Why Don't Video Games Let You Be Trans? 

Baldurs gate 3 was the first game I've ever been able to be explicitly trans. Or at least "trans-bodied" They have 3 identity categories (m,f,nb/o) Then you have the body types which amounts to "boobs or no boobs" And then you have 4 sets of both "privates" So I have two trans women dwarf characters. One with boobs and one without 🤷 it's been incredible

I definitely abused the nickname changing feature in Animal Crossing to get my villagers to call me a different gendered name for "roleplaying" reasons, going about my island dressed as male characters 😅

I recall an anecdote from a game dev about accessibility features. He had asked his higher ups for permission to spend a day or two implementing color blind features. He was told, "No, it's not worth the time to cater to such a small number of players." A lot of the time at bigger companies, features that benefit microminorities are not consider a good ROI. It's not about difficulty to implement, or lack of awareness. It's them looking and the bottom dollar and saying, "No, this demographic isn't profitable to include."

the most in depth gender and sexuality customization i've played in a game is, of all games, south park the fractured but whole. it lets choose like between a dozen different genders and a dozen different sexualities and like half of them i didn't even know existed before i played it. you can change it at any time you want as well. its pretty cool. i don't play many games, i usually find a game and then just keep replaying it for a long time so it surprised me to find something so representative in a game, especially in a 2017 south park game.

It's deeply weird that sex is the basis for character body types in video games when there are essentially no games where that would make a difference. I demand twink - chonk - hunk as the three body types.

As a fellow NB gamedev, I felt you here. Surprisingly though, adding pronoun customization on text is surprisingly a lot of headaches and partly because of grammar rules. It's been a while since I've done it so I can't think of some of the issues on the top of my head. And while it may be doable in English, the moment you start adding multiple languages, problems come in droves, especially in JP. Most commercial games put Multilanguage in mind so I think that is definitely one of the issues they are hesitant to make a robust system where you can change pronouns or even set your own.

I heard Dream Daddy lets you give your character surgical marks letting you play as a trans man.

Its very rare oddly that games even let you change your name after you make a character for some reason. The only game that does let you change your name and gender freely at anytime (after you unlock the option to recreate your character) I can think of is Dragons Dogma. It also allows you to be gay or bisexual without question about it simply by not restricting it.

For me, Our Life Beginnings and Always is the first game that I played that had extremely inclusive character customization. From appearance to pronouns to being allowed to change your gender throughout the game. Its a wonderful game and I'd recommend it to anyone!

the visual novel "our life: beginnings and always" allows huge amounts of character customization, including being trans (they/them pronouns are even the default). The upcoming sequel will also have an even better pronoun and gendered terms customization

I want femboy armor in games. Im pretty sure im not a femboy but i want them to add it bc its fun

I'm trying to be mindful about this as I develop my own video game! The first step of character creation is entering your name, and the second step is entering pronouns - the four options are she/her/her, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, and other (custom inputs). In the menu, you can easily update your name and pronouns. Right now, it's a button-based / still-image version of the game, so visual character creation will likely have to wait until I can create sprites, but it's definitely something I'm trying to be intentional about.

It's really nice to see someone else who feels similarly about how superficial the removal of gendered terms can be sometimes. There are a few games I started recently that give you the "type A, type B" option and don't lock clothes, voices or hairstyles, but then the models themselves very strictly adhere to a binary. The first thing you see in Palia's character creation is literally a choice between a triangle and an inverted triangle. (I will acknowledge that it is in beta, so hopefully they add more options in the final release - but still, the triangles feel like a joke. It looks like you're choosing which public bathroom to go in.) If I play with type A, I'm stuck with breasts. If I play with type B, I'm stuck with a buff dorito body. Neither of them feel like me. Why remove the labels if you're still committed to the binary?

I wish there was a website with nothing but instructions on how to change your name and gender in pre-existing videogames' savefiles and highscore lists, including instructions on how to hack your savefile or contact whoever is managing the server the game is played on. I'd do it myself if I had the time and programming skills to do so.

Very interesting video! If I could comment on Cyberpunk, as I played it, you can indeed play as a trans character, but always in the binary, as your voice defines your gender in the game, which is a bit sad. Still, it's better than most games I guess. If I could make a slight criticism of form about your video (because the substance is solid), as someone with ADHD, the music is a bit loud and can get overwhelming when trying to listen to your voice. Good work still (and very cute drawings), keep it up!

Pikmin 4 has a pretty good character creator. There are four body types (five if you count the secret unlockable one), each are entirely ungendered. While in the character creator it initially looks like two feminine and two masculine options, there are versatile options for all body types, meaning you can make them looks however you like. But there are set hair and faces for each body type, while none are clearly gendered, it still restricts your choices a little bit. There is no pronoun option, rather than basing it off of the body type you choose, the player is always referred to with they/them. It's not entirely perfect, but it strays from the two body type character creator. It feels reminiscent of the character creators in Splatoon 3 and Animal Crossing, which I guess makes sense since they're all Nintendo.

One game I found oddly great in its character creation was Calico! There is just one character model and you have sliders for waist, shoulder, hip, and breast sizes, similar to Saint's Row. You can change how your body and clothes look at any time. I don't recall if you can change your name, and if they refer to you at all, it's probably with they/them. Outside of your player character, there is also a decent amount of LGBT+ representation, including a lesbian couple and at least two nonbinary people. The in-game bios about them even list their pronouns!

My favorite approach on gender on customization is with the Elminage series. When you create a character you can choose the typical binary options that affects gameplay, ex; only female characters can equip certain armors and vice versa, the thing is that the 3rd gender option, "unspecified" type, its not affected by this rule, the game literally gives you an advantage for being non binary.

The recent "Story of Seasons" games give you the option to customize your character's look mixing and matching all options of both male and female, and THEN asks for your pronouns after the game has officially begun. They even allow for the romancing of either gender, regardless of which pronouns you pick, and all purchasable clothing options are available no matter what. It's by far the most LGBTQ+ inclusive major franchise out there today, in a way that very much doesn't feel unintentional. Ironically the way they do it looks like it takes way less effort, since they don't have to create two different pools of options, and can just lump them all into one pile instead.

I'm sure someone else has already brought this to your attention but there are third party tools that you can use to change your name as well as your appearance on your monster hunter save file for free!

yk i think even with it not quite being finished yet, deltarune and its main character fit into this conversation pretty well since thats kinda what the game is *about* really. kris is litterally designed to be a subversion of the blank slate self insert character, and the fact that they are exclusively referred to *as* they, makes u wonder if thats supposed to be subversion of the idea that players are supposed to project themselves onto the character like that, maybe going by they was *their* choice.

I asked my boss to add the option to change your name to the game we were programming but he said it's too much effort..........

I somewhat like the choices in Star Wars Squadrons, though they are a bit limited: you can choose from a small variety of heads already including hair regardless of binary body type (called A/B) and a surprising amount of voices, also grouped by A/B. You can change them at any time, and it doesn't gender you. (And it has a nonbinary NPC.)

Play as the gender you're feeling you are, it's as simple as that. Trans or not trans the gender you play as is the same at the end of the day.

i think the splatoon and animal crossing new horizons gender things are localisation. in animal crossing, i know for a fact they're actually gendered in japanese, but the gender labels are taken off in english. which is actually quite annoying, because i'd like to know what gender i'm picking if a japanese player comes across me online. also the music is quite loud so it's a bit hard to hear the speaking in the video

I know it wasn't out when this video was made but Baldur's Gate 3 is absolutely fantastic when it comes to queer character customization. Masculine, feminine and gender neutral identities aren't tied to appearance and neither are voice options or genitalia! (as of making this comment though there is a bug where you can get misgendered when playing as a nonbinary character- it might be on masc and fem identities too but I have yet to see it)

Silver Wolf yelling at me for not picking a main character quick enough was so annoying 😭😭😭😭 I actually got my friends to choose for me and just had hsr open in the background and i could just hear her snapping at me while i waited for them to respond 😭😭 I ended up picking caelus though

If you defeat O'Chunks in Super Paper Mario, he will ask for your name. Since Mario is a silent protagonist, Tippi will answer for him, without even asking Mario if it's okay to reveal this name. Even though Luigi refused to give his name when asked in the intro. Anyway, O'Chunks will then misunderstand the name and call you Maria instead and Tippi's attempts to clear things up don't work. O'Chunks will then tell you to wax your mustache. You can imagine how weird it felt playing this part as a trans girl. Especially because other Mario games explain that the reason why Mario doesn't get rid of his mustache is because it gives him certain in-game advantages that vary from game to game.

Another game that I really liked the gender options of is Warframe I can't go too much into detail about it since it would be pretty major spoilers, but you're never referred to by a gender and as far as I'm aware you never give your character a gender in game, leaving it up to you as the player to decide what it should be

Somehow, the first game that I played where I could play as an explicitly (player determined) non-cisgender character was goddamn Call of Duty. I don't know how to feel about that. 😅 It was very wild hearing CoD characters refer to the protagonist as "they." I think more games with character customization should have a third option for those who do not align with the male or female identity, even if I myself am a cis male, I do like exploring different options and experiencing something new.

Maybe it's because i'm not trans myself (but am an ally) but i've never really seen a problem with it personally. If you identify as female then choose the girl character, and if you identify as a male choose the boy character. Trans women are real women and trans men are real men after all. That said, if we're talking about pronouns or being non binary or gender fluid then that's where it gets complicated. I personally don't think every game needs pronouns but it does need more customization options so you don't have to look completely male or female. If someone wants look a little like both genders then they should be able to without the text specifically mentioning gender. These are just my thoughts though

The audio is really hard to hear!

Elden ring is one of my favorites when it comes to character creation and clothing because both armor sets for male and female are nearly identical. They also let you change your name any time freely.

imo, the worst offenders are games which gender lock features. missing features? that's complexity that might not be seen as worth it by the devs and may not even think of. makeup and beards not being compatible? maybe they're both stored as the same thing in the code. maybe the computer sees having beard1 and makeup1 at the same time as equivalent to having beard1 and beard2 at the same time. but gender locks? that's added complexity which only reduces how much a player can express themselves. i'm a cis man and stereotypically masculine in most ways, but i've got long hair i haven't had cut since i was a young child, and it has become a very important part of how i express myself, to the point that it can sometimes be a struggle to choose if i should have the hair i identify with or the body i identify with. i can only imagine what this is like for a trans person, especially nonbinary folk

great video, very based, made a lot of children mad in these comments

Best to lower the music, it's hard to hear your voice sometimes.

(Falls to the sky like that one attack from FUCKING RADAGON) (Gets up like a shambling mass of flesh, metal, and ytps) *{Ť Ř Ą Ñ Ş . . . Ř Ï Ģ H Ţ Š . . .}*

I hate how even the game that often get praised for how progressive they are rarely let you choose multiple sets of pronouns. Just let me be able to have people refer to me using he/him *and* they/them pronouns. Is that really so much to ask?

"Why Don't Video Games Let You Be Trans?" Because the modern understanding of trans has only existed for about five years, and some video games have been in development longer than that. Also, some video games are made in places that see this as a mostly western, mostly American, mostly white and mostly liberal phenomenon, so they don't bother with it.

You know, I could agree on the most part and I thought I could finally see a neutral discussion about that topic by a transgender, but ey... 12:44. Why did you have to jump the gun right there? A possible answer is localisation. 'They' as a pronoun just doesn't really exist in most languages. It's a foreign concept and would be hardly possible to implement for a lot of languages. Maybe try being a translator yourself for other languages and see how you do before throwing buzzwords around.

ah, i recommend the game "our life, beginnings as always". the game is an lgbt visual novel where you can customize your character as they grow! You can even choose your gender choice as a child and change it when the character grows up(in other words, you can be trans!), including the pronouns and name! it's a really good game, and the main love interest is also demiromantic and pansexual, and you can choose to romance him or remain platonic, he is also a very lovable character! seriously, this game is good and it's free, i highly recommend it!

The way I always saw it (and this is coming from someone who always plays as a female toon, even before I knew what egg behavior it was) was that when you are able to make your own character and you can choose whether they look fem or masc or anything between I thought that was enough. I never needed to have my genitalia accurate on a character. It was cool in Cyberpunk 2077 when I was able to make a pre-op trans person. That was a nice touch.

Hmm... if I had to throw actual answer to the video's premise... it'd probably be the fact of trans community, while undeniably vocal, not being a particularly big percent of potential customers. Leave it or take it, that's more or less the actual reason, rather than a boogeyman in form of a transphobe. Heck, even myself, while working on a VN project with my team of friends, have wondered how many people would even care or how would they respond if I wrote dialogues that'd refer to the main character as male, female or even neither. Well, in the end we ended up dubbing the main character "Cross", where they are pretty much a stand-in for the player (as the story unfolds from the first person perspective), which we felt to be the most optimal choice (and probably the easiest way to do it, as writing all the variants of the script for he, she and they accordingly would be a chore and I'm already busy as it stands).

As an Enby, choosing whether to be a boy or a girl in a video game is torture…

12:28 Monster Prom is such a good game series for representation. No gender-locked choices, easy non-binary representation. Your gender is never even brought up, it’s so perfect

223 subscribers and 3.1k views? Good job getting this message out there I really enjoy your style with this

it'd be neat to explore how early videogames shaped players. in my early gamer years female characters werent even an option and usually gave the player the easy route. so for a long time I got taught that if I played a guy I'll get an easier game that wont make me suffer. looking at harvest moon a wonderfull life. the girl version doesnt even give you grass to keep your animals alive. the only game thus far thats come close is aside from splatoon is harvestella, you can choose a body type and a voice but the voice determines if the character is called he or she, thus far i havn't tested all the voices to see if there are any others.

personally, i spend every waking moment of my life trying to forget that im trans. so even if more games had these options i dont think id even use them XD though it's still nice when games have those options in case people do want them

As a cis person I do wonder why trans individuals don't just pick the gender they identify as instead of wanting a specifically trans option (I mean some obviously do but you get what I mean), though I understand with more detailed games and character creation it can feel disingenuous to play as an ostensibly cis character but at least for simpler games like Animal Crossing, Pokémon or Splatoon where customization is limited to clothes and hair I feel like having such an option would be pointless, I also get the perspective of someone realizing they are trans after making their character and feeling a disconnect but even then I feel like just giving players the option to redesign their character whenever fixes that. A big part of some videogames is playing as an idealized self and I assumed for trans people an "idealised self" would just be the gender they identify as, the notion does get more technical with non-binary people where they would need a non-binary option, at least for things like pronouns.

There is a game that i have a deep love and obsession for that does have queer representation, The game is called 2064 Read Only memories. It's a point and click adventure game that is similar to Hideo kojima's Snatcher which takes place in a futuristic San francisco. I do agree as a straight male there isn't allot of queer representation when it comes to videogames , its super limited.

isn't it the POINT to transition TO the gender and or sex required to treat gender dysphoria? ? So WHY would a trans person NOT chose the sex and or gender that they aiming for but something that reflects merely on their mid way point or merely a point that medically possible? Why NOT chose the end result in a fantastic setting like video game that is currently medically unobtainable? You transition to go from point A to point B (as far as medicine allows one to go), you do not transition to be stuck in the middle and not moving forward, right? So why is it a problem to chose something that is ultimately the goal of transitioning and not the middle stage? choose the sex you're aiming for. problem solved.

You're out here making 10k+ subscriber-quality content with only 415 (now 416) subs! Truely amazing stuff, keep it up!

Earned a sub can't belive you have less than 150

Jeez I wish you had more subs this is a proper video essay

Just wanted to say while you can’t change your name in animal crossing, you can change your gender in the character creator as often as you would like ^^

If being a trans man or woman is = to being a cis man or woman, then aren't games already inclusive?

Avelog's Mouse Simulator, but weather or not the character is trans is random. It's random IRL, so why should you get the option to choose in a game? /s

I do a little bit of game development, and in one specific game I had to make a gender selection screen (as the player is referred to quite a lot). Despite being part of the LGBTQ community, I just put the two options as male and female. I didn't even realize that "hey maybe I should make at least a neutral option". I'd say part of it was my brain acting up, but... I'm not saying we were indoctrinated, buuut

I wish the music wasn't so loud so I can hear better. There's some parts I missed

Isn't this like... Kinda pointless? It's extra work to the devs which grant little to no reward at all, why not just go over the game normally without the need of those options, it doesn't really matter at all...

Terraria is gonna add a better system for selecting gender and im soooo excited!!!

Eh, I wouldn't call C77's character creator that Trans inclusive, since you can really only be a manly buff dude or a woman built like a stripper with the options being a change of voice and junk, not even a gender neutral option for pronouns. It's low effort

I mean Cyberpunk 2077 has chanced a lot since it first came out, you can choose body, genitalia, and voice. It doesn't really have anything to do with the game itself, but it's still one if not my favourite game

really interesting video, a topic i havent really thought about but i would love the more self-insert style of characters to have these options

For character creation and pronoun options, I think the best I've seen have been I Was a Teenage Exocolonist which doesn't really let you create your character but you do get the choice for your character's appearence to be more feminine leaning, masculine leaning or angrogynous in your later teen years and the game doesn't tie this to your pronouns (and its pronoun system is...not exactly robust but it is customisable and you can change how your character is referred to and what their name is on the fly with no problems) The best from a game that's still in development though has to be Our Life: Now & Forever (sequel to Our Life: Beginnings & Always which has been brought up in the comment section multiple times). That game has a very extensive character creator which completely seperates gender, sex, pronouns, honorifics and even just how you're referred to by people around you. It's also maybe the only game I can name off the top of my head that allows you to pick multiple pronouns (including custom pronouns that you input yourself). That's huge. Hell, this game's system is so large that it actually lead me to learning some stuff about my gender (namely that I prefer the honorific Myst. as opposed to another non-binary honourific like Mx.). The naming system is a bit more restrictive that IWATEC, you can't change names on the fly but you can change it between the game's different chapters, referred to as 'Steps' (you can also change, like, 90% of the rest of your character, the only things that are locked off are your last name, your skin tone and your eye colour. Hell, you can even customise your MC's mom to a certain extent so that you look more or less like her)

I never thought about a game giving you the possibility of changing name/pronouns/appearance in the middle of a playthrough, but it makes so much sense and it shouldn't even be hard to do at all! I wanna make games and when I do, I'll add that choice 100%. I love this video.

What are you talking about? All modern videogames that have character customization have "body types" or "forms" rather than a "sex" option, as well as options to customize your genitalia and pronouns. Old games didnt do this as much, because old games werent made in a time when this sort of stuff was as common as it is nowadays. Now that being trans is a lot more common, modern games are obviously jumping ship. Hell, we even have old rpg games where a sex change option exists, so i dont really understand what this video is trying to talk about. Like, what do you mean videogames dont let you be trans? You can be trans in games, just because there's not an option to say so in ALL games it doesnt mean that you cant do it. Not to mention that you are also criticising games that are about playing as an specific character and not a custom made one, meaning that you're asking for something that simply doesnt make sense in the context of most games. If there is no character customization why would there even be an option to become trans in a game? So this basically cuts your clickbaity title down to all games that have character customization. If we focus on those games only, we still have tons upon tons worth of games throughout history where you're allowed to become trans. As much as i think this is a feature that is not necessary and should not exist, it does, in fact, exist. The most modern examples that can come to mind are cyberpunk, baldur's gate, the sims, in WoW they changed from binary sex options to "body form" options, Monster hunter does the body type thing as well, and literally any RPG where you can select sex, you can choose to, you know, play as any of either sexes (male and female), which even if textually they dont acknowledge any sort of trans representation, you are free to play however you want and select the body type that you wish to use. So uh... if anything, videogames are basically the haven for trans people if you ask me. Just look at VR chat. Tons of trans folk there. Do you really need the game to textually say something for you to feel comfortable playing with the character that you enjoy? Or, even better, do you really need to customize your genitalia that much that the main point of the gameplay becomes secondary to you when playing any game?

what musics do you use in this?

(Legit question, i'm curious) For TransFem and TransMale, isn't just choosing the gender you identify as enough? Or is there something else? Please educate me on the subject 🙏

I dont get it. If you're trans woman, you could in game just choose to be woman. And same for trans men?

So, kind of separate from the discussion of customization, but something I always wanted to see a game do was have a character that transitions over the course of a playthrough. Sorta of like the old Fable games, where leveling up strength made the character more muscular, leveling up skill made the character taller, and leveling up magic gave the character glowing tattoos. Now to be clear, I'm not saying "transness" should be tied to specific RPG stats, I'm just saying I'd like to see a game where the player starts the game as one gender and ends the game as the other. I know there have been a few games that offer mid-game options for gender swapping, but what I'd like to see is game where it happens gradually and automatically.

good video. quite sad that the music overpowered your voice. i have bad hearing and the loud music did not help. the automatic youtube caps did a bit of a good job.

I keep resetting Animal Crossing because I'm still choosing my name. I really wish you could change that.

They don't change this thing mostly because people don't care about what gender they are playing as(i have male friend that some times pick female character, while i sometimes pick the male character). We only pick the one that looks cooler or cuter. For the programmers make a different gender is difficult because they have to rewrite all the dialogue, and it's a lot of work (imagine doing this for all the pronouns and neopronouns (i don't believe in different geneder identity other than man and woman but thats my opinion)). I think that it's stupid to complain about gender in a video games. (English isn't my first language so sorry if i made some typos)

Funnily enough, Lunacid made by Akuma Kira has pronoun character options that dont ever get used in the actual game but upset a lot of people who didnt want representation in their game.

I don't think I quite understand. I have the some level of wishing I was the a different gender but In games I can just choose the gender I want. Maybr it's just because Ive yet to have someone explane non binary to me in in way I could understand, but I think the choose a body type option is a perfect compromise for those that don't wish to be labeled.

Thank you RU-vid algorithm

because pronounces and body types is cringe for most players

Really good explanation! Was a bit surprised though, i expected south park: the fractured but whole to be mentioned because of the games option to identify as transgender.

Games: Because there are only boys and girls, no in between! >=(

great video, audio balancing could use some work hard to hear you over the music

I don’t know why this has been recommended to me. The games I play don’t apply for this or they already have representation

Goatlings is made by an autistic person, and they let you make your goats be male, female, neutral, and other. and you can change it at any time for free, you can also change your gender icon to male, female, neutral, or nothing/undisplayed. it is a pet based economy game like neopets except theyre all goats with adorable themes that people are so crazy for that the most expensive couple of goats are worth over $1000 of in-game currency. its free to play and 100% ad free, and AD (equivalent to a neopets paintbrush) and item designs are nearly always user submitted, sometimes special things are released by site artists and mods as goodies but they are ALWAYS hosting contests and events for new designs of items and sets for people to enter. your pets have profiles that you can code and put "treasure"/items in

Aww, what an adorable character ! It basically boils down to essentialism and cognitive walls. The Pokémon exemple with the portraits deciding what gender you are stems from the belief that gender is just a "natural" thing one should "assume" rather than query about. Locking re-customization options behind paywalls though is quite enbyphobic. It used to be kind of weird when game devs still put character names as unique IDs in their databases in MMORPGs, but right now any dev worth their salt could allow re-customization by just bothering to add one more UI window. Genshin Impact's approach is also quite enbyphobic and essentialist too, with the game _urging you_ to choose between Stella or Caelus _quickly_ (basically berating the player if they don't have a go-to default binary gender), but given its aspects as a "waifu collection" game and therefore the targeted demographic, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest ("are you here for the waifus or boyfus, and will _you_ be one or the other?"). The male and female genders becoming Type A and Type B is interesting because it kinds of underlines the problem of design: to make nonbinary appearances is to wonder what nonbinary fashion could be like, sometimes in universes where nonbinariness is either non-existent, anomalous or even frowned upon (like in a lot of medieval/low fantasy settings), where finding these pieces of equipment outside of crafting would feel uncanny. But it'd still feel uncanny _now in the real world._ As a... broad-shouldered male-to-enby trans person, I have to find outlandish bra sizes that basically don't exist because my waist is too large by at least 30cm: I'm a "Type A" body type who needs "Type B" customization options, and whoever's making those options has _no idea_ of such a need existing, sizes are totally binary especially as there is two different cuts to accomodate for breasts or lack thereof. Sexual Dimorphism is a bi..h as past and current sexism, gender roles and patriarchy caused darwinian selection favoring the differentiation between both sexes, causing this massive difference in expected body types.

Any game that has a character editor is trans Friendly

Among the games with robust customization there are quite a few visual novels. Like "i was a teenage exocolonist" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm a queer person myself and don't understand this. If I was a trans person, why wouldn't I just pick the gender I transitioned to, or maybe just pick what character I want to be? Most character customisers in games nowadays let you pick any option, whether your character is male or female, so yes, you can make a girl look more like a man if you want to make them trans. The thing is that game companies don't have a reason to let you specify if a character is trans, because trans people make up very little of the population and a lot of trans people wouldn't want to fantasise about being trans. I'm a male and when given the choice between playing as a male or female character, a lot of the time I will pick the female character even when it doesn't effect gameplay. Trans people probably wouldn't always want to play a trans character in the same vein.

i mean terraria lets you do that.

Don't disrespect Backyard Baseball my brother. They've had non-gender-specific character creation since 1998.

I need this person's pronouns, someone please help me out

"let" - there's your problem right there. If the game was FOSS, the player wouldn't be in the shameful position of begging devs for features but would instead be free to make their own mods to do as they pleased. The gamer community normalizes the use of closed-source distribution models and then complains about the predictable results. I would have had some sympathy had the problem not been entirely self-inflicted

There is no reason for your video to be getting the hate that it is \gen. FWIW, negative nancies like in this comment section are thankfully not the majority of humans. I hope you are living your best life and that you can find some peace away from these negative commenters.

I'm just here wondering how many of the "male" folk picking female characters in RPGs are eggs/closet-trans like I was for years or would just quote Werster's old pokemon speedrun FAQ at me about not wanting to "look at a male's arse for 5 hours". The game's where I really struggle with the gender selection is one of my (not anymore I guess) favorites: Fire Emblem Awakening. I don't think that game even has a single sapphic S Support for the female main character, so if I want to be with my usual choice of bride, I am forced to pick a male character. The speedrun picks a female character but is forced to marry a guy for gameplay reasons... There's just no right decision for me...

You're the outlier, not the average person. You think these things are easily implemented, but they are not and you have NO clue how difficult it is to do the things you ask for.

You won't find much nonbinary options or representation in Japanese games. Bigger, more internationally recognized (and therefore more internationally pressured) games like Splatoon may differ. And even then, it took 2 sequels. Among the several reasons is that the Japanese words for sex and gender are the same; thus, there's no distinction between sex and gender. To provide a nonbinary option would be to create a new sexual morphism entirely. Either that or an "unknown" or "??" designation along with dialogue that boils down to "don't ask/worry about it", which people may find insulting. In fact, Japanese law dictates that legal pronoun reassignment occurs only after sex change surgery. At that point, transgender Japanese people would just pick one of the generic male or female options mentioned in the video. Japanese culture prioritizes societal conformity or individual liberty. Being trans is "fine" so long as you confirm to the other sex/gender, which is why that law exists the way it does.

isn't the whole point of playing video games to play somebody different to who you are in reality? confused about the point of this video not every single game has to have a full character creator with no restrictions, in some games you will have to choose between pre-set characters and there's nothing wrong with that, sure it would be nice if the female ones weren't objectified but this video is so complain-y

if it ain't broken don't fix it

Don't have much to say except nice video

um. because? just play as your desired gender sis. or bro. whatever u are :>

nice channel i wil subscrib n lik 👍