@Dicer @xianc78 @Witch_Hunter_Siegfired original versions of cyberpunk had transgenderism as well but it was treated much like transhumanism was where you had to go through therapy and shit if you didn't want to go insane. which, to be fair, is how it ought to be treated in real life too. as far as i know, there aren't rules for it anymore though you just basically make a trans character and that's that.

in cp2077, there is no real concept of cyberpsychosis/humanity really. there is no reason to not just load up on as many mods as you can. the only real thing that causes distress is the chip with johnny loaded onto it. i don't think it's quite the same thing, but still in that same sort of realm i guess. there are mods that give you higher chances of entering cyberpsychosis the more chrome you have and they actually make it work pretty well with the gameplay, it's a shame it wasn't added into the game. i think they went with "making a game using the property of cyberpunk" rather than "making a game that is cyberpunk" if that makes sense. they went more far cry, less elder scrolls... so i think a lot of the "RPG-ness" kind of went to the wayside.

but typically, yes, cyberpunk settings show a dystopia of society via things such as transhumanism as well as what it means to actually be "human" through things like body modification. it's the central theme of blade runner, with the replicants being "more human than human" but then treated like secondary citizens and slaves. it's also sort of a theme in tron legacy, where the ISOs are not really seen as programs because they aren't perfect and are therefore wiped out, but because of that imperfection they are better than a computer program could ever be.

transgenderism in cyberpunk may be something that creators point to now as being "look how inclusive we are in the future!" or something like that, but originally it was absolutely intended to be "look how decadent we are in the future despite and due to our advancement as a species."

personally i think it loops into both aspects, the first being the decline of society and the second being the need to cram everything into some hyper-idealized "perfect" state instead of letting things fall how they do. rather than trust that God made you the way He did for a reason, or even just accepting that you are the way you are, you get to thinking that you aren't perfect the way you are and that's a bad thing, you *need* to be something else. and that begins to strip away your humanity. that is the core of my belief when it comes to transgenderism, and it's why i got to hating it so much in the first place because it seemed like when i'd try and tell people that they should relax and try to feel comfortable with who they are, they seemed so repulsed by the idea that i'd end up being bullied even by authority. didn't really make sense to me and still doesn't, as someone who has a physical deformity that cannot be fixed and has had to just accept it (vitiligo, which i honestly hate being fetishized as of late). it was taught to me from a very young age that this is who i was, and now i wouldn't change it even if i could. there are "treatments" but they come with potentially lofty side effects and may or not even work, and i relate it to transgenderism in that regard because it seems quite similar on that front. i honestly think it is better to attack things like this from a psychological standpoint.

obviously it isn't as simple as "oh you're totally right i can just accept myself now! thank you for the infinite wisdom!" because these people are actually mentally ill. that's the end goal, though, to accept and embrace your imperfection instead of trying to force a change and using that change as a social bargaining chip. it feels very manufactured and, well, "inhuman." if the human condition is a struggle, but that struggle ultimately makes us who we are, then trying to remove that struggle, to remove the human condition, only results in more pain and a downward spiral.

i think there is a scale between something like a wheelchair for a person who can't move their legs and a sex change for someone whose brain is trying to tell them they are the wrong gender in regards to how much technology can and should be used to improve someone's quality of life, and that scale might be different for some people, but it really drives home how that scale is used in cyberpunk settings to show a lack of "humanity" and what happens when that humanity is lost.

i feel like that's one of the main tenets the cyberpunk genre's dystopia, right alongside the corporatism and neon. unfortunately, cp2077 doesn't really delve into that at all and is instead a lot more focused on the style than it is the substance in some ways. edgerunners was a lot better in that regard, but that shit is way too bleak and kind of poorly written/rushed lmao. but i think it is baked into the genre enough that it makes itself known even in the subtext, and i don't think that's going to be something that transgender/transhuman activists/sympathizers are going to be able to remove while still having an accurate representation of the genre.

and then of course, you have the idea that some of it is just purely for sexual/aesthetic reasons as well, which plays into the whole cyberpunk theme of turning everything into a commodity. there are lots of layers to it which makes it so interesting, and so much more than simply "awesome, trans stuff!" or "ewww, trans stuff!" ideally, it should be making you think, ponder, and theorize.... not really skills many people possess these days lol.