Why Do People Think 'Call Of Duty' Released 'Trans Bullets'? A Pride Month Nontroversy Explained

It simply wouldn't feel like Pride Month if there weren't an out-of-proportion controversy surrounding a corporation's promotion for the event.

This month, the first corporation to draw the ire of conservatives and users online for its LGBTQ Pride Month promotion is Activision, who apparently sent some prominent conservatives on social media into a tizzy over the idea that it released "Trans Bullets" in Call of Duty.

Here's the rundown on how a gag turned into another front in the culture wars and why some are arguing CoD has "gone woke."

What Did 'Call of Duty' Do For Pride Month?

First, to be clear, Activision did not give players "Trans Bullets," or bullets covered with the colors of the transgender pride flag, for Pride Month, which began on June 1st.

They actually released skins for guns in the colors of myriad pride flags, so a person could, say, shoot an assortment of bad guys in Modern Warfare III with a rainbow-colored gun.

One may debate whether releasing "pride flag guns" is an effective means of showing support to the LGBTQ community, but however one feels about that, it's a fact that Activision did not release a Pride Month-themed cosmetic update for the game's ammunition.

That idea came from a Twitter / X user named @BobNetworkUK, who posted a picture of what sure looks like bullets painted light blue, pink and white — the colors of the trans pride flag.

Here's what's going on: In Modern Warfare III, players can purchase the "Soul Harvester" blueprint for the M4 gun as part of a $100 special edition package. The Soul Harvester blueprint adds various silly effects to the gun's shots, including making bullet colors match the skin of the gun.

So, by adding the trans pride flag blueprint to the M4, one can see the appearance of so-called "trans bullets." One can also make so-called "gay bullets," "asexual bullets," "bisexual bullets," etc., by switching the M4's skin to any of Activision's pride flag promotional skins.

What Has Been The Reaction To 'Trans Bullets'?

Despite the "Activision released trans bullets" narrative being largely inaccurate, it caught the attention of the vocal social media crowd that tends to pop up anytime there is a whiff of so-called "wokeness" in gaming, among others who reacted to the news as it spread.

As some conservative users voiced that they couldn't believe Activision released "trans bullets," conservative Twitter mainstay Ian Miles Cheong took the outrage a step further and argued that by adding "trans bullets," Activision was encouraging players to "roleplay as a transgender mass shooter." Libs of TikTok followed with a similar take in an apparent attempt to drum up fear over transgender people and mass shootings.

This elicited eye rolls from many on social media. Some pointed out that Call of Duty literally does not have an option to make a player-character transgender, so the idea that a person could "roleplay as a transgender mass shooter" was ludicrous.

Others argued that if the existence of "trans bullets" allows players to "roleplay as a transgender mass shooter," then the same logic would mean that vanilla Call of Duty is akin to roleplaying as a cis mass shooter, which is likely not the argument folks like Cheong and Libs of TikTok are trying to make.

Activision, perhaps rightly so, has not yet commented on the false idea that it released "trans bullets" for Pride Month, but discourse about it is still circulating many sites as people give their takes on the story.

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For the full history of the Call of Duty 'Trans Bullets' Controversy, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.