A bit of a kerfuffle has erupted in the community surrounding the forthcoming Star Wars MMO: The Old Republic, after a representative from developer Bioware denied that homosexuality exists in the Star Wars universe.

Community manager Sean Dahlberg closed a thread discussing terminology like “gay,” lesbian,” and “homosexual” in the Star Wars universe with the words: “As I have stated before, these are terms that do not exist in Star Wars. Thread closed.”

It’s incensed the LGBT community that surround the game, who’ve pointed out that not only is that irrelevant to the discussion that was taking place, but that Juhanni, a woman in Knights of the Old Republic (a game also developed by Bioware), had a female lover.

The discussion has reopened in a thread here, which has spanned out to 56 pages, though at the time of writing it seems to have devolved into a flamewar. Homosexuality can be a difficult subject to approach in a videogame, but shutting down all discussion of the topic is deeply offensive, and shouldn’t occur.

(via MMOHub)