I am very excited that gamingenthusiast.net has an article by me. I am doing a series for them called Diablo Diaries. I’ll be talking all about my play through of Diablo III.
It can be seen here: http://www.gamingenthusiast.net/diablo-diaries-my-first-night-with-diablo-iii/
^_^
I am a super shy person. I know I’ve written it here before. I recently skipped a few classes because my professor kept breaking us up into groups and I kept ending up in the middle of the room by myself, often trying to hide my tears. The thought of interacting with people scared me so much that I’d start to cry on the way to class and kept making up excuses for not going.
Even more recently I had to do a presentation. I was shaking and seeing my legal name up on the projector didn’t make me feel any better. I managed to say a few things and hold in the tears long enough to finish the presentation and run out of the class when I was done.
There is a friend who is concerned for me. She knows that I have very few friends and that I depend on her too much. I’ve made an effort to reach out to other people and stop depending so much on her.
Because I thought it would be good for me I have extended an invitation to visit me to an online friend who has only known me as Theresa. I don’t know if they will do it, and the invitation isn’t for another several months. It’s my first effort to try to be more comfortable with myself. Even if they never visit me, Making that effort and facing the prospect of it I think will be and is good for my emotional well being.
Today, for the first time ever, I allowed a different friend, who also has only known me as Theresa, to hear my voice over the internet. I was scared. Part of me is afraid that when people see me or hear my voice they will stop viewing me as a woman, so I hide behind my computer monitor and I never let anyone know who I was or what I look like. But I decided to let someone in. I trust them. And it wasn’t so bad. They heard my voice and we talked and it was over and I’m glad I did it. The person is kind and made me feel good about my voice.
It was hard but I am making these efforts because they are good for me.
I enjoy reading what people search for to end up at my blog. I’ve seen hundreds that weren’t looking for what I was talking about. I wish I could talk to all of you. I really hope you all found what you were looking for.
I may not be blogging for much longer. I never know what to write about. I can’t maintain any consistency.
I was talking with a friend recently. He was having some troubles and I was having some trouble but I wanted to be there for him. I tried to push my problems aside for long enough to help cheer him up but a few of my own complaints got through anyway. “God, it hurts,” is all I could say. That’s what I feel like. Every single day. It doesn’t go away. I try not to let it show too often. some days I do a better job dealing with it but more often than not I end up crying in the restroom by myself. I cry by myself because I’m afraid if I let my girlfriend see just how bad it is that she wouldn’t be able to handle it and she would leave me. I don’t have many friends left so I can’t lose her.
People tell me I can make new friends but I can’t. I’m too shy. I’m too scared. When my ASL class last broke into groups I was the only one sitting in the middle of the room with no one. I just sat there and tried to hide my tears.
I actually, don’t know what else to say. I’ll probably delete this post in a few days. I just needed to rant. I cry a lot less when I’m working. It helps to focus on something.
Just over a year ago, after years of silently needing to be a woman, I finally told my partner how I felt. Since then I have been working toward being accepted as a woman. I’ve taken a lot of small steps but I still have a lot of steps to go. For this occasion I’d like to recount the past year for anyone who wants to read it.
Learning who I am:
Like many stories this one begins with a girl. I was at an IGN forum when by chance I ran into a post made by a very special trans woman. Despite being super shy (even online) I made the effort to befriend her.
Being friends with her sort of indirectly lead to me running into the book She’s Not the Man I Married by Helen Boyd. I needed a book for a school project and I decided to look for a book about trans people. I bought Helen’s book despite it not being what I needed for class.
I read and loved Helen’s book so I bought her first book My Husband Betty. I didn’t get through a single chapter in that book before running into a passage that sounded eerily familiar to the day before when my girlfriend went out and I was wearing her dress while she was away.
Finally, the years of wishing I was a woman and years of dressing in my partner’s clothes while she was away started to make sense.
Coming out to my Partner:
It only took me a few hours to wrap my head around the fact that I am trans but it took me a full three days to work up the courage to tell her. I did a horrible job of it, too. She noticed that something was on my mind. After an awkward lunch she asked me what was wrong. I asked her not to look directly at me and then blurted it out bluntly and not at all concise.
After that was a lot of silence followed by a lot of crying and then more silence. Then finally, there was a lot of follow up conversations. Follow up conversations that only very recently, almost a year later, did we stop having.
Acceptance:
I spent too much of this past year trying to convince myself I was a crossdresser and that I wouldn’t transition. I started examining what I needed. What steps did I feel I need to take? After a while I started to realize that all the things I wanted aren’t what a crossdresser would want. It was a slow acceptance but I finally realized that I needed to transition.
Difficulties:
I’ve written about the difficulties I’ve faced and other trans people have written about it. Poor school counselors, transphobic comments from students and teachers (and I am not even out at school), lack of services, every endocrinologist in town refusing to treat trans patients, etc. There is very little to say on the subject that hasn’t been said a thousand times.
Taking Steps:
It took some effort but I finally started HRT and while I can’t afford therapy, I do have friends which help more than any bad therapist ever could. I recently started wearing shirts with the TG emblem on them in hopes that other trans people will seek me out. No luck so far but I am hopeful.
Hopes for the Future:
Very soon I hope to leave this town and hopefully find a better place to transition and a strong community to support me. I won’t lie. I get very lonely. Esp. late at night when all my friends sign offline and I’m left to my thoughts. My biggest hope is for that to change.
A Final Note:
I am very grateful both for the first trans friend I met whom has helped me more than any other person and for Helen Boyd who’s wonderful writing allowed me to accept who I am.
Thank you both. Thank you both very much.
In my post A Brief History of Transgender Characters in Video Games (which is now updated) a commenter named 52532 asked my thoughts on two characters from this game. I read what I could find on them but was not satisfied enough to make a proper judgment of them and so I made arrangements to play the game and started working through my first game in the Persona series.
It had been a while since my last JRPG and most of my experience with the genre has been with older games. Persona 4(2008) is a traditional turn based RPG on the Playstation 2 following a group of high school students and their attempt to solve a mystery with a strong focus on building relationships and strengthening the bonds between you and your friends.
Continue reading
“It’s nice to be able to enter into an expansive world where I’m treated as female,” she said to me. I knew exactly what she was talking about, too. I was guilty of the same type of escapism as well as others.
I had used games to escape before. When my classmates dropped the T-word and listed all the possible ways to spot a trans woman I came home and played Spiral Knights to distract myself. It kind of worked if you don’t count the rest of the time that evening that I was crying and angry. When a sneeze resulted in persistent headaches and dizziness and the worry wart side of me was worried it was something serious, I played puzzle games to keep my nerves calm.
This type of escapism is very different. A couple months before my friend brought up the subject, I had been playing any game that let me make a female avatar. It feels really good to be treated as a woman even if it is through a virtual self.
I relied heavily on escaping through games this way. At the time my girlfriend wasn’t being very accepting and my transition was progressing so slowly. I was trying to take steps but accomplishing nothing. So, I’d play games where I got to be a girl and no one told me I wasn’t. I even played some pretty awful games just because I could be a girl.
It won’t come as a surprise that most of my WoW characters are female. I made a few males because people started getting suspicious. “Why are all your characters female?” one friend asked.
“They’re not all female. Look, that one is male and that one,” I said, making random excuses to hide the real reason which is, for years, I wanted to be a girl but couldn’t admit it out loud.
One time I entered a dungeon and someone said, “Oh, another girl tank.”
“There’s nothing wrong with girl tanks,” I said, feeling proud of my gender and obligated to defend our honor.
“She’s pro,” one of them said by the end of the dungeon as I was out-DPSing (damage per second) some of them.
In that case, it was the players that treated me like a woman, even though not all female characters are played by women. It felt great. I loved it. But it wasn’t just in WoW. I enjoyed when NPCs treated me like a woman or even just running around with a female avatar.
“Don’t really know,” another friend started as I asked him about this type of escapism, “though my Pokemon characters are boys. Even something small like that is kinda relieving.”
As conversation continued I asked him, “Do you pick guys in all games if given an option?”
“I tend to,” he answers, “hell, I did even as a kid.”
Playing games to be treated as our true gender is a good way to relieve the anxiety of not being accepted that often comes with being trans, but it can feel like a trap too. Sometimes I think I relied too much on these games to get the acceptance I wanted. I’m glad I was able to stop it and enjoy games in a more pure way.
It’s also an important step to go out and find acceptance away from virtual characters. It felt like I was hiding from my problems, but now I have found more acceptance. My girlfriend is trying her best to accept that I am a woman and I have found friends who are kind and caring and when I need a little extra, I can always play a game.
Updated 9 April 2012. Thank you to 52532 for pointing me toward Naoto. It certainly was a journey if sometimes difficult.
When the question was raised I realized that maybe not as many people as I thought know about the history of transgender characters in video games. Especially gamers who are not into the fighting game genre.
I think the subject has been written about before I but I also believe I can hopefully bring a little bit of a different take on the subject. I am included some characters that aren’t specifically transgender when I think they are relevant.
Birdo
Birdo is, as far as I know, the first transgender video game character. Birdo (Catherine in Japan) debuted in the Japanese game Doki Doki Panic in 1987 which was later released as Super Mario Bros. 2. The Instruction manual for Super Mario Bros 2 says, “Birdo thinks he is a girl and likes to be called Birdetta.” That’s the first example of how not to handle a TG character. I don’t like the use of male pronouns. I can’t say for certain but based on what I see, if Birdo was real, she probably wouldn’t like the male pronouns. Most MtF trans people don’t like male pronouns. The description of Birdo for the Japanese version of Double Dash says this: “Catherine appears to be Yoshi’s girlfriend… or does that mean boyfriend!?” I don’t know if there is a cultural difference that makes that statement OK but it doesn’t sound good to me. Birdo continues to be a re-occurring character in Mario spin off games.
Poison
Just 2 years later Poison appeared in Final Fight. Poison has been the source of many debates/arguments for me. I’ve written about some of them before. Poison’s history is, as far as I’ve come to know, somewhat ambiguous and debated. I have heard that she was always intended to be transgender. About her gender Yoshinori Ono said, “Let’s set the record straight: in North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual. But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female.” I think it should be obvious by now that I don’t like this. He kind of implies that because she hasn’t had SRS in Japan that she isn’t really a woman but at least he still uses those female pronouns. It could be handled worse but there is plenty of room to improve. Poison frequents Final Fight and Street Fighter games and is a popular character for fan art and cosplay and appeared in the recent Street Fighter X Tekken.
Sheik
In 1998′s The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Princess Zelda goes into hiding as a Sheikah boy named Sheik. While Sheik isn’t specifically transgender, Sheik can still be related to from a transgender perspective. Both Sheiks gender and sex are debated hotly on forums. I always enjoy reading a good Sheik debate. It is possible to wonder if there was any reason besides trying to hide in Zelda’s decision to live as a boy. Why not a Sheikah girl? Probably so the player wouldn’t know it was Zelda but it’s fun to wonder. Sheik only had the one entry in the Zelda franchise but is a regular in Smash Bros as Zelda’s alter ego.
Bridget
Bridget, from the Guilty Gear series, joined the cast in 2002 for Guilty Gear XX. Bridget is the character that I knew the least about when I started writing. Bridget, if I understand correctly, is actually a guy. He is a feminine male who likes to dress as a nun complete with a habit. I never played the Guilty Gear franchise but I always wanted to and Bridget seemed like one of the more memorable characters to me. Since he was intended to be a male identified person who wears women’s clothing and because I haven’t heard much about him, I have no real complaints about how his character was handled.
Leo
Eleonor Kliesen first appeared in 2007′s Tekken 6. Based on what I’ve read, Leo has no gender. I’m not sure if that would qualify Leo as Genderqueer since typically people will self identify themselves and the creators have not said, to my knowledge. I like Leo. Leo looks cool, seems tough and is a good step forward. Love this character regardless of gender the developers at Namco Bandai demand. Leo is in my opinion the most positive character on this list. Bravo Namco Bandai.
Naoto Shirogane
Persona 4 brought us Naoto Shirogane in 2008. Naoto is one of the coolest characters ever designed. It is a shame that the game handles him so badly. Naoto is a FtM crossdresser. Naoto always dresses as a guy and uses a deep voice, which he only very occasionally drops. He seems to be insecure and uncomfortable with his female body. Throughout the second half of the game he continues to try to keep his body hidden. What makes me sad about Naoto is that the game switches pronouns abruptly as soon as he is outed even though he continues to present male. “Why couldn’t I have been born male. It would have been much easier for me…,” Naoto said to my character in one conversation. He could have been the best, if only the game was more trans friendly.
Kainé
Kainé from the Nier (2010) was the original source of many arguments for me, even before I started transitioning and before I started identifying as transgender despite already being a crossdresser. Kainé is a female hermaphrodite (that’s the developer’s words not me). What frustrates me about Kainé is the number of people who like to call her a guy. She isn’t featured in articles anymore so I don’t have to get into arguments anymore, which is a good thing. I don’t think the word hermaphrodite is typically used to describe humans anymore. I, also, am not entirely certain what the developer means by hermaphrodite, specifically, nor will I spend too much time worrying about it. Kainé has just appeared in her one game which has 2 versions.
Notable Exclusions:
Faris Scherwiz (1992) – An androgynous female Pirate from Final Fantasy V
Roxy (1989) – A color swap of Poison.
and I like to think that My version of Commander Shepard is a TG Lesbian
Going Forward:
The world needs a good transgender character that is handled properly. Personally, I’d like to see a MtF character who isn’t in a fighting game. But that’s just me since I am MtF and am not good at fighting games. Feel free to note anyone I left out.
While I was collecting links for my last blog about Dys4ia I noticed another game by Anna Anthropy (Auntie Pixelante). That game is Realistic Female First Person Shooter. It is a parody of and based on a post by a Men’s Rights forum poster. It is absolutely hilarious. I laughed – so much.
I found two pages for the game. This one. And This one. They both have links to the download but have different information so you might want to read them both. Anyone who stumbles upon this blog. Play that game.
I first saw Dys4ia when Helen Boyd posted about it on her blog. It was really bad timing. I had just recently been called a guy by someone and it destroyed my self esteem. That left me in a very fragile state and this game ended up being a little more than I could handle. I just recovered from that original statement so I decided it was a good time to mention this game.
This game by Anna Anthropy is about her life after deciding to go on hormones. Appropriately, I am in a similar moment in my own life. I’ve already beaten some of the levels of my own. Some moments in the game perfectly reflect some of my experiences as well but the game doesn’t feature other important things in my own transgender experience. That’s to be expected since each person’s own transgender experience is unique.
You can play Dys4ia here. Read more about it Here. And I kind of wish I had another link here.
