Feminist
Pro-Queer
Anti-Racist
Gaming

Here's something difficult to figure out: Is there anything really gay in American video games? Certainly in all my time gaming I haven't seen much (read:any) lesbianism. I'm sure there is some, somewhere in the VG world but whether that falls into that all-American "Girls Gone Wild" styled lesbianism is something I hate to even think about.

My real question, though, is whether those (very) rare instances of queer in video games are GLBT positive or not. Are they meant to be taken with any level of seriousness or are they meant to add humor - humor that bubbles up from the depth of bad heterosexism taste and oozes with a healthy dose of "homophobia"? In Rockstar Games' Bully, if you go through a long series of excess efforts, such as having him pick a flower, you can apparently make him dig on men instead of women. Does this inclusion work to demonstrate a queer acceptance or is it meant to be a joke at our expense?

I imagine that making Cloud get women's garments to wear in Square's FFVII is intended as a joke. Whether it's against transvestism or the transgender community I don't know. Or (as my little heart would love to believe) is it aimed at questioning the strict division of gender? I've never got the steps right to get Cloud to go on a date with Barrett instead of Tifa or Aerith. How is that date? Is there any reflection of acceptance in any of this?