Non-binary drag gaming has become a way to strengthen social cohesion and to explore the self with regard to gender identity, humanity, and position in life.

Gamers and the drag community both interact with avatars and visualise (shared) fantasies. What else do these groups have in common? In the case of drag, experimenting with fantasies (through costumes, make-up) strongly connects to how practitioners relate to their real-world identities. The talk will zoom in on the recent revival of TTRPGs (tabletop role-playing games), which enable queer and non-queer gamers to use games like Dungeons and Dragons (and live action roleplay, or LARP)  to roleplay characters/avatars of all genders and orientations, as a safe playing field to test out potential new identities for “real life”. The overlap of queer consciousness and game formats turns fantasy worlds into social and psychological tools that can help us to better understand ourselves.