Transgender Representation In 2020 Video Games
This year, I was astounded to find three video games featuring prominent trans characters and storylines. I’m truly not saying this in a way to sound facetious, because obviously three is a small number, yet it is much more than last year’s zero. As a trans woman, I am genuinely surprised and delighted to see this representation. But I would be remiss if I did not break down whether or not these characters work as trans portrayals before their stories become industry standard. In comparing these games I hope to decipher what makes a “good” transgender storyline, from large heavily financed Triple A Studios such as Naughty Dog’s Last of Us Part II and Dontnod’s Tell Me Why, as well as smaller indie studios such as Dreamfeel’s If Found.
The Last of Us Part II is the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, one that received a lot of love from the LGBTQ+ community for its lesbian main character. In this sequel, the developing studio Naughty dog also included a trans male character named Lev, running from his hometown, a community of religious zealots who find his trans identity blasphemous. When Lev was going to be married to a village elder as a woman, he gave himself a male haircut to hold fast to his identity and is then forced to flee as his own community attempts to hunt him down and kill him. Further into the game, the player returns Lev to his home, where he confronts his mother in hopes of finding understanding, but instead his mother attacks and attempts to kill Lev, and in self-defense, Lev is forced to murder his mother. Soon after this, Lev’s sister and only remaining family sacrifices herself so that Lev can escape.
Now, let’s discuss Tell Me Why. The game from the Developer Dontnod Entertainment follows the story of two twins, Alyson and Tyler, a trans man, returning to their hometown for the first time since their mother’s death. Tyler believes that after he gave himself the male haircut that he truly wanted, his mother threatened to kill him with a gun. Throughout the game, the two twins uncover their mother’s struggles with her own mental illness in addition to her child’s transgender identity. It is revealed that she was learning how to better accept her new son while at the same time dealing with religious neighbors pushing her to send Tyler to conversion therapy and threatening to call social services.
The game’s twist reveals that when Tyler went to show his mother his new haircut, he walked in on her about to commit suicide with her gun, and she ran after Tyler to comfort him. Tyler’s sister, seeing her mother chasing her trans brother with a gun, assumes ill intent and stabs their mother with the haircutting scissors in a perceived act of self-defense. Tyler took the blame for the murder and as they grew up their memories changed due to guilt and post-traumatic stress.
Both games concern a common problem of the trans experience, coming out, and how the people around you deal with your trans identity. Both concern trans men who run away from home, but must confront their past, specifically their mother’s reception of their trans identity. Both Naughty Dog and Dontnod chose to tell incredibly similar trans centered stories in their respective games, and both studios experience two very different pitfalls while telling these stories.
Suffering is the bread and butter of The Last of Us Part II, where every character is subjected to gross amounts of violence and tragedy. Lev’s suffering is unique to the other characters of the game in that it is wholly centered on his being trans, and has virtually nothing to do with the post-apocalyptic wasteland he lives in. He perpetuates the cliche idea that to be trans is to live constantly with trauma and to be scared of the worst-case scenario at all times. While the trans experience can oftentimes be filled with trauma, be it from un-accepting family and friends to the constant day to day fear of being a trans person in society, this myth that we only live with trauma erases our whole identity as real people. As I mentioned, every character in The Last of Us Part II experiences suffering, so it tracks that Lev experienced the same. The problem is that all other characters in the game are given the full range of human emotion and experience, we see characters have parties, fall in love, and start families, even though it is a world of violence and suffering. The only character that is excluded from any moment of happiness is Lev. The Last of Us Part II was written by Neil Druckman and Halley Gross, two cis-gendered people, and while Lev’s voice actor was a trans man, his contribution was reserved only for occasional dialogue improvisation.
With such a similar story, one would expect Tyler to experience the same transphobia in his game as well. However, most trauma of the trans experience is wiped clean from Tell Me Why. Similar to Naughty Dog, Dontnod was a studio with cis-gendered writers. However, from the beginning of development, they worked with GLAAD’s director of transgender representation, who offered foundational guidance on story and character, consulted on casting, and reviewed scripts at all phases of production.
Upon game release, Dontnod also posted an FAQ, mostly answering questions related to Tyler. They said that at no point does Tyler face violence as a result of his trans identity, all characters will interact in a respectful manner that validates Tyler’s gender identity, and at no point will Tyler be deadnamed, or referred to by his female birth name. Now, this reads as perhaps the dream scenario, a trans character who gets to live their life happily and faces no aggression due to their identity. But this is just that, a dream not founded in reality. With many unaccepting members of his community, their civility is unfounded. It is unbelievable that Tyler’s religious neighbors will believe he is an abomination worthy of conversion therapy and in the same breath properly gender and not deadname Tyler. This is a narrative dissonance that is not true to the trans experience.
Whereas Naughty Dog fell into old tropes of trans people being products of trauma, Dontnod shied away from any negative experiences trans people encounter. Both teams started with the idea that trans people are products of trauma, and that this trauma defines the trans experience. Naughty Dog leaned into this, believing a trans story of pure suffering would fit into their world defined by its suffering. Dontnod, on the other hand, wanted to tell a story of trans trauma while also being terrified of depicting any of that trauma. The result is a world that dulled any edges to the realities of being trans, creating a false vision of “perfect” transness.
Neither team was able to comprehend that trans people are just that, people. Trans people go through their whole lives with their identity and experience the whole spectrum of life. We cry, we laugh, we love, we hate. Most media has perpetuated the myth of trauma being the only thing that is part of a trans narrative, and skip the idea that we can have full lives. The developers of both The Last of Us Part II and Tell Me Why focused on trans identity and what they believed that meant, without looking to see if this created an honest depiction of what human life is.
I am conflicted by these characters. These are two main characters of some of the biggest games of the year, and they are trans, like me. The Game Awards, essentially the Oscars for the video game industry, awarded The Last of Us Part II “Game of the year”, and Tell Me Why won the “Game for Impact” award. This is the recognition of trans stories by the industry and the fans. I want to applaud these characters just for existing. Yet the game doesn’t do justice to them, and even though the sheer existence of Lev and Tyler is groundbreaking, the stories they live fail me as a trans person, and it is time that we hold our representation to a higher standard.
Now in comes If Found, a game developed by indie studio Dreamfeel. It follows Kasio, a trans woman returning home from college in December 1993. She has a falling out with her mother and brother, a result of stress from the recent death of her father combined with her family not understanding Kasio’s identity. The game encapsulates Kasio’s experience with the residents of her hometown and her growing comfort in her own identity as well as her growth into adulthood. Like The Last of Us Part II and Tell Me Why, If Found is a story that centers on the trans experience of both coming out and returning home to face how people will react to your trans identity. It is a common trans narrative because it is one that all trans people go through, it is the equivalent of the coming of age story.
Yet If Found tells the story of Kasio with a human touch. Amongst the many events in the game are awkward crushes, the planet Jupiter, many kisses, a punk concert, a cute dog, and a break-in. Kasio is treated like a real person, someone who can experience a plethora of emotions all at once. This leads to an honest depiction of the trans experience, filled with the joys of life while also confronting and grappling with the problems faced by transgender people. While The Last of Us Part II spans 20 hours, and Tell Me Why 9 hours, If Found manages to tell an emotionally deep story in 2. It might not be surprising to find out that the director and lead writer of this game is a trans woman. She drew on her own experiences of coming out and crafted a story that focused primarily on Kasio’s emotions and experiences with other people in relation to her finding herself. Whereas The Last of Us Part II and Tell Me Why to feel like characters of the transgender experience If Found crafted an emotional narrative that spoke to the trans experience.
This is where I might suggest that it is clear that the only good trans narratives come from trans creators. Straight cis-gendered people should stay in their lane and avoid making trans stories because they will inevitably fail. Yet that would be reductive to my own arguments. Naughty Dog and Dontnod did not fail because they were straight people attempting to tell a trans story, they failed because they forgot to depict their characters as complete people. They became obsessed with the transness of their characters and then let preconceived notions and common tropes define them. I cannot tell you a single personality trait of either Lev or Tyler other than ‘trans’. Separated from an obsession to create a “good” trans character, a better trans narrative would have been created. I know that this would have happened because I believe it already has.
Let’s talk about a good depiction of the trans experience this year in video games, from The Last of Us Part II. Not Lev, but instead one of the two lead characters, Abby. Abby is not a trans character, yet when we look at her story it can be read as a uniquely trans experience. We are introduced to Abby as a woman who lost her father at a young age and found a tight-knit group of friends that became her newfound family. One of her most important relationships is with one member of this friend group, Owen. Owen and Abby once had a relationship, but at the time of the game, Owen is in a relationship with another girl and is expecting a child with her. Abby struggles with her body and personality not being as soft or feminine as this girl, where she is muscular and tough. Abby still has feelings for Owen, the man who has shown her kindness so often, and they even have sex one night. When the morning comes around Abby thinks that they will be back together. Owen quickly retracts his feelings and returns to his girlfriend.
This is an experience that trans women know all too well. Any man shows you kindness or love and you latch onto it because of your own self-doubt that you are beautiful. Yet a trans woman we will never be complete in a man’s eyes because we cannot bear children. The man leaves us for a more acceptable partner, yet will string us on, using us. Oftentimes trans women will stay in these relationships because the man shows them kindness when we were struggling in our transition, yet we will never be the woman he chooses. Just in her interactions with Owen throughout the game, we see Abby experience happiness, joy, young love, and heartbreak.
Abby also has the most interactions with Lev, the actual trans character of the game. One particular interaction stands out. After Abby and Lev are attacked by his former community, during which they repeatedly deadname him, Lev timidly asks if she wants to know why they called him that name. Abby responds with kindness and understanding, reassuring him that he has no need to explain anything to her, she accepts him. She tells him to not feel pressured to say anything he might find uncomfortable to her, but that she is there to talk if he ever needs it. She comforts Lev with the wisdom an older more experienced queer person would to a newly out one. Abby is an incredibly human character, she is someone that the player finds empathy with due to the narrative we guide her through, in all its joys and sorrows. Yet this incredible piece of trans representation is completely unintentional on the part of the creators. Lev is a depiction of what they believed the trans narrative should be, while Abby is a shining example of what a trans narrative could be.
Playing If Found was incredibly emotional for me. I saw myself in it, but I wasn’t surprised, I knew the creator was trans, and it had been recommended to me as “the good trans game”. Playing Abby’s story in The Last of Us Part II surprised me in its honest portrayal of the full range of the trans experience, yet the developers didn’t know at all what they had done. The lesson of these games is that it doesn’t take a trans person to make a trans narrative “good” all it takes is an understanding that trans people experience life in its entirety, and that we are not defined by our trauma, even if it is something we live with.