Neither of you are very good at being lesbians.

---

Controls: Click on the hyperlinks to advance to the next passage.

Features:

  • 11K+ words
  • 5 Endings
  • What happens when Girlfailures™ are such miserable failures that they aren't even girls anymore
  • Technically illegal acts of crime
Content Warnings:
  • Ableism
  • Alcohol Use
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Emetophobia
  • Internalized Fatphobia
  • Mentions of Child Abuse
  • Misgendering
  • Needles
  • Transphobia, Internalized Transphobia

it sucks to be us is a Twine game about a closeted trans masculine person and a trans man who was forced to detransition, made for Trans MLM Jam 2025. This first version was published on October 31, 2025. A minor patch was pushed on June 7, 2026.

NamePronounsRoleWebsite
BáiYùhe/theyProject Lead, Writer, Programmeritch
Loomhe/himThumbnail Designitch
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Release date Oct 31, 2025
Rating
Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars
(72 total ratings)
Authortofurocks
GenreInteractive Fiction
Made withTwine
TagsBoys' Love, Gay, Gender, Lesbian, LGBT, LGBTQIA, No AI, Queer, Transgender, Yaoi
Average sessionAbout a half-hour
LanguagesEnglish
InputsMouse, Touchscreen
AccessibilityOne button
ContentNo generative AI was used

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

this game made me rethink my policy of clicking on everything in videogames/exploring every location to depth to make sure i wasn't missing anything. also yep you got rika exactly right lol

(2 edits) (+2)(-1)

This game fucking cracked my egg and I'm only half-joking (helped me realized I'm a girl)

(+2)(-1)

Was going to say it transed my gender but I didn't have it in me post that

(+2)

Omg this is so amazing.  The clickable text - the changing colors when it gets dark.  I'm not a great reader (neurospice reasons) but I was absolutely glued to this.  The writing is beautiful and thoughtful, and I really feel for the main character.  Thank you so much for making and sharing this.  ***PS I'm not crying, you're crying (maybe we're both crying)

There isn’t an option to download the file. Is that a limitation of Twine or is the file missing?

You should be able to play the game directly in the browser, as Twine outputs to HTML.

(+3)

Xinyu is cute

(+2)

Thank you for making this <3

(+4)

I love the crimes that were done together. Both masks and transmasc represented, of course it was going to be dear to me. Unfortunately, I'm not articulate with my words or emotions...I just want to leave my gratitude.

(+3)

honestly an incredibly uplifting experience even with the "bad ending" because it addresses a particular type of transmasc dread that's hard to put into words. made me feel seen. i genuinely love that i got ending 5 ten times in a row because that IS how my night would go lmao. got endings 3 and 1 after, and loved them. fantastic stuff.

(+5)

I was going into this expecting yet another "being trans equals suffering, abandon all hope", but instead this game... healed a bit of me? I'm just smiling and crying because they found each other?

Just... Thank you!

(+7)

this game found me right when i needed it. i've been really badly depressed lately due to a mix of transphobia and... getting hit with the classic "only people perceived as women and femmes are allowed here, men are GROSS AND DISGUSTING" from many different angles of my life, and so this was really cathartic to read through... thank you for creating it, and putting it out into the world.

(+9)

All these comments saying they aren't necessarily the intended demographic... As a counterpart, I definitely am. 
I'm a 30-something, disabled, nonbinary trans man who paused my transition twice for reasons like this. For fear of losing community, fear of being alone, being "unlovable". 

This hits really fucking hard. The number of things I've gone to that are for "women and nonbinary people" and thought about "what happens when I get to the point that I consistently pass as male? Do I no longer belong there? Will I have to once again justify my existence, my presence in this place I am meant to feel safe in?

I'm at that point now-- no one assumes "she" for me anymore, don't even awkwardly go "sh... they?". just confidently call me "he", "sir", "bro", etc.. And I consistently worry about being seen as some interloping cis-het dude when I go to things with my more visually obviously queer, assumed-female partner. I worry my presence will make others uncomfortable, even though by all accounts I belong there. 

Thank you for sharing this. It feels good to be seen, to see someone else express the same fears and struggles I have, the ones I have difficulty explaining. 

(+7)

I've been trying to think of an adequate response to this since I first saw this, and I think all I can say is

1) I'm sorry you've gone through this too

2) Thank you for letting me and others know we're not alone and not making these experiences up

(+2)

Wow, I really loved this. The writing is fantastic and really expresses a lot of the nuance in being a multiply marginalised queer person!

I'm glad I tried a replay and made it to Ending 3 - I definitely wouldn't have got a proper sense of it if I'd just given up after getting Ending 5 on my first playthrough!

(+3)

Sorry this is probably the least heartfelt comment on here but holy shit does Xinyu like me back when I was transmasc and presenting as masc/androgynous. I've since grown into a both a more comfortable and nebulous understanding of my gender and am a lot happier in exploring presentation, but seeing a character that's so similar to a younger phase of my life is strangely nice.

I don't see a lot of depictions of queer/trans asians either so that's also nice wwwww

(+4)

as a trans girl i'm probably not the target demographic, but i liked the story, had to use the guide to get any ending other than 5 but still, i liked seeing the way the relationship between the mc and xinyu developed, and i think how easy it is to get the bad ending may be a sort of (unintentional?) metaphor at how easy it is to fall into apathy, and how sometimes it's hard to make things better, but the effort to do it and better yourself will always be worth it

(+7)

Perhaps I’m not the target demographic. I thought I was a trans man once, and it turns out I was a cis woman the whole time who was just dealing with internalized misogyny.

But one thing I love about my experience is that it provided me with new perspectives and a better understanding of trans people. The demonization of men in queer circles is so evil I think. I’m working on a book, and the protagonist is a transmasc who believed themself to be a lesbian, and this does seem strangely relevant to that. I don’t know. I’m not finished with this game yet, it’s just that I really like learning more about other people’s experiences. Shoutout to trans men, and I hope to leave a better comment when I’m done.

(+5)

This really made me think a little more about what it might be like...very relatable even if I'm probably not the intended audience. I kinda always hated labels, it's too hard and never right really. Who a person is inside...it's much too complicated to label. Thank you for the experience.

(+6)

Thanks for writing this! It's good for morale to see other folks who see "demonizing people you think are men" as Pretty Terrible Behavior, Honestly

(+13)

Good stuff, way too relatable. No idea how I ended up here, though, I just had it open in my tab ^^' I'm glad I decided to play it

"you forget that belonging to one marginalized group doesn't automatically radicalize people to actually care about others in a meaningful way"

Yeah

(+2)

All I can get is ending 5 😭😭😭!!!

(+3)

Sorry if the game's a little tough! I wrote an endings guide here that explains which choices might lead to what, so see if it helps!

https://tofurocks.itch.io/it-sucks-to-be-us/devlog/1101452/endings-guide-faqs

(+18)

this hits hard. 

"I don't want the ostracized group who I'm supposed to be a part of to also ostracize me." is a mood.  

thank you for making it.

(1 edit) (+13)

I replayed this multiple times just so I could leave the MC on a happy ending. Because he deserved a happy ending. I wasn’t disappointed.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

The emotional honesty snuck up on me - I grew up in a feminist household, prided myself on being a feminist and recently have been (disappointed? confused? exhausted?) with the way people I respect and care about have used the empowering women as a thin veil to cover their own unaddressed gender essentialism. 

On a brighter note, Xinyu calling himself  “old” made me chuckle. Don’t call me out like that!

(+4)

Gah I'm so sorry I didn't respond earlier, I think itch.io ate my essay 😭😭 Not gonna type it up again but I really appreciate you taking your time with this one, and I'm glad the better endings were satisfying.

Gender really is a fuck, isn't it?

I also recently hit the big 3-0 myself and man... maybe we're not that old but my bones sure feel brittle these days ૮ ◞ ﻌ ◟ ა Back pain begone

(+4)

Ooo, this hits hard.  You should have submitted this to ECTOCOMP, works well as a horror game (a hopeful one at times though).  How many endings are there?  I got Ending 5.  And what do the endings depend on; what controls what ending you get?

(1 edit) (+2)

Hi Bez, thanks for playing! I hadn't considered submitting to ECTOCOMP because I feel like the "horror" as it were wouldn't really fit the typical definition of the genre, but maybe if I do another game I'll ask if it counts.

As for the endings, I just now published a minor update and guide here:

https://tofurocks.itch.io/it-sucks-to-be-us/devlog/1101452/endings-guide-faqs

(+10)(-1)

ah

as a nonbinary person who came from womanhood and considers themself to be transneutral, there was

i felt this a lot.

life is so complicated and there are so many scary things out there, but thankfully i have a group of friends -

queer people, trans people specifically -

that make things easier.

anyway, i just...

i felt this. hard.

thank you for writing it.

(+4)(-1)

Thank you for playing, and I'm glad you have a supportive group of friends who appreciate and cherish you. I was worried that I hadn't nailed the nuance well but I hope these kinds of experiences and conversations can be shared a little more often.

(+8)(-1)

Added to the collection!

https://itch.io/c/4614757/trans-dudes-in-gay-situations

(+5)

Much appreciated ♡ Thank you for maintaining the collection!