Lesbian Booted From Xbox Live for Identifying As Lesbian
Here we go again! The Consumerist is reporting that a lesbian known as Teresa has been booted off of Xbox Live for identifying her orientation in her profile. Here's her story:
I just recently saw a thing on your site (The Consumerist) about someones gamer tag being banned because it had the word gay in the tag.I had a similar incident, only my account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian. I was harassed by several players, 'chased' to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.
As if xbox live is really appropriate for kids anyways! My account was suspended and xbox live did nothing to solve this, but instead said others found it offensive.
Today I received a message from another gamer calling me a fag. I am a lesbian, so they aren't too smart if they cant get their anti-gay slurs right.
Microsoft does nothing to stop this or prevent it, but instead sides with the homophobes. No one will help me get the word out about Microsoft's anti-gay policy. Not even the HRC who says Microsoft has a positive image with them. Not to me it doesn't!
This is absolutely appalling and I must admit it comes as a bit of a surprise to me. Of course we've covered incidents of people getting booted for having the word "gay" in their name or description. But after the shocking Halo video that surfaced last year I had really thought steps were being made to change this. Personally I am starting to get very angry about this treatment from Microsoft and of course, the fellow players. I'm not sure who Teresa talked to, but I know my contacts ant Microsoft would never stand for such a thing.
But regardless of what happened, it is high time this type of unfair treatment stops. My only issue is I'm not sure exactly what to do about it. On the one hand, it's not Microsoft's fault that players are douchebags, but on the other, they should not be condoning this type of overtly offensive behavior. If anyone has any suggestions about what we can do about this situation, I would be glad to hear it. A letter writing campaign? A Boycott? Sound off in the comments, we want to hear what you have to say about this situation.
Identifying Yourself As A Lesbian Gets You Banned On XBOX Live [The Consumerist - Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 25 February 2009
· Comments (40)
Other stuff like this: homophobia, lesbian, microsoft, xbox
How about just stop punishing the victims because it's the easiest thing to do? If somebody want's to identify their orientation in their account info I fail to see how that should be an issue for anybody.
@stepto on twitter (Head of Microsoft's Banhammerz) has been discussing this today, and to their credit they openly admit the system has issues, and have said they are working to safely give people a way to express there sexuality without opportunity of homophobia.
There is a huge amount of 'gay-bashing' on xbox live, and they're aware of this. The system is there to try and prevent that, and policy means they have to act on them all.
To their credit, i don't see what else they could do about this, giving the complaints they would get if they didn't do anything.
A corporation can be very segmented; Microsoft actually has one of the better track records on equal opportunity in employment while simultaniously doing this. It's an interesting world.
It's interesting that folks still see some connection to a company's hiring practices and what the same company permits. I've never played on those systems simply because any time I've seen it, it's been a terribly homophobic atmosphere. I tend not to subject myself to that kind of behavior any more then I do dressing up for clubbin' and dropping by a red-neck bar.
Will things change? More then likely, not in our lifetimes. The more steps ahead we get, the more vocal the opposition becomes and noone wants to step in front of the majority and stop it, especially when there's money involved.
What do the laws in Washington say about discrimination? This reminds me of what happened 2 years ago in WoW when the guild leader of the guild OZ was suspended for advertising her guild as being LGBT friendly. Lambda Legal actually got involved with talking to Blizzard on the subject. It was a similar situation where they were punishing the person being discriminated against, instead of the ones who were harassing. I don't see how this is any different, except Microsoft is based in Washington, and I don't know what their laws say.
Also, Microsoft has a group of LGBT Employees, anyone tried getting them involved? A letter writing campaign might work, but I don't think a boycott would be effective with the number of subscribers, and the number of LGBT people who don't want to cancel their accounts in protest.
And why don't we all put a big GAY or LESBIAN in our profile, just to make a point : we're quite a number playing on the Xbox Live and therefore paying to do so... If we are not respected or protected, why do we keep paying ?
This story is really pissing me off !
I love my xbox but I'll say this there are a few decent ppl on live and than there are just complete jerks :( I'm sorry to hear about her getting harassed and it's shocking that Microsoft would be supportive of such homophobia. Just the other night I was playing and some guy had "comehonorface" as they're tag I reported it and yet they're still on live with that name that's highly offensive and for someone to get banned for stating a tiny detail about themself in their profile is ridiculous.
That is so stupid. Honestly, that makes me want to not get Live now, and I've been begging to get it since like 2007 (mums been sayin no for whatever reason..)
How can they even allow someone to be banned based on sexuality?? How?! That makes no sense to me. Maybe we should get someone banned for admitting to being chinese, because of all the racist pricks on Live.
That sounds rediculous but for god sakes banning someone for being gay is reducilous too!
When you consider how much
rampant racism there is how can
you be surprised by this?
The whole following her around in
games to harass her is a little
disturbing though.
Heck, I would think most guys
would WANT to play with a lesbian...
of course she was probably owning
them and their fragile egos were
shattered! Oh, why are some straight
men such pussies?!
Wow! Name calling IS fun.
wtf, are some of you seriously trying to apologize for microsoft? they have no excuse. everyone knows xbox live exists for heterosexual white males to throw around racial/heterosexist slurs...and they do jack shit to prevent it. reading stuff like this makes me happy that i'm not supporting their servers. and i won't until they get their policies straight.
As a lesbian and longtime reader of this site and a gamer and a human being and all that jazz, this pisses me off to no end. I hope she gets this resolved and Microsoft works on this.
It's the complete opposite of helping with any homophobia going on. Impressionable gamers are going to see this and figure it's okay to report anyone who says they're gay and try to rid their precious online gaming environments of anything they find disgusting. It'll be an endless cycle of douchebaggery (on the gamers' end) and avoiding the real problem at hand (on MS's end). And it looks like Microsoft is cool with this.
I sort of want to punch something.
Thinking about it I have effectively boycotted MS. After experiencing Live on the Xbox I never returned post trial and my boyfriend bought me a PS3 not a 360 when we went next gen.
This sort of story just confirms it's an unpleasant space to be.
While I very much agree that punishing the victim = bad levels of dochbaggery, at the same time did she attempt to report her harassers?
I do not own an XBox so I do not know how Microsoft handles their reports, but guys and gals and anyone in between you gotta step up and be proactive in this. Reporting every single homophobic/racist remark would be counter productive, but you got to fight back with the more extreme incidences.
What about we, at Gaygamer, write a letter to Microsoft and sign it? They love to ask our money every time they have the chance, so why not demand our rights as consumers?
I think that everyone should change their profile and identify themselves as homosexuals.
Or at least change their profile to talk about MS condoning this hateful behavior
I am so irritated by this.
Saying I am gay doesn't mean that I am sexually active - I could be an abstinent Mormon virgin. Saying in my bio/profile that I have kids says more about my sexual history than my identifying as gay. It's absolutely homophobic. There is no defense for it.
I can even see the banning of gamertags and mottos - as those are more easily seen by the casual public. I have to dig into the menu to see a profile. It's just wrong, and there is no defense for it. None.
Just get everyone to set there profile ID to "Im a lesbian" and see if everyone gets banned.
What shocking video?
How about if MS raised the price of Xbox Live Gold to $400 a year and then they can hire people to monitor every word that is spoken during games in order to remove any offensive talk? Really what do you want them to do?
I would be interested to know if this woman was given any warning before being banned. Such as please remove lesbian from your profile or we will ban you. Just flat out banning is stupid and poor judgment on their part but if she refused to remove it then I don't have much sympathy. MS has made it clear they want as very sterile and vanilla experience as they can get and have said nothing having to do with sex is allowed in your names/profile.
By doing this MS isn't supporting those that call other "fags" or "gay" during a game. Like I mentioned earlier what are they suppose to do? I guess if someone got enough complaints they could look into it but there isn't anything that doesn't offend at least one person.
How was her or anyones playing experience enhanced by putting they are straight,gay,lesbian,hetro,or whatever. MS has said we don't want sex in profiles so don't bring sex up. Nothing is gain or harmed by not telling someone else on a game who you like to have sex with.
steven, really?
You're not thinking this through. MS is not requiring that straight gamers (myself included) keep it in the closet. I can talk about my marriage or my kids in my profile without risking my Xbox Live account. As it is, up until today my profile said "Your mom is a classy lady."
Now, of course, it says "I am a lesbian."
Total mindfart coming, and I don't have any intention of editing this. :) I don't mean to ignore any of the sentiment above me but I do have to throw in my .02 "okay, wait a sec." With experience in online communities, I can say that when folks get suspended it's not too uncommon for the person removed to say they were removed for this, that, or the other thing. You just don't know. Microsoft won't come out and speak about Theresa because speaking about an individual account tends to be against privacy standards. They might make a broad statement about 'gays' using XBox Live but we'll never have insight on the individual circumstances we've been hearing about. I am all for petitioning to Microsoft to ask them to make a statement against bigotry in XBox Live and offer some sort of message to negate growing concerns that being gay can get you in trouble with XBox. However, I do have to say, you know, this is the kind of thing that can get a lot of people (us particularly) fired up, and with good reason, but debating Microsoft's morality or something like that might be making a lot of assumptions. Look at it this way, do you really think ONLY two people out of the thousands and thousands who use XBox Live have given some indication of being gay? I'm sure there must be a gay employee somewhere in the XBox Live community development team or part of customer support. Just, let's work less on talking about what Microsoft did and why they did it (which we may never know, ever) and instead use this petition idea to request them actually make a statement against bigotry and outlining repercussions for such. I sort of think that's all that can be done rationally. I'm not getting a Live account myself until I see something like that.
Zach where in that profile are you talking about sex exactly? Change your name to "hetrosexual superstar" and see how long before you are banned? About the same amount of time as saying you are a lesbian.
I don't recall being told by MS that you couldn't talk about how Zack lives in a nice little town with my wife and two kids.
Of course if Zack talked about how he lives in a nice little town with his wife and two kids who came into this world by him giving their mother the best dick in her life! You would be banned.
Case in point:
I searched for the gamertag "ladiesman" and there are dozens if not hundreds of variations.
Why is it not banned? It screams heterosexuality, and all references to sexuality are forbidden according to the TOS.
I honestly don't even want to play my XBOX anymore until this is sorted out... which sucks since its the console that I use the most.
I agree Fastmode they should all be banned. With them so should anyone who has the name Randy because it means horny to some people. The word bird also because it can mean a women and you may be implying that you like to fuck them.
Listen no one is so dense that they don't know what "ladiesman" is referring to but are you seriously suggesting that they all get banned because you think that referrers to sex? Maybe the ladiesman is a man who like to help ladies across the street and open doors for them? So MS is now going to ban everyone because of how you can interpret something because MS doesn't want people to use the terms gay,hetro,lesbian,trans sexual,whatever.
How does not being able to tell other who you like to have sex with hurt you in a videogame? Would they sniper next to me get even more kills if I knew it was a lesbian. Don't post about sex no matter who you like and everything is fine. Many more important issues that we should be marching to washington about.
You know, I play on Live and i don't really encounter that much homophobia any more. Of course it's still there, but since I started playing in the Pro "zone" instead of the standard Recreational zone, I've seen a lot less of it. Also, I make ample use of my mute button. Of course, in this woman's situation mute wouldn't have helped and you can get douchebags in any part of Live.
In the end, I think MS made a bad call in that they didn't live up to (what I would suspect to be) the spirit of their policy: preventing unpleasant experiences. She broke one policy and could potentially cause an unpleasant experience to some narrow-minded idiot, but MS should also take action against the narrow-minded idiots who created an unpleasant experience for her. However, Neon makes a great point: we don't know what else MS might have done or their reasoning. We would need that reasoning to form a good argument against MS.
Putting MS' actions aside, there is one last question on my mind. I hate to bring this up as I think this argument can be construed as censorship; but, honestly, why put that sentence there? Don't get me wrong, I don't think she's provoking a fight and I don't think she shouldn't say it just because of other's reactions. I think putting the sentence there is actually a rare opening that invites conversation, but why the surprise/outrage when the conversation isn't pleasant? (to answer part of my own question and prevent flames: I recognize the fact that she may consider her sexuality as a more important part of herself than I consider my own, and a profile always boils down to simply expressing oneself)
@ steven
garbage. Even Teen-rated titles drip with boobs and innuendo. If you are gay and posting here, you know that being gay is only fractionally about sex. (That fraction may vary from person to person, but it's clearly not just about sex.)
If you are straight and posting here, then welcome, and I hope you visit more, because you could clearly learn a lot from this community.
It's a double standard you seem very eager to uphold and I question your motives for backing MS on this so strongly.
Obviously I don't find "ladiesman" offensive. But I do find the MS explanation for why "gay" is an autoban, regardless of context, offensive.
No one is marching on Washington about it. We're voicing our opinion to a company and to a community. If we are wasting our time, why are you wasting yours defending the policy?
Not (that) gay. Just posting.
I think it would be a great idea to post a signed a letter to Microsoft. I also think that it should be through GayGamer. That way, the right people would get to know about it and if it generates enough popularity it could spread to other sites.
I'd sign it. Even though I realise that no, we haven't heard all accounts from all parties I still think that unfair things are at play on a paid service. Unfair things that only seem to be directed in one way. Met the gamer Mieser Ficker the other day. And well. I find that highly offenisve. My poor knowledge of German makes me interpret this as "Nasty Mthrfckr" and I cannot see why his account is still active after I reported him.
Start the petition/quiestionning here and I'd gladly join the ranks.
@ Steven
Please excuse me while I make an assumption, but are you insinuating that we need to 'protect' the XBox Live userbase from the knowledge that homosexuals exist? I would much rather allow my children to play online with a woman that identifies as a lesbian on her profile, than 90% of the foul-mouthed, racist, and homophobic Live users.
So really, what is she playing online that isn't M-Rated anyway? Shouldn't concerned parents monitor what their children are actually -playing- than the fact that some of the people they may or may not be playing with, are, in fact, gay. (Gasp!)
I have been posting here for a while now, and it's never really come up, but I'm straight. I believe that the foul-mouthed users on XBox Live should be reprimanded. What Microsoft is doing is handling this dispute by eliminating the victim, which is the easiest way to stop the problem, but it does not solve it!
However- it is not Microsoft's inherent problem- nor is it their responsibility to curb these children. (Though they can start by incorporating age barriers on M rated games, so that they can only be played online by an adult.) At the end of the day, the responsibility falls on the parents, and I am truly ashamed that there are parents out there that would let their children say such things in -any- sort of situation, anonymous or not. I can only speak from my experiences online, but some of the things I have heard from the prepubescent users of Live are simply deplorable.
I just wish there was someone we could write to, and complain about the state of -parents- in this day and age. It's saddening to think that homosexuality is, without exaggeration, the last segregated minority in the U.S. We can have a black president, but when lesbians want to play video games, then we have a problem?
Sorry, this rant has gone on far too long. 9.9
The race element is a valid comparision. If someone identified as belonging to a racial community in their Xbox live profile, a very valid thing they may want to do, as much as belonging to a certain gaming community etc may also be important, then do you think MS could then say this justified racism?
The kids thing is also just plain ridiculous - think of all the ways that heterosexuality and gender norms are literally rammed down childrens throats (to the point where children not displaying typical gender norms are considered patholigical by the medical community). Think of every advert with a married couple, every organisation and media product based around heterosexuality - yet even the mention of homosexuality, let alone it's thoroughly integrated promotion, is supposed to be corruptive?
The hypocricy of it makes me rage, and, moreso, I'm heartily up for boycotting MS and really trying to kick a fuss up about this!
This also came up in May 08, nearly a year ago when the GAYERgamer and a Mr Richard Gaywood were made to change usernames (i.e. reduce their visibility) on Live.
Wow, to think some guys 'n' gals will continue to pay for this homophobic "service" rather than strongly reject it. WTF?
I like the idea of a signed letter. Someone sort that out for us. It's better than just individual emails (though that will be happening too).
I just added "I am a lesbian" to my gamer profile. I can't wait to see what happens. Bring it, Microsoft.
Me too, I put "I'm a lesbian" on my profile.
I'm astonished by this and it just makes me even more glad I own a PS3 - last August I changed my status to "Off to Pride Parade! Yay!" (or something along those lines, anyway) and it was up for a full week, not a thing said.
Of course, if I called myself Sausage Jockey I'd expect some repercussions LOL
Joking aside, I think this is absolutely disgusting and a true case of institutionalized homophobia. How names along the lines of "ladiesman" can be permitted, which are far far more crude and sexual than merely identifying as lesbian/gay in your profile astonishes me. Microsoft's hypocrisy knows no bounds it seems.
Bang goes my plans to be a flash git by saving up and owning both a PS3 and a 360 (I REALLY want the GTA IV DLC).
I could see this being a case where the victims get feedback / complain bombed and suspended because of the tidal wave of negative responses.
Why not use the same tactics on the players doing the harassing? Check your recent player list (before you get suspended etc) and post the offenders on the forums or something.... and we can all report them. Seems kinda immature or childish, or sinking to that level... but there aren't many options really. Its sad that I've come to expect such bs in online games and the like (IE kids that sound no more than 12 dropping N bombs, let alone playing a game that is out of their age range lol)
Microsoft should rewrite their policy so it's clearer and more accurate to what's going on:
"References to homosexuality are only appropriate if they are used to insult and demean others."
I was very sadden to read about this young woman's plight yesterday at the TeamXbox website. One of the reasons being, anyone who goes to my Xbox profile will see that I promote Gaygamer as well as my Live Space - which does not hide the fact that I am gay and a Christian.
I have had one "friend" ask if I was a homosexual and when I responded in the affirmative, he blocked communication with me. I wasn't offended.
Yet, what she endured is unacceptable. Microsoft's response is deplorable. I understand Microsoft is trying to promote its system towards the Family group but it can not forget it has attracted all kinds of persons to its product. (Least they forget their has been news leaks of pedophiles taking advantage of Xbox Live?)
Hmmm... How do we - gay gamers - make our voices heard if the organizations that are supposed to promote justice are afraid to bite the hand that feeds? I'm sure too many of us have invested too much to ignore our systems. Should we write and request a Gay Gamer night since they have a Gamer Chick night? Would that be too progressive for Microsoft?
Most of my time on XBL is in Rock Band 2 nowadays, which is probably a somewhat more mature group of players than Halo, etc. Nevertheless, I used to hear plenty of comments like "That song's so gay" when somebody didn't like a song that came up.
So, I gave my rocker an obvious rainbow tattoo. Amazingly, I haven't heard a homophobic comment in the couple months since I did that. And I've even had a few positive comments. One night I even had a guy take advantage of the opportunity to ask some questions along the lines of "how do you know you're gay?"; it was pretty obvious he was starting to question his own sexuality, and I hope I was able to help.
Oh, and be sure to see this post from an XBL manager. They're obviously trying to improve things.
And if there are any other Rock Band players around, my gamer tag is AndyHat :)
I came to Gaygamer several months ago to find other gamers of my type. I got tired of hearing all the idiots on Live, and wanted some gaming peace. I exchanged gamertags here, and now i have a nice list of friends, and will not play with anyone straight. Why would i want to? I consider my friends list a safe haven for me and others.
I am sorry for her experience, but wonder about her actions. Anyone running around announcing "I am Gay" is going to run into problems,online and in the real world, and she had to have known this. So I am a little hesitant to feel totally sorry for her.