Our Stories & Voices: E

Content Warning(s): discrimination based on presumed gender, unsafe online spaces.

Submitted for Sexual Assault Awareness Month - Our Voices & Stories.

"I am a big gamer and especially into MMORPG's. I really love the community aspect of it, the teamwork and getting to play and work together to achieve stuff, it's really great, especially as there's not a lot of people near me into anime and other geeky and nerdy stuff and I really don't have many friends nearby, so I really cherish getting to meet people with similar interests and have met some of my best friends through gaming.

I used to tank a lot, and often with random groups. I tended to prefer to type mechanics and instructions in chat, as people tended to assume I was a guy and tended to listen to me and things would go smooth. On many occasions after the first or second boss someone would suggest we'd use voice chat for convenience.

I'd introduce myself in channel, someone would inexplicably remark they thought I was a dude, and no one would listen to me from then on out. I'd get talked over, asked if I really knew what I was doing, had guys literally look up a raid guide and tell everyone this guide says to do literally the exact thing I was saying and they'd all listen to the guy reading from the guide. I lost count of how many times this happened."

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E, we're so sorry you had to go through that. When we were at Uplift's panel at MAGFest 2018, we heard someone tell a similar story about being disrespected once other players found out their (assumed) non-cis-male gender based on their voice. It can be really frustrating to experience flagrant discrimination like that online (as opposed to, say, at an office, where it's more likely a case of discrimination will be taken more seriously). You're not alone (by far), and it's not your fault that you were discriminated against.

-Anonymous