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Gamer Claims Identifying As a Lesbian Led To Xbox Live Ban
Goatbert writes "I just read on the Consumerist about an XBOX Live user being banned for identifying herself as a lesbian. Despite appeals, Microsoft has stood by its position that merely mentioning that you are gay or lesbian is grounds for terminating your XBOX Live membership."
My name is "Spike"
xboxlive won't let me use that name in the "real name" field of my xboxlive profile. It says that it's a banned word.
Why could that be? I think it might be because it contains 'spik,' but even that seems ridiculous.
*shrug*
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
That's pretty sad that you think that's the solution. In fact, it's probably because everyone's knee jerk reaction is "sue" that this kind of crap happens. Why else would they have this kind of policy unless they were trying to prevent being sued by someone who's "offended" that their child was exposed to a lesbian?
This is unusual, since Microsoft is apparently considered one of the most gay friendly employers in the US.
From the site:
It was one of the first companies in the world to offer employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners and to include sexual orientation in its corporate nondiscrimination policy. Since 1989, Microsoft has supported and sponsored gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues at Microsoft. In 1993 an organized employee resource groupâ"Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Employees at Microsoft (GLEAM)â"was launched. GLEAM now has more than 700 members.
The group even has it's own Wikipedia entry (for what that's worth).
The big thing such parents worry about is that their children are exposed to gays that are not horrible monsters and thus the kids start seeing them as regular people... which the parents are trying very hard to prevent. These parents do not want to risk their kids seeing gays as people.. they want to see them unquestioningly as sick pedophiles that are destroying society, inhuman evil monsters that can not be related to.
THAT is why they don't want their kids exposed to gays in enviorments like this where they might actually *gasp* get along with them.
The few times that I have played anything on Xbox Live account, the chat is always over run with 13 year-olds, obscenities, and homo-erotic remarks.
Besides, who else thinks, it is hot, that there are lesbian girls actually playing video games? Xbox you just lost my vote, by removing possibly the one female online player.
They'll just put a blanket ban on mentioning your sexual orientation or romantic status. The pride people will still be angry but they can't argue discrimination, at least not successfully (I'm sure they'll still argue it is discriminatory because it is in place solely to stem their pride speech, but people won't care anymore).
The "game" is being deliberately offensive/unprofessional, and then using one's "protected status" as an excuse or dodge. For example, a local TV studio had a black lesbian employee who was seen (by quite a few individuals) having sex with her girlfriend in a car in the parking lot. When this was reported to the managers and the police called, it was discovered that she (a) was in fact employed there (nobody had been risky enough to try to identify who it was, just that it was going on) and (b) that she hadn't clocked out - she was doing this on company time instead of doing her job.
The most she got was a formal reprimand in her file. You can damn well bet if it had been a white, straight male, there would have been an immediate no-questions-needed firing.
In either case, Microsoft is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The hard place being the users (who want "self-expression", whatever that means) and the rock being the ridiculous ESRB ratings system. Games can be "re-rated" based on user-created mods these days, and any game with an online component has to have the whole "user experience may change" nonsense (which is why the Wii still lacks voice chat; Big N doesn't want to take any risks at all).
So MS has a choice. They either leave the system completely open - and take the risk of being hounded and hounded and having their console have to be kept out of sight behind store counters and sent home wrapped in giant paper bags as if it were a $300 dirty magazine - or they have to be immensely censorious and deal with the aftermath of stuff like this in order to appease the ESRB's ratings crew and keep games available to be purchased.
Yeah, there will be boneheaded decisions. There will be decisions you personally feel are wrong. The reality is, they don't really have a choice. It's either little blowups like this, or painting a giant target on themselves for the witch hunt.
Also, I don't hang my hat on being straight - do you really need to point out that you're gay in your xbox profile? I mean... really? I don't think you should be banned for doing it, but I think it's a little odd.
I run a guild in WoW, I myself am straight, but we have gay members in the guild. When ever we pick up someone new I make sure they are aware that there are gay men in the guild. Not because I'm trying to pimp them out (most of them are already married), but because people tend to be better about not tossing words like "fag" around or saying "that's gay" when they know that there are gay people around.
So yeah, I think it's perfectly acceptable to have someone post that they are homosexual on their profile. If it makes other people be a little more self conscious about how their words can come across and breaks the social norms of using homosexual terms as insults, then I think it's AWESOME.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I think it's time for all of us to add "I'm a lesbian" to our profiles. Let Microsoft ban us all!
Nope.
"User experience may change..." notices always have that little ESRB tag attached to them, even on Nintendo Wii games. The reason is that there is "user-generated" content on there. If you're playing Halo 3 with someone online, you can't guarantee that they won't start spewing obscene language everywhere. You can't guarantee that they're not going to use words that would make a sailor blush. You can't guarantee that someone won't insert a crude drawing on in-game art, or do something else with a webcam... you just can't.
That little tag is the ESRB throwing up their hands and saying "screw it, we can't actually rate this", but if a game got a bad reputation for user behavior with enough substantiated reports, they COULD theoretically use that to "adjust" the game's rating retroactively.
What about indirectly identifying yourself as something? I'm really confused here, since I have been playing Fable II for the last couple of days.
The whole game is LOADED with references to sexuality. You can have condoms, unprotected sex, extramarital sex.
Characters in the game are either straight, gay, lesbian, or Bi. Men can have sex with men, women can have sex with women, hell I have not tried yet, but I think I can have sex with the dog.
There is a whole quest, and scene in the game, where the father has to come to terms with the fact his farmer son is gay and just wants to live in the city. As part of the quest, you need to find him a date. Bring a man for extra points. There is even a point in the game where you can change your sex. A transexual dream to be sure :)
Fable II is an ONLINE experience too. Some parts of the game you cannot unlock unless you are playing with other players.
EVEN BETTER. Men can marry other Men. Not civil unions. Marriage.
So how does MS apply their policies to a game like this where just about everything around you is invitation to debauchery, lewd and depraved acts, lesbians getting it on with lesbians?
Please note, I am not complaining. I already had my 5th lesbian today in the game.
Actually, I've heard an acceptable explanation from a parent about the whole "exposing children to sexual orientation" while discussing MTV. It's not "omg, monsters!!!!" like you seem to think (albeit, some ignorant schmucks will take that stance). He told me the following:
"I leaves me in the awkward position of attempting to explaining sexual orientation to a 9 year old before they fully understand what sex and relationships even are. If my child isn't mature enough to completely understand sex, how the hell is he going to understand what sexual preference is, let alone understand it?"
...but I can think of some misguided but almost rational reasons for the policy:
- Specifying sexual orientation could be construed as prospecting for potential partners. XBox Live is not a dating service.
- Specifying your sexual orientation explicitly could be interpreted by some as a politicized statement. XBox Live is not a political forum. ps- this falls apart when Microsoft encourages you to contact your elected officials to protest whatever they are planning to to do that might impact Microsoft's XBox business. It's only a matter of time, if not before this gaffe, soon enough.
- Advertising anything beyond game-related facts is just asking for trouble. XBox Live is intended for game-related discussions, facts, and entertainment. Anything else is a distraction. Of course, gaming is a distraction, so this is logically inconsistent on some level.
And I think all of these arguments, save the first, are lost and pointless.
The first argument is also pointless, but for a different reason. I haven't seen a public forum on the Internet yet that didn't turn into an A/S/L chatfest. It's the way it is, and the younger the audience, the faster it happens.
Good luck with that policy, Microsoft. You will lose this fight, or lose more $ than it could possibly be worth.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Seconded. In my experience, MS is one of the most gay friendly employers out there. They are extremely clear that sexual orientation is a protected class and that all benefits can be shared with either a spouse or same sex domestic partner (which in a sense is more advantageous to gay people, since I can't share my benefits with my girlfriend unless I marry her). As the blog post itself indicates, the Human Rights Campaign (that would normally get on the case) "says Microsoft has a positive image with them." Without additional evidence, I'm inclined to think there were other reasons for the ban.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
The offense on behalf of the LGBT community is that we shouldn't be forced to hide who we are, or to deny it, or to downplay it. I agree that some people do make a point of broadcasting it to the world, and get pretty damned annoying, but so do some straight people, and you really need to calm the fuck down if you're offended by seeing a couple of girls holding hands, or if you hold a queer couple sucking face in a park to a different standard than you would a straight couple: that act is offensive because they should get a room, not because it's two guys making out instead of a guy and a girl.
I don't really think that she should be advertising on her gamer profile that she's a lesbian, but I don't exactly make a secret of my sexuality when I'm playing WoW, either. If I get hit on, I politely decline and explain that I like girls. *shrugs*
Also... do you have any idea how often girls get hit on by horny retards in games? Often enough that a lot of them will pretend to be male (I used to, hence the /. name) just to avoid it. She was probably saying she was a lesbian in a misguided attempt to discourage them: I've found, from experience, that while some guys will stop hitting on you when they find out they're not getting anywhere, a lot will just try harder in the hopes of racking up a conversion. My usual response to that is something like "if you point that thing at me, I'll remove it with a rusty spoon", and even that's not enough to discourage all of them. Until you've actually *been* a female gamer, you're not qualified to really comment on what kind of things we need to do in order to avoid being hit on by retards.
Fortunately, there's an operation to fix that, if you're interested. I have some friends who've been through it, and they're quite happy with the results. :)
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Why would anyone write about their husband/wife, sexual orientation, race, religion, or their favorite breed of dog in a GAMER PROFILE?!?!? It's a gamer profile, not your fucking personal blog.
Because it is natural for people to identify with other people who share interests or status. What's wrong with a gay gamer being interested in playing with other gay gamers? What about Christian gamers wanting to play with other Christian gamers?
Merely taking offense to someone saying "I am gay" is incredibly senseless. That's not even the problem, people don't have to say it, they can 'act' it and it's offensive.
As much as homosexually frightens anyone, I am far more frightened by mindless attitudes.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Diners are completely private entities, owned by people who sunk money into the business? Are you suggesting it's okay to stop blacks from sitting at the counter?
Morally? No. Legally? Yes. And it's also legal for a lunch counter in Harlem to refuse service to whites.. And despite what you think, the legal right to "refuse service" has never changed. What changed were attitudes, because of the dedication of protestors, and the impact they had on public opinion. Read up on the Greensboro Sit-Ins. Authorities never made Woolworth's desegrate; they did so because the protests were starting to hurt their business. When a group of sit-in protestors at another business tried to press their legal right to use the facility, they lost.
It was the use of organized protest, public awareness, and economic boycotts that desegregated lunch counters. Not the law. The didn't come into it until it addressed issues of equal access to public services.... i.e. schools, courts, etc. No one ever told a restaurant they had to desegregate. They did because it was necessary to survive economically.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Appeal to authority is a type of logical fallacy. But it is also a logical fallacy to assume an conclusion is wrong just because the argument uses a logical fallacy. There are good, simple arguments against murder. Specifically, we have almost all agreed to the social contract that states: I don't want to be murdered, therefore, I agree not to murder and to punish murderers. See how simple that is?
I have never heard a good moral argument for denying anyone their right to express their love how they choose, given that that expression doesn't violate any other agreements they may have.
My current working hypothesis is that the 'homosexuality is wrong' meme is part of a larger, dysfunctional social dynamic. This hypothesis predicts that cultures that are more isolated in space and time from certain 'epicenters of violence' will show certain traits, namely: no ritual genital mutilation, no ritualized child abuse, no social hierarchy, no strict sex roles, and no sexual taboos, including adultery, homosexuality, or even incest. The hypothesis also predicts that in those cultures, each of those sexual activities will happen less often than in cultures where they are forbidden.
In my opinion, the evidence seems to support this hypothesis, although it is hotly disputed by some. Such cultures have existed, do exist, and they are quite isolated from said epicenters of violence. For references, you may want to start with The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff, and Saharasia by James DeMeo.
If I'm right, it doesn't prove homosexuality is not wrong. But wrong is not the default position, one must come up with a good reason, one that the vast majority can agree to, for censoring the behavior of another if that behavior doesn't harm you directly. And just to be clear, 'moral outrage' is a type of self-harm.
As for sociopaths, they should behave according to the generally accepted principles such as 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you, if you were in their shoes,' because those principles make sense and give them the greatest likelihood of success in life. That's the same reason most of us are born with a conscience and very few people are sociopaths: because it makes sense, even at a genetic level. Cooperation is just as universal a principle as competition is, that is obvious even to those of us who don't believe in a higher power.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Can you prove that most of the world disapproves of homosexuality? I personally know a few Muslims, plenty of Christians, and a few Jews who do not disapprove. I don't know any Taoists who disapprove. Or Buddhists. Or Satanists. The one Baha'i I know is personally against it, but wouldn't tell anyone else not to. I don't know any Hindus well enough to have gotten around to discussing sexuality. Or Jains. And that's just considering my practicing friends & acquaintances, most of the people I know may say they are Christian, but they don't really do anything about it. And they really don't care one way or another about homosexuality. But one's friends do not a random sample make, eh?
If you believe that life is hard and the world is cruel, as your sig says, then you do not trust in your God. I know devout Christians, I'm friends with devout Christians, and they are joyful people. You need to listen more in church. Or maybe get a different church, some are filled with hate.
In closing, let me leave you with a quote from Stephen Roberts, "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Hi, I'm straight. Will I get banned of XBoxLive, too?
There would be Human Rights complaints if you organized a Straight Pride parade. "We're straight, and that's great!"
See, that's the problem right there. Hetro isn't the 'default' sexuality, it's *a* sexuality. Classifying it as 'default,' or 'normal', is classifying everything else as 'abnormal.' It's like saying 'male' or 'female' is the 'default.' Nope.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
You seem to be implying that discussing sexuality with children against the will of their parents in inappropriate places is perfectly fine. Is that correct?
Nice straw man. Point to me where she did this?
You seem to be entirely happy to discuss sexuality on a public website, aren't you worried that you're forcing it onto children without the consent of the parents? Pweease won't somebody think of the children!