The rights of LGBTQ students are still being fought for across the country, whether it's push back against Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in Ontario and Saskatchewan or a Catholic Bishop in Calgary calling a transgender student rights bill "totalitarian."
But these high-level battles are being fought among grown-ups. In classrooms and hallways, the efforts are more about simply normalizing each students' experience with their sexuality and gender identity, which is where the Toronto-made dating sim video game "LongStory" comes in.
Currently being showcased in the "Indie Megabooth" at this week's Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, "LongStory" actually started out as a female-focused project before broadening its gameplay to include gender fluidity.
"It started out from the desire to help teen girls," explained Miriam Verburg, CEO and sole full-time staffer of micro-indie Bloom Digital, before heading west to GDC 2016. "I'm a woman and most women will tell you they had a pretty harsh time when they were teenagers. But it was also always about how to be whoever you are, and that includes if you are queer or exploring or unsure."
During playtesting, she took the LGBTQ-friendly game to a queer-positive drop-in centre, and they all wanted to know why you could only play as a girl. When Verburg asked if they should include boys, "they said 'no, you should have boys and girls and trans people.'"
Since "LongStory" is an episodic mobile game, they were able to add more gender options when the second episode came out, allowing players to pick female-presenting or male-presenting avatars as well as their preferred pronoun, be it she, he or they. From there you can also decide during the game the gender identity of the person you want to date.
After all, it is a dating sim.
The game's origin story begins at a Ladies Learning Code meet-up, where a friend of Verburg was showing her a dating game she had on her phone.
"I was getting really annoyed by it because it was so stupid," she recalled. "It was just really typical and heteronormative and incredibly boring. I started saying 'these are stupid and no one should play them' and she said 'they're really popular, though, and you can't tell people not to play a game that they like just because you think it's stupid.'"
So instead she decided to make a better one.
Influenced by the tragedies of Rehteah Parsons in Nova Scotia and Amanda Todd in B.C., Verburg started working on a progressive dating sim that could incorporate anti-bullying, social anxiety and boundary setting as a means of helping teens make it through high school.
"It's very small in comparison to, say, curing cancer but teaching teenagers to respect each other in a way that's healthy is probably pretty good for them," she said.
"LongStory" was an instant hit when it launched in the spring of 2014, clocking 10,000 downloads in its first two months. The first episode introduced the player-character as a new student at Weasel Heights, where you must "navigate the social landscape," including a trio of mean girls known collectively as Hanniferjane, and solve the mystery of what happened to the previous student who used your locker.
The second episode introduced the groundbreaking neutral approach to gender as well as the first opportunity to go on a date with your crush, while the third one brought in the romantic and social complications inherent to any teenage dance party. Verburg said these three episodes were setting the stage for the idea that you could be trans.
Then in the fourth episode, which arrived last December, the game got its first trans character, Em, and the story centred around the fallout of a family's discomfort with their daughter dating the trans-identified teen.
"The next episode is going to address queer and trans issues a bit more strongly," Vergurg added. "In episode five you spend more time learning about how Em identifies, and Em spends more time speaking to the principal of the school talking about things like washroom preferences."
"LongStory" Reactions
(01 of06)
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Feedback Debra Boyce MD(02 of06)
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Feedback from new father(03 of06)
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Feedback re Helped my life(04 of06)
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Feedback re hope and job(05 of06)
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Feedback re racial diversity(06 of06)
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The lack of diversity in gaming has become an issue in the industry -- this year's GDC has a stream to discuss social advocacy issues -- and this is especially true when it comes to gender identity.
"We tried making diverse characters to make the experience playable for the majority of people. Ultimately, it does become commentary on the gaming space because hearing people talk about how much they like our characters lets us to know that we are doing something other games are not," Verburg said. "But what is the gameplay benefit of recycling stereotypes?"
Verburg says the feedback she's been getting from players is that, because the gender fluid game is relatable to their lives, it helps them be better people at school and better allies for their classmates as well as navigate social situations and deal with issues of loneliness and isolation.
Who knew a dating game could teach kids social resilience, conflict resolution and self-confidence?
"People treat romance [fiction] with a great deal of disrespect," she said. "But romance is the best vehicle for reaching teenagers. They can see themselves in it, it's something they think about a lot and it allows you to ask them tough moral questions without hitting them over the head with it."
What to do if your friend has come out as transgender
A person's identity is their own to decide(01 of10)
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If someone tells you they are a “he”, a “she”, a “they” (which some genderqueer people opt for), use that pronoun. Some people might even refer to themselves as an “it”, but definitely avoid this unless a person has specifically asked. You do not decide a person's identity, they do, both because it’s their right and because they are the only people that can ever truly know. Respect their wishes without question. (credit:DaveBleasdale/Flickr)
If you're unsure how to refer to someone, just ask(02 of10)
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If you really don't know, the best option is to just ask. Dancing around the subject can be irritating for a transgender person. Think of it like asking someone’s name: until you ask what it is, it’s fine for you to not know! If you’ve not had an opportunity to ask yet, “they” is a good general purpose pronoun to go for. Definitely don’t resort to “it”, “she-he”, “he-she” etc. as most people find these names horribly degrading. (credit:Matiluba/Flickr)
Be careful when talking about the past(03 of10)
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When you're referring to things in the past, never say things like "when you were x gender", or "born a man/woman". Most transgender people feel like they have always been the gender they have come out to you as, but needed to come to terms with it in their own way. Instead refer to the past without referencing gender, for example, "last year", or "when you were a child". (credit:jasonepowell/Flickr)
Don't be afraid to ask questions(04 of10)
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Each person is different, so won’t want to talk about it at all, whereas some might enjoy the opportunity to discuss it. The worst thing you can do is be awkward about it; just ask them if they want to talk about it! At the same time, don’t ask questions that would be strange to ask a cis person. Transgender people and cis people should be treated the same – don’t start conversations about their bodies, for example, that wouldn't be normal to discuss with your cis friends. (credit:Eleaf/Flickr)
Forget stereotypes(05 of10)
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Never call out a transgender person for behaviour which isn’t stereotypical for their identified gender, for example, if your trans-woman friend decides she doesn’t feel more comfortable in trousers sometimes. Gender identity is much more than just the things people do and the way they dress, but it’s not uncommon for transgender people to feel pressured into following stereotypes to “prove” themselves to their friends. (credit:kristin_a (Meringue Bake Shop)/Flickr)
Respect their privacy(06 of10)
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This one should be obvious, but never out someone unless they’ve made it clear they are openly transgender. It’s up to the individual to decide when they are comfortable coming out to people, and it is possible for them to be out to some people, but not others, so don’t assume that because they’ve come out to you there’s a free pass to tell everyone about it. (credit:anna gutermuth/Flickr)
It's okay to make mistakes(07 of10)
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Although it is important you try your best to respect a person’s identity, you are only human – if you've known your friend a long time, you'll likely have a lot of habits to break, including a change of name, pronouns, etc. As long as you’re trying, transgender people normally don’t mind. Sometimes they might point out that you’ve messed up, and that’s fine. When they do, measure the tone of their voice: if they are annoyed about it, calmly say sorry and try to ensure it doesn’t happen again. But equally, if they seem happy, don’t make a massive deal of it. (credit:opensourceway/Flickr)
Cross-dressing(08 of10)
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A cross-dresser is just someone who dresses in clothes stereotypically associated with the opposite gender: cross-dressing does not imply anything about a person’s gender. Eddie Izzard, for example, is a straight cis male who loves his makeup and dresses. Don’t say a cross-dresser dresses in “women’s clothes” or “men’s clothes” – if a male likes to wear dresses that he owns, he’s wearing a man’s dress because they are his. And do not assume that a person's gender correlates with their sexuality - it doesn't. (credit:twicepix/Flickr)
Get the terms right(09 of10)
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Try to avoid the term 'transvestite' as no one knows what it means. Technically, it just means 'cross-dresser', but it has been misused for a while now. 'Sex' is what body you have whereas 'gender' refers to a person’s identity. Other than the fact it is fairly common for a person’s gender to match their sex ('cis'), the two things are otherwise completely unrelated. 'Genderqueer' is a broad term that covers people that don’t fit into the stereotypical gender binary – that may be because they don’t feel they have a gender at all, they feel that they fit into another, third, gender or that they flit between those options, making them 'genderfluid'. 'Transgender' is someone who identifies with a gender other than their birth-assigned sex. A 'Transsexual' is someone who has physically changed their sex. (credit:.reid./Flickr)
Don't know? Don't worry!(10 of10)
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If you see someone out in public and you can’t figure out what gender they are, just don’t worry about it! Definitely don’t have a loud conversation discussing what “they might be”, and absolutely don’t try to peek under their skirt or into their shirt to see what 'parts' they’ve got. Yes, some transgender people really do have to put up with that sort of thing. (credit:@Doug88888/Flickr)
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