Video games offer players the potential to be whatever character they want. So, why do so many transgender activists insist on playing as “transgender” characters—complete with the scars—rather than as just regular characters of the sex they want to be?

Popular video game series The Sims introduced a new update this week that adds a plethora of transgender options for players customizing their characters in-game. The additions include mastectomy scars for the player’s Sim avatar as well as compression wear to tuck away breasts and penises.

The Sims has been described as a life simulator, where players create a character and guide it through the minutiae of waking up, going to work, eating, and sleeping.

On top of being yet another example of woke corruption in the gaming sphere, the addition of so-called transgender customization options raises questions about how the Left views transgenderism and its current boost to social status.

In a fantasy world where the player can be whatever he wants to be and craft an avatar to match his vision of himself—in other words, a man who feels like he’s a woman could have a female avatar—why would one willingly choose a transgender avatar instead?

Moreso, even if you imagine transgenderism to be essential to your identity, why would you choose an avatar that bears all the scars and marks that come with a transition? Could it be that it’s more important to signal to others that you are transgender rather than an actual member of the opposite sex (at least in the virtual world)?

According to the Left themselves, being transgender is reliant on a feeling that the physical body doesn’t match with a person’s self-perception of his or her sex.

They claim that a transgender person is, for example, a man trapped in a woman’s body, and that the best solution to ease the suffering is to make the outside look like the “true” inside.

Mastectomies, fake breasts, endless hormone treatments, and tight clothing to tamp down on genitals aren’t the ideal or end point, they’re just the necessary trials to get to the “real man or woman” trapped on the inside.

With that in mind, it would seem more logical that a gamer who sees himself as transgender would simply play as a character of the opposite sex instead of transferring the real world medical baggage into the fantasy world.

That is, unless it’s not really about transitioning to the “true self” at all, and the goal is purely to show off victimhood status for social clout.

There is a burgeoning body of evidence suggesting that the current transgender craze is a result of social contagion. Impressionable youths, swayed by the proliferation of LGBT+ propaganda in mainstream media, schools, and online, seek social status and approval by mutilating themselves and proudly displaying the scars.

Of course, someone who earned her stripes in the real world wants to transfer them to the game.

Indeed, some transgender zealots will inevitably celebrate The Sims for choosing to add an option to its life simulator that reflects the real world as it is in 2023, mastectomy scars and all.

But then short of an actual fixation with being transgender as a social identity, why are games that are explicitly not based in the logic of the real world still forced to include transgenderism as a game mechanic?

Hogwarts Legacy, a new game set in the magic-infused world of Harry Potter, separated three key character creation traits in an attempt to be more “transgender inclusive.” The player’s voice, body, and dorm placement are all customizable, meaning a male body with a male voice could theoretically be in the girls’ dorm.

The original question bears repeating: In a video game set in a world where magic exists and can make you into whatever version of yourself you want to be, why would you choose to be transgender and not just the sex you feel you are?

The insistence that video games must give players the option to be transgender is yet another piece of evidence that transgenderism can be an identity adopted for social cachet and is not always an actual desire to be the opposite sex.

If the agony of being a woman trapped in a man’s body is so utterly warping that the only solution is to engage in self-mutilation, one would assume transgender gamers would take any opportunity to skip the pain—even the imagined pain in a fantasy world—and become the sex they wanted in that fantasy world.

But many won’t.

The lesson for us here is that transgenderism should be treated as the virulent social contagion that it is instead of a true identity class that needs representation in video games. Society would never tolerate a game glorifying another social contagion like anorexia in character creation, and transgenderism is no different.

Too many children and misguided adults have lopped off perfectly functioning body parts to allow transgenderism to propagate any further.

The developers behind The Sims should be ashamed.

This isn’t a game anymore.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. 

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.