Video Games Allow Transgender People to Be Themselves

[stephaniec]

Video Games Allow Transgender People to Be Themselves

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlize-veritas/transgender-people-video-games_b_9205330.html

The Huffington Post/By Charlize Veritas  02/11/2016 06:12 pm ET | Updated 4 hours ago

"According to the ESRB, an estimated 67 percent of U.S. households play video games. If that's even close to accurate, that's more than half the country!

And who can blame them? You get to be the hero or the villain. You get to save the world or destroy it. You can become the richest tycoon or fight real time strategy battles against live opponents. You can travel to places you've never imagined and see things we can only dream about."

[Dayta]

I expect that LOTS of gamers play against type, but for may reasons besides discomfort with or rejection of assigned genders.  I play almost exclusively as female in just about any game environment that gives me a choice.  In fact, it was by switching in game that started me off on my own gender exploration journey.  I do find an almost endemic desire for female-appearing and male-appearing characters to find "real girls," and have experienced all sorts of angry and vindictive reactions to any hints that I might be "misrepresenting." 

In the end, I find that I have to make a choice when I meet people in games to be immediately up-front about my RL gender or to play as if female and never reveal the "truth."  It's frightening how intense the reaction can be sometimes. 

[Amy1988]

I love the new Far Cry 3 game but mostly for the scenery.  It is without a doubt the most beautiful game ever. The graphics are stunning. Regrettably though there are no female characters to play as.

[sarahjayn77]

I like RPG's like Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect, or anything where you get to customise your character's appearance.

I really like Elder Scrolls Online - where you actually get to drag slider bars to adjust the whole shape of the face, nose - cheeks - jaw, even things like waist width or posterior size, everything, and select from a wide range of hairstyles. I also like crafting in games, and it has a range of outfit parts to learn how to make, and to assemble your clothing rather than just picking up loot, and the more things you do in the game, the more coloured dyes you unlock, which can be used to colour in your outfits.

Most mmo players are just walking around in black, or grey metal, or brown leather fantasy garb - and if my characters are just standing around somewhere, other players usually stop to circle around and check out my costume - any game that allows me to turn my character into a fashion statement is loads of fun.

It's quite hilarious when playing with other people online - they want to go back to town to sell their loot and buy new weapons, while I want to go back to town to get new boots because the one's I'm wearing clash with my current outfit.

[FreyasRedemption]

Well, in my case the first self-revelation to the possibility that I could actually be female came via the character creation in Divinity 2.....and playing the Mass Effect series helped me bypass a really depression-filled phase of life.
So, I could say it's been beneficial.

[Katiepie]

Long before I did come out to myself, about from my high school years I could say I did play the role of a second identity for myself in a game forum community base. About from 2003 up until 2009, I had claimed myself a female identity through this community. This is where I did find who had become my significant other.

Kate <3

[chromaggia]

my entire life whenever i played video games i always picked a female character and would actually get upset if there wasnt a female character to play as. now that i think about it, this should have been a dead giveaway for me but i was completely oblivious.

[Tyr]

I write for a video game review site (which I will not name for privacy reasons) and a while back my boss asked a bunch of us to make a top 10 list containing our favorite games. I can't believe I have never noticed before, but after reading this, I went back and looked at my list to find that a whopping 7 out of 10 were games that allowed you to play as a female character. In two of the other ones, there is a female character who is either the focus or very important to the story, and, well, the third one is Paper Mario, because who doesn't love Mario?