How & Why to Design for (Trans)gender Euphoria

Description

Many transgender (and cisgender) people experience gender euphoria – satisfaction and relief caused by self-actualisation and gender congruence – a term that has been overlooked by the design community. Video games offer intense experiences involving identities, bodies, and social interaction, providing opportunities to empower people through gender euphoria. In the present world stage, where trans people are being vilified, games can offer an excellent means of creating safe places for expression that raise up trans voices. This talk offers insights into how designers can go about developing trans-inclusive game designs that prioritise gender euphoria. Even if a game is not explicitly about identities or characters, there are many take-aways here!

We develop themes for creating and supporting gender euphoria in games within the Design, Dynamics, Experience Game Design Framework from a reflexive thematic analysis of 25 games. The analysis combines the researchers' positionalities as trans gamers and game developers with close reading and content analysis of the games, employing perspectives from critical discourse analysis. We contribute an operational understanding of gender euphoria to support design through themes that designers can use to develop new games and analyse existing ones.

To support gender euphoria in games, designs should offer players ways to express themselves and provide positive transgender representation, extending into how players exist socially, online. Resulting dynamic game states then can enable trust between player and game, where players feel safe. These dynamics result in experiences where players see themselves reflected in gameplay and are situated in gameworlds where they connect with other players and characters.

Period	7 Oct 2025
Event title	Games Connect Asia Pacific 2025
Event type	Conference
Conference number	2025
Location	Melbourne, Australia, VictoriaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International