This article series comes with a blanket content warning for transphobia and transphobic language.

Welcome back to part two of The History of Trans People in Video Games! I suggest catching up on Part One if you haven’t already, but as I said there, the depiction of trans characters in the gaming industry is a complex one. It has been a rocky road and continues to be one, complicated by misinformation or conflicting ideas.

That said, once we escape the 2000s and all that came before it, things do start to improve. That’s when a lot more confirmed trans characters start to crop up. That is to say, we have less and less of the experience where characters are considered trans based only on interpretation. Depictions are more clear cut, with mainstream acceptance clearly having an effect on the education involved in these depictions.

That isn’t to tell you all those depictions are good ones. There are many bad apples in this area of LGBT+ representation unfortunately, but there is a clearer understanding of what makes someone trans and what does not. It’s also increasingly a time of indie video games making waves in the wider gaming community, which allows for trans and queer developers to make their mark.

Once again, this list is by no means exhaustive. I have avoided listing characters who don’t originate in video games. There are no characters that first appeared in movies or other media. 

21. Sex Workers — Dragon Age: Origins (2009)
In a game and series that is notable for its romantic inclusivity, an area in which Dragon Age consistently dropped the ball prior to the third game is in its depictions of trans people. There are a number of same-sex romances in Origins, but your only exposure to trans characters, romantically or otherwise, is through sex workers in The Pearl, a brothel. This is played as a transphobic joke. When given options for someone to sleep with, you can select “surprise me” and be given a masculine dwarf in a dress.

22. Chihiro Fujisaki — Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (2010)
Chihiro is another in a long line of characters who aren’t trans in canon, but who play on trans tropes and play with gender ideas. The player doesn’t confirm that Chihiro is a boy until after his death, when his body is examined by Sakura. Sadly, this relies heavily on transphobic “she was really a he” stereotypes. A character declares that she wishes she’d killed Chihiro for being a cross-dresser. The rationale provided is that after being bullied and teased for being weak, Chihiro assumed a feminine identity to allow for his weakness. Your mileage varies on how well this works, but I often find that hidden gender stories walk into sexist territory as well as transphobic territory.

23. Erica Anderson — Catherine (2011)
Erica is a trans woman and waitress at the Stray Sheep, the bar frequented by Catherine’s main character. Whilst she’s empathetic, likable, and a well-rounded character, she has known the other characters since high school and they seem to have no outward issue with her being trans. However, there’s more than one jibe about Erica not being a “real” woman. An ending depicts a character reacting with upset and disgust at having lost his virginity to her. It’s a mixed bag, she is a good character with a poor portrayal. 

24. Dark Sun Gwyndolin — Dark Souls (2011)
The subject of Gwyndolin’s gender is contentious. This is in part down to how Souls uses ambiguity like a veil. The dimming world you inhabit never gives you the full story, only scraps of lore. Gwyndolin is described as having been raised as a daughter. A divine ring was granted to him that enabled him to perform “female actions,” and he’s described as behaving like a “sullen brooding goddess.” Wearing long, flowing robes and having a feminine body, Gwyndolin could be a Souls representation of a trans woman, or he might be canonically another “boy dressed as a girl.” The interpretation is left open.

25. Serendipity — Dragon Age II (2011)
Two years following the first game, this Dragon Age sequel fares only a little better. Billed as a premium option in The Blooming Rose brothel, Serendipity is nevertheless treated as something of a “surprise” and a joke. David Gaider, the lead writer, has admitted that Serendipity was meant to be a drag queen, but that the distinction is moot due to perceptions and the series’ history of depicting trans people as jokes. I’m personally deeply fond of Serendipity, finding her funny and charming, and there’s nothing wrong with sex work. There is, however, an inherent problem in depicting trans and gender-nonconforming people only as sexual objects.

26. Aid Worker Sya — Guild Wars 2 (2012)
Sya is a character who is open and uncertain about her transition. She’ll candidly tell you about her past, including her old name, since you knew her back then. She’s frank and to the point about it. After seeing untold destruction, she realized how short life was, and used magic to make her transition and become her most authentic self. Your character in response, tells her that she’s brave. It’s short, sweet, and to the point. Not every portrayal of trans people is going to be perfect, but for a minor NPC in an MMORPG, this is really good.

27. Anna Anthropy — dys4ia (2012)
This indie game from developer Anna Anthropy gained notoriety on release for communicating the difficult, autobiographical experience of being a trans woman. It’s incredibly short, clocking in at around ten minutes, and is an incredible insight into a personal journey that’s nonetheless widely relatable to trans women as a whole. Of the game, Anthropy said, “I was surprised that so many people connected with the game […] This is a game that people related to, many more people than I was expecting, and that means the game is an overwhelming success.”

28. Beauty Nova — Pokémon X/Y (2013)
When you run into Beauty Nova, she says to the player in the localized English version, that a mere half year ago she was a Black Belt. Black Belt is an all-male trainer type in the game, so the immediate implication is that Beauty Nova is a trans woman. In the original Japanese, Beauty Nova also makes a comment about how she did it: “the power of medical science is awesome, wouldn’t you say?” It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in a Pokémon game, but is nevertheless surprisingly nice.

29. Sex workers — Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
The Grand Theft Auto series has a long, checkered past with the LGBT+ community. I didn’t want every other list item to be “and GTA was transphobic again,” so we’ll distill it under this entry. Reni Wassulmaier (Vice City Stories) swaps genders back and forth via surgery. There are numerous jokes in business names, like Transfender and Post Op. The “Psycho” (Vice City) is a cross-dressing character the protagonist is tasked with killing. There are also slurs and transphobia littered throughout the series. In GTAV, the only trans characters are stereotyped sex workers who can be greeted with “Hello, sir. I mean, madam.” Enough said.

30. Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi — Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)
Ah, Krem! Krem is (I believe) the first trans man in mainstream video games, and a genuine improvement on the previous depictions of trans characters in Dragon Age. Krem is a lieutenant and a warrior who grew up in the Tevinter Imperium. He spent his entire life fighting a society that didn’t see him as a man. Some dialogue is clunky and it would’ve been nice for Krem to be voiced by a man. If you’re wondering, he’s voiced by Mass Effect’s Jennifer Hale. Despite this, he feels earnest and it’s wonderful when you see other characters stick up for his gender identity.

31. Various Characters — Read Only Memories (2015)
Midboss, the company behind LGBTQ gaming convention GaymerX, was responsible for this cyberpunk point-and-click game. It’s almost necessary to look at cyberpunk and themes of transhumanism whilst factoring in queer identities, perhaps particularly transgender ones. It has a good handful of trans characters such as TOMCAT, Katelyn, and Sympathy who are all non-binary, along with Melody and Nine who are both trans women. TOMCAT, particularly, is one of the main characters and is a convicted hacker who uses they/them pronouns. This was and remains rare in games that get as much attention as Read Only Memories has gotten.

32. Max Lao — Technobabylon (2015)
Another point-and-click cyberpunk game, Max Lao is a police officer who, with her partner Regis, is investigating a string of murders by a killer known as the Mindjacker. A conversation with Max can reveal that she’s trans, and that she attended an all-boys school when she was a child. Something that sets Max apart is her appearance; she’s not overly feminine or stereotypically masculine, but occupies her own space with short hair, thick eyebrows, and practical clothing. The developer, Technocrat Games, also spoke with trans activists to get their input, which is something more games aiming to depict trans characters should do.

33. Bolt — Crypt Of The NecroDancer (2015)
There’s not a tremendous amount of information to say about Bolt, just as there’s generally very little information to give about the non-story characters in this game. They run through the game at a double tempo, which is very fast, and are unlocked after completing Zone 4 as the Monk character. Ted Martens, who worked on the game, confirmed on Twitter that Bolt is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns. Perhaps the only flaw here is that it’s maybe too understated. Bolt’s gender or pronouns don’t seem to come up in-game at all.

34. Various Characters — Undertale (2015)
There are a number of characters in the beloved indie game Undertale that are referred to with they/them pronouns. You have Napstablook, a ghost who pretends to sleep when you first encounter them. The player character, Frisk, is also referred to exclusively with they/them pronouns and gender-neutral language. There’s also Mettaton, whose gender is both more explicit and more ambiguous. They are a robot with a feminine coded house. When they are given a body, he’s delighted to show off having a masculine body. It’s up to interpretation, but many fans have read Mettaton as a trans man.

35. Ned Wynert — Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate (2015)
Ned is an American businessman that the assassins encounter in 19th century London, and he’s trans. A trans man in a video game set in Victorian London. Unfortunately, he’s voiced by a cis woman, but this doesn’t detract from the simple significance of his appearance. It’s a massively important step that his trans identity doesn’t come up during the gameplay at all. It’s instead revealed through his database entry, which gives Ned’s biography in detail, including how he left home and transitioned as soon as some money from various criminal enterprises allowed it.

36. Mizhena — Baldur’s Gate: Siege Of Dragonspear (2016)
Although she’s just a minor NPC in this DLC for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Mizhena was responsible for a good portion of controversy that followed when it was released. Her depiction is clunky, as NPCs in games like this tend to be, but the depiction simple. She states that her parents thought she was a boy, but in time, they came to understand she was truly a woman. There’s a kind of agency that this dialogue allows her. It bypasses the idea that assigned gender is correct, allowing it instead to be a mistake that can be rectified rather than something that trans people are trying to escape. 

37. Michel Bollinger — The House In Fata Morgana (2016)
The amnesiac protagonist of this visual novel, Michel, is intersex. To reiterate what I said in part one, not all intersex people identify as trans, although they are grouped together often due to some shared experiences. Michel was assigned female at birth, but when puberty hit, Michel was elated to grow into a more masculine body. His family, however, were not happy about this. They considered Michel to be cursed. Michel’s inclusion here is because intersex characters are even rarer than trans characters, but his experiences with dysphoria, misgendering, and identity are relatable from the trans perspective, too.

38. Venus — We Know The Devil (2016)
This game describes itself as being “about choosing which two of three kids will pair off and which one they’ll push out.” Venus is one of those three kids, and is both shy and timid. Visually, she’s wide-eyed, swoopy-haired, and wearing a button-up shirt. She’s also a closeted trans woman. Venus is often misgendered during the course of the game. It’s a queer game created by a queer studio, Worst Girls Games. Depending on the ending, Venus may be suffering tremendously with her gender dysphoria or she may come to terms with herself. 

39. Lala Escargot — Persona 5 (2016)
Atlus, the developers responsible for the Persona series and Catherine, have cropped in this article series a lot, and this won’t be the last time. An NPC, Lala Escargot, runs a bar called Crossroads. Lala is, unfortunately, another case of a “drag queen or trans woman,” situation where the game doesn’t go to any pains to make it clear. She’s voiced by a cis man, but that doesn’t resolve the ambiguity. The character is not depicted negatively, but as kind-hearted and reasonable. Even if she’s not trans, the normalizing of gender non-conforming characters helps with the depiction of trans characters.

40. Miranda Comay — Watch Dogs 2 (2016)
A friend of the protagonist, Miranda is a councilwoman who is openly trans. She’s an older trans woman, whose gender affirmation surgeries were leaked to the public, so she has nothing to hide. She’s a woman of color, and is presented positively and not comedically. Miranda doesn’t have to perfectly pass or live stealthily to be a valid, she’s a powerful woman. The biggest concern here is the decision to have Miranda voiced by a cis man. This always leaves the suggestion, well-intentioned or not, that trans women aren’t really women. Regardless, Miranda is charismatic and feels like a real person.

In part one, less than half of the 20 characters I listed were canonically trans. Today, in part two with another 20 characters, over half of these characters are canonically or unambiguously transgender. The improvement might be slow and spread out over only a few dozen portrayals, but it’s there. 

As I’ve emphasized a few times in this article, one of the biggest problems we run into with some of the better portrayals is the continued use of cis male voice actors for trans women and vice versa. Affirming a character’s gender should be done by providing them with a voice actor that matches.

Ideally, this would be done with trans people voicing trans characters. However, at the bare minimum, men should voice men and women should voice women, regardless of trans status. Anything else gives further rise to the transphobic belief that trans people are simply putting on a costume.

Once again I’d like to give a shout out to the LGBTQ Video Game Archive, which was enormously helpful in providing a jump-off point for the games or characters I was less familiar with. In part three, we’ll be walking through the rest of the trans characters in video games up to the present day, and going through an equally important list; games where you can optionally play or present as transgender.

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