prokopetz:

And for the record, not only does the argument that trans people wouldn’t exist in a typical Dungeons & Dragons setting because body-transforming magic is readily available badly misunderstand what’s involved (hint: it ain’t just about genitals), it doesn’t even accurately characterise the game.

The specifics are naturally going to vary depending on what edition you’re playing, so we’ll go with 3.5E for the sake of argument:

• The lowest level spell that can effect a permanent, non-baneful change of gross anatomy in a humanoid target is polymorph any object, an 8th level transmutation.
• The services table indicates that paying an NPC wizard to cast an 8th-level spell costs 80 gold pieces per caster level.
• A wizard needs to have a caster level of at least 15 to cast an 8th-level spell, so we’re looking at a minimum fee of 1200 gp.

1200 gp may not look like much for an adventurer, but when you consider that the average wage for a skilled labourer works out to about 2 gp per week, that 1200 gp represents eleven years’ gross income for a typical commoner.

That’s pretty far from “readily available”.

(But, of course, you’d know this if you weren’t a fake nerd boy.)