Growing up queer is the Dark Souls of adolescence. Not only are you thrust into a complicated world no one understands, but suddenly everyone tries to flatten you with their big monster fists because the person you want to have a consensual relationship with happens to be a bit different. While in Dark Souls you discover the dodge roll to survive, in real life I discovered video games. Yet it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realised the way it helped formed my identity as a gay, queer man. Because games aren’t some nebulous feeling; they are a force pushing and changing all it comes into contact with, like the sea forms the coastline.
This isn’t just some games-as-art discourse: video games are being used in a clinical setting to explore sexual and gender identity. Licensed Clinical Social Worker Andrew Fishman explains in Psychology Today how the choice between “Boy” and “Girl” in Pokémon was the first time one client was given the opportunity to ask what gender they were. Another therapy client also discovered the cause of their dysphoria in Horizon: Zero Dawn. He writes: “Alex explained that it was more than the usual fun of overcoming a fast-paced challenge. Aloy’s long red hair, her clothing, even the way that she stood felt liberating.” He continues: “Alex had always been called a man but wasn’t sure why this felt uncomfortable. Exploring this was Alex’s first step toward understanding herself as a trans woman.”
