A reader describes their history of using gaming to explore their own identity, from Rocky Horror Show on the Spectrum to Final Fantasy 14 Online.
Seeing the GLAAD report on gaming is encouraging. That more people are feeling free to show their true selves when gaming is wonderful for someone who used gaming as a way of testing out how ideas of who I am would fit. I am trans and have been playing video games since we first got a Pong console in the ’70s.
The first time I found a game where you could choose the character you would play as was for a Spectrum game called The Rocky Horror Video Game, where you could choose to play as Brad or Janet, and from then on I never failed to choose a female avatar whenever a game gave that option.
As you can probably guess, Tomb Raider was a massive influence for me. A major game and the lead character was a no-nonsense, no apologies, female? It was wonderful to see. That the game itself was also amazing made me a lifelong fan, who is very much enjoying the remastered collection just released. And while I can’t forget Samus Aran and the Metroid games, her gender was hidden rather than being the in-your-face reality of Lara.
I still love Metroid, but it didn’t have the same effect on me that Tomb Raider did. Speaking of effect, Mass Effect’s FemShep was the next big single-player game that changed my own gaming, and how the industry catered for the non-cis-white-male gamers.
The industry didn’t really build on Lara at first, with the only types of games where any meaningful choice happened being role-playing games. So, when MMORPG World of Warcraft hit I subscribed and created the first of the many women I would play as.
Misogyny was definitely a problem at first, with the ‘joke’ that MMORPG stands for Many Men Online Role Playing Girls being something that was widely spread, underlying an attitude that led to many women not admitting their real-life gender due to the reaction of the player base.
This could also be seen in the commonality of slurs against the LGBTQI+ community. Over the years, thankfully, this changed until it became an unremarkable thing to see gamers and guilds being open about both gender and sexuality, though attacks were still an unfortunately regular thing.
My own journey continued until I felt safe enough to show the world my true self, and at that point one of the many names I’d used over the years for my alts (short for ‘alternate characters’) became my own real-world name.
I am still playing MMOs as my main gaming interest, though I now play Final Fantasy 14 Online, which has a wonderful community of players that makes being yourself feel safe, instead of World Of Warcraft.
I would never have believed this possible when I first started gaming and although real-world attacks on the LGBTQI+ community have grown worse in recent years I feel that the gaming industry, at least, is moving in a mostly positive direction, allowing more people a space where they can safely explore their true selves without the worry of being outed; as well as a welcome space for those who are lucky enough to be able to live as their authentic selves.
