It seems very common for children living as boys to immerse themselves in video games and computers if they're dealing with social isolation or anxiety/depression. It's almost actively encouraged for them to do so — their parents and teachers treat it as normal, most of their male class mates dabble in it, and when i was growing up in the '90s at least video games and computers were depicted almost exclusively as the realm of boys. For trans people in particular i imagine the (semi-)anonymous community aspect also offers some degree of freedom of expression/identity that they often don't have in real life.
Children living as girls are not encouraged to get into games and computers to anywhere near the same degree, and for historical reasons they don't really have anyone to look to as an example or role model in that space.
I've noticed that all of the trans women i've heard of who had supportive parents and were able to start living as girls early on aren't really interested in games or computers. Admittedly, it's a very very small sample size filtered through the lens of what the mass media consider interesting — Jazz Jennings, that girl from Germany, and a few others — but it's a pattern i've seen anyway.
Could be that people with [insert unusual trait here] are naturally drawn to computers for similar reasons, be they autistic, transgendered, disabled, or just plain weird.
This seems reasonable.
But why the lack of biologically-born women? Surely they can be weird, too.
What are those social cues? I don't know, in general. In my case, my father used the computer much more than my mother did. He built and maintained it. "Computer people" in the late 80s and early 90s were almost all male. My grandfather taught me, but not my sister, about electronics and soldering. My sister certainly played computer and video games, but not nearly as much as me or my brother.
before that, school was misery.
I spent many teenage hours in front of my computer, making friends, some 15 or so years long friendships were born during that time, people I still regularly talk to and spend time playing games with.
I discovered that I did have a skill, when I thought myself directionless and skill-free: I knew how to fix a computer, because I spent so much time troubleshooting my own issues.
Not only that, but when I moved to competitive gaming on my computer, I suddenly realized I was good at competition in some field.
Sure, it wasn't your traditional competitive outlet, but it was one I wasn't picked last in.
Games like Counter-Strike I could come out on top in and feel as if I just won the regional championships, the feeling the kids who were good at physical sports must have felt regularly.
I saw the appeal of regular sports, suddenly. The value of competition and watching someone so much more skilled than you could ever be play a sport at the absolute top-level.
I'm not disabled, transgendered, or anything else. Just a socially awkward red-head who spent most of my elementary and middle school years either embarrassing myself or wishing I wasn't so goddamned awkward.
In and after high-school, that all changed. I had a circle of friends during this time, something I had never had before. Something I still cherish.
On a different note, manga and anime seems to more often have protagonists of diffuse gender by western norms.
Similar to you, I have little provable intuition as to why this correlation apparently exists, though.
If the effect you observe is real, perhaps it's just the reflection of a community that attracted and kept more people over the years because it wasn't (as much) like that?
I would also note that writing an emulator is not something you just stumble into because the people are friendly or whatever. It requires an extremely honed set of quite niche skills. I think it takes something more to become successful at it than just "I guess I'll stick around because everywhere else is even meaner."
My personal guess is that as a traditionally underground community the ROM/emulator scene was more welcoming to certain groups due to the use of pseudonyms. It's easier to not draw attraction when you don't walk into an office every day and meet people face to face.
That said, the valley's VC fueled death marches, and the resulting bravado and "machismo" probably do not help.
Most conversations do not require any information about a person's identity, so every idea stands on it's own merit.
The perceived hostility emerges when a person tries to support their viewpoint by irrelevant factors (gender, sexual orientation, race, etc.).
(Warning: VERY harsh language)
>If I can pontificate a bit for your edification, one of the rules of the internet is "There are no girls on the internet". This rule does not mean what you think it means.
>In real life, people like you for being a girl. They want to fuck you, so they pay attention to you and pretend what you have to say is interesting, or that you are smart and clever. On the internet, we don't get a chance to fuck you. This means the advantage of being a "girl" does not exist. You don't get a bonus in a conversation just because I'd like to put my cock in you.
>When you make a stupid post like "hurr durr i'm a gurl" you are begging for attention. The only reason to post it is because you want your girl advantage back, because you are too vapid and stupid to do or say anything interesting without it. You are forgetting the rules, there are no girls on the internet.
It's the equivalent of walking into an anonymous alcoholics meeting with booze, telling everyone how great it is to drink.
There is no reason for them to cater to you, therefore they want to get rid of you in a fast or fun way. Hostility can be both funny and gets rid of people who do not fit in.
I don't feel this way at all.