I first laid my hands on a copy of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim when I was in my early 20s. I was beyond excited; I’d been hankering after my own copy for years. I had put in hours watching videos exploring the RPG game’s vast open world, and I had been immediately enamoured with the lifelike natural environment contained within the game.
When I finally got my hands on my very own copy, it wasn’t the world itself that sparked my enthusiasm; it was the ability to design my own avatar completely from scratch that got my heart racing. I stayed up all night by the dim light of my laptop creating my character. I opted for an androgynous elven warrior. It was the closest I had ever felt to my true gender.
I spent most of my life in Belgium; I grew up in a rural area not far from the Dutch border. Belgium has a reputation for being progressive when it comes to LGBTIQ+ rights: it was the second country in the world to legislate marriage equality in 2003, we elected a gay Prime Minister in 2011, and the country has some of the most progressive trans rights in the world. But when I was growing up in the 90s, navigating Belgian society as a young queer person was still tough: queerness wasn’t talked about, let alone discussed in detail. It definitely wasn’t portrayed in a positive light. The few times I did hear people did talk about queerness, it was often in a derisive manner where queer people were the butt of cruel jokes. We were nothing more than a punchline.
The few times I did hear people did talk about queerness, it was often in a derisive manner where queer people were the butt of cruel jokes.
Growing up with a bowl cut and a penchant for ‘boyish’ activities – I loved climbing trees, doing woodwork, and gaming – I felt like I was constantly being measured against the ‘real’ girls in my class. I knew I was different, but I also knew better than to speak up about it. Rather than talk to my friends or family, I searched for signs of queerness in the hidden cracks of my day. I lurked on online forums in the middle of the night while my family was asleep, and I snuck queer books from the library, reading them in solitary secrecy. The one place truly that alleviated my feelings of being trapped and alienated was, however, video games.
It was only once I’d entered the virtual worlds of Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Skyrim, that I felt respected for my strength of character over my appearance. Online, nobody knew what I looked like. I could be anyone I wanted. It was an eye-opening experience. The virtual and fantastical world of games became a welcome escape from my heavily gendered day-to-day reality.
The virtual and fantastical world of games became a welcome escape from my heavily gendered day-to-day reality.
While I was playing Skyrim, I had my character buy an Amulet of Mara. Wearing this amulet signals to other characters that you’re interested in marriage and allows non-playable characters to express their interest in you. Long before I was out to my friends and family, my Skyrim character owned a house and was married to a fierce female warrior, while I was still deep in the closet. It allowed me to test out the fantasies I’d dreamed of but had been too terrified to act upon in the real world. It was the perfect no-risk environment in which to explore relationships with women. In that way, Skyrim offered me the training wheels I needed for living my life as an out and proud queer person.
Video games reflected an image of myself that I was yet to achieve, but desperately longed for. Through the guise of a different name, appearance, and virtual life, I was able to come out to myself first before anyone else. Games allowed me to figure out what I wanted from life and offered me a glimpse of a world where I could be happy, just as I was.
