LGBT Representation in Games – Our Experiences

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In celebration of LGBT History Month, here are some LGBT+ representations from games we enjoy.

This LGBTQ+ History Month, we would like to share some of the LGBTQ+ representation in games, that felt important to our team here at the NVM.

Here are a few stories from some of our team here at the National Videogame Museum. We would love to hear yours too! Get in touch with us over on Twitter, or on Facebook.

Imo, Crew Supervisor and PhD Researcher with the Museum

Mass Effect was the first game I ever played in which I explicitly interacted with queerness. It was not just a game in which queer relationships were possible, it was a game which also depicted a masculinity, a butchness, in Commander Shepard which I had never seen in a woman before. She was bold, quick witted and in control. As a teenager I was in awe of her; a little terrified and a little in love. Mass Effect was a game where you saved the universe, where your actions were meaningful, where you went up against the impossible. I cannot think of another game in which I got to experience butchness and sapphic desire and I also got to be the hero.

Lex, Curatorial Team

I give The Sims series, and in particular The Urbz: Sims in the City, a whole lot of credit for normalising queer relationships for me as a teen. I didn’t really have any fears around coming out, or worry that being queer was ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’, and part of that is because queer relationships just happened in the Sims. Nothing to unlock, no cheat codes or software trickery, and most importantly no negative reactions or impacts in game. It was always just another option. I played The Urbz: Sims in the City on GameCube a lot when I was younger, as The Sims didn’t work on our family computer. I may have started a love triangle and caused all sorts of aggravation for some of the poor NPCs! But I didn’t set out to form same-sex relationships between my Urb and their fellows, it just happened, and it was great!

If you would like to learn more about LGBTQ+ representation in games, here is a collection of tweets regarding LBGTQ+ representation in games that we covered in 2020. Click on the below tweet to find out more:

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