Trans Artist Bringing Diversity To Video Games


Studio Fawn, a small L.A.-based development company is working to create more diversity in the video game world by introducing a transgender character in Bloom: Memories, based on an unreleased graphic novel by Dani Landers (pictured above), a transgender woman and one of Studio Fawn's chief creative minds. Among the many characters populating Bloom is Ilana, the first transgender character in a RPG. Players will be introduced to Ilana after she has transitioned and struggling to find her identity.

“The idea for Bloom actually started shortly before I began transitioning,” says Landers. “As my life was changing and I was dealing with transition, I guess I naturally started to express those experiences through the character and game designs of Bloom. Since I was transitioning, Ilana was one of the first characters and stories I had created in the Bloom world.”

“When I found out that trans women have never really existed in a mainstream game outside of a casual footnote, I realized Ilana's story was more important than I had thought,” Landers says. “She went from being just a cool character I could relate to, to a character that needed her story to be told.”

Landers isn't lying. While I'm not as much of gamer as I used to be, coming across LGBT characters in video games was like jumping down a hole and expecting to get an extra man (if you caught that reference then we're here *makes I'm watching you motion with fingers*). But seriously, if any video game genre is going to open the floodgates for LGBT inclusion, it'll likely be RPGs, since most create vast fantasy worlds filled with a wide cast of characters and have elaborate, adventure-based story lines.

Read the full article HERE.

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