I remember the moment I realized what the Wall Market section of Final Fantasy VIIwould actually entail. I was thirteen, and I nervously checked to see if anyone else was home.

Being trans brought with it this odd sense of obligation to protect a secret that at the time I wasn’t even aware I had. Looking back, it seems a little ridiculous, but I really was afraid someone could glean something like that about me, just from playing a game where the main character is forced to crossdress.

There is no single, universal trans narrative, but for most trans people, it takes quite a bit of our life before we’re able to conceptualize our experiences in the same way we do once we’ve come out to ourselves. I didn’t conceive of myself as “being a girl” as a child; I didn’t know that was possible. I knew, at the time, that I deeply wanted to be a girl, but I had no idea what that meant, and I had a vague but persistent notion that whatever this feeling was, I shouldn’t acknowledge or discuss it. I know now that I was a girl, but that understanding and framing only came much later.

Crossdressing is most certainly not the same experience as being trans, but strict expectations about gender conformity and “acceptable” expression absolutely do affect trans people. Many of us live a significant portion of our lives believing the lie society tells us, that our assigned sex is “who we are”, and as such may mistakenly interpret our own choices as “crossdressing”, only later able to realize what was truly going on.

Positive portrayals of both crossdressing and trans characters in games are becoming more and more common, even just within the past year or so. A recent Guild Wars 2patch added a trans woman character. At E3, footage of The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes showed hero Link wearing a “Zelda dress”.

This wasn’t presented in a judgemental way, far from it—a fundamental mechanic of the game is acquiring new outfits to use new abilities. Link’s wearing a dress isn’t played for laughs; it’s just another outfit he can use to progress. It’s heartening seeing an explosion of art from fans not just accepting of this, but excited and ecstatic about it.

There have, unfortunately, been a good number of missteps along the way as well. Many players were excited that clothing wouldn’t be restricted by sex in Fallout 4, but the trailer played “man in a dress” for laughs.

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