Why are trans people so good at videogames? For being a tiny percentage of the population, we’ve sure made a name for ourselves—from trans players like Ricki Ortiz and UMISHO becoming some of the world’s best fighting game players to trans speedrunners making strides in nearly every leaderboard, trans people are everywhere in competitive games. Hell, whenBut why? It seems too disproportionate to be a coincidence, but there’s nothing inherent about being trans that leads to supreme gaming skill.
It’s 2024. I finally figured out why it felt like something was off, like something was wrong with me. Unidentified gender dysphoria is a tricky beast. It hides in plain sight, in places that are obvious in hindsight but confounding in the moment. It’s a never-ending voiceless cry that, despite its near-silence, still drowns out the world around you. How do you find self-worth, self-purpose, in this state?“I think that a lot of trans people are in the position where we feel bad about ourselves.
Which brings up another thing that draws trans people to these circles: community. For trans people who are often gatekept from real-life communities, the freeing anonymity of online-heavy gaming circles fits perfectly. While hardcore game scenes have developed a somewhat accurate reputation for toxicity and misogyny, there is some nuance to that. Gaming is a vast medium, with a huge number of communities with widely varying cultures.