Animal Crossing Made Me Trans

The 3DS was a staple of my childhood. It was a magical device, a portal into universes hidden in little plastic rectangles. With a satisfying click I could travel from the grassy plains of Hyrule to a quaint snowy town named H-Land (the H stood for happy) before charging through planet Popstar to fend off an invading robotic army. It was a wormhole in my pocket (to think I used to have pockets that big...) following me through waiting rooms and train journeys where I could forgo my corporeal form, for a split-second, to exist on my own terms.

In fact, for much of that time, I didn't own a console: the 3DS was, technically, my mum's. That didn't mean much; she never used it and I bought games with my own pocket money. However, the name I used in Animal Crossing wasn't the name I was given at birth: it was hers. The game provides no way to change your name; I was stuck with a name different to mine, an identity different to the one I should inhabit and a body unlike what was gifted to me at birth. A growing boy should have found this annoying. He would be embarrassed, uncomfortable, maybe angry. But me? I didn't mind it at all.

I once recieved a letter, on my mum's birthday, addressed to her name, from one of the villagers: a grey wolf named Fang. I didn't have words for how I felt at the time: there was a certain warmth in my chest, a lightness in my soul, at being addressed as a woman. I was forming social bonds as a woman. When Fang expressed his intention to leave the town and my character begged him to stay, he wasn't speaking to a shy, nerdy boy. When villagers greeted my character, they weren't talking to a man. Animal Crossing gave me, confused and conflicted as I was, a glimpse into a beautiful past I had never had and a future I thought would never happen. The light shining from the console's twin displays whispered of hope.

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I'm older now. It's been perhaps a decade since I first bathed in the 3DS's warm glow. Nintendo is shutting down the 3DS's online services one by one, so I can't play with my cousin across the country any more and it's impossible to purchase anything through the E-shop. More importantly, I've begun my lifelong quest to transition, against any and all odds. It's been... tempestuous. I've found solidarity in online communities, and have become much more in touch with my emotions. my close family no longer see me as a boy and it feels amazing. The trans community have been relegated to murky darkness for so long and I'm joining the fray as swathes of us are finally beginning to clamber into the light.

On the other hand, I can think about the past and the future with much more clarity than before. I can understand what a lack of medical intervention has done to my body. The hormonal violence enacted on me will have everlasting side effects, will stay with me until the last breath I take on this mortal coil. I don't know if I'll ever look the way I want to, and that's ignoring the increasingly hostile political climate. I'll be denied jobs and relationships because of how I was born and, if I complain? If I hit the bully back? Then I'm the unreasonable one.

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I still have the game cartridge for H-land. The last time I booted it up, weeds covered the landscape and the villagers were abandoned and alone. As I stood there, soaking in the tranquil soundtrack playing on the breeze, I couldn't help but feel a sense of deep loss. Curiously enough, though, I also felt a much younger Willow sharing the console with me; I thought of her starry-eyed hopefullness despite everything. The journey will be painful, and we'll have scars and bruises galore, but I'll never cease to chase those whispers of sweet, golden hope.