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

Welcome back to the third and final part of A History Of Trans Characters In Video Games. Check out Part One and Part Two if you haven’t already, and then come back here to buckle down for the most recent years of trans characters in video games.

We’re coming into the best years yet for trans representation. Though there are still some outright awful moments, as you’ll see. That said, increasingly characters who are trans, non-binary or gender non-conforming are put into the position of the player character or important NPC roles, even sometimes the love interest. 

As before, characters are excluded from this list if they did not originate in video games. Stick around to read the honorable mentions for characters of that nature who are particularly noteworthy. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

41. Blanche — Pokémon Go (2016)
Neither particularly feminine or overly masculine, Blanche is the non-binary leader of Team Mystic. When introducing them to the fans, the official twitter went to great pains to avoid using any gendered terminology to refer to Blanche. A later blog post even went on to use the singular “they” to refer to them. They believe in the wisdom of Pokémon, but are pretty straight-laced and don’t take it well when their plans go wrong. They’re subtle, but great.

42. Hainly Abrams — Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017)
Hainly is a great example of when a developer tries but misses the mark. The mark is the size of a football field, but they still miss it. Hainly is the director of scientific research in the game. She’s also a trans woman, which you would learn because of a couple of lines of dialogue she would (apparently) offer to a complete stranger. “Back home, people knew me as Stephan. But that was never who I was.” This was patched later so that you would have to get to know her better first, but it’s still remarkably clunky.

43. Val — Outlast 2 (2017)
Outlast 2 is a horror game, and Val is one of its antagonists. She’s also (for me) all the way up there with Shablee from Leisure Suit Larry for one of the worst depictions of a trans character in video games. Val’s identity is never cleared up in game, and has not been cleared up by the developers, either. She is instead depicted as violent, deranged, and a sexual predator. I have nothing good to say about the way that she’s been written.

44. Damien Bloodmarch — Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (2017)
Dramatic, gothic, over the top, and adorable, Damien is one of several dads you can romance in Dream Daddy. I love his entire aura; Victorian gothic and with long, lush black hair. Damien is very casually included as trans in the game. It’s almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but only if you’re not paying attention or don’t know what a binder is, as he tells you that it feels amazing that he can wear period-appropriate binders. Still, if you missed it anyway, it was confirmed by one of the developers on Twitter.

45. Jackie — Night In The Woods (2017)
Jackie is a trans woman (and a goat) encountered in this indie darling, but if you got the game at launch you might not have known that. According to the developers it was always intended, but in re-writes and shuffles, the message was lost. She’s a radical anti-fascist punk and is vocal about her opinions. Her trans identity is information that was patched into the Weird Autumn release, with Jackie now being referenced as being in a band called Trans World Order Give Them Hell.

46. The Knight — Hollow Knight (2017)
The Vessels of Hollow Knight are all genderless, and the protagonist, simply called the Knight, is no different. In a Reddit AMA, the developers were asked about the gender of the Knight and the Vessels. They confirmed that the protagonist is explicitly genderless, and expressed their belief that it was fantastic that non-binary players felt empowered by the representation of a genderless character. 

47. Vilia — The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (2017)
Only women are allowed to enter Gerudo Town, but Link must get inside. The answer to this lies in obtaining traditional Gerudo clothing from Vilia, who you meet whilst chasing the rumor of a man who knows how to sneak into the town. If you accuse Vilia of being a man, she becomes upset. If you compliment her, she’ll instead agree to sell women’s clothing to you. A gust of wind will blow back the veil on Vilia’s face, shocking Link. She falls hard into bigoted caricatures of trans women being men who are only pretending to be women to get into women-only spaces, and it’s a disappointing moment.

48. Kris — Deltarune (2018)
Toby Fox’s Undertale follow-up released its first chapter in 2018 and hasn’t been updated yet. However, there’s been plenty of debate and discussion around Kris in the years since. When booting up the game, the player gets to walk through a character creator before the game promptly tosses said character away and you start the game as Kris. They’re exclusively referred to in-game with gender neutral language and pronouns, similar to Undertale’s Frisk. No matter the intent behind this use of language, it has created a functionally non-binary protagonist.

49. Madeline — Celeste (2018)
This game is one of the more critically acclaimed indie platformers out there, pairing beautiful art and level design with a wonderful story and replayability. The epilogue of the game has a brief moment where the iconic rainbow flag is at Madeline’s desk, along with (more notably) the trans flag. This is a small gesture that has enough vagueness for people to argue that Madeline isn’t trans. Regardless, a sizable portion of the fandom has taken it on board that Madeline is a trans woman. I read it this way too, especially as members of the development team identify as trans and nonbinary themselves.

50. Rosetta Valeriano — Valkyria Chronicles 4 (2018)
Rosetta is a Scout unit in this tactical role-playing game. Along with being a capable soldier with long blonde hair, Rosetta appears to be non-binary. The English translation of the game goes to pains to avoid using gendered language for them. Additionally, Rosetta’s biography describes them as “presenting feminine” and “preferring women’s clothing”, but having been born with the name “Rossano”.

51. Zoe — Monster Prom (2018)
Monster Prom is a dating game and visual novel, but all your romantic options are monsters. This includes Zoe, whose romance was added in the Second Term DLC. She’s a trans woman who used to be an asexual, agender Eldritch deity who previously used it/its pronouns. Zoe is a unique twist as a non-human trans story that still pays respects to the inherent humanity in its story. She’s also voiced by a trans actor: Casey Mongillo, making Monster Prom one of the first popular games to have a trans actor playing a trans character.

52. Haru — One Night, Hot Springs (2018)
This short itch.io game garnered some attention after its release for its depiction of being a transgender woman in Japan. You make choices as Haru, the young woman and protagonist, usually between being anxious and reserved or being open and truthful. She’s worried about going to a hot springs because she hasn’t had gender-affirming surgery yet, and is afraid of making people uncomfortable. It’s a game that shows the importance of an accepting environment, and the differences in culture and attitudes that inform the experience of a trans woman in Japan.

53. Bloodhound — Apex Legends (2019)
Respawn Entertainment’s free-to-play battle royale has at least two LGBTQ+ characters. One of those is Bloodhound, who was confirmed by a community manager to be non-binary. They’re a deliberately mysterious character, described as “one of the greatest game hunters the Frontier has ever seen – and that’s about all anyone knows.” They’re voiced by Allegra Clark, who has gone to efforts to point out that she’s a cis woman and re-iterate that Bloodhound is non-binary.

54. Rin — Catherine: Full Body (2019)
Rin is introduced in the re-release and expansion of 2011’s Catherine, known as Catherine: Full Body. I’ve also seen this called a “soft remake”, which seems apt. Rin can marry the main character if you follow his route, but not before you’re put through an entire “trans panic” storyline where Vincent will freak out about Rin’s gender and body. Before this reveal, Rin is given she/her pronouns; after the reveal, Rin is given he/him pronouns. Even when Erica, who I talked about in Part One, for the original Catherine entry, scolds Vincent for being cruel to Rin, the game never quite embraces kindness in its approach to trans characters. Oh, and Rin’s secretly an alien, so there’s that too.

55. Ladiva — Granblue Fantasy Versus (2020)
Ladiva is a pro wrestler and playable character in the Granblue Fantasy games. She’s a trans woman, a role model, a caring person, a bartender, and she’s treated by the game as a woman. She’s happy in her body. Whilst “bearded woman” can be considered offensive stereotyping, given Ladiva’s overall content with her state of being and her personhood, I find that she just appears to be a trans woman who is content not to pass. It’s important to normalize more women who, regardless of being trans or cis, are masculine or have facial hair. They exist. Plus, she’s overwhelmingly fun to look at.

56. Kasio — If Found (2020)
We just recently reviewed this game as part of Pride Month. You play through the game as Kasio, a trans woman in 1983, experiencing her life as a hand-drawn visual novel through her diary. It has beautiful graphics and music, and describes itself as a coming of age story about finding friends, family and yourself as the end of the world draws in.

57. Lev — The Last Of Us Part II (2020)
Lev is motion captured and voiced by trans actor Ian Alexander in Naughty Dog’s controversial The Last Of Us follow-up. He’s young but staunch about his trans identity, and is a member of a community that doesn’t welcome him. He shaves his head to look like “one of the men”, at which point he’s forced to flee his community. Funny, snarky, and talented, Lev is a welcome (if long overdue) character for AAA games. He’s never misgendered in game, although a few times he is dead-named. That said, there’s a wonderful exchange between Lev and the player character, where he nervously expects her to ask him about his name and she tells him otherwise.

58. Tyler Ronan — Tell Me Why (2020)
Developed by Dontnod Entertainment, Tell Me Why is the story of two twins who return to their home in Alaska as they come to terms with the things that happened in their childhood. Tyler, one of the twins, is a trans man and a player character. Dontnod stated they worked with GLAAD to make him authentic, including bringing in a trans man, August Black, to voice him. Tyler is the future, however, Tell Me Why doesn’t yet have a release date. Tyler’s character has generated considerable buzz though.

That, friends, is that. Now we’re up to date, I want to talk about some honorable mentions. Characters like Sheik, Zelda’s masculine alter-ego and disguise from The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time (1998). Samus Aran from 1986’s Metroid, gets a mention for being assumed as a man until the closing moments of the game. She’s also 6’3”, which is great. Simon Jarrett, the protagonist of survival horror game SOMA (2015), inhabits two women’s bodies over the course of the game. 

Tessy LaFemme is a central character in Caper In The Castro, the 1989 detective game and one of the earliest explicitly LGBTQ+ games. She’s been erroneously referred to as a trans woman by the media before, but she’s a drag queen, as stated by the game and by the developer. Chevalier d’Éon appears in Assassin’s Creed Unity (2014), a fictionalized depiction of the real-life French diplomat and spy who lived their life alternately as a man and a woman. D’Éon may have been intersex.

Pesterquest, a 2019 spin-off visual novel in the Homestuck franchise, heavily implies Vriska Serket to be a trans woman, which has been confirmed outside of the narrative. Her route was also written by a trans woman. This was exciting to me, considering that there’s nothing about Vriska in Homestuck to really suggest that she’s trans, but she’d been allowed to be written that way anyway in an official game.

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake had Andrea and Jules Rhodea, the gender nonconforming siblings that Cloud meets on his mission to get into the Don Corneo Mansion. Jules is masculine with perfectly plucked eyebrows and a made up face, and Andrea is a svelte dancer with this wonderful line: “True beauty is an expression of the heart. A thing without shame, to which notions of gender don’t apply.”

The above are honorable mentions for a variety of reasons. They’re not trans and not exactly readable as such, or they’re either a historical figure or originate in other media. They may not warrant their own entry, but they contribute to depictions over years of gender nonconforming characters, which in turn contribute to trans depictions.

As trans and gender nonconforming people have gained visibility, player characters in video games have begun to respond. Some of this is explicitly trans, as Dream Daddy (2017) allows you to choose a binder as part of your character’s outfit. The Sims 4 (2014) updated its gender options as well. You still have to pick man or woman, but one can only hope for a non-binary update someday to provide deeper customization and the creation of trans characters. South Park: The Fractured But Whole (2017) allows you to explicitly play as a trans character as well. I’d argue against calling this well-done, though.

For the most part, rather than going in-depth with explicit trans identities, many games have shifted towards inclusive language and customization options. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020), instead of choosing male or female, you choose your style, which the game notes you can change later. In Battletech (2018), nothing is gender locked, so you can choose your appearance and your pronouns at will. Pokémon Go (2016) also puts forward choosing a style, rather than a gender. 

Upcoming games Cyperpunk 2077 and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 have also promised flexibility in terms of gender presentation, with body types and pronouns being up for selection. Combined with the inclusion of the first trans actors playing trans characters in video games, the future of the industry is looking positive; moving forward, not backwards.

I thought about trying to apply rigorous data and statistics to this series as a summary. After some reflection, I realized that it would undermine my point. Telling you what percentage of characters from this series die, how many are changed in re-releases and localisations, or are villains or love interests, doesn’t serve a meaningful purpose. I’ve explained in each entry the good, the bad, the confusing. Data is meaningful and indicative, but I think it can also be dehumanizing. That is also not to mention, this list remains incomplete, given that I couldn’t possibly dive into every indie game that features trans people. 

So I leave that to the statisticians. Instead, I want to remark on the overall trends. We’re still seeing too many characters who are “boys dressed as girls” with little meaningful commentary. Trans characters remain sometimes too subtle, or unconfirmed. That said, present and present poor depictions of trans characters can’t take away the fact that we’ve always been here and will continue to be here. It can’t take away the way we’re increasingly visible, increasingly accepted. On the whole, in terms of video game representation, we’re on the up and up.

I’d like to give one final thanks to the LGBTQ Video Game Archive, which was as always instrumental in the compilation of this list and was a great jumping off point for much research. Here’s to the future of trans characters in video games.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!