Member-only story
Sports Games Make My Dreams Come Alive
Living out the chance I never had
In my dreams growing up, I was born in the right body.
I could have played football or basketball from middle school to high school. Maybe even college. Girls like athletes, right? I could have even had a girlfriend, someone to share my letterman jacket with.
In my young dreams, I don’t know what transgender is. I don’t have to wonder how a girl feels about the LGBTQ community because it doesn’t concern me. I just have to wonder if she thinks I’m cute enough, if I can shoot a ball good enough, or if I’m funny enough.
I picked up sports video games from my uncle really young, like maybe 5 or 6. We played street basketball video games all the time and he’d wipe the floor with me. After I got my own system at my mom’s apartment, I got basketball games of my own. I started really learning how to play.
Street V3 was my favorite.
I spent loads of time in its character creation. I pretended I was my character when I was playing. It was me on that court winning and recruiting people on my team.
Then I branched out to NBA regular titles and eventually Madden, where I did the same thing. I created characters and put myself in…
