Sexual diversity in video games

Hey, I do believe there is an episode of extra credits that deals with sexuality though

I like Veronica in Fallout: New Vegas. She's cute, she can wear Brotherhood of Steel power armor, she likes to punch things, and she has a cool story. She's gay (or maybe bi, but it seems more like she's gay), and it does get mentioned in her backstory a little bit, but it's not really a defining characteristic and she's not a stereotype at all. (Arcade, in the same game, is also gay, but I haven't recruited him yet since I'm still finishing Veronica's quests.)

Too bad there are so few trans characters. Birdo from Super Mario Bros. 2 was intended as a joke ("he thinks he's a girl and would prefer to be called Birdetta", urgh--she's a bit better now, though), Poison from Final Fight is problematic and was included because "it's not okay to hit a woman in Nintendo games, but it's okay to hit a transsexual woman," and Bridget from Guilty Gear seems rather offensive and absurd as well. Oh, and Dragon Age: Origins has a transsexual female prostitute with a male voice actor who isn't even trying and apparently puts gender-specific references to her in dick quotes ("female" rather than female, for instance.)

Samus Aran was originally assumed to be male until she took off her helmet at the end of the first Metroid game, and I know quite a few trans women who like her a lot for various reasons. (Like, she wears this bulky, awkward armor to protect herself and gets seen as male because of it, but is actually one of the first badass female video game heroes. I've heard other trans women refer to their "boysuit" as serving as their "power armor" when they were growing up.)

There are some poorly written characters, too. I know he is supposed to come off as comedic relief from how dark the rest of the storyline is, but I found the shopkeeper in the Shadow Hearts series slightly offensive.

Mara said:

Too bad there are so few trans characters. Birdo from Super Mario Bros. 2 was intended as a joke ("he thinks he's a girl and would prefer to be called Birdetta", urgh--she's a bit better now, though), Poison from Final Fight is problematic and was included because "it's not okay to hit a woman in Nintendo games, but it's okay to hit a transsexual woman," and Bridget from Guilty Gear seems rather offensive and absurd as well. Oh, and Dragon Age: Origins has a transsexual female prostitute with a male voice actor who isn't even trying and apparently puts gender-specific references to her in dick quotes ("female" rather than female, for instance.)

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Clarification question: by "tans characters" your referring to transsexuals, right? I'm a tad confused, as Bridget is biologically a boy, self-identifies as a boy, but has been dressed, brought up and named as a girl (for reasons I don't know).

The reason I'm asking is that Bridget has always confused me. I often feel uncomfortable with cliché portrayals of the non-hetronormative. Shadowhearts, which darkprincelain mentions, is a main offender. With Bridget I felt like I should feel uncomfortable, as they clearly play cross-dressing for the laughs. But somehow I actually came to like him. He comes across as incredibly naive, sheltered and oblivious. He corrects everyone on the spot, if they think he's a girl, but it's very hard to make out how he feels, because he keeps up the same stoned drone, even when the words suggest he's upset. It's like he's got that frozen, pleasant exterior - like some sort of protective shell. Sort of like the razor studded teddy bear he uses as a weapon. Yup, he's absurd, but in the context of a game that's pretty absurd to begin with.

I realise I'm defending him, here, which wasn't my original intention. I thought of editing the post, but then I thought I'd let it stand, as it shows the instinctive reaction I have towards him pretty well. I found myself surprised of how fond I grew of him. (Guilty Gear XX is one of my favourite fighting games for the sheer absurdity and self-irony of it.)

So, with respect to your post I'm wondering: (a) did you use "trans" as "transsexual", and weren't aware that Bridget self-identifies as a boy, or (b) were you using the term more broadly, including tansvestites? But more generally, I'm wondering whether me liking Bridget means I'm missing something about the way he's being portrayed.

With Bridget, I'm mostly going by what other people have said, that his gender and presentation is mostly played for laughs and for the "eew, it's a trap" punchline, but maybe that's just what some fans have done and not what the designers intended. But I probably overstated a bit, and it's totally okay if you like him. (Heck, I like Poison, despite the laundry list of problems.)

In most video games, the lines between transsexual and transgender and crossdressed are pretty much non-existent due to ignorance on the part of game designers, so I'm grouping them together kinda. Sorry for being unclear. (For an example, Poison is obviously a transsexual woman, because she identifies as a woman and is on hormones and may have had surgery, but official word from her designers at Capcom has been a confused, transphobic babble that simultaneously calls her a crossdresser, transsexual woman, and something very degrading. (According to the Wikipedia entry, the designer said the American version is transsexual but the Japanese version "tucks away her business" to "appear female," as if a pre-op/non-op trans woman is not a woman or transsexual.)

@Mara: Thanks for the clarification.

@Shadow Dragon: Thanks for the background info, both about the character and internet reaction.

Typing up the above post has helped me think things through. I think I know why he confused me so much: GG modelled him after the stereotypical bishounen, rather than after the comedy-trap, but the name/clothes sort of overshadow that. At least I think so, now.