I’M A GAMER (DEROGATORY): Exploring My Trans Identity Through Gaming

There’s a stereotype that goes around about a certain type of transgirl — the introverted, striped socks and oversized hoodie, techie kind — and unfortunately, that demographic has long included me. 

Long before I swallowed my self respect and made swallowing a hobby, I found myself sheltered from the outside world and protected by a screen that often displayed some girl with pink pigtails wrecking monsters. I was constantly wrapped in the vision of gaming, and while it isn’t something I particularly talk about, it has long since been a special area of interest for me. 

“I used the video game avatars as a method of self expression, developing a favorite girl in literally anything I played, and straying away from games that wouldn’t let me play as a girl.”

When I was a child, I had a particular life filled with unease and constant moving. These experiences made me very quiet. I was poor at socializing and making friends, which is hard to believe, as I’ve evolved into such a loud person who never shuts up. I often found myself unable to properly communicate or navigate situations, and was often bullied because of how bizarre and uncomfortable I was. My horrible attempts at playing with other boys got me called slurs and usually beaten until I started biting people! At times nonverbal, at other times inexpressive, I had to undergo empathy-focused therapy sessions with other boys my age (mostly because of the biting and a few other maladaptive behaviors — I was a chair thrower too.). My home life was mostly quiet as well, with my single mother being largely absent because of working, or passed out on the sofa when she wasn’t screaming at me for being such a little freak at school.

I first manifested signs of depression *that* early, becoming an irregularity amongst my family. One of my cousins, not really knowing what else to do, sat me down in front of his SNES and let me play his copy of Final Fantasy IV from his save file. I was immediately stuck, unable to even progress past the first encounter (which was a very sexy snake lady who consistently beat my ass). I wasn’t  familiar with the words present or anything on the screen but it was the most fun I had ever had at that point. Noticing this, my mom unleashing a slew of video games into my life that probbaaaaably shaped me and probaaaably lead to me recovering from a lot of trauma and shaping my ability to write (since the games were so text heavy and consistently required me to learn new words and remember plot details).

The first game I played intently was Final Fantasy VIII. I found myself in love with the brooding and incredibly mean (but very sexy!!) protagonist, Squall, which was definitely what developed my attraction to toxic men, and obsessed over the female characters and their designs. It was nice to escape from the rather unfriendly world I had to live in. Long before I learned to manipulate people by being sexy or actually developing a personality, gaming was something that absolutely saved me from a life of pure introversion. I was able to relate to other boys through consuming media, especially Japanese, which later blossomed into a love of anime and Japanese culture.

I expressed my femininity through these games, consistently picking and maining female characters in whatever it was. I used the video game avatars as a method of self expression, developing a favorite girl in literally anything I played, and straying away from games that wouldn’t let me play as a girl. The characters I almost always related to most were female, and that instilled a jealousy in me as someone who believed I was bound to my physical reality as a male. I believed I’d never be cute, or a heroine of a story.

My desire to dress as the female characters of series I liked spurred me to try on a Japanese school uniform a cosplayer friend of mine constructed, and it was the first time I ever felt invested in myself, or close to who I could be. I admired my appearance for the first time, forming a new goal with my new reality.

Gaming provided a safe place for my gender expression. Among other gamers of the specific genre of game, LGBT inclusion was quite common in fandom. There was a particular safety for “traps”, as we were referred to in the 4chan era, as being accepted in the ingroup and in media. Yuri, yaoi, and other homosexual media were extremely popular, and my group of friends were actively consuming anal sex heavy materials, even in our youth, and that made me feel safe, seen, and heard. I knew my friends, who were familiar with these things through the media we explored would never judge me. 

I don’t think I’d be myself if I didn’t have gaming — I may have slogged into an unaccepting world, hiding my ambitions and self from everyone as I tried to enter and pretend I fit into other circles of people. Gaming, however, always had my back. I’ve sunk thousands of hours of my life into gaming, attempting to burgeon through every JRPG on the PS2. In a previous article, I describe how much Japanese games (despite their misogynistic origins) embraced a kind of delicate femininity I wanted to portray. I learned what kind of girl I wanted to be, and took the steps to get there because of gaming, a hobby which still keeps me company to this day. I definitely regressed back into being a ~gamer~ during COVID era, playing Persona 5 Royal and Strikers and hesitating to finish both because it felt like the cast had actually become my friends, which is in fact as delusional as it sounds — but hey, I liked the narrative. 

Games have always been a huge aspect of Pride and LGBT identity to me as one of the hobbies that feels to exclusively have a niche within all descriptors of queerness. 

It was the first place I and many of my other queer friends felt safe. It was the first place where I knew who I wanted to be, and it was the first place that let me be it. I’ll always remember and cherish the heroines I got to play as: the princesses, the dancers, the magicians and knights, and of course the high school student who awakened mystical powers. I was able to live the fantasy before I knew what the fantasy was, and I’m thankful the industry continues to expand and make more safe places for similarly queer people. I’ll always have gaming at the end of the day, no matter how lonely or introverted I may become, and no dick has ever compared to the joy I experienced the first time I beat a Final Fantasy (which, to be specific, was VII.) 

Except, maybe, the joy of giving my female avatar a dick in Cyberpunk 2077.