Transgender characters in video games

[Stalkingpanda14]

There's quite a few movies with gay characters, but the only games I can think of with characters that are gay by default are Fallout New Vegas and a Persona game. Movies, TV Shows, and novels have trouble with transgender characters, but I can't think of a single game that even has transgender characters. Do people really not find the lack of LGBT characters in games troubling?

 

[hazabaza1]

Everyone is gay for Bridget.

Spoiler: Oh Bridget, how gay I am for thee.

There's also Poison from Street Fighter (though he/she might be a hermaphrodite instead. I dunno.) and it's funny that you should mention Persona 4 because that game also has a transgender-ish character.

 

[Zantos]

I think the issue is that in so many games we assume that characters in games are not LGBT unless explicitly stated. How many characters could be gay, lesbian or transgender and we never know about it because, just like in real life, there are other things going on and it doesn't really come up.

Seriously, try it, next time you're off on a romp to save the world/galaxy/universe from terrorists/demons/orcs/orkz/monsters/evil/good assume that any character that doesn't give you any reason to think otherwise is LGBT and see how much difference it makes. Turns out it's very little.

Also as a sidenote I like how offhand Mass Effect 3 is about some of the character's sexualities. Casual mention of a guy's husband, inviting someone to bed only to discover she's a lesbian. Very classy.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Zantos made a pretty good point that there are characters of that background that we just don't know about. Explicitly stated though? There's not much I can name off the bat aside from Bridget, Poison, an MTF kid in Deathsmiles, and that FtM kid from Persona 4 (don't remember their names). I also know there's a couple intersexed characters, like Kaine from Nier, but there's not much else out there. Also notice how just about every title that these characters are from was made in the east. Western devs rarely touch upon the subject.