Playing with Gender: A Narrative Inquiry into Two Gender Diverse Peoples’ Stories of Exploring Gender in Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Abstract

Tabletop roleplaying games allow players to creatively explore their identities in an enjoyable, social context. Identity exploration may be an especially important task for gender diverse people, who may experience difficulties in creating a positive gender identity due to stigma. In this study I address the questions: how do gender diverse people explore their identities through tabletop roleplaying games? How does their TTRPG play support their well-being? And how does their TTRPG fit into the broader story of their lives? I use a narrative inquiry approach that seeks to understand and represent participants’ experiences in the broader context of their lives. Narrative inquiry also helped me understand and represent my own position relative to the research questions and the participants. Working with two participants, T and Chloe, I created narratives that tell the story of their gender identity development and TTRPG play situated within the broader context of their lives. I conducted two interviews with each participant then wrote a draft narrative of each of their experiences. I met with participants a third time to review the draft narrative and then made changes based on their feedback. I discuss their narratives in terms of the concepts of psychological space, identity exploration, identity development, and intersectionality. I highlight the relevance of this research to counselling psychology, in that this study provides evidence that TTRPGs may be an effective intervention for supporting the identity development and well-being of gender diverse people. I also share a narrative account of my own experiences of gender exploration in which I engaged in relation to the stories of T and Chloe. In all, I hope that the narratives shared in this study provide ways for readers to imagine new ways to support gender diverse people—using TTRPGs or other approaches—and to imagine new ways for understanding themselves.