R said that the answers they got to those questions came in the form of advice: Other users who had more knowledge on the LGBTQIA+ community told R that they were probably queer and should find out what labels they were most comfortable using on their own. R asked other players questions about their sexuality, like “what does it mean if I like boys sometimes and girls other times?” or “why do people look at me weird when I call girls pretty?” Some safe spaces had games within them others were lobbies that played music with chat rooms. So, they checked out “LBGTQ safe spaces” on Roblox, a platform on which users can play and/or create games. When they became more aware of their queerness, R had more questions.
They told the Daily Dot that in one early memory of exploring their gender fluidity online, they told people that they were a boy when playing Dragon City, a mobile game that allows users to raise dragons and create habitats for them. R, who asked to be identified by their first initial, is 16 years old and living in Washington. But kids still lie about their ages online. Gaming websites still have to ask players if they are over the age of 13 to play in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which attempts to prevent children under 13 from sharing their personal information online. Often, games are an intermediary between acknowledging one’s queerness privately and publicly.Īlmost half of teens are playing online games, according to the Washington Post, which reported in 2018 that 45% of all teens and young adults play video games. Online games offer safe, age-appropriate spaces for teens to try out labels without the pressures of their real lives that may deter them from coming out. While millennials flocked to Webkinz, Neopets, or Club Penguin, today’s teens are using Minecraft, Dragon City, and games on Roblox to meet other queer people and discuss their sexualities and gender identities. But queer teens are still using online games to explore their identities and come out. It lives on in memories as a world in which users played as penguins, lived in igloos, and chatted with each other on different servers. It planted a seed of courage that would grow over the next 15 years: In 2020, I came out as queer-this time, in real life.Ĭlub Penguin, a multiplayer online game, no longer exists. The opportunity to say who I truly was to a handful of people from behind the safety of a screen was vital for me. “That means I’m looking for a boyfriend OR a girlfriend,” I typed, giggling in front of the desktop computer. In reality, I was 8 years old, in my friend’s basement, and playing on a secret Club Penguin account that I made for the sole purpose of telling the other users on my server that I was bisexual. In 2005, I walked out into the middle of the town square and shouted “I’M BISEXUAL.” There I stood-in front of the nightclub, the coffee shop, and the gift shop-telling a bunch of people that I wasn’t straight for the first time.