Hi there! I ask this because growing up, I wasn't comfortable with my body or making friends, so I'd turn to games, any game actually, it didn't matter to me if you could choose who to play as. But whenever I could, I'd always choose female characters like Sonya Blade or Dixie Kong (depending on the game, I can't imagine a fatality being performed on poor Dixie) and feel content with myself. I looked up to those strong women , thinking to myself "One day I'll be just like them".                                                                                                                                     I loved exploring the different worlds, gameplay, art and story of each game, even as a child I was able to appreciate the beauty in games. Flash forward to middle school and high school, everytime I had a hard day, or just felt lonely, I'd pop a disc into my gamecube, or cartridge into my DS and just melt away into the world before my eyes, where I had control of the things around me. I was able to save princesses, save my home planet with the help of adorable Pikmin, bring down Umbrella, and save the day numerous amounts of times I honestly think that if I didn't have this world to escape to, I wouldn't be here today, video games saved me, they gave me an escape when things got bad.

Your perspective and mine on how gaming has helped transitioning are totally different lol. The first people I came out to besides a close friend, was my gaming clan/team. I ended up spilling the beans when I was drunk one night on Xbox live to a couple people and then decided to post up a general coming out thread on our website. Everyone was really supportive and still are. We had a great laugh when I was gone for a while and one of the guys asked "how is your thing goin?" And I replied "we'll the "thing" is still there" haha. He was so embarrassed we all got a good laugh out of it.

Since I am pre-everything, I dunno - but gaming is how I coped with being transgendered for 20+ with out knowing I was transgendered, I just had these feelings and I just played female characters, and did not bothered saying I was really a guy and then started just saying I was female. When I wasn't around RL friends that is.

So not sure it sorta held me back also in my life, but I also do truly enjoy them. 

It was what lead me here to Susan's to improve my voice so I could "pass' as female online, which lead me to doing research and now here I am my feelings of wanting to be female more intense then I can remember in a very long time.

What was the question again? 

Quote from: Aina on September 11, 2013, 01:29:35 PM
Since I am pre-everything, I dunno - but gaming is how I coped with being transgendered for 20+ with out knowing I was transgendered, I just had these feelings and I just played female characters, and did not bothered saying I was really a guy and then started just saying I was female. When I wasn't around RL friends that is.

So not sure it sorta held me back also in my life, but I also do truly enjoy them. 

It was what lead me here to Susan's to improve my voice so I could "pass' as female online, which lead me to doing research and now here I am my feelings of wanting to be female more intense then I can remember in a very long time.

What was the question again? 

Sounds like gaming pushed you in the right direction hon! Basically what I meant was how/if gaming helped you with your transition, or is helping, but I ended up ranting as always lol

Quote from: Jasriella on September 11, 2013, 01:13:37 PM
Your perspective and mine on how gaming has helped transitioning are totally different lol. The first people I came out to besides a close friend, was my gaming clan/team. I ended up spilling the beans when I was drunk one night on Xbox live to a couple people and then decided to post up a general coming out thread on our website. Everyone was really supportive and still are. We had a great laugh when I was gone for a while and one of the guys asked "how is your thing goin?" And I replied "we'll the "thing" is still there" haha. He was so embarrassed we all got a good laugh out of it.

That's great that your clan is very supportive! And it's great you have a sense of humor about being trans, I do as well

Quote from: BlondeGamer on September 11, 2013, 01:38:53 PM
Sounds like gaming pushed you in the right direction hon! Basically what I meant was how/if gaming helped you with your transition, or is helping, but I ended up ranting as always lol

Maybe, at least I think I am going in the right direction, and I guess that is good. Now if only I can just tell my family how I feel...

the sims. i still manage to be a fanatic. i loveeee the sims. its like a healing game. each and everytime i chose female. in every other game .

Quote from: lovelessheart on September 11, 2013, 01:44:27 PM
the sims. i still manage to be a fanatic. i loveeee the sims. its like a healing game. each and everytime i chose female. in every other game .

Use to play the only The Sims, almost religiously, but yeah have you ever felt odd making male characters? I use to when I was younger, but now I "always" make female characters if I can, and just the thought of making a male character weirds me out. I get all uneasy and just feel really bad and I am not sure why...

I could spend hours just creating my sim character!

I plat pen and paper RPGs, almost always play female characters

same here. it is weird. i never would i ever lol. if it wasnt for my computer being broke i would be playing now.

i only tried gaming after 20. spent all my time on worshipping fictional heroes in different literature before that. never really hit me how i'd identify strongly with both genders.

internet forums and gaming kind of game me an opportunity to just be me. which turned out to not be what i thought i was at all. always thought i was a woman (or actually not as a child), but figured out that there had to be some deeper reason for why i hate to be treated like one (except for making guys carry heavy things for me when i feel lazy). especially since my negative reaction was stronger on forums where i could have anonymity if i wanted to.

gaming let me choose male characters, which was fun for a while. but then suddenly i felt like making a girl character (they're nicer to look at, especially in korean games...) and guess what, i was still treated like a guy. really nice to be in a place where everybody just defalted me as "some dude" rather than insist on knowing my "real gender" and all that i associate with different forums. now i just worry about what to do about teamspeak on this minecraft server i'm on, if i get better internet. i really hope they can see past my voice and just treat me like some person. runescape is the only place where i met people trying to get a gf in the game by giving all kinds of things to a newb with a female character. some very many years ago.

role play isn't really gaming, but it's still a game. some places on the internet i tried, and i've found out that i really don't fit in female roles. never liked them even when playing with other kids.

but to answer the original question. no, it hasn't helped me transition (i'm still nowhere near doing that). it did help me figure out who i am though.

No, if anything it was more of a crutch then anything else... and became addictive. I regret how things went for me.

Quote from: Taka on September 11, 2013, 02:46:58 PM
i only tried gaming after 20. spent all my time on worshipping fictional heroes in different literature before that. never really hit me how i'd identify strongly with both genders.

internet forums and gaming kind of game me an opportunity to just be me. which turned out to not be what i thought i was at all. always thought i was a woman (or actually not as a child), but figured out that there had to be some deeper reason for why i hate to be treated like one (except for making guys carry heavy things for me when i feel lazy). especially since my negative reaction was stronger on forums where i could have anonymity if i wanted to.

gaming let me choose male characters, which was fun for a while. but then suddenly i felt like making a girl character (they're nicer to look at, especially in korean games...) and guess what, i was still treated like a guy. really nice to be in a place where everybody just defalted me as "some dude" rather than insist on knowing my "real gender" and all that i associate with different forums. now i just worry about what to do about teamspeak on this minecraft server i'm on, if i get better internet. i really hope they can see past my voice and just treat me like some person. runescape is the only place where i met people trying to get a gf in the game by giving all kinds of things to a newb with a female character. some very many years ago.

role play isn't really gaming, but it's still a game. some places on the internet i tried, and i've found out that i really don't fit in female roles. never liked them even when playing with other kids.

but to answer the original question. no, it hasn't helped me transition (i'm still nowhere near doing that). it did help me figure out who i am though.

Well it's great that something good came out of it

Quote from: Erin Kay Howell on September 11, 2013, 02:52:39 PM
No, if anything it was more of a crutch then anything else... and became addictive. I regret how things went for me.

I'm sorry to hear that. How did things go for you if you don't mind telling me?

I think this is relevant
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/video-games-showed-me-who-i-could-be-transgender-gamers-share-their-stories

Quote from: Murbella on September 11, 2013, 03:18:02 PM
I think this is relevant
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/video-games-showed-me-who-i-could-be-transgender-gamers-share-their-stories

I absolutely love this article

I'm not sure it has. I used to play Diablo II pretty much everyday for many years, I preferred the female classes, but I eventually played all the characters and pretty much every variant possible. When Diablo III came out and you could choose your class and gender, it actually caused a lot of dysphoria for me. I mean, in Diablo II, you could want to play as a Sorceress or Amazon because they have cool skills. But if you choose to be a female Demon Hunter in Diablo III, it offers no advantages vs a male. That, and the fact that in multiplayer, they use this stupid battle tag as your display name instead of your characters name. I used my male Barbarian name because he was the only returning character from DII, not knowing that it was going to be the display name for all of my characters. So, everyone knows that I'm a male that chooses to have a female Demon Hunter and calls her by my male Barbarian's name. I'm actually kinda glad DIII has no replay value.

That is a great article, it rain truth on how I feel about a game I've played for 9+ years - Second Life.

I guess its more of an interactive 3D internet, then a game but eh still great!

Ahh gaming and the fun of being me even before I realized I was me.

I used to like playing a combination of Han Solo and Laura Croft I guess with a side order of Murdock from the A Team. I always played a pilot type and was always a trader sort.

One time I was playing a scifi type game, I was off duty so naturally I was in my dress shop eh (converted one of the holds in the ship the group has which I piloted). Well the bad guys attacked (of course they did) and I was not on the bridge of course the guys were like why are you not on the bridge?. So they beam me to the bridge (handy they had that thing I suppose). But I suffer an e critical electrical shock from my station. E criticals are usually bad eh. Oh man that's going to hurt Lesley they are saying, all your armour will be fused (I was hit in the chest).

Umm Guys, I'm wearing a black evening dress, and aside from the scorch damage on my dress (which I told them really had me upset), nothing else happened. There is no metal in black evening dresses. I laughed off the damage, but clearly the guys were taken off guard by the comment hehe.

Teenage role gaming males, not routinely able to conceive of how to play a role game other than with big weapons and big armours And no, I never thought chain mail bikinis were a good idea.

Or the time I needed repairs to the ship (different game). So I took my high charisma PC and seduced the station commander with my hermaphrodite character. He was found to be in a state of shock mumbling something about 'not a woman' Hehe use what ya got eh

I suspect my friends being told I was TG probably was no real shock I guess. Part of my awakening process was just me accepting I had mistakenly thought I was male for some time before realizing I had never actually been one. Maybe a tomboy inside, but I was never actually a man. Just made the mistake thinking my behaviour was manly.

And the icing on the cake for today, I was over at an old friends home today (first time there) have not had the chance to wargame with him in years. Introduced him to Battle Academy (squad level WW2 game from Slitherine for those interested). He was totally sold on it too But my point being I went as ME and it seemed to be no problem, nothing was said at least about me wearing jewellery and carrying a purse. My buddy has only recently gotten access to my Facebook page. I guess he either already knew something was the case or well now he knows hehe. He likely still thinks of me as Lesley (the other spelling maybe) the wargaming friend. But I am still that person in my own way.

Hey plenty of women have been great leaders eh. Thatcher, Cleo, Elizabeth, Catherine, Joan d'Arc, so I can be one too