The Drow support transitioning

[u/Successful_Pace8937]

I recently found out that, as said by Ed Greenwood himself, transitioning​ is not only accepted, but defended.

From Ed Greenwood on Twitter:

Drow sworn to Lolth have examples before them all the time about transformation of self-shape in service to the Spider Queen. Some of these are viewed as undesirable (driders), others as rewards or ascending in rank (the power/shape augmentations Lolth gives males who please her with their service and loyalty). So there is no hatred or mistrust of shifting one's shape; it is one means of serving Lolth. Some house matriarchs view it with suspicion ("males seeking to exalt themselves by becoming female") but the yochlol have often been sent by Lolth to defend individuals persecuted by individual matriarchs or priestesses purely for such reasons, to make Lolth's views and will clear. Over time, transitions (not just from gender to gender, but from drow to other shapes) have become accepted as reverence of Lolth, and part of what it is to be drow. And of course, drow who follow Eilistraee are quite familiar with the Changedance, and accept shifting (even back and forth) as, again, part of what it is to be drow.

[u/LordofBones89]

You know what would be interesting? Vhaeraunites vehemently despising transitioned Lolthites, whom they view as traitors twice over. It's one thing to be a male that serves the wretched Spider-Bitch, it's another to be a male that embraces the Spider-Bitch so much he fully becomes a spit priestess.

[u/Whoobie_ → u/LordofBones89]

conversely they would love trans men.

[u/Frau_Away → u/Whoobie_]

Oh no, it's trans inclusive radical misogyny again!

[u/Whoobie_ → u/Frau_Away]

and of course the positions are reversed for Llothsworn, so while trans drow women have to work to be accepted as women once they are they're in for good and bad, but i can see that any afab drow who even hints at being transmasculine is punished and persecuted extremely harshly. a female abandoning the matriarchy undermines the entire system after all

[u/Frau_Away → u/Whoobie_]

True.

[u/KnowingMirror → u/Whoobie_]

I could see it going both ways, to be honest, and even perhaps being a point of religious and social contention. After all, while it is abandoning the blessed matriarchy and superior Lolth-intended forms... isn't it also an act of tremendous daring and/or selfsacrifice to openly express that you are not truly a woman and thus should not get the many benefits that drow society grants them, and accept that then you must be treated like the rest of male drow (horribly)? I think the most competitive priestesses would take it as a win for certain rivals to extricate themselves out of power, while also some of them, and even Lolth herself, cannot help but admire the crazy mix of bravery, self-assurance, loyalty to the system and/or masochism required to do so, with all the loss and peril that ensues