Bella Ramsey used online gaming to “explore” their gender identity

Bella Ramsey has spoken about the importance of gaming, saying they used online worlds to “explore” their gender identity.

• READ MORE: Mxmtoon explains how ‘The Sims’ has helped her understand who she is

In a new interview with Them magazine, Ramsey revealed that massively multiplayer online game Club Penguin is where they first “explored my gender identity.”

“My penguin was called Tomboy Bella and was red. I did karate on the freaking Karate Hill. I was loving life in Club Penguin world,” they continued. “You can be whoever you want behind that avatar.” Club Penguin went live in 2005 and offered players a virtual world where they could play minigames and interact with other users around the world. It was shut down in 2017.

Ramsey came out as gender-fluid in 2023. “I’m very much just a person. Being gendered isn’t something that I particularly like. But in terms of pronouns, I really couldn’t care less,” they explained.  In an interview earlier this month, Ramsey said they “grew up more as a little boy than I did a little girl”.

“It’s been very obvious since I was young. I always called myself a tomboy, but it wasn’t that I was a boyish girl, I was always like a bit of an in-between,” they continued. “I always felt more masculine or more on that side of the spectrum. I guess at the moment I don’t feel like I have access to femininity.”

Musician mxmtoon previously told NME about how The Sims helped her explore her sexuality. “It just normalises [things] for people. Growing up, I would romance another woman in The Sims and I would be like, ‘Oh my gosh, is this okay that I have a wife instead of a husband?’ And obviously it’s okay but The Sims was this amazing thing that I had access to, to help me understand that.”

“My curiosity was clearly emblematic of a larger thing that I hadn’t discovered yet of being bisexual, but it was important for me to have that space to explore it and understand that yes, same sex marriage is a thing and it should be legalised,” she continued. “To just have those things in the game is really important to help normalise it for other people who might not necessarily be exposed to it all the time. I think any way that people find themselves represented and can express themselves is really powerful and important.”

“The best part about online games is you can do things that you can’t do in the real world,” Against The Current’s Chrissy Costanza told NME last year. “In the physical world, you can feel confined by real world limitations like your body, your environment or external pressures to not do certain things. In games, you get to express who you really are, which is incredibly liberating. It’s escapism, but it’s also freedom of expression.”

In other news, Euphoria star Hunter Schafer is reportedly being considered for a major role in the upcoming live-action The Legend of Zelda film.

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