Saints Row's Character Creator Needs To Be Backed Up By A Transgender World

thegamer.com:

Few things in gaming have annoyed me more than Cyberpunk 2077's character creator. It puffed its chest ahead of launch and confidently strutted through column inches, hailing itself as groundbreaking and progressive, highlighting that it was a transgender character creator where, no matter what the rest of your body looked like, you could slap a big ol' dick on there and feel seen. This was hand in hand with marketing that reduced trans women down to sexualised, objectified bulges and, desperate not to lose its edgy status and be labelled progressive, constantly mocked its own creation with jokes about not pre-ordering FIFA 78 unless it comes with customisable vaginas. Then the character creator came out and it was just a bit naff.

For the transgender part, it's true that you could have a feminine body and a penis or a masculine body and a vagina, but even that wasn't done right. Romance scenes with Judy heavily imply you have a vagina, while the scenes with Pam show you jackhammering away as if you have a penis, even though the whole point of the character creator is to separate your gendered appearance from your genitals. Then there's the fact that the vagina option and the 'no genitals' option were largely identical, with no real care given besides a vague grey shadow, even as penises came in several sizes and cuts. It also tied pronouns to voice and offered no they/them option, both of which are pretty huge dingers for a character creator that was supposed to let you be trans. It was also oddly detailed in some ways - with several choices for teeth, fingernails, and eyeballs - yet strangely restrictive in others, not allowing masculine bodies to rock long hair (even as central character Johnny Silverhand does),