Transgender Awareness Week is a year during which transgender individuals and their allies work to raise awareness of the cis community by educating the public about their unique experiences, sharing their stories, and advancing campaigning for issues relating to the community’s experiences with bigotry, prejudice, or murder.
versions of” Bubblegum K.” in the first pandemic days of 2020. Pet Crossing: New Horizons arrived at the ideal time to give gamers a much-needed break from lockdown, bringing with it K, cottagecore style codes, and plant market discourse. The most recent game in a long-running line, New Horizons quickly gained popularity both among dedicated life simulation fans and outside of them as people praised its significant enhancements to the series ‘ endearing artstyle and breadth of customization. It was the first Pet Crossing match that did not require the person to select a gender for their personality, and all villagers had access to the full selection of hairstyles and clothing. Nintendo’s recognition of how irrelevant identity files are in a sport about managing an area with singing canines and tanuki bill collectors was signaled by the change, which went largely unnoticed.
Pet Crossing: New Horizons underwent a significant, if subtle, change as part of an overall trend in the gaming sector to break free from the binary gender restrictions of the past. These requirements are being reevaluated more and more now that activities like Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age have established a linear approach to character design as the unquestioned rule. Even though these activities have good intentions, they frequently fall short of accurately portraying transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming characters.
Consider Saints Row ( 2022 ), which also does n’t require players to specify the gender of their characters. Players have a wonderfully versatile way to create the personality they’ll use to rule the streets of Santo Ileso thanks to the person figure, also known as the Boss, which has unlimited options for groin and breast size, body shape, and voice types. The queerness ends it, though, and the Boss is only in their transness in a universe that was obviously not created with them in mind when she is imagined as the trans character. Saints String is oddly sanitized of all references to sex and gender for a sport that values larger-than-life figures from all walks of life. Saints Row’s indifference to female picture portrays transness as a non-issue, but the absence of trans characters in the show indicates that while transgender people are not being discriminated against, they are also being ignored.
Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red may be a more daring look at character creators, but it too fails to get really liberal. In contrast to Saints Row, V, the person character in Cyberpunk 2077, must choose between a female and muscular body. Additionally, this choice is constrained by the set hairstyles that are specific to each system type. Additionally, hair possibilities are only available for men’s body types, and the words that players choose for V determines his or her adjectives, leaving them with no other options. A significant update to Cyberpunk 2077 was released by CD Projekt Red on September 21st, 2023, and it completely overhauled the game’s current techniques to create a more believable and adaptable experience. Isolate pronouns from words type, hairstyles, and body type were not altered in the character creator, though. Cyberpunk 2077 also feels constrained by linear conceptions of female in a world where the body is therefore easily customizable and self-expression is more liquid than ever.
More than just its protagonist father is misunderstood by Cyberpunk 2077 when it comes to LGBTQ people. It has contradictory depictions of otherness, some of which feel genuinely traditional while others feel more like window washing meant to emphasize Night City’s grittiness and bohemian culture. It occasionally becomes painfully obvious that its gay content is mainly intended for a non-LGBT audience. While Claire, a trans character who is endearing and honestly written in the game and is voiced in English by Maddie Taylor, other particles of trans individuals are less tasteful. An in-game poster featuring a transfeminine character attracted controversy even before the game was released because of the emphasis on her genitalia ( read more about the poster here ). Mix it up! is the message that appears on the picture, both in reference to the beverage she is promoting and the fact that her body does not resemble a transgender woman’s. Using transgender bodies for impact value is at best insincere and offensive at worst for a game that considers body modification to be commonplace. Unfortunately, despite CD Projekt Red releasing an upgrade in 2022 that introduced an opportunity for people to re-customize their writer’s look, participants are not allowed to change the sex they chose for V at any point in the game.
A move toward addition while also exposing underlying issues with some obvious solutions is the chance to develop characters that better represent trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people. As a result of the broad personalization features that have prompted gamers to push the limits of extreme figure design, this new freedom in character creation has brought with it some difficulties. In the second person campaign of Street Fighter 6, players had the option to create their own warrior, and pictures of people ‘ customized fighters quickly went viral online. However, some of these traditional characters embodied outmoded stereotypes about LGBTQ people, such as wearing traditional romantic clothing, campy makeup, and facial hair on a man.
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— October 7, 2022 ( @tyakabou )
Maybe these custom fighters were n’t malicious, but the mockery of gender identity and expression, which is frequently used to target homosexual men and transgender people, is what makes these cartoons amusing. Customization undoubtedly enables players to become free of binaries and body types, but adopting a straightforward “mix and match” strategy to stereotyped traits can lead to players creating dangerous stereotypes. To accurately depict gender diversity, removing stereotyped regulations is a necessary but insufficient action.
The way a game depicts transgender and nonbinary figures outside of player customization can help to convey the engineers ‘ intent, even though it may not be possible to completely stop people from acting in dangerous prejudices.
The GLAAD Media Award nomineeTiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a step in the right direction. It compromises none of the inherent silliness of character creators, allowing players to create a range of heroic to downright strange protagonists, but it never makes trans players the target of the jokes it tells. The lack of gender-specific body and voice options, a voice pitch customizer, and multiple pronoun options are just a few of the ways it seeks to include trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming players. Unlike Cyberpunk 2077, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands allows players to change their pronouns – and just about every other part of their character’s appearance – at any point in the game, and the side characters address the protagonist with the new correct pronouns. A number of delightfully queer and trans characters populate the story as well, reminding LGBTQ players that they are not alone in the adventure they embark on. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands may lack some of the deeper customization that other games boast, but everything the game does include is unapologetically trans-inclusive.
Authentic LGBTQ representation within character creation and games themselves is a work-in-progress and a welcome course correction from the overtly homophobic and transphobic characters and storylines of the past. However, video game creators still have some work to do to amend these mistakes and improve even further upon existing systems. Whether players prefer the high-intensity gunplay of Saints Row or the charming, cozy crafting of Animal Crossing, trans players deserve to see themselves represented in both the characters they play and the worlds they explore.
