Gaming as a trans woman

Hi, my name is Julie, and I play games online.

Please note the conscious non-use of the word gamer.

Gamer implies a community that I do not feel myself a part of. Gamer implies a community that I feel is not welcoming to me, and which hasn't been welcoming to me for...6 to 8 years at least, if not more.

I play World of Warcraft. I've played since late burning crusade. I off tanked or main tanked from Kara through tier 11 in cataclysm (so tier 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). From there I switched to DPS main through Warlords of Draenor (which ha ha OpenOffice wanted to spell correct to Drano and it's funny cos it's true the expansion was like drinking Drano ha ha) (tier 12,13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) because going vers and switching between the two for Legion.

I'm a member of a primarily LGBT+ guild on Wyrmrest Accord.

And that's about the only reason I still play.

To give you an idea, when I create a new character, after I get my UI set up, the next thing I do is leave both /trade and /general chat. I do this for my own well being. I do this for my own well being because even being in a queer as fuck guild, both chat channels are as full of transmisia, homomisia, racism, fascism (latent and otherwise) as you'd find in any online multiplayer game.

And this is an RP server...which automatically means a smaller population.

There's a reason why in wow a lot of queer people end up on Proudmoore, the unofficial LGBT server...and ever there there have been issues, including blizzard once banning an entire guild for discrimination because they were LGBT+.

Because it was discriminatory.

Yet people like Mark Kern will tell you "but we grew up, and changed the world, and invited everyone along. We didn’t care about your skin color or your gender or your disability. We just wanted friends and to share all our cool ideas and gadgets."

Yeah. right. OK.

Ask the black gamers who get to hear themselves referred to as...a whole list of slurs I will not write here.

Ask the queer gamers who get called fag, tranny, trap.

Ask the women gamers who won't get on a mic because they're terrified of sexual abuse/rape threats, leading other players to wonder if they're trannies.

Ask any of those about death threats.

Cos I know what I get in my whispers...in my DM box here on twitter...et cetera.

To say gamers aren't gatekeepers at all is the big lie. because they are. anyone who games and isn't a man has such a high hurdle to overcome just to be seen as worthy of being noticed, let alone heard...

...that the only way we end up feeling welcomed is to create our own walled off, gated community.

Which in the end is what they want.

They want us far away from them. In self imposed exile. So we don't sully their precious games with our presence.

Cos we're fake geeks.

Fake gamers.

Fake fans.

Ignoring for the moment that the player I learned to tank from was a woman...and queer. and a better thank than anyone I ever knew. In my second guild, my own guild master...a guy I was best woman for at his wedding, said in voice chat 'know how I know you're a fag? Cos you like musicals.'

Ignoring the fact that it's opera, but...this was someone I knew. Not a stranger, someone I gamed with every day. A...'friend.'

Or in the guild I was in in Mists of Pandaria...when I was soloing content and people were shocked...until they found out I was trans, at which time it was 'oh, it's cos HE'S a man.'

Yeah, I was welcomed alright.

So gamers...designers like Mark 'you're bullying me' Kern...all y'all can eat my entire trans ass and balls, because your ignorance is showing in every word you write. You don't see it cos it doesn't affect you. And for a group who claims so much oppression, such a history of abuse and bullying...you sure learned how to dole it back out...almost like you didn't learn how to be kind because you were once treated cruelly.

So I'm Julie.

I play games.

But don't ever call me a gamer.