One of the problems I've wrestled with for as long as I've been playing MMOs is… do I out myself as a transgender woman to my fellow players, and if not, how do I go about presenting myself?
This has never been an easy question, mainly because my voice is just not totally femme. 'Femmish' is really the best way to describe it. On a good day I'll get a "Miss" from a phone operator and then cry tears of happiness and validation. Other days I'll get called "Sir", no matter how many times I beg the operator not to call me that. This is an actual conversation I've had with a phone operator for a bank that we'll call "Hells Embargo":
"I'm sorry Sir, but there's nothing I can do."
"Please don't call me 'sir.'"
"I'm sorry, Sir, what would you like me to call you?"
"Call me by my first name please."
"Ok Sir."
TABLEFLIP
So the prospect of presenting myself as a woman while playing games is much more difficult than in real life because my voice is all the other players have to go on. Now, I could and in some cases have made every effort to femme up my voice enough to "pass" with my fellow gamers, but I find that putting so much effort into it stresses me out way more than just being honest. That seems to me to defeat the purpose of playing games in the first place (eliminating stress, not creating more).
Even if I'm not stressed about it, I should be because I'm up against a lot of scrutiny. Most of the folks I play games online with are guys, and they're generally suspicious that everyone with a female character is "really a dude". The slightest hint that such an assumption is right is all they need to FLAT OUT DENY my claims of womanhood. This is especially true in EVE where the gender ratio is about 4-5% female compared to World of Warcraft which is anywhere from 16% to as much as 30% female according to some estimates.
In some cases, I get to know the guys I'm playing with and eventually come out to some of them privately. I've rarely (but occasionally) had extremely negative reactions when I've done so, but I've had a few folks quit the EVE corporation I run after finding out. As happy as I was to see assholes like that go, there's always that part of me that says "Gosh, it would just be so much easier if I didn't say anything."
So the way I've gone about handling this in EVE lately is to just abstain from making any claims one way or another about my gender and just let people make whatever assumptions they want. It's really none of their business anyway and ultimately has little to do with whether or not I know how to turn on my ship's guns. The problem is that other players always seem to make the wrong assumption if left to their own.
I've even tried some subtle methods of encouraging folks to use female pronouns with regards to me. I have multiple characters, but my "main" character is a female and whenever I refer to her I always do so with female pronouns to encourage other players to do the same with me. It doesn't really amount to much though, especially once they hear my voice on Teamspeak.
So here lies the choices** before me:
1) Abstain from telling other players and let them make their own assumptions.
Sadly, they usually make the wrong assumptions. The other possibility I've run into is, what if they ask? I usually tell them but it kind of puts you on the spot.
2) Insist on people using female pronouns regarding me without explaining that I'm trans.
Some people don't, some people won't. It tends to cause arguments because of my not-so-perfect voice so there's always doubt and suspicion it seems.
3) Quietly come out to a few select players I run with, but no one else.
Jumping on teamspeak with our allies can cause confusion and raise a lot of eyebrows if people start referring to me with two different pronouns. By confusion, I mean screaming matches that wind up in people getting kicked from their corps. As much as I like to raise awareness, I'm not out to mess up any friendships if they don't have anything to do with me.
4) Only play with other transgender gamers.
I've looked into this, but there just aren't many. One player tried to start an in-game channel specifically for trans players but it didn't turn out very well. The thread wound up shining a bright beacon for trolls to come from all over the internet to spout hateful nonsense and now, it's locked indefinitely: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=144489
The channel was empty last I checked.
Besides the simple lack of other trans players, I also have friends in the game that I really like and want to fly with and wouldn't be as inclined to even play the game if I couldn't play with them. Besides, it's a big universe in EVE Online and you need friends to survive it.
5) Avoid Voice Comms altogether.
Really not very realistic if you plan to work with other people at all. It's one of the reasons I do a lot of solo flying though.
6) Voice Modulators
Yes, because Darth Vader or Chipette #3 would NEEEVER raise eyebrows. Some of them are decent enough, but I'd worry that I'd get dependent on it and not find my voice when I'm not on the computer There has to be a better solution.
It's the one I'm taking right now by writing this and that's playing as an out trans woman. And I don't mean like, out to the people that I play with. I mean OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUT.
If you're asking "well why do you need to tell everyone?" then you haven't been paying attention. I cringe every single time someone uses a masculine pronoun to refer to me. Perhaps you can't relate but let's say that starting tomorrow any time anyone ever referred to you they used the word "Bitch". Hey Bitch, could you pass the salt? Hey Bitch, what's on the other side of that jump gate. Hey Bitch. Hey Bitch. Man, woman or awesome you'd get sick and tired of that pretty quick wouldn't you?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is… there's just no easy way to be in the closet, even partially. In my real day-to-day life I live as an open trans woman and you know what the benefit is? I have both feet firmly planted in the ground. When someone gets in my face I don't have to shrink away just because I don't have an identity to stand on. You can't defend an identity you're making every effort to hide, you can only go further into the closet. But instead I can say, Yeah, I AM trans. So what? I'm not running, what's on your mind?
But what about the avalanche of abuse that being so out would invite? The EVE Online community can be pretty awful to each other if they want. Given that the community is about 96% male, the bullying I'd be opening myself up could be staggering. Well… just how mean could they be? Specifically, how mean are they allowed to be. Let's look at what EVE's EULA look's like on the subject of harassment:
You may not submit any content to any chat room or other public forum within the Game that is harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, libelous or defamatory, encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense or give rise to civil liabilities, or is unlawful in any other way, including without limitation the submission of content that infringes on a third-party’s intellectual property rights.
Sounds pretty clear right? You can't harass anyone anywhere within the game. It provides no such protections in other programs like Teamspeak but you probably won't interact with anyone but allies in outside channels like that. Groovy.
So let's say I meet a rule-breaker who decides "fuck it, I want to pick on the tranny anyway, I don't care if it's against the rules cuz I'm a rebel like that." He decides to go ahead and harass me anyway. What happens to him? More from the EULA:
You may encounter and converse with people who are rude, offensive, belligerent, and who may use indecent, obscene, and/or threatening or harassing language while playing the Game or otherwise interacting within EVE. You may report any instances of such behavior to CCP. CCP will investigate and take such measures as CCP, in its sole judgment, determines are reasonable under the circumstances. CCP does not guarantee that you will not encounter behavior of others that you may view as insulting, demeaning, offensive, threatening or harassing. You assume all risk associated with playing the Game, and CCP assumes no responsibility for the conduct of any other players, and shall not be liable to you or any other person for their conduct.
Basically, I can tell CCP about the harassment but what exactly are they obligated to do about it? Nothing. Well shucks. I guess I could just put myself out there and hope that CCP is LGBT-friendly but last time I checked the temperature on friendliness towards trans women in the gaming industry, it was lukewarm at best. Maybe the CEO of CCP is super trans-friendly (I have no idea), but the game master who answers my petition that day could have a grudge against trans folks, or maybe their best friend is trans. There's no guarantee of anything.
For now, let's assume that everyone at CCP is a champion of transgender rights. Aside from the obvious chat room and forum insults I'd find myself subjected to, it's actually possible that a group of players could decide they want to punish me in the game for my identity outside of it. They wouldn't even have to violate the EULA, and there's absolutely no reason they'd get into trouble for it as long as they didn't publicly announce why they were doing it.
They could just do all the standard harassment tactics that players do to one another as part of the game (suicide ganking, AFK cloaking, station camping, corporate espionage, etc.) to the point where maybe I couldn't even undock from a station without getting shot at (dear god, I hope I'm not giving anyone ideas). I probably overestimated my own importance with that last line, but it's actually not that crazy. EVE players are truly the biggest trolls you'll ever meet anywhere on the internet.
I'm not really afraid of people trying to pick fights with me though. If you've played eve, you've been war-decced, chased, or camped and I've gotten around it all before. So if you really want to try and blow up one of my ships... my character name is XVXTeacherVXV. Come at me bro.
I still find myself with unanswered questions. My corp effectively disbanded because too many of the core group have stopped playing. For the moment I'm basically flying solo and screwing around in faction warfare and I had considered trying to find other trans players to join me but don't really want to run an eve corp anymore. So I'm left with trying to find a new group but I'm just not going to join any corp/alliance/coalition that doesn't treat me like a girl. How on earth do you find one that will? I think the bigger the group, the more likely I would run into problems but when corps are too small, there's nothing going on.
I recently tried joining up with Insidious Empire after one of their recruiters saw that I was looking for a LGBT-friendly group and reached out to me. I found some of them to be decent enough on an individual basis, but fleet comms was still dominated by FCs that would assume I'm a guy and often referred to enemy fleets as "a bunch of faggots". Its just not enough to not care what gender or sexual orientation I am, I want to fly with a group that makes me feel welcomed, at home, relaxed. I want to worry about external threats to my ship, not the internal politics of coming out to my corpies.
Still much to think about. Maybe I'll plant this flag on the forums and see what turns up. Maybe there's some super secret all-trans corp that nobody's told me about.
This has never been an easy question, mainly because my voice is just not totally femme. 'Femmish' is really the best way to describe it. On a good day I'll get a "Miss" from a phone operator and then cry tears of happiness and validation. Other days I'll get called "Sir", no matter how many times I beg the operator not to call me that. This is an actual conversation I've had with a phone operator for a bank that we'll call "Hells Embargo":
"I'm sorry Sir, but there's nothing I can do."
"Please don't call me 'sir.'"
"I'm sorry, Sir, what would you like me to call you?"
"Call me by my first name please."
"Ok Sir."
TABLEFLIP
So the prospect of presenting myself as a woman while playing games is much more difficult than in real life because my voice is all the other players have to go on. Now, I could and in some cases have made every effort to femme up my voice enough to "pass" with my fellow gamers, but I find that putting so much effort into it stresses me out way more than just being honest. That seems to me to defeat the purpose of playing games in the first place (eliminating stress, not creating more).
Even if I'm not stressed about it, I should be because I'm up against a lot of scrutiny. Most of the folks I play games online with are guys, and they're generally suspicious that everyone with a female character is "really a dude". The slightest hint that such an assumption is right is all they need to FLAT OUT DENY my claims of womanhood. This is especially true in EVE where the gender ratio is about 4-5% female compared to World of Warcraft which is anywhere from 16% to as much as 30% female according to some estimates.
In some cases, I get to know the guys I'm playing with and eventually come out to some of them privately. I've rarely (but occasionally) had extremely negative reactions when I've done so, but I've had a few folks quit the EVE corporation I run after finding out. As happy as I was to see assholes like that go, there's always that part of me that says "Gosh, it would just be so much easier if I didn't say anything."
So the way I've gone about handling this in EVE lately is to just abstain from making any claims one way or another about my gender and just let people make whatever assumptions they want. It's really none of their business anyway and ultimately has little to do with whether or not I know how to turn on my ship's guns. The problem is that other players always seem to make the wrong assumption if left to their own.
I've even tried some subtle methods of encouraging folks to use female pronouns with regards to me. I have multiple characters, but my "main" character is a female and whenever I refer to her I always do so with female pronouns to encourage other players to do the same with me. It doesn't really amount to much though, especially once they hear my voice on Teamspeak.
So here lies the choices** before me:
1) Abstain from telling other players and let them make their own assumptions.
Sadly, they usually make the wrong assumptions. The other possibility I've run into is, what if they ask? I usually tell them but it kind of puts you on the spot.
2) Insist on people using female pronouns regarding me without explaining that I'm trans.
Some people don't, some people won't. It tends to cause arguments because of my not-so-perfect voice so there's always doubt and suspicion it seems.
3) Quietly come out to a few select players I run with, but no one else.
Jumping on teamspeak with our allies can cause confusion and raise a lot of eyebrows if people start referring to me with two different pronouns. By confusion, I mean screaming matches that wind up in people getting kicked from their corps. As much as I like to raise awareness, I'm not out to mess up any friendships if they don't have anything to do with me.
4) Only play with other transgender gamers.
I've looked into this, but there just aren't many. One player tried to start an in-game channel specifically for trans players but it didn't turn out very well. The thread wound up shining a bright beacon for trolls to come from all over the internet to spout hateful nonsense and now, it's locked indefinitely: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=144489
The channel was empty last I checked.
Besides the simple lack of other trans players, I also have friends in the game that I really like and want to fly with and wouldn't be as inclined to even play the game if I couldn't play with them. Besides, it's a big universe in EVE Online and you need friends to survive it.
5) Avoid Voice Comms altogether.
Really not very realistic if you plan to work with other people at all. It's one of the reasons I do a lot of solo flying though.
6) Voice Modulators
Yes, because Darth Vader or Chipette #3 would NEEEVER raise eyebrows. Some of them are decent enough, but I'd worry that I'd get dependent on it and not find my voice when I'm not on the computer There has to be a better solution.
It's the one I'm taking right now by writing this and that's playing as an out trans woman. And I don't mean like, out to the people that I play with. I mean OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUT.
If you're asking "well why do you need to tell everyone?" then you haven't been paying attention. I cringe every single time someone uses a masculine pronoun to refer to me. Perhaps you can't relate but let's say that starting tomorrow any time anyone ever referred to you they used the word "Bitch". Hey Bitch, could you pass the salt? Hey Bitch, what's on the other side of that jump gate. Hey Bitch. Hey Bitch. Man, woman or awesome you'd get sick and tired of that pretty quick wouldn't you?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is… there's just no easy way to be in the closet, even partially. In my real day-to-day life I live as an open trans woman and you know what the benefit is? I have both feet firmly planted in the ground. When someone gets in my face I don't have to shrink away just because I don't have an identity to stand on. You can't defend an identity you're making every effort to hide, you can only go further into the closet. But instead I can say, Yeah, I AM trans. So what? I'm not running, what's on your mind?
But what about the avalanche of abuse that being so out would invite? The EVE Online community can be pretty awful to each other if they want. Given that the community is about 96% male, the bullying I'd be opening myself up could be staggering. Well… just how mean could they be? Specifically, how mean are they allowed to be. Let's look at what EVE's EULA look's like on the subject of harassment:
You may not submit any content to any chat room or other public forum within the Game that is harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, libelous or defamatory, encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense or give rise to civil liabilities, or is unlawful in any other way, including without limitation the submission of content that infringes on a third-party’s intellectual property rights.
Sounds pretty clear right? You can't harass anyone anywhere within the game. It provides no such protections in other programs like Teamspeak but you probably won't interact with anyone but allies in outside channels like that. Groovy.
So let's say I meet a rule-breaker who decides "fuck it, I want to pick on the tranny anyway, I don't care if it's against the rules cuz I'm a rebel like that." He decides to go ahead and harass me anyway. What happens to him? More from the EULA:
You may encounter and converse with people who are rude, offensive, belligerent, and who may use indecent, obscene, and/or threatening or harassing language while playing the Game or otherwise interacting within EVE. You may report any instances of such behavior to CCP. CCP will investigate and take such measures as CCP, in its sole judgment, determines are reasonable under the circumstances. CCP does not guarantee that you will not encounter behavior of others that you may view as insulting, demeaning, offensive, threatening or harassing. You assume all risk associated with playing the Game, and CCP assumes no responsibility for the conduct of any other players, and shall not be liable to you or any other person for their conduct.
Basically, I can tell CCP about the harassment but what exactly are they obligated to do about it? Nothing. Well shucks. I guess I could just put myself out there and hope that CCP is LGBT-friendly but last time I checked the temperature on friendliness towards trans women in the gaming industry, it was lukewarm at best. Maybe the CEO of CCP is super trans-friendly (I have no idea), but the game master who answers my petition that day could have a grudge against trans folks, or maybe their best friend is trans. There's no guarantee of anything.
For now, let's assume that everyone at CCP is a champion of transgender rights. Aside from the obvious chat room and forum insults I'd find myself subjected to, it's actually possible that a group of players could decide they want to punish me in the game for my identity outside of it. They wouldn't even have to violate the EULA, and there's absolutely no reason they'd get into trouble for it as long as they didn't publicly announce why they were doing it.
They could just do all the standard harassment tactics that players do to one another as part of the game (suicide ganking, AFK cloaking, station camping, corporate espionage, etc.) to the point where maybe I couldn't even undock from a station without getting shot at (dear god, I hope I'm not giving anyone ideas). I probably overestimated my own importance with that last line, but it's actually not that crazy. EVE players are truly the biggest trolls you'll ever meet anywhere on the internet.
I'm not really afraid of people trying to pick fights with me though. If you've played eve, you've been war-decced, chased, or camped and I've gotten around it all before. So if you really want to try and blow up one of my ships... my character name is XVXTeacherVXV. Come at me bro.
I still find myself with unanswered questions. My corp effectively disbanded because too many of the core group have stopped playing. For the moment I'm basically flying solo and screwing around in faction warfare and I had considered trying to find other trans players to join me but don't really want to run an eve corp anymore. So I'm left with trying to find a new group but I'm just not going to join any corp/alliance/coalition that doesn't treat me like a girl. How on earth do you find one that will? I think the bigger the group, the more likely I would run into problems but when corps are too small, there's nothing going on.
I recently tried joining up with Insidious Empire after one of their recruiters saw that I was looking for a LGBT-friendly group and reached out to me. I found some of them to be decent enough on an individual basis, but fleet comms was still dominated by FCs that would assume I'm a guy and often referred to enemy fleets as "a bunch of faggots". Its just not enough to not care what gender or sexual orientation I am, I want to fly with a group that makes me feel welcomed, at home, relaxed. I want to worry about external threats to my ship, not the internal politics of coming out to my corpies.
Still much to think about. Maybe I'll plant this flag on the forums and see what turns up. Maybe there's some super secret all-trans corp that nobody's told me about.
