Category Archives: transgender representation in games

Transgender Representation: The Last of Us Part II

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Transgender representation in video games is lacking. Narrow that down to transmasculine representation and that number goes down even further. In 2020, Naughty Dog Studios released The Last of Us Part II to somewhat mixed reviews. The player must switch to Abby during the latter half of the game. During her story, she runs into a group of kids defecting from a religious cult, Yara and Lev. With Lev’s reveal as a transgender man, Naughty Dog created a character that received mixed reactions from players.

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Representing Players’ Gender (RPG) Content: The Order of the Slate

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The following was an idea sparked from my first article here. It is easily adaptable into any fantasy campaign, though it could find a place in any game.

 

ORDER OF THE SLATE

“Our natural inclination is to define ourselves, using limited language to label and, inevitably, chain our very potential to a narrow view of what we could be. We, of the Order, divest ourselves of all labels and, in doing so, see our potential magnify infinitely.” – Ei, Jaq of the Order of the Slate

 

Origins

The Order of the Slate is a severe monastic tradition born from the Non philosophies, wisdoms collected by a transcendent figure known only as Non. This spirituality teaches that by ridding oneself of labels such as gender, sexuality, and social class, all things become possible. This process of gathering potential and removing self-limits grants an individual the ability to become anyone they want or need to be. Warriors study these wisdoms for an unmatched prowess in battle; artists learn to expand their creative expression beyond the conventional; and others find a oneness with the Multiverse.

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Transgender Representation: Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door

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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door released in 2004 for the Nintendo GameCube. As a follow up to the first game, The Thousand-Year Door had much to live up to. With an amazing story line and a great cast of characters; one character stood out. Vivian, the youngest sister of the Shadow Sirens, is written to be a trans woman. For a game released in 2004, it was interesting to see Nintendo create a character that relates to transgender individuals.

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Interview: Ektomarch Releasing Trans-Positive Game Aerannis

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I had the pleasure to interview Robert Rollins from ektomarch about Aerannis which will be released on September 15, 2015 on Steam for the PC and MAC.

Aerannis is an open-ended mission-based action platformer with stealth elements. It is set in the future in Plovdiv which is ruled by radical feminists. The protagonist, a 27-year old transgender woman who is a professional assassin, uncovers a conspiracy run by an ancient society. She most choose if she should save a world who barely considers her a full person.

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History of Poison from Final Fight

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I was going to do some research on the history of the character Poison from the Final Fight franchise and also found in the Street Fighter franchise, but I found a twenty minute video by MegatonStammer that covered the topic very well (you can see it at the bottom of this article). The video was released on YouTube on February 26, 2012 just over a week before the release of Street Fighter X Tekken.

Some of his language that the YouTuber uses when talking about the subject is cringe worthy. MegatonStammer never does state his/her gender identity in the video. Going by voice alone it sounds like he is a male. It would be easy to say that he is a cisgender male that interested in transgender women as a fetish and holds views of transgender women from the media’s representation of us.  Yet, I don’t think he is being transphobic but it rather just naive. In his video he is generally respectful when talking about Poison and defending that she is a transgender woman.

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