Why are there SO many Trans people in VRChat? Gender, Identity, and Self Discovery.

there is a massive amount of trans people that play VR chat social VR explores self-expression and identity in a way that's never been possible before putting on an avatar transports you into a virtual body that matches your exact IRL movements tricking your brain into thinking that person staring back at you in the mirror is well you and is it last summer I attempted the challenge of embodying the Avatar of a guy for seven days in VR chat while having to learn how to adjust my voice and body movements to see what being another gender could be like physically and socially it's something I couldn't have done or been very convincing at if it weren't for the power of VR sure I did this as a challenge but I don't want to stop just there because there's a large community of people who do justice in VR every day as a part of their identity so come with me in this video and explore about the people making a positive change in the real world through the power of this new technology digging deeper on the topic of real life and virtual identity combined welcome to the VR chat trans Academy in this video we're talking a lot about the importance of online identity and you know what else is important about online identity protecting it which is why I'm super excited to shout out this video's sponsor surfsharkvpn I care a lot about my online presence and take caution to protect my data and where it's logged to vpns are important because they protect that data and encrypt your internet activities so no one tracks or steals it so whether you're a content creator like me or a consumer of any kind everyone you should make sure you're staying as safe as possible when accessing any kind of online site with over 3 200 servers in over a hundred countries surfshark makes it easy to change your virtual location as needed on unlimited devices on a variety of platforms other benefits than just protection are being able to access region locked contents and platforms like Netflix have different catalogs depending on what country you're from I was out in Japan a few months ago and couldn't access the regular shows I wanted to watch from back in America which is a problem surf shark solves their 24 month plan is the best deal especially with the offer of three extra months plus 83 off if you use my code tvrs so scan the QR code on the screen or click the link in the description to check out surf shark for yourself and with that back to the video the trans Community has been in VR chat basically since the platform started but it was only recently that the true Hub came around about six months ago that's when the trans Academy was born hi my name is tezzy I'm the director here at the VR chat trans Academy you know I would go hang out at the black cat in the Pug and I would meet other trans people there and I just saw that there were so many of us here but at the same time we didn't really have our own space the beautiful thing about these spaces is that they allow you to sort of craft who you'd like to be virtual embodiment is a term referring to the possibility of substituting one's physical body for at least momentarily a life-sized virtual one virtual reality has this ability to trick your brain into thinking that what you're seeing is real due to the stereopsis of seeing 3D images and feeling immersed in that 3D the environment there are many interesting cases in which virtual embodiment is used everything from chronic pain treatment to treating those who have body dysmorphia-related Eating Disorders like anorexia or bulimia although it's a new technology that hasn't been widely used yet in the medical field it is something that's being used by tens of thousands of people in VR headsets a day inside of VR chat just subconsciously without even realizing it we now have this incredible VR technology where we have the ability to sort of embody our avatars we're able to have this like genuine organic human connection with others at a much higher level than you can even in any kind of video game or you know flat screen experience like second life it was very important for my own Journey because I was able to be the person who I saw on the inside gender dysphoria is a very real disorder that trans people regularly deal with it's described as an overwhelming feeling of mismatch between one's biological body and their gender identity gender identity being what your brain personally identifies with versus the assigned gender you perceive at Birth this very often comes along with symptoms of anxiety or depression a study I found with a sample pool of over 200 trans adults in 2021 reported that about 75 percent of them first experienced these feelings in early childhood ages of three to seven years old although there's contradicting statistics out there on what percentage of the population identifies as trans or non-binary to both male or female it seems that the rising amount of young adults who do identify this way is significantly Rising one user described an analogy to me of left-handedness as until the later end of the 20th century about 1950 left-handed children were expected to switch to being right-handed and historically were sometimes even punished for being so naturally Society evolved its outlook on left-handedness well you can see here that left-handedness became way more common which is a great example that definitely helped me understand how a similar correlation might be happening here as well for me um before I transitioned I just had this awful pit inside of me and I was like this big hollowness that I wasn't who I was supposed to be you know I didn't recognize myself in the mirror I felt very much I was just walking through life without really doing what I should have and this idea that I should be someone else was just in my mind since I was a really really young person when I thought of my voice training I used VR trap extensively for practice and what I found was that it was so validating to be able to have people see me for me when we come into VR chat and suddenly have the ability to align our bodies with our self-image and have the ability to interact with others as we see ourselves it becomes this incredibly therapeutic experience that can have a direct impact on our well-being and in 26 team when I was looking to have facial feminization surgery I brought a screenshot of my second life Avatar because it was the person that I felt the most comfortable and happy as that might seem a little bit taboo now but I think that as social VR and the metaverse become more of an integral part of our society in the future we're going to see a lot more people prototyping their identity in these spaces and embracing the idea of having morphological Freedom the art chat is special because you have the ultimate freedom in whatever you want to create anyone can take the time to learn blender in for free sculpt 3D models themselves and use Unity to upload content of your chat like avatars that you can put on and see yourself in as you can imagine this has become one of the most efficient and accessible ways possible that anyone dealing with gender dysmorphia can treat themselves with using virtual Monument so many times I see people coming to VR chat and put on an avatar and I see them standing in front of the mirror just looking at themselves and it's like something happens in their brain where they realize that I feel more comfortable in this person who I'm seeing my reflection of in this space and that does something that carries over into the real world as well and I see so many times people um their eggs crack that's what we call it in the trans community and VR chat has been called an egg cracking machine because people who have these thoughts and feelings about gender dysphoria they're able to sort of work through that the trans Academy holds social events every few days from karaoke to improv but as you can imagine that's staying true to their name they also have a high focus in providing classes to those looking for resources relating to Common trans issues providing an immersive space with the presence of other trans people in a way that typical online communities just could never provide vocal feminization is all about getting control of three big variables I think and really what I do is I help people to learn these different controls to hear these different things in action and then we can start to really enact them within the voice for example my voice when I started out it was you know right the way down here so we um we lift the pitch right the way up and then it's a bit too thick so we soften it out and then we change the Resonance of the voice is much better for the individual so it's all about empowering people I think and giving them control over their own voice and helping to mitigate dysphoria I think that you know with the Trans Community we can feel all sorts of ways about a voice especially one beginning and I think that once people start to see steps coming in people start to see that they're making ground and building skills um they try to get excited and they realize oh my God this is possible no matter what your starting block is there is so much potential in everyone's voice and so it's all about unlocking that really I get to attend one of the Academy's social events while working on this video and seeing the impact it's had on so many people's well-being is something that I think is really special I've met so many great people they're really great and accepting I really enjoyed it I've met a lot of trans people and stuff one of the few public worldly cartoons and people are just so nice here they are chat has given me an opportunity to talk with other people don't necessarily have it to throw myself into the real world first it's a good test round for refining yourself I see quite a bit of misconception on what being trans is and how they're portrayed in the media everyone's got their own issues just like you and me and life is a never-ending Journey on finding out who you are and how to express yourself after all you are who you are and that is constantly changing always rearranging and there's no problems with that like oh here's something you can be afraid of like I feel like there's like a lot of harmful like Notions oh yeah we're harming like today's children was like not true at all however the trans Community just like the furry community that I covered before are often misunderstood and a target for a large amount of online trolling which I conveniently encountered at the Meetup and got to film I want to apologize for me and Ninja's behavior in the Discord server and we're asking for an unbeam trolls why do you think people kill the trans Community when people people troll people troll cause they try and be me how how do you decide what communities you want to go trolling I just decide where to troll like it's a big Community it's a big structure and actually beat now I love the structure got a big great wonderful Community here and if I say something bad I'm instantly gone I like I respect that and to all the people out there that are trying oh there they go make a a troll with a hint of classroom well with everything in this video in mind I think that trans Academy and VR chat's abilities in general are capable of and currently making great change in the world for a lot of people I think there's massive unexplored potential not just for the trans Community but for people in general I encourage you to explore VR chat for yourself and experiment with places and things you can see and become I really hope more therapists doctors support groups and people of All Sorts start to utilize social VR Platforms in the near future if ruin am so excited about what's possible the most important thing that anybody can do is to talk with a professional these are very complex things and having access to a therapist is so important if there's someone watching and you are thinking could I be trans you know am I it gets better um there are people out there that love and care for you and there's nothing wrong with being trans although a lot of the world tries to tell you that there is I really don't believe that there is a lot more hope and love out there for you than you could ever realize I know it's really scary but there are people here if you enjoyed this video then please like And subscribe please consider joining my patreon to help support the channel this month at the TVs Studio we're holding a huge life Performance Event with my favorite VR performer of all time who combines piano vocals and DJing with crazy visuals together at the naku experience join the Discord to check it out live with us and join future events but anyways thanks so much for watching I've been your host via and I'll see you in the next video special thanks to this month's patreon members and virtual VIPs black amethyst Dutchman 101 Diamond GS Genesis kaimies mgr117 in in layer rice 600-333 snake eight head cernest third eye Sally and yamazakura

Channel: The Virtual Reality Show

Views: 156,362

Keywords: vrchat, vr chat, vr, virtual reality, trans, vrchat trans, trans academy, vrchat trans academy, gender identity, vr gender identity, vrchat girl, vrchat girls, vrchat girl avatars, virtual embodiment, gender dysphoria, how to deal with gender dysphoria, voice changer, girl voice trolling, vrchat boy, mtf, ftm, mft trans, best vrchat worlds, vrchat beginners guide, full guide, phantom touch, erp, best vrchat avatars, vrchat avatar tutorial, quest, quest 2, quest vrchat, meta

Id: Mh3HTTa5NFU

Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023