In game Gender Dysphoria

[Jamie_06]

First off, something to understand about me is that prior to my initial feelings of wanting to be a girl at 13 there were not female character options in most of the games I played, and from then up until about 6-7 years ago I was pretty firmly in the grip of Evangelical Christianity, so acting on those thoughts was "wrong" to me.

So I played mostly male characters up until shortly after I started breaking ties with that particular brand of religion. At that point, my curiosity about switching sexes started getting the better of me and I started using the female option in Pokémon. I couldn't really explain why I liked it better than being male, and was really embarrassed any time someone saw me playing and noticed. I would usually stammer out something like "I wanted to change things up a bit."

And starting last year, I found myself taking things to the next level and roleplaying a female character in Pathfinder. I still maintained male characters for the one-off Pathfinder Society games, but for some reason when I wanted a character to invest myself in long-term I mostly went with female. Again, I didn't know why, it just felt very nice and kind of exciting to roleplay a female character and interact with others as such. Since I first started realizing that I might be trans back in October (and with it, the reason why I seemed to gravitate towards playing female characters), I have ditched the male characters I played and have gone with a female character in the one-off games as well.

[Chigau]

A few times in recent years as I'm playing an RPG such as Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV or even Mass Effect, my wife has asked me why I am always playing a female character.  I have either deflected the question or just given some obviously unsatisfactory answer. When one of my sons first introduced me to gameing he had installed Oblivion on the custom built PC we had built together.  I honestly tried to play a male character but that didn't even last the length of the tutorial before I had to start all over again with a female character.  I have never played a male character since.  Why should I, I have the option in game and it feels so intolerably unnatural for me to do anything but play as a female.  Does anyone else have a similar experience?  If the option is given in RPGs and FPSs, what gender do you play?

C.

Hm, Yes I get this alot. I generally choose female by default but if its an RPG It'll depends on the type of character I want to build. Most of the time I have separate save files for the two genders and which ever character I get attached to the most will become my main. I used to get grief off my friends before coming out to them, before then my go-to deflect was "Well, why not?". But I got into gaming to escape, from my GD and other things somy GD in games doesn't really bother me too much I suppose.

[Swayallday]

I don't generally bother with which characer since i'm focusing on Roleplay, Outfit & PvP anyhow and sometimes the garments look better on female or male haha
buuuut...
In general?

Whenever I write guides or give feedback it's girlmode that gets me somewhere
So then I feel i'm not living up to my full potential...

[vanderpn]

I don't play a lot of RPG games. One I do play is Toontown. Back when the original game was available, before I started thinking about my gender identity, I played female characters just out of habit. Today, I have three male characters; two of them even have "Mr." in their names Toons can wear clothes, so I get the chance to express myself on there too; like in real life, I wear everything from tailored vests to hair bows.

One game that I can remember playing a male character in my childhood was the Harry Potter games. Granted, who doesn't want to be Harry Potter, regardless of their gender identity?!

[Chloëjade]

Given the choice i always play female. I've been doing so since i played Everquest on the PC. I tried some male characters and hated them. The excemption is my Iksar monk. I will always make that a him . Mass Effect 1 & 2 I make a male renegade. My normal character in Mass Effect is female . My avatar on my 360 has been female since i got on back in May 2008 lol. When i'm asked why i just say for a few reasones my main one being, i hate looking at male butts lol. Which is true lol.

[Mitternacht]

I always play as male characters when given the choice, save for one or two exceptions. Feels so much more natural and I feel so much more happy. Especially on mmo's or online games I like the anonymity and the fact that I don't have to worry about passing or anything and I just get to be who I am being.


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[Jamie_06]

Another thing I only recently realized:

Nearly every guy playing female characters in tabletop RPGs has had his character misgendered at some point. I usually point this out, either in or out of character. I have never noticed anyone else doing this, just me. And this was before I started questioning my gender identity too.

[Wynternight]

Another thing I only recently realized:

Nearly every guy playing female characters in tabletop RPGs has had his character misgendered at some point. I usually point this out, either in or out of character. I have never noticed anyone else doing this, just me. And this was before I started questioning my gender identity too.

I'm lucky now to have understanding and supportive tabletop groups. All of my gamer friends know I'm transgender and transitioning and no longer bat an eye that every character I play is female.

[Chloëjade]

My friends don't know but i've told them i will play female characters if i want to. All my characters are almost always female

[Wynternight]

My friends don't know but i've told them i will play female characters if i want to. All my characters are almost always female

I did the same before coming out to them. I told them to get over it and stop making a big deal over something so trivial. When I did come out it wasn't to a lot of surprise.

[Peep]

I've played both... in first person games like fallout and the elder scrolls i tend to forget what my character even looks like. even if i spend ages carefully designing them i never look at them again after the creation screen lol. the gender of your character doesn't really affect gameplay with those particular games.

i would say I don't struggle to associate with fictional avatars regardless of gender, but i do creative writing and it's definitely easier and more instinctive to write male characters... i'm not going to over-analyse tho

[Sebby Michelango]

I'm always playing as a guy in the games. Even before I knew I'm a trans guy, I always played as a guy character. I thought playing a girl character was wrong. I felt it wasn't me and even it was a game, I wanted the character to remind a bit about myself. Every time I played a game, my character was always a guy with black hair and brown eyes. I have black hair and brown eyes in real life too. For me it was important the character were similar to me, it's still today.

[Belial]

I play both. I kinda have some image in mind with every game and class. Create a bit of bio (I'm always roleplayer).

In one of the latest MMO I made a girl character. A strong type girl (goddess) but feminine. It's just a game and I don't identify with the character. But I've been thinking of changing her sex. The name was gender neutral. I made a girl also because at that time the clothes were better for female toons.

In another game I made another girl because 1. It was genderlocked class, 2. I love a character from a book that goes well with the class. I was reading that book at the time when I was starting to play this game. I still would like to make another male character.

Kinda feminist outlook showing in game.

I have some stereotypical characters with sex, race, class and name. When I was trying to live as a woman (which was until 1 month ago) having male characters was suspicious. It's always "prove you're a girl". And let's face the truth women still have better in online games so I started to use that. And since many relate characters toon to the player...

I'm quite sure that before I decided to be the woman, I played with male toons only.

[Mermaid]

I play female characters like 80% of the time. The rest I play male because a nagging voice in my mind says I should want to play them :/

I can sort of relate to that feeling, but I think it might be due to me being kind of OCD. I'm not sure if I feel it towards gender like you do, but, if I have multiple characters in a specific game, I feel almost obligated to have them distributed amongst each race... if I don't do it,  I'll have a niggling itch reminding me that I'm not making use of all the options available to me, lol... I think the lore of humans in WoW is generic and I'm not particularly captivated by their aesthetic either, but sometimes I feel I "should" create one, because I don't have any... I guess that's what it's like for you?

There's a ton of games where I prefer the male characters over the female ones in the cast. In reality I think I don't care about the gender of characters, but I do become more aware of their gender in online environments, where social interactions are a thing and I see my character as sort of an "avatar" of myself... Just want to avoid feeling certain things, I guess =/

I want to have an Orc character in WoW because I like them, and I think the males are much cooler... but I feel "afraid" to create one, just because I know I'm not playing by myself and will run into other people...

While on the subject, I wish less male characters in videogames were portrayed as rugged meatheads (even if I like Orcs!)... I think it's silly. Wish more characters were like Soma Cruz in Castlevania, for example... He felt really cool to play as :3

[Hunchdebunch]

I chose 'other' as my answer, so I'll explain.
I don't think I've ever had the option to play as my 'true' gender, as I'm non binary. I also tend to make many characters in games that have character creation, so I'm happy to make characters of any gender really.
However, recently I often make characters who I intend to be non binary, regardless of the fact that I have to choose 'male' or 'female' when creating them. This is fine for the most part, until other characters in game start referring to them with gendered language. Since that tends to remind me of myself being misgendered in real life, that can be a bit painful. But I enjoy creating characters who are 'like me' despite this, and find it comforting despite it not being ideal.

[KarlMars]

If you have enough time on your hands and want to play or create your "true gender" characters I would suggest Second Life online, or any of the Sims games. I used to regularly play Sims 3 for the pc. I haven't played it in awhile though. These games are time consuming.

[SanaRinomi]

Depend on what account I'm playing on: My male one (Hated but have most of my games on there, because male side things -_-) or my female (My favorite account!)

                                                                 Love, Sarina!

[Artesia]

Amazing how many people play the gender that they want to be, and a few even have said the same thing I've said to my wife about looking at the backside of a female character is better than looking at the backside of a male one.  I am now starting to wonder just how far back my feelings that I know I've buried actually go.

[SanaRinomi]

Amazing how many people play the gender that they want to be, and a few even have said the same thing I've said to my wife about looking at the backside of a female character is better than looking at the backside of a male one.  I am now starting to wonder just how far back my feelings that I know I've buried actually go.

I find the backside part very funny everytime I see it. XD

                                       Love,  Sarina!

[sigsi]

Similar to Hunchdebunch, I'm non-binary so it's not really an option to pick my ideal character's gender.
I tend to play "fluffier" games these days due to stress headaches from fighting games that would last for days.
So games like Sims, I will aim for my main character to be as neutral as possible (usually starting out with a female base as the male body editing disturbs me for some reason, mods can usually fix the female clothes ).
In other video games though, I almost always play a guy character. For example, in Mario Bros, I play Mario Hyrule Warriors (a headache game), I play Link. Every once in a while I will play as a female character in a game, but usually will default back to a male character/usually the lead character of the series I am playing.

Referencing the gender dysphoria in games, that would have to be the Sims as this is where I create a character most similar to my life. I just try to ignore the annoying gender references if I make the Sims socialize. I tend to get a bit too wrapped up in building of the houses of my towns though.