Long-running Magic: the Gathering TCG adds first trans character

By John Mack Freeman

Magic: The Gathering, the long-running trading card game, added its first trans character with an expansion pack that released at the end of January. Part of her character story reads as follows (the full story can be found here):

She had been so different—only sixteen, a boy in everyone’s eyes but her own, about to choose and declare her name before the khan and all the Mardu.

The khan had walked among the warriors, hearing the tales of their glorious deeds. One by one, they declared their new war names, and each time, the khan shouted the names for all to hear. Each time, the horde shouted the name as one, shaking the earth.

Then the khan came to Alesha. She stood before him, snakes coiling in the pit of her stomach, and told how she had slain her first dragon. The khan nodded and asked her name.

“Alesha,” she said, as loudly as she could. Just Alesha, her grandmother’s name.

“Alesha!” the khan shouted, without a moment’s pause.

And the whole gathered horde shouted “Alesha!” in reply. The warriors of the Mardu shouted her name.

In that moment, if anyone had told her that in three years’ time she would be khan, she just might have dared to believe it.

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