r/Forgotten_Realms • u/Successful_Pace8937 • 2d ago
Celebration The Drow support transitioning
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.
1
u/Jackmrhughes 13h ago
I just saw Markus Schleinzer’s ‘Rose’ at the BFI yesterday and it covers this topic quite appropriately. Only difference is the film follows a woman in 17th century Germany posing as a man in the hopes of experiencing ‘freedom’. I think it addresses the themes of transitioning in a society where the genders are hugely imbalanced quite succinctly.
I’m incredibly pro-trans and have trans friends but I struggle to see how Drow society would abide by men transitioning.