Video Games & Gender Identity

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What a cute human being
Yo, it's been some time since my last article (January) and since the collab I did with Aziamuth (May).
Over the past few months I was trying to do some articles but I didn't had time (finals) or I felt that the ideas weren't very well designed outside my mind; I wanted to do one of how video games can teach you, but I had to use a lot of examples of my life and for both respect and not going too deep into it, I discard it, at least for now. I also tried to do a collab for a retrospective but the other person didn't had time for the editing part since we reached the max characters that an article can have here, so we just dropped it.

But oh well... While I try to beat another Yu-Gi-Oh! so I can continue my plan of making articles for each Duel Monsters arc game, I want to talk about how games can mean a lot for many of us who struggle with gender identity (yes, me too), this can go very well along with identity crisis so I will try to cover a bit of that even if don't has a literal example for gender like the main idea is. This article will have spoilers, so below I will make a list of the games that I'll go deep in them, 'kay?

Final Fantasy VII
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Persona 4

Those eyes are so pretty...The first character we'll see this day is the one in the cover of this article, Sheik from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
I choose them because is the best representation for this topic, it was officially stated by Nintendo that Sheik is a woman even if the game and (sometimes) other media, like the manga refers them as ''him''. Still I'll be using they/them for this character since it's quite ambiguous in my opinion. Sheik is a mysterious character that you never learn much about until the end of the game, who then tells Link that they are actually the princess Zelda in disguise so no one could recognize her and at the same time could help the hero. That's pretty much it, depending of what are you reading/playing they say that she transformed in a boy and lost consciousness about herself in the process, but who knows what else could this character have been; Nintendo was going to make a game about them but the company cancelled it (I hate that decision so much) so I guess we are not going to know much else for a while.

After that introduction, let's see why this character should be here.
One of the big reasons is their design, a very androgynous ninja who doesn't show their face but that you can still see some femenine traits in it, like their prominent eyelashes or (in modern games) their body figure, and at the same time you can see both, a plain chest and robust hands. This makes you sympathize and form a bond with them regardless if you are more into male or female characters; I always liked more boys as characters so when I learned that they were Zelda, I didn't care about that other self. To this day if I play Smash, I just switch to Sheik when the match starts.

This character means a lot to many people who later discovered that they are non-binary and as such, even if Nintendo says that they are a woman, they are still an icon for these people and also for me thanks to their female masculinity.

Look at him, little buddy is vibin'Now let's switch to the other character from Ocarina of Time, Link.
First he's a child and then an adult (or teenager I guess), but more importantly he's the LINK between you as a player and him as the protagonist of the story, regardless of the player's gender he was created with that in mind since the very first The Legend of Zelda from '86. In some games he has an androgynous body like Sheik and in others like OoT, has a clearly male body. This is not bad at all of course, it's just the preference of the designer and I like the idea of him having a (still slightly) different type of body; what makes me wonder is why Nintendo to this day still wants him to be a [b o y] instead of something neutral without a clear naming for his body, after all he should be the link for any player so they could feel connected to the story.

Newer games makes him crossdress and gives him the possibility to dress like Sheik, making him more androgynous and giving players the opportunity to express themselves inside the games if they want, which is super cool and I think it's a good progress in the industry.


Someone please help this kidAll aboard, next stop is Final Fantasy VII!
You may think that I will talk about the crossdress section in Midgar, but hell no.

I said in this article that we'll see identity crisis because it goes along with gender, and that's what we are going to do. One of the most important plots (twists) in this game is Cloud backstory, he suffered from an overdose of Mako energy that made him forgot who he truly is, he took his dead friend's identity as his own and unconsciously lied to himself about everything, Cloud forgot about his friend, his job, his personality, etc...

Many young teenagers played this game in '97 and helped them think about what they wanted to be, in a phase where they don't know what they want or are. They are as lost a Cloud and tries to be something that they are not, he wanted to be a 1st class soldier to impress Tifa and his mom, like many of those kids who wanted to be cool in front of his friends. A lot of transgender people when they know what they are, also feels that they were lying to themselves about their identity, likes and personality, like Cloud Strife.

Not only cis people empathizes with this story and that's what makes video games such a special entertainment, for many this it's their favorite game and this is one of the reasons for it.


I hate this character so muchAnd if you still don't believe that games can make the click on someone for changing their lives to a healthy mental state, then I present to you the major example I have that a character made the click to someone. Some years ago we played for the first time Secret of Mana, the game accepts 3 players, each of them controls one of the 3 main characters.

- Aziamuth played with the protagonist.
- I Played with the heroine.
- And another friend played with Popoi.

All I know is that this character is not human, instead is like a spirit from the forest or something like that, to be honest I don't care much about the game because we didn't like it, but that's not the point. The point is that there is not a single moment in the game where someone calls this character: ''He'', ''She'', ''They'' or even ''It''.
Just exist, sleeps and doesn't stop fucking the gameplay's pacing. Our friend liked this character a lot and after some days or weeks they came as non-binary and said that a part of it was because of Popoi, I'm very happy for them.
As for me, I don't feel good talking about my gender because it makes me feel so different to others and I hate that so much, so I always just say that I'm a masculine girl or a tomboy, whatever you like to call it. But playing as the only woman in the group made me a bit happy, even if my character was the shittiest one for the gameplay; it made me happy because she looks a bit tomboyish like me, even if she's in the more femenine scale than for example Sheik.


BirdTestament is a character with a sad story that never felt really right about themselves, it's not a human, is a Gear who can make their own decisions so that makes them different to the other Gears. They had an adoptive father who was a human but that makes him one too? He always felt better in nature than in society.

After many, many years and games, ArcSys finally made the decision of making Testament a non-binary character and I'm happy for them, but please change them to the old design.

And with them, this is the last character of the non-binary section. There are a lot more of them like Kirby, Riki from SaGa Frontier,
NiGHTS or the Undertale protagonist but I just can't say much about these characters, like you seen now with Testament, even if I know them I can't say a lot.

Crazy how good this render is
I wish I can add Naoto from Persona 4 to the list because there are so few transmasc characters that it makes me sad, I love them a lot. Sadly Naoto would make me write an essay and we'll reach to the conclusion that she isn't trans and instead her character is a criticism to the toxic masculine society, we could count her more or less for the same motive as Sheik, being an icon to people but still, I don't see her with that same strength. BUT EVEN THEN, any character can be an icon to anybody. Yugi Muto is one of my most important icons for example and he's isn't even trans or has gender issues, he's just a teenager who says things that makes me very confortable.

Funnily talking about Naoto made me give her a spot in the list for saying that. So yeah, if a character makes you happier then that's the important regardless of their story or what the owner of the character says, just don't be toxic to others and respect that the canon exist.


They are so cute <3Sora is the least trans character along with Cloud from this list and is because he isn't. But he's one of the most important characters from a video game to inspire kids and give them courage in many different ways, between those kids there were people who now is transgender. I know stories of trans guys who grew up with him and wanted to be like Sora, have his body; because that's what resonated with them and I also feel that sentiment because it happened to me with other characters.

But Sora isn't just an icon for trans guys, is for anyone. That includes non-binary people and trans girls, I seen conversations of them talking about THAT scene of KH1 with the heartless and I understand what they mean, they attached to something so they get inspired and that's cool.

No everything has to be a trans allegory and both Cloud and Sora proves it, that also doesn't mean that people can't take a message from them and adapt it to their lives... They can and to be honest they should to some degree because that's what makes you connect with a story.

I don't have any more examples for this article, if I added more they would be my inspirations and icons very probably, not sure if you would like to hear that so yeah, that's all for today I think. Now I'm on vacations until who knows for how long so I will try to make more articles, I just need to think some good ideas but if any other writer wants to collab they can reach me on bsky.
See ya.
 
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