Okay, I lately found something out when I was comparing all of my OC's (Original Characters, for people who don't know), and it appears 95% are guys (a few girls are there for the 'form' but my favourites are ALL guys).
I was wondering; is this a 'typical' trans thing? Are there other transpeople over here who mainly have OC's of their target/true sex? Do cispeople do this as well? Or do they usually prefer characters of their own sex??

The same applies with games btw. I always (no exceptions) play as a male character (if given the choice), and I recently noticed none of my friends had a character different than their birth sex. They never mentioned it or thought it was weird, so I never really thought about this.
I will also note I didn't pick a male character for 'aesthetic' purposes, but just because it felt 'more natural' that way.

So... do more transpeople do this? And how many or how often would cispeople do this as well?

-Erik

The only thing that I am on constantly is Second Life and I immediately chose a female avatar.  I do though, have a male alt that I sometimes use if I do a music gig.

Georgie

Yes, I've heard that this is a pretty common thing for us. My OCs are exclusively male - I couldn't write a female character if my life depended on it because I don't understand how they think - and I always select male characters in games. The character I'm playing on screen is a virtual representation of myself, and I cannot accept thinking of myself as being female. In fact, I can't play Tomb Raider because I'd find it inappropriate to be represented by Lara Croft.

I also remember back in the 1980s when Pac-Man was a new game. Everyone played Pac-Man but it was also the first computer game in history to have large numbers of female players. But when Ms. Pac-Man was released a little later, it was pretty common to see girls gravitating to Ms. Pac-Man but very few boys would play it, even though it was a superior game.

My daughters, who are cis, always gravitate towards female characters & role models and would find it weird to associate with a male role model, so I suppose it's human nature to emulate those with whom we identify. That having been said, there are plenty of cis guys who don't mind playing as Lara Croft, but they might have a different reason for that entirely.

This is my latest online incarnation.

Don't be fooled, this little lady is a hobbit. She plays music and swings a mean sword. She has recently finished a series of quests, cleaning up some baddies, on behalf of a rather beligerent tribe who live in a tundra area.

And the reason she has bear feet? She's a hobbit. Hobbits don't wear shoes.

Most of my OCs for original fiction (that I haven't written yet) are male and I tend to come up with male characters much more easily.
I found that after I came to terms with being male myself, I no longer make up OCs for existing fiction which is tied in with how I relate to the characters.
I pretty much exclusively relate to canon male characters in existing fiction.

Quote from: Erik Ezrin on May 24, 2013, 04:50:33 AM
The same applies with games btw. I always (no exceptions) play as a male character (if given the choice), and I recently noticed none of my friends had a character different than their birth sex. They never mentioned it or thought it was weird, so I never really thought about this.
I will also note I didn't pick a male character for 'aesthetic' purposes, but just because it felt 'more natural' that way.

So... do more transpeople do this? And how many or how often would cispeople do this as well?

-Erik

I don't do too much writting anymore, but when I do it's usualy fan fiction . . . and I tend to write stories around female characters.

As for video games:


While I have no problems playing a male character if I like the game (What gamer hasn't enjoyed playing Mario, Link, and Sonic and Tails) if given the choice, I always make female characters. This is my character in The Old Republic. Grumpy Miralukan Jedi Padawan.

I do know people who are geneticly male or female who do play the opposite gender from time to time, though their main characters are almost always the same gender as their own. I also know writters who write the opposite gender from themselves who are geneticly congruent.

I think we tend to make characters in fiction and games that are our true genders more often than cis people, but I think it's more common for cis people to make a character that is the same gender as themselves. Not sure if I worded that well . . . but there it is. My thoughts in digital.

I don't play many games that allow you to customize the character, but if given the option I will sometimes play as female.  Games are just fantasy and fun to me.  I have no problem playing a game as a male character.  I can easily relate with a male character or at least enjoy the plot of the game.  For example, I love the Legacy of Kain series, but I don't really feel like I am the character or anything.  It's just a fun set of games with a great plot and fun Shakespearian voice acting.  In the end, I care more about the story and the overall environment than what the gender of the character is.  Both men and women have stories to tell.

This is my primary expression of my inner girl. I've done it all my life. I've been told that when my best friend and I pretended to be the Ninja Turtles at 5 years old, I would choose to be April O'neil.

When I was in my young teens, I discovered EverQuest, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing game. MMORPG for short, MMO for shorter. That's the first time it became really clear that 98% of my created characters were female. This is the first time I remember feeling like I had something to explain. People asked and being a teenager I went with the "Cuz hot chicks!" excuse.

The same rule holds true to my main characters when I write, with 98% of them being female. I found my favorite characters both of mine and of the fiction I enjoyed were almost always female. It's to the point where my friends and family just assume the girl is my favorite in any cast of characters. The quirky one if there are multiple female cast members. They're usually right.

For me, there isn't really a discomfort with male characters if they are created by someone else. I can play a game with a male lead and be fine with it, although I'd prefer a female lead. For me, the disconnect happens most when I need to make a character. I just can't invest myself into a male character the way I can a female.

As for if this is unusual among cis people? Well, I always felt compelled to explain myself. Sure, my friends and family that play games and such occasionally create characters of another gender, but it's the exception, like males are for me. It's almost always an "alternate" character, and they rarely seem connected to them, the same way I rarely connect to my male characters.

In gaming culture, it's a known "thing," though. Especially guys playing as girls. It's common enough that most people aren't surprised, but there's still a bit of a "weirdness" too it for a lot of people. For some people, it's a downright stigma. It's a common thing on gaming forums for someone to start a thread about how weird it is. Sadly, this often draws the players like this to the defensive, often arguing that "It's not like I'm weird and actually wanna be a girl or anything. I just like how she looks." Sometimes you'll get "I just find female characters more interesting." That one became a go to of mine when I started feeling like a pervert for claiming it was because I liked looking at attractive girls.

Also, because of the boys club attitude of gamers the common perception is that girls don't play video games, and guys playing girls is so common, that the trope is "There are no girls on the internet, it must really be a guy."

Are all those guys secretly trans? Well, I was one of them and that turned out to be the answer for me, and it was an answer that I didn't honestly know for a long time. It's still a bit tough for me to wrap my head around. I know it feels right, but there's all that time I spent telling people that I didn't do this because I wanted to be a girl. I grew up with movies and TV shows like Ace Ventura telling me that would be totally weird, and while no one ever told me it was wrong, certainly no one ever took me aside and told me it was okay. That feeling of "wrongness" is hard to shake.

Even as I grew up, and I felt my mind opening to the idea that maybe it's okay to be weird, and maybe it's not so much weird as it is different anyway... It was easy to accept others, but it was harder to think about myself in that light. Who I am is a recent revelation and it's one I'm still coming to terms with.

So yeah, maybe a lot of those guys have something driving them to want to create all those girls to represent themselves. Still, I think it's dangerous to paint with a sweeping brush. Maybe it doesn't go deeper for some of those guys. Maybe they do just like to create good looking ladies to have at their command. Who knows.

If I were to target a PSA about Gender Dysphoria though, I think people who feel more comfortable playing the other sex in a video game would be a good target.

In video games, I always play as male if it's an OC....expect in saints row 2 where I have a male character with a female voice

In fanfiction writing, I don't really have any OC main characters but most of the side characters and villians are male, not all but most.

Well, if you're talking about writing, my protagonists were always male. And oddly, I realized they were all me, even the little boy.
I don't get into gaming really, but if I'm playing something I often select the female character so I have something nice to look at. 

I don't do any writing, but I sometimes play female video game characters when given the choice.  I'm getting more comfortable with female characters now that I'm less paranoid of my friends finding out about me

Some very valid and interesting points here!

QuoteWell, if you're talking about writing, my protagonists were always male. And oddly, I realized they were all me, even the little boy.

You know... now you're saying that... so are my OC's/protagonists, etc. they always are sort of me, but in different forms and 'moulds', if that makes sense.

And Jadefyre, me being a gaming "girl" myself (well, when I still identified as one for the majority of the time) I never thought about the "a girl can't be on the internet/games/etc." thing, lolol, I was always so naive that I believed everybody had a character of their birth sex, even though I was the one playing as the opposite sex, LOL!
I do agree with a lot of male gamers that the male models are often way too 'bloated' though, but then I still prefer male. I really played Runescape for a LOOONG time as a kid (say 9 to 14 yrs), and I actually thought those female models weren't too bad, lol. But always played as a male.

When it concerns my OC's, I have a few females... just for diversity, but mainly because I've seen so many heroic guys that I want to see a kickass girl from time to time too. Even though I identify more with males, game/character/badass people world just needs more girls in it!
But most of my male characters are better developed and have more depth, while the females are just 'fillers' (God, that sounds so sexist! :s Sorry girls!)

On Gaiaonline (Or GoGaia when I started!) I usually always played boy characters, with an exception of a few girl characters.  But only about 2.  I used to be very active in a Pokemorph rp (Yes, I am a dork) and I had 3 boy characters on there that I use more than my female characters.  I've always felt more comfortable playing a boy.  I also used to have a SL avatar that was a boy.

For online games I almost exclusively play girls. When I played D&D I would create female characters about half the time. I wouldn't play them all the time because then my group would start giving me grief about it. But yeah, I'm much more comfortable with female characters.

My favorite character I have ever made actually was born a girl but due to a lab mixup when they were manipulating her dna turned her into a boy.  He still wears neon colors and skirts over his paints.  He's also my fursona.  Yes. I am a furry.  But not the scary creepy kind.

Yes!  Ever since I started making up characters it would always be a guy.  Whenever I played as a kid up to now - almost always a guy.  Most of the characters I draw are male, but of course I have drawn females too.  Any time I write literary role play my character is a guy. Someone else mentioned this, all my protagonists are men too in my stories.  I also think most of these characters I make up have a part of me in them, and seem more real to me and I just can't seem to do that with female characters.  I think for me I lived in a fictional world so much because it was my only escape to be my real self.