A couple weeks ago I posted in the transgender talk forum about a trans-themed game we were making for our university's ally week.

Right now I'm creating "identities" for the players to assume while playing. I'm trying to keep them broad, yet inclusive. My problem is I really don't know enough about androgyne people to write one, and I was hoping to get some help here.

Most, if not all, of the people that play will be either cisgendered male or female, so I wrote them to be gender neutral so girls can play it as FTM, while boys can play MTF. The purpose of this whole thing is to educate people about us, so they need to be simple enough that people can easily wrap their heads around it and don't give up and wander off.

Here's the two I have written, for comparison:

"You are a crossdresser. From about the time that you started puberty, you've wanted to wear clothes traditionally worn by the opposite sex. Eventually you snuck into your sibling's closet and tried on some of their clothes. Now you want to get clothes of your own, but you are afraid of being found out. You have no interest in being dressed all the time, only once a month or so is enough for you."

"You are transsexual. Ever since you were a child, you always felt uncomfortable in your own body. Your parents bought you toys and arranged playdates with other children the same sex as you, but you always wanted to play with children of the opposite sex and their toys. As you grew older, your bodily dissonance only grew stronger. What you want more than anything is to physically change your body so your sex aligns with your identity. Then you can live in deep stealth, letting people think you were born that way."

Quote from: Alexei on October 04, 2010, 10:07:12 AM

Most, if not all, of the people that play will be either cisgendered male or female, so I wrote them to be gender neutral so girls can play it as FTM, while boys can play MTF.

A little off topic, but I just wanted to interject that it may be more powerful for girls to play mtf and vice versa. That way a girl can imagine what it might be like if she were stuck with a male body instead of imagining she hates her current body. She can imagine the horror of needing electrolysis and the rest.
So maybe allow for some girls to experience that angle and vice versa.

Quote from: Nero on October 04, 2010, 11:08:08 AM
A little off topic, but I just wanted to interject that it may be more powerful for girls to play mtf and vice versa. That way a girl can imagine what it might be like if she were stuck with a male body instead of imagining she hates her current body. She can imagine the horror of needing electrolysis and the rest.
So maybe allow for some girls to experience that angle and vice versa.

That's a good idea, it's easier to understand sex not aligning with gender than gender not aligning with sex.

Nero's made a good point here.

Do you also integrate a sample female crossdresser?


And transvestitic fetishism?
And "crossdreaming" sexual phantasies such as girl->-bleeped-<-s and guydykes? (Look it up on Wikipedia)

Here, I'll write up a few sample that you can use, alter or discard as you see fit:

Of course, I am not trying to say that ALL people who identify as one of these things is this way.  These are just examples.

"You are bi-gendered.  At times you feel male but at other times you feel female.  Your mind suddenly switches between the two.  It's a struggle to explain this to new friends, so sometimes you go through the trouble of being consistently male to some and female to others.  You have to have a closet full of clothes ready for the gender you feel on a given day."

"You are an Androgyne.  You have never understood the way people divide themselves by their gender.  You are a person; nothing more, nothing less.  You groom yourself to be viewed as neither male nor female, but people inevitably mistake you for one or the other.  You may feel uncomfortable that your body is sexed and go through mild medical changes to bring your body closer to the middle of the gender spectrum."

"You are genderqueer.  You try to break down the barriers of gender.  You think that wearing make-up, a beard, colorful tights, and work boots in the same outfit is fine!  You think that being visible to the world will help society be more accepting of gender fluctuation."

"You are Neutrois.  Once you hit puberty you grew very uncomfortable with the changes that were happening.  However, you looked at what was happening to the opposite sex and you decided that you didn't want that either!  You want to move your body to a state of sexless-ness to match your genderless mind.  You think that this will make the ideal body; a nice smooth body with no unsightly bulges."

you don't know what you are :- all your life you have felt different not fitting in anywhere,  never understanding why you don't fit treying to fit has meant pretending to like things you hate and pretending to hate things you love just because it is not normal eventually you have to stop pretending to be something you are not.