The Joy Of Transgender Role-Playing
It always strikes me as strange that some gamers play every race, character class, and minute variation that their favorite system has to offer, yet never dare vary the gender of their character from their own. (There's nothing wrong with having a favored character gender any more than there is with having a favorite race or class; I'll admit that I like playing women better, but at least I've tried playing men too!) But the great majority of gamers I've met are at least receptive to opposite-gender characters, so I won't even get into that issue here! The point I want to make is that, like every other nuance of role-playing, there is a right and wrong way to run a character with chromosomes that don't match yours.
First
of all, a transgender character needs to be as realistic as any other
character. Gender stereotypes are
never any fun in gaming, but they're that much worse when a member of the
opposite sex is perpetrating them. I
once participated in a Shadowrun campaign where two male players decided to
play women, and were quite fond of mentioning this to me at every chance. I was impressed until they actually played
the characters, and both (they were made separately, may I add!) turned out to
be one-dimensional vicious, butch, man-hating lesbians who walked around with
katanas threatening to cut off men's genitalia for relatively little
reason. The players insisted on referring
to them as "strong women."
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this characterization if the
character has a good reason to be so, but these women were nothing more than
caricatures. Please, please, give your
transgender characters as good a personality as you would give any other.
People
who play transgender characters also need our respect, both in and out of the
game. Not only is it incredibly
difficult to role-play a different sex in addition to a different persona,
messing with gender in this way can take a lot of guts for some people. I know that when I've played male characters
I've always felt a little nervous and tentative; what if the guys in my group
think I do a crappy job of playing their gender, or even worse are offended by it? Be mature about transgender role-playing;
it's nothing to giggle about for more than 30 seconds. And don't assume that people who role-play
outside their gender must be secretly gay.
I've seen this happen, and it's not necessarily true. This isn't that kind of fantasy, and most
likely the player just wanted a change.
Treat them like any other PC, and the experience will be that much
better for everyone involved.
Most
importantly, have fun playing your opposite-sex character. When and if you decide to go through with
it, you have a great opportunity to role-play situations you've never been in
before and expand your horizons as a gamer.
Some of them may be crazy, or even uncomfortable; I remember one
particularly interesting Shadowrun session when my (female) character got
smashed and made a pass at another female elf (being played by a male). Things were a little crazy until a third elf
separated them. But there's nothing
wrong with crazy new gaming situations; they're a breath of fresh air even if
you'd never repeat them. And is it really
any worse than hacking your way through a gaggle of zombies? I think I'd rather hit on a hot elven chick
any day. As a male character, that is. When the hot elven chick is being played by
a guy. Okay, this got overly
complicated. I'm going to shut up
now. (c:
**SIDE
NOTE: 10/08/00** Thanks so much to all of you
who have been emailing me about this column and my page in general--I really
appreciate it! I'd especially like to
thank Korgmeister, who made some very intelligent comments about gender and
role-playing and plays a wonderfully realistic female character (especially
considering that he himself is male!) Karen, his
character, is here. Check it out;
it's an example that applies many of the points I made in this article. Thanks once again, everyone!
Copyright
(c) 2000 by Beth Kinderman. This is my
original work, so please respect it.
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