No, it's cool. Basically, I grew up in an extremely conservative Catholic family, and as a kid I internalized a lot of the queerphobia inherent to Catholic doctrine. I also knew, probably from the time I was 14, that I was attracted to people of pretty much every sex and gender. Adolescence wasn't an easy time for me because of this, and WH40K was one of the hobbies I got into to get away from everything. I didn't think too deeply about why I liked it so much it until I started getting into the lore around the Chaos Gods, especially Tzeentch.
In the lore, Tzeentch is the God of Change. Change and transformation personified, in fact. Their followers, to varying degrees, embrace radical social, psychological and even physical transformations as divine gifts, rather than as something to be feared. Of course, embracing those gifts often leads to Tzeentch's followers' being persecuted, excluded and straight-up executed by the close-minded theocratic society in which they live. Reading about those Tzeentchian characters and how they chose to buck Imperial culture to live freer lives, even in the face of that kind of backlash... I don't know. Something just clicked for me. I remember sitting up one night reading a short story about Tzeentch followers and thinking, "wait, if these guys have better lives for telling the Imperium to go fuck itself, why can't I do the same for the Church? And 'embracing change?' Isn't that what trans people do pretty much every day just by virtue of existing?"
It's silly, I know, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for the setting because of that.
No, it's cool. Basically, I grew up in an extremely conservative Catholic family, and as a kid I internalized a lot of the queerphobia inherent to Catholic doctrine. I also knew, probably from the time I was 14, that I was attracted to people of pretty much every sex and gender. Adolescence wasn't an easy time for me because of this, and WH40K was one of the hobbies I got into to get away from everything. I didn't think too deeply about why I liked it so much it until I started getting into the lore around the Chaos Gods, especially Tzeentch.
In the lore, Tzeentch is the God of Change. Change and transformation personified, in fact. Their followers, to varying degrees, embrace radical social, psychological and even physical transformations as divine gifts, rather than as something to be feared. Of course, embracing those gifts often leads to Tzeentch's followers' being persecuted, excluded and straight-up executed by the close-minded theocratic society in which they live. Reading about those Tzeentchian characters and how they chose to buck Imperial culture to live freer lives, even in the face of that kind of backlash... I don't know. Something just clicked for me. I remember sitting up one night reading a short story about Tzeentch followers and thinking, "wait, if these guys have better lives for telling the Imperium to go fuck itself, why can't I do the same for the Church? And 'embracing change?' Isn't that what trans people do pretty much every day just by virtue of existing?"
It's silly, I know, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for the setting because of that.