These are games, zines, and other materials about genderqueer and transgender people of all sorts: transgender women, transgender men, trans women, trans men, trans girls, trans boys, male-to-female transsexuals (MTF or M2F), female-to-male transsexuals (FTM or F2M), trans feminine (transfeminine or trans femme) people, trans masculine (transmasculine or trans masc) people, and people who are agender, bigender, ngenderfluid, nonbinary (enby), and more. The diversity of our voices is important in our creativity, and our solidarity makes us strong and wise.
This collection is part of my directory of other people's creations on itch.io, Curated Collections of LGBTQIA, where you can find more collections about other topics, and on specific sorts of transgender identities. I personally select and review each creation in them, even if they are different than my own views or experiences as a queer person myself.
Content: Rated R.
Medium: Zine. Full color. 18 pages, plus covers.
About: Reviews of dating simulation games. The zinester reflects on how people tend expect everything in that genre to be embarrassingly tacky and same-y, but it has much more variety, quality, and depth than most people would assume, and some can be very meaningful to the players in the emotions and opportunities for self-expression that they can welcome. The genre has beautiful love stories, silly comedies, and stories that are barely dating sims. Some involve sex, and some don't. Some are heteronormative, and some are queer. The zine recommends and gives thoughtful reviews for these dating sims:
Dream Daddy, An Easy Lay, Appeeling Personality, Hot Date, Hot Goths Murder Mystery Dating Sim, Snow Cones Episode 1 & 2, SpeedDemonz, Pop my corn, One night hot springs, Wrestling With Emotions, Dr. Frank’s Build-a-Boyfriend, Mermaid Splash.
Relevance to this collection: It has an essay about feeling gender euphoria from designing the player character in Dream Daddy, who can be a transgender man and/or gender nonconforming and visibly queer. Another game the zine recommends is One Night, Hot Springs, where the player character is a transgender woman.
Content: Rated PG-13. Content warnings for artistic nudity, swear words, needles, fantasy body horror (for example, robot bodies), insects, and menstruation.
Medium: Zine. Full color.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Anthology. Poetry. Art. Comics.
About: An anthology of poems, comics, collages, paintings, illustrations, and other creative works by many transgender men and trans masculine nonbinary artists from around the world.
Queer themes: Transgender men. Trans masculine. Nonbinary. Drag. Name change. Hormone therapy (Testosterone). Dysphoria. Transition. Top surgery. Gay trans men.
Content: Rated PG. Swear words.
Medium: Zine. Designed for reading on your screen, or printing.
About how other people perceive the zinester's gender.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About the cartoonist's day visiting a pride event.
Content: Rated PG. Illustrations are ancient statues with blood drawn on. WARNING FOR FLASHING LIGHTS IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE PAGE.
Medium: A full color zine.
About: Poetry about the zinester's anger at transphobia and his determination to survive it.
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: A tiny computer game created in Bitsy. It runs in your web browser.
Duration: You will be able to see everything in one play through, within 15 minutes.
About: Walk through a museum of charts and graphs that show the facts we know about transgender people, debunking some common misconceptions. The web page for this game cites sources for this information.
Queer themes: trans men, trans women, trans youth, intersex people, transition, transphobia, detransition, and restroom access.
Content: Rated R. Description of violence and discrimination against gay and transgender people. Description of suicidal ideation. Brief mentions of abuse and drugs.
Medium: Zine. Designed for reading on screen.
Genre and medium: Nonfiction. Memoir.
Length: 12 pages. A 15 minute read.
About: "A short memoir of a southern transman." This focuses on the aspects of the author's life story that have to do with transition, especially seeking hormones and confronting fears of transphobia.
Queer themes: Transgender men.
Vibe: Matter-of-fact, personal, heavy, with occasional humor. Reaching a place of hope and contentment after a long hard journey expecting the worst.
Content: Rated R. Graphic gore, blood, medical abuse, sex organs, cutting. History of oppression of various marginalized peoples. Harms that happened in real life, as well as fantasy body horror.
Medium: Zine. Full color collages. Designed for reading on screen.
About: This criticizes psychiatry's history of pathologizing people who are transgender and would have been considered spiritually attuned in non-western cultures. The degradation of people who are mentally ill was unified with the degradation of people who are queer.
Vibe: Painful, raw, defiant. Celebrating those of us who have been demeaned: in other words, queer pride.
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: A 16 page comic book.
About: The fan cartoonist remarks that many trans people such as herself liked the classic manga Ranma 1/2. In that martial arts comedy, the main character has been magically enchanted to change back and forth from boy to girl. Readers need some familiarity with the manga to appreciate this fan comic in which Ranma and friends have gone on hormones to live full-time as women.
Vibe: Sweet and fun.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine. 8 pages, with covers.
Genre and subject: Fan art created using collages of official or crew art of the characters.
About: This has a full-color scrapbook page about these four fictional characters who are queer in their canon, or at least according to their creators. Kieran Valentine from Monster High. Osana Najmi from Komi Can't Communicate. Luz Noceda from The Owl House. Bridget from Guilty Gear.
Vibe: Celebratory.
Content: Rated PG for swear words. Specific content warnings at the beginning of each chapter.
Medium: An illustrated interactive text created in Twine.
About: A semi-autobiographical story of a trans woman discovering that she is a plural system of dog therianthropes, and learning about that from her friends. Plural Stories review.
Content: Rated R, 18+. Warnings for police violence, PTSD, werewolf sex scenes, deaths of transgender people, discrimination against transgender women, and violence.
Medium: A lyric game.
Genre and subject: Fiction. Erotic horror.
About: You are a werewolf. Draw a map of your subways and document your efforts to love and survive in your city. Remember the other werewolves who you have lost or could lose any day. The narrating character is a trans woman werewolf. This game was written as a metaphor for some of the experiences of transgender women.
Vibe: Urban gore. Grief. Sensual. Tender. Visceral. Aesthetically powerful. Cathartic.
Content: Rated PG-13. Swear words. References to adult topics.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About: In the sequel to Don't Assume I'm Cis, the cartoonist continues to tell the story of his transition.
Vibe: The struggle between discouragement and hope. Choosing to be unstoppable.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About the cartoonist's experiences growing up, questioning his gender, and starting his social transition. At the time he made this comic, he felt the most comfortable describing himself as nonbinary. After this comic was finished, he figured out that he was a transgender man, which he wrote about in the sequel, Cisn't.
Queer themes: Social transition. Binding. Name change. Relationships. Coming out.
Content: Rated PG. Swear words.
Medium: A computer game created with Bitsy. It can run in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Comedy.
Length: About ten minutes.
About: "You're a rock. And a dude." Wander and talk with your inanimate object neighbors. You're the only one who isn't nonbinary. They don't get it.
Vibe: Silly.
Content: Rated G. Friendly for all ages.
Medium: Comic book. It reads from right to left.
Genre and subject: Fiction. Slice of life. Comedy. Romance.
About: "There's a man who keeps getting new names tattooed onto his arm... What the deal with him?"
Queer themes: Transgender men. Men loving men. Bisexual. Coming out. Transition.
Vibe: Sweet, cute, romantic.
Content: Rated G. Friendly for all ages.
Medium: A computer game. It can run in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Platformer. Arcade.
About: Defend your home from the dysphoria monsters by collecting gender-affirming clothes that empower you to fight back against them.
Vibe: Cute, fun.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine. Designed for reading on screen. Full color.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
About: "A motivational PDF file zine for transgender people struggling to engage in activism." In short, whenever it's too hard to fight your oppressors, keep on existing, connecting with community, and making art.
Vibe: Hurt/comfort. Reassuring.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Mini zine. Designed for printing on a single sheet of paper.
About: "... a mini-zine love letter to the trans community ... Sigils are magic images created out of statements of intent: they amplify meaning and can be used to help direct energy and action. These sigils were created from trans-positive text provided by friends & strangers."
Vibe: Occult theme. Queer positive.
Content: Rated G. Warning for needles.
Medium: Zine.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Poetry.
About: "a poem about being transsexual and the divine right of kings, by seraf/michael/tm"
Vibe: Defiant, empowered.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Solo journaling TTRPG.
Length: The instructions are two pages long, including cover.
Story: "You are a hermit crab who has grown out of their shell. It is time to find a new one, however scary that may be." This is a metaphor for transition.
Vibe: Reflective, anticipatory, cute.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
About gender euphoria (feeling good about how others see you because it aligns with your sense of your real self), gender dysphoria (feeling a painful dissonance between your sense of your real self and how others see you), and sexism. Some of this zine is about these things in general, or how it's experienced by people of various genders, and some of it is about the personal experiences of the zinester, a transgender man.
Vibe: Informative.
Content: Rated PG-13. Warnings: needles; gender dysphoria; description of transphobic and sexist attitudes.
Medium: Personal zine. Designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir. Prose.
About: The zinester's personal history of being a trans man.
Vibe: Dysphoria and determination.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Physical game. One page of instructions.
Length: A few minutes.
About: "Third Option is a simple game about reaching outside the options you're given. It takes the form of a conversation (written, spoken, or otherwise), and requires no extra materials. Recommended as an icebreaker, idle distraction, or grounding exercise."
Vibe: Thoughtful, playful.
Curator's note: The game doesn't mention nonbinary genders, but personally I think it's ideal for getting that idea across, and for sharpening the skill of thinking outside of other boxes.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A single page of instructions for a physical game. Use an ordinary set of tumbling tower blocks which are best known under the brand name Jenga.
Length: Many days.
About: "A long form, real time, tumbling tower solo game."
Queer themes: Questioning. Nonbinary. Gender.
Vibe: Productive.
Content: Rated PG. Swear words.
Medium: Computer game. It runs in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Platformer. Comedy.
About: Inspired by the designer's personal experience! Run and jump to pick up all the estrogen pills that you spilled. With some surprising twists.
Vibe: Humor. Cute.
Content: Rated PG-13 or R. Partial nudity and kink gear.
Medium: 6-page mini zine. Illustrations. Textless. There is a version designed for reading on screen, and another that you can print and fold.
About: Illustrations of the artist's trans friends and partners. They're engaged in realistic everyday scenes of peaceful affection: bringing a bottle of water, kissing in a garden, sharing lunch after a kink scene, putting together furniture, and cooking a meal.
Vibe: Cozy. Queer positive. Feel good.
Content: Rated PG.
Medium: A comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About how the authors experience the intersection between their genders and their Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Mini zine. Full color. Designed for printing on one sheet of paper and folding.
About the basics of what it means to be genderfluid.
Content: Rated R. Has some explicit sexual art. Internalized homophobia.
Medium: Zine. Illustrated.
About: A personal zine about discovering being gay and trans.
