Doing gender in game spaces

Transgender and non-binary players’ gender signaling strategies in online games

Bibliographic Data

ID6443535
AuthorsAiden J Kosciesza (0000-0002-5493-7128, Temple University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume27
Issue1
Pages5-23
Publication date2023-08-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14614448231168107
OpenAlexW4385618181
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited29

Transgender and non-binary people manage public perceptions of their genders not only in the material world, but also within the virtual worlds of online digital games. Game spaces offer a site of trans and non-binary embodiment that can be decoupled from the physical world, yet these spaces remain embedded in structures of cisnormative hegemony. In this exploratory study, I interviewed 10 players whose gender identities do not conform to the static male-female binary that is encoded, both literally and ideologically, in games. This work centers the experiences of non-cisgender people with particular attention to the differences in how virtual environments are approached by those who wish to present within binary gender/sex categories and those who do not. I consider both the features and the constraints of the digital game environment, and their implications for non-cisgender players’ processes of gender expression and identification

Exploratory research · Game studies · Hegemony · Ideology · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Transgender · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Psychology · Social Psychology

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