Primary supervisor

Phoebe Toups Dugas

Gender euphoria addresses times when one's lived experience aligns with their gender identity. This may be personal experiences of one's body, how one is treated by others, or through in-game experiences. Our prior research has developed an understanding of how gender euphoria comes through in video games from first-person research. This project will work toward developing and deploying a questionnaire to study this phenomenon in the wild and analyse the results. 

The project will develop students' experiences with game design, gender in design, questionnaire development, and reflexive thematic analysis. 

Note that Supervisor Toups Dugas does not employ any form of generative AI in her research; supervised students should expect that such tools will *not* be allowed for work on this project. 

Student cohort

Single Semester
Double Semester

Aim/outline

1.) Collect broad insights into transgender game players' experiences with gender euphoria in games. 

2.) Analyse insights and compare with prior research on transgender gender euphoria in games. 

3.) Develop new understandings of how to develop games that are supportive of transgender players. 

URLs/references

Quick Overview:

https://theconversation.com/video-games-can-help-trans-players-feel-seen-and-safe-it-all-starts-with-design-257901

Related research publications:

Shano Liang, Michelle V Cormier, Rose Bohrer, and Phoebe O. Toups Dugas. 2025. Designed & Discovered Euphoria: Insights from Trans-Femme Players' Experiences of Gender Euphoria in Video Games. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 104, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714081

Shano Liang, Michelle V. Cormier, Phoebe O. Toups Dugas, and Rose Bohrer. 2023. Analyzing Trans (Mis)Representation in Video Games to Remediate Gender Dysphoria Triggers. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 7, CHI PLAY, Article 388 (November 2023), 33 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3611034

Required knowledge

Experience with human-centred computing research (e.g., units on usability, qualitative research, design) preferred. Wide experience with video game play ideal.