If you’re not familiar with the Guilty Gear series of fighting games, I think it’s worth looking into! The series has long had gay, agender, gender-non-conforming, and queer characters, but in the most recent release, they’ve been much more “out.” Notably, Bridget—a character who, in her first appearance, was a feminie-presenting boy—was added to the newest game as DLC, and her arcade mode story has her struggling with her sense of self before finally exclaiming “I’m a girl!” and canonizing herself as a transgender woman.
Theres also Testament, a character introduced in the first game, who is agender. Up until the most recent game, they were largely perceived as male and referred to using he/him pronouns, but according to Daisuke Ishiwatari (the game’s creator), they’ve always been agender, and the confusion with pronouns came from less social understanding and acceptance of non-binary people in the late 90s when the game released (and some stuff was likely lost in translation in the English releases).
Theres more i could list for this series alone, but i think it’s more important to mention that the Guilty Gear community is a very queer space nowadays. This is especially nice because fighting games offer in-person meet-up opportunities for people of all walks of life through tournaments.
And that’s true for most fighting games, too. While many of them are severely lacking in queer representation (especially compared to GG), tournaments offer many queer and trans individuals a relatively safe space to socialize and generally just exist in.
Similarly, there’s a bit of a meme about more niche fighting games having a very transfem player base. I think this is blown out if proportion, but i can certainly attest to the fact that many trans women I’ve met through gaming events have at least one weird fighting game most people have never heard of that they’re REALLY good at. This is entirely conjecture, but I’d guess it probably has something to do with the fact that niche communities tend to be more welcoming to new players. These niche games don’t have updates or developers supporting tournaments, so people in these communities are there because they have a really strong love for their game, and they’re usually excited to share that love with other people.
If you’re not familiar with the Guilty Gear series of fighting games, I think it’s worth looking into! The series has long had gay, agender, gender-non-conforming, and queer characters, but in the most recent release, they’ve been much more “out.” Notably, Bridget—a character who, in her first appearance, was a feminie-presenting boy—was added to the newest game as DLC, and her arcade mode story has her struggling with her sense of self before finally exclaiming “I’m a girl!” and canonizing herself as a transgender woman.
Theres also Testament, a character introduced in the first game, who is agender. Up until the most recent game, they were largely perceived as male and referred to using he/him pronouns, but according to Daisuke Ishiwatari (the game’s creator), they’ve always been agender, and the confusion with pronouns came from less social understanding and acceptance of non-binary people in the late 90s when the game released (and some stuff was likely lost in translation in the English releases).
Theres more i could list for this series alone, but i think it’s more important to mention that the Guilty Gear community is a very queer space nowadays. This is especially nice because fighting games offer in-person meet-up opportunities for people of all walks of life through tournaments.
And that’s true for most fighting games, too. While many of them are severely lacking in queer representation (especially compared to GG), tournaments offer many queer and trans individuals a relatively safe space to socialize and generally just exist in.
Similarly, there’s a bit of a meme about more niche fighting games having a very transfem player base. I think this is blown out if proportion, but i can certainly attest to the fact that many trans women I’ve met through gaming events have at least one weird fighting game most people have never heard of that they’re REALLY good at. This is entirely conjecture, but I’d guess it probably has something to do with the fact that niche communities tend to be more welcoming to new players. These niche games don’t have updates or developers supporting tournaments, so people in these communities are there because they have a really strong love for their game, and they’re usually excited to share that love with other people.