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 G.
Medium: An interactive text, created in Twine, which guides you through steps of making a drawing on a piece of paper.
About: This game "uses the art-making process to mirror the process of forming a gender identity, and invites players to think about their gender in ways that are unclear, abstract, potentially uncomfortable, and disconnected from a binary understanding of gender."
Content: Rated R. Sexual humor. Warning for dysphoria, despair, references to various sex acts and kinks, and examples of offensive and transphobic messages. Please remember that it is never too late to transition.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. It can run in your web browser. About five minutes to explore all of it.
About: The game designer wrote,
"This is a curation of Grindr messages I've received. Each of these hold personal significance to me, and I hope that you enjoy reading them as much as I did."
Queer themes: Transgender men. Transgender women
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Book. Zine. A short comic book.
Genre: Fiction. Fantasy.
About: This is a side story for the fantasy comic series White Noise, set in the same multiverse. One shapeshifter teaches to another a spell that makes it so that they will keep their clothes when they transform.
Queer themes: Transgender characters. The hazards of coming out.
Vibe: Found family.
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: Book. Zine.
Length: Nine pages, with covers.
About: Hysterectomy can be a part of bottom surgery for transgender men and trans masculine people. This zine explains more about it.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Book.
Genre: Nonfiction.
Length: About a ten minute read.
About: An anthology of illustrations and comics by nonbinary people about what it's like to be nonbinary for them. As described by the creator:
"The nonbinary experience is unique to each individual. No two people are going to experience gender in the exact same way, much like they won’t experience the world in the same way. That said, in a world literally built against recognizing and accommodating us, a lot of our experiences are going to overlap.
"Through this project I wanted to explore the (ironically named) duality of being nonbinary: that our struggles are often shared, but our identities and selves are entirely unique. I wanted to tackle themes of intersectionality, the use of labels and symbolism, self discovery, dysphoria and euphoria, education, and more."
Vibe: A variety of different feelings, each brief and vivid.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Book. Zine. Full color. There is a version for reading on screen, and a version for printing, with instructions for how to print it.
Length: Eight pages. About a ten minute read.
Genre: Nonfiction.
About: As described by the author, "Trans Dog is an eight page zine that was created at a trans themed zine making workshop using supplies and images provided by the Library of Virginia. It relates trans experiences to therianthropy, and encourages the reader to consider if they, too, would be happier identifying as non-human."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Book. Zine. Full color.
Genre: Nonfiction.
Length: Ten pages.
About: Advice for how to change your legal name and gender in the US.
Vibe: A cool friend brings a fun attitude to a no-nonsense path through bureaucracy.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A mini zine comic.
About the loss of words for transgender people and colors.
Vibe: Survival.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Amulets to print and fold.
About: As described by the artist, "These 2.5" square amulet cards were inspired by (and incorporate) Vivid 'Viv' Young's beautiful 'Blessing of Protection for Traveling While Trans/Gender Non-conforming' from Tefilat Trans. They also include text from Psalms 121 & 91, as well as Jewish angelic characters & symbols of protection."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
Length: 31 pages.
About the artist's "experiences growing up as a trans kid with an unsupportive family, discovering myself and transitioning as an adult."
Content: Rated G. Description of discriminatory attitudes against transgender people.
Medium: Zine. There is a version for reading on screen, and another for printing.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Perzine.
About: The zinester tells about his personal experiences as a trans man who had a bad time with getting outed, why he prefers being stealth (living as a man without others knowing that he is transgender). He explains some things that more people need to understand about how it is okay to be stealth.
Queer themes: Transgender men.
Adding to this reviewer's hand-curated collections: LGBTQIA printable zines; LGBTQIA - rated G; Transgender; Trans men and trans masculine people; LGBTQIA nonfiction.
Content: Rated G. WARNING FOR FLASHING LIGHTS AND SCREEN SHAKE.
Medium: A computer game. It runs in your browser.
About: Try to get through the maze. An abstract metaphor for passing. After you play it, I recommend that you do a web search for some reviews of it to see how others experienced and interpreted it.
Vibe: An ordeal.
Content: Rated G. Except for drug references on page 56.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Fiction. Comedy. Furry.
About: As described by the cartoonist,
"This book collects the first year of Rae the Doe comics, chronicling the life and times of Rae the Doe, from meeting her girlfriend Mimi to coming out as trans to unionizing a haunted house. This book has it all: off-beat, wholesome jokes, a cast of loveable characters and lots and lots of puns. With over 200 pages, five never before seen book-exclusive comics, character bios, and a few other bonuses, this book has it all. Wait, I already said that. Ah, it's worth repeating. This book has it all."
Queer themes: Many characters are various colors of queer. The main character is a gay transgender woman who has a bisexual girlfriend.
Vibe: Laugh-out-loud funny.
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-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.
