'm worried looking back that perhaps I wasn't specific enough in the wording. To clarify: I wouldn't call someone a bigot for not liking this set, not at all. When I asked my question, it was specifically with regards to the particular niche of people who are against this set for the sole reason that it's supportive of LGBTQ+ people (that is to say, not because they don't like the build, and not even because they see it as political per se - but entirely because of the demographic it's supportive of). I'm of the view that somebody who rails against this set - or indeed any other consumable media - because it voices support for LGBTQ+ people and they see LGBTQ+ people as being inherently a bad thing to support is a bigot. Now, when I say this, I'm not talking about anybody here - it was more in reference to certain unsavoury comments now-deleted that I saw on the Reddit post announcing the set, but I felt it was relevant enough to discuss here. I agree with you broadly speaking that you can't be a bigot and be a good person (in actuality I have a more in-depth view of what it means to be good/bad which is entirely irrelevant here so I won't go into it) - but a person who hates me/believes me to be somehow bad as a result of certain aspects of my identity that I didn't even choose to have is not somebody I would be afraid to tar with the 'bigot' brush. And like you, I don't condemn people for their religious beliefs. I've never personally been religious (I think that's partly cultural - as I understand it the UK is broadly less ardently religious than many countries, and even people who identify as belonging to a religion don't necessarily attend church on a regular basis - but I'm looking at it from a limited perspective so I might be wrong in that regard) but I've never thought less of someone because of what they choose to believe. Sure, in my edgy teenage years - amplified by a sense of not knowing who I was and not feeling like I belonged in my own body - I did sometimes scoff at the teachings of a religion (which was wrong to do, and I've long since apologised to those I scoffed at) I never thought less of the individual. However, rightly or wrongly I do condemn people who see fit to condemn me for something I haven't done wrong. Something I think is at play is that this thread is the convergence of two demographics. We're all Lego fans here, but other than that we're from a wide variety of backgrounds. As @PhoenixBuilder pointed out, those of us in the LGBTQ+ community are not new to this sort of thread. We've seen the same conversations played out a thousand times, and while there are always open bigots there are also often people who very deliberately straddle the line of plausible deniability. I know I've personally seen this so often that at this point I'm wary of anybody who - intentionally or not - follows the script perfectly. It's an insidious script that tends to come in the form of repeating technically-not-bigoted lines over and over and subtly shifting the goalposts, all the while coming across as perfectly reasonable to the uninformed observer. Eventually, this causes someone in the marginalised community to get fed up and snap - and then the new line is that the marginalised community are the unreasonable ones. I for one came to this thread the first time braced for these sorts of comments. At the same time, you have lots of Lego fans who are not from the LGBTQ+ community - and who thus have had little interaction with the community previously. This isn't a problem. Everyone has their own online worlds, and nobody is under any obligation to step out of their comfort zone and interact with others. Nothing I'm saying now is with the intention of belittling people who haven't interacted with the LGBTQ+ community, not in any way at all. It merely means that those people are not exposed to the types of comments that LGBTQ+ people have faced on a regular basis. Add in the possibility for genuine bigots being here too and you have the recipe for this whole thread. There's LGBTQ+ people fed up that once again we have to see the usual comments in the usual order - and others who are genuinely not bigoted at all and mean well, and are upset that their well-meaning comments are being misconstrued as bigotry. I'm no saint here. I've got genuinely agitated at times reading comments that I've read many times before, and posted things in a slightly more aggressive way than I would have liked (though I like to think I've at least calmed myself down a bit before posting). At the same time, I think this discussion has opened up some very interesting dialogues and built bridges between users, in the name of progress, and it's to Lego's credit that their product has facilitated this. On a personal note, it's through this thread and the dialogue it fostered that I have really publicly embraced my identity as a transgender woman. I created this account back in 2015, when I first came out to myself as trans, and started being active at the beginning of this year (with a handful of posts dotted throughout last year too) - and all the while I never mentioned that I'm trans. The Internet gives us the ability to mask ourselves by the screen, so while I got a feel for what the community was like I presented myself as being female without giving any indication that I was also transgender. Why? Because once you come out, online at least, you can't go back in. My being trans was never relevant before, and it would open me up to potential abuse, so I didn't mention it. But it's become clear, while discusing 40516, that I'm far from alone, and that Eurobricks is generally speaking a wonderful, tolerant place to be. And that's something worth protecting. Case in point: we're eleven pages into discussion here, and it's been pretty much exclusively polite and reasonable back-and-forth, with talk of the build itself woven in. There are many places on the Internet that would have generated nothing but regurgitated jokes and veiled hate, and the bricks themselves would have been an afterthought. I realise I've rambled on quite a bit - and I'm sorry about that! - but I wanted to lay all my thoughts on the table here, especially since you've just done the same.

That's the thing, though. It's not inherently a community of people fighting for rights. Somebody is part of the LGBTQ+ community by virtue of their sexual orientation or their gender identity (or both) - neither of which is chosen. This does not come with an inherent requirement to fight for rights, and indeed there are a great many people who have no interest in fighting for anything. They're just living their life. And that's the crux of the matter. If Lego were producing a set based on the Stonewall Riots, of course that would count as political! But Lego haven't done that. Lego have released a set that tells their LGBTQ+ fans "you're welcome here too". It's an acknowledgement that we exist and that we are welcome in the Lego community, and I still don't see how that's a political statement. Having a "normal" rainbow would actually be more a celebration of sexual orientation. I'm not super familiar with the black/brown elements of the flag - but I know that the light blue/white/pink are representations of the trans flag, and being transgender has absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation. I can say for nothing that it feels great to be included in this, and I feel represented in a way that I wouldn't with the rainbow alone. Funnily enough, in a thread about a Lego set specifically celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, it tends to be a pertinent point if a member is part of that community.

What blows my mind is that not only was the comment made - it was made in response to a thread where multiple users had identified themselves as LGBTQ+. That's about as direct as you can get without sending a private message! And all that in response to a set which makes the wholesome statement "everyone is awesome".