I’m a huge gamer. I play a lot of RPG (role playing games) video games. Most of the ones I play are create your own character. When I create my character I struggle with how I want my character to look. The reason for this is I am only given two body types to choose from male and female. I defer to the male body type, because this is the presentation I choose in my real life. But presentation doesn’t make up all of who I am. My pronouns are important to me too. However, in these games when you pick the body time you choose your pronoun. Whenever the game uses a pronoun to refer to your character it uses he/him/his or she/her/hers based on who you pic. I hope one day there will be a choice for what pronouns you choose to use.
I love to play Dungeons and Dragons. I used to play all the time before covid. I had the same group that I played with every other Saturday. If you find the right group to play with and have the right DM (dungeon master) you can play as a non-binary character. The reason it important to find the right group is because with some DM’s they totally don’t get the non-binary pronouns and have trouble adapting to using non-binary pronouns when referring to your character. There are even some modules that have been written that include non-binary and other LGBTQ character, but encountering them depends on the route that the group of people you play with or how the DM decides to role play these characters. If the DM role plays these characters totally wrong you would never know you came across them. So I guess what I’m trying to say is with Dungeons and Dragons it is almost like the real world your experience in the game depends are the people that you play with awareness of non-binary pronouns.
I have also talked about the mobile game that I play and how I have taught the people that I play with about pronouns. This has been an amazing experience, because it has shown me that people are willing to learn. My experience during this game sometimes has been better than my real life. I can’t explain why, but it seams like the people I play with in this place are able to use the pronouns I ask ask them to use. I have contemplated that the reason for this is that these people didn’t know me before I started using my name as my pronouns so they haven’t developed the habit of using she/her/hers as my pronoun.
With all this said I did do a little research of if there are games out there that do a better job with character creation when it come to video games. I found an article in GAMERANT that talked about a game 2064: Read Only Memories. The article stated that when creating your character they include a non-binary option. I have included the link to the article if you would like to read about more games that have included options for non-binary characters. I would have never realized that these games existed if I hadn’t gone looking for them. The gaming community needs to do a better job of making gamers aware that these cames exist.
Hear, hear! Thanks for doing the extra research. And I suspect you're right about folks who didn't know you before adopting the pronoun/s more easily. Do they see or hear you, and for the ones who do, do you think that makes it easier or harder for them? Just wondering what your experience is. Some transgender and nonbinary folks find that their physical appearance (height, for instance) or voice (particularly high or particularly low) lead people to instant assumptions of gender that are hard to overcome, sometimes even for people who intend to honor pronouns but maybe haven't had much practice yet.