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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."
As long as you get banned from Xbox live for identifying yourself as straight too, I don't see a problem with this...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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...
Don't ask, Don't tell.
but do they ban themselves?
... because they didn't want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.
Whew, I couldn't agree more! Because it's been scientifically shown that exposures to gay people is what causes one to be gay. But why stop at targeting gays on the XBox? Did you know that your child might be befriending another kid in grade school and your child's friend may be gay and not yet know it? The only safe way out of this is to remove your kid from school--did you know that nearly 100% of homosexuals have gone through school? A frightening figure! You better find a conservative Christian school that teaches your child intolerance and how to properly ostracize and judge other people. That's the only way you can provide for them a pure and clean life.
And if the rest of us are lucky, we'll never have to interact with your kid.
This is not helping the already low low stereotype I have adopted of the users of XBox's online service.
My work here is dung.
That identifying yourself as 'lesbian' online is secret code for "I'm a straight guy looking for girl love. Pew pew."
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
The purpose is to find other gamer lesbians (a pretty small subculture) to hang out with, even if you aren't necessarily looking to hook up.
Why does anyone put anything in their profile? To find people with similar interests and backgrounds. It's not true of all lesbians, of course, but a lot of lesbians have things in common that they might not with non-lesbians and especially not with your typical xbox live player.
Why should announcing your sexual orientation start a fight? The bad behavior is on the part of people who feel that it is ok to persecute someone for talking about their sexual orientation.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
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).
Can we stop this misinformation? Most gamers do not buy a new video card every 4 days.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
Despite RAM prices, over 35% of Steam gamers have less than 2GB of RAM. About the same number are still running single-core CPUs. Just under half don't have a DX10-capable GPU, meaning their GPU is well over a year old. And that's with a generation of graphics hardware that gives extremely good value for money.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
Yes, it's a good thing you don't go around mentioning your sexual orientation in public posts...
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
...a lot of lesbians have things in common that they might not with... your typical xbox live player. Like a vagina, for instance.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
So, if she were to write in her profile that she had a husband, that'd be okay?
And if she were to write in her profile that she had a wife, that'd not be okay?
This is what's so wrong with people just saying "shut up about your sexual orientation". That's basically saying "Unlike everyone around you, you need to hide pretty much your entire life from everyone else." The fact that you see "I am gay" as equivalent to writing "Christians and Jews are the devil!" is incredibly offensive on so many levels.
Are there any deer in the theater tonight? Get 'em up against the wall.
When Microsoft bans, say, people from writing "I am black" in their profile because it might start a fight with skinheads or "I am an evolutionary biologist" because it might start a fight with creationists is the day I'll consider this position toward gays and lesbians even remotely fair.
Are there any deer in the theater tonight? Get 'em up against the wall.
Nah, if you're a lumberjack, you're okay.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Why should announcing your sexual orientation start a fight? The bad behavior is on the part of people who feel that it is ok to persecute someone for talking about their sexual orientation.
Okay. I'm going to go down to the local lesbian bar (I used to drink there with some friends) and say, loudly but not unreasonably so, "I like to screw chicks!" Repeatedly.
Let's see how long it takes before the police show up. I'd be lucky if someone politely asked me to cut it out, because I'm a big guy, and I look dangerous.
It's all about context, dude. Look past your prejudices.
Furthermore, the article says "Teresa says that she was harassed by other players and later suspended..." What this is known as, in rules of evidence, is hearsay.
She is supposing, perhaps assuming, that Microsoft has banned her for that reason. Well guess what? I've had people say I hit them, in a crowd, when I didn't even touch them. There's no quoted email from Microsoft saying, "HI. WE ARE THE MICROSOFT AND WE BANNED U 4 THE GAY." There needs to be some evidence for this to be more than just Internet flotsam.
I'm sorry, but in the age of blogs and Internet truthiness, all of you gullible types are going to have to bone up on what is admissible evidence, because it's generally equal to what counts as credible evidence.
This sounds, barring actual evidence, very much like someone who has a chip on her shoulder about being a lesbian, assuming and projecting her own pathologies onto a corporation because they are unlikely to challenge her. Anyone who had any evidence at all could provide some kind of official correspondence, or at the very least, anyone with a clue could fake it.
This is just someone trolling. And you bit. So did Slashdot. Nuff said. Look past your prejudices.
--
Toro
Huh, so gamers don't mention their family? Funny, because when I googled Elrous0, one of the first pages I found was this... and hey, looky what's in the "Relevant Pages" section at the bottom:
"I am the only one to use the PS3 in this household ... I very much doubt my wife would want to play Warhawk"
And *even still*, it'd still be hypocritical to have a policy *ban* one group from doing so and not another.
Are there any deer in the theater tonight? Get 'em up against the wall.
Oddly enough, these are exactly the same stages I went through when switching to Linux.
One word: Sue.
As if she hasn't gone through enough trauma, now you give out her name?!
Why should announcing your sexual orientation start a fight? The bad behavior is on the part of people who feel that it is ok to persecute someone for talking about their sexual orientation.
It shouldn't. But announcing sexual orientation, much like announcing opinion on /., can be done in various troll/flamebait ways. Compare and contrast:
"Hi! My name is soandso and I'm a lesbian here in whereever, USA. My favorite games right now are Gears of War and Catan."
"Hi! My name is soandso and I'm an oppressed lesbian here in Redneck City (wherever), USA. Fuck Christians! I'm gay and fuck God if he hates fags. Christians are all closet fags anyway with priests molesting lol"
This story simply isn't complete without the full text of her profile.
More Twoson than Cupertino
A few points:
What gives you the right to tell Microsoft "I've decided that your network isn't going to be family friendly"?
She wasn't telling Microsoft that, it's more common knowledge that their network isn't family friendly. I can say the sky is blue, but that's not telling the sky to be blue.
Video games started largely as an activity of children, and thanks to the Wii, is headed back in that direction.
I'd say the opposite - from what I've seen, the Wii seems to be moving gaming closer to an adult demographic.
Ultimately, its their network, a private entity. If she doesn't like their policies, then go somewhere else.
Just like if I don't like their policy of "No blacks allowed," I can simply find some other network to play my Xbox 360 on.
I think it's time for all of us to add "I'm a lesbian" to our profiles. Let Microsoft ban us all!
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Why confront bigotry and set clear rules against it, when you can just ignore the problem and maintain an environment where mentioning an alternative sexual orientation will get you harassed? Let us, as you say, do absolutely nothing about the problem, and hope that education will slowly convince them.
Wait, what education? I thought nothing would be done about it? Didn't you also just say that "they don't know they're wrong, and they never will?" Can you make up your mind?
I guess people should also just keep from attaching pictures of themselves to their profiles, in case whoever's watching might have something against their race.
Okay. I'm going to go down to the local lesbian bar (I used to drink there with some friends) and say, loudly but not unreasonably so, "I like to screw chicks!" Repeatedly.
At risk of being labeled as a troll or worse, I would think that at least half the patrons' first response would be an immediate: "...AND SO DO I!"
That aside, one would think that you would be thrown out for being a repetitive irritant long before you'd get pitched on philosophical/orientation grounds... much like nobody likes to talk to the little kid who always responds to everything you say with "...but why?"
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I guess she should also avoid mentioning that she's a woman, since maybe 1 in a 100 people might think video games are no place for women and she shouldn't shove the fact that she's playing in their faces, right? I guess people who are bigoted little shits with thin skin should have their precious feelings coddled, right, or else they'll throw a tantrum and it'll be my fault.
Some people stamped their feet and howled and threatened to hold their breath until they got their way, and your solution is to spoil the brats further.
Honestly, your rhetoric sounds like that of many people I know who like to outwardly pretend they're tolerant but who are inwardly homophobic, and have decided to adpat the position "my problem isn't homosexuals, it is that they shove it in my face." Of course, by shove it in your face, you would be refering to the fact that they have the audacity to openly exist and wish to seek relationships with like minded consentual adults, something they can't do without mentioning the fact that they have no interest in persons with certain genital configurations.
If you have a problem with open, out sexuality then you are the one who has the problem. If your skin is so thin that people have to walk on eggshells around you, then you need to toughen up. I, for one, have no patience with that kind of person and have no tolerance left for the intolerant.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Do you understand the concept of 'victim blaming'? You're right, we could avoid the issue of people starting fights over other people's sexuality by banning the mention of other sexualities from people's profiles, but why should this policy be enforced across the board? Why can't users choose whether they'd like to closet themselves and avoid conflict or be open?
Also, being gay is not mutually exclusive with being a homophobe--I feel bad that you've convinced yourself that people who make *any mention at all* of their sexuality are giving other gay men and women a bad name.
And yeah, why do you feel it's important to proclaim your sexual orientation on XBox live anyway?
Straights proclaim it all the time just by talking about what they do and who they do it with, on Xbox Live, on WoW, on LOTR Online, at the 7-11 buying a Pepsi, shooting the breeze with the person sitting next to you on the bus. You don't have to even think about how you broadcast your sexual orientation, because it's so automatic.
Gays and lesbians, on the other hand, must make an effort not to broadcast our orientation, and we do it by self-censoring what we talk about. But if we slip up and mention something that implies our orientation, now we're "flaunting" our sexual orientation, even though we said something that, if it came from a straight person, would not have attracted any notice whatsoever.
Is there anything else I can help you with?
Edith Keeler Must Die
Fact: When someone says "I don't want to hear about [a gay person's] sexual orientation" what they are really saying is "Stop breaking my comfortable assumption that everyone is straight".
The enemies of Democracy are
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
That would work, if they A) wouldn't advertise to me or B) note in their advertisements of the XBox the restrictions that exist on the XBox live network, or at the very least C) advertise on the XBox box wrapping itself the restrictions of the XBox live network.
Do they, in actual fact, note such limitations on the box? No? Then I'm perfectly justified to bitch them. I may not have a legal case, but hell, I have a moral one.
Even further: what does "what's the purpose of ..." have to do with whether or not something should be allowed? There's no guarantee the GP would agree with whatever perfectly good reason we came up with for this -- it's easy to say "well, that doesn't make sense to me" and thus end the conversation, if you let them be the arbiter. Fine. Even things with no discernible purpose should be allowed by default. It's not a good basis for deciding the question.
Shouldn't I be allowed to take raw fish outside and hold it over my head for 5 minutes a day? It makes no sense to anyone else -- it doesn't make sense to me, either. But it's not causing harm to others, with the possible exception of haters of people who hold fish over their heads, and that's their own problem. Which is what this is.
The GP sees no purpose, and automatically jumps to the conclusion that it's a reasonable thing to ban -- which is exactly the logic we deal with every day in the US. Why are most consensual crimes, well, crimes? Why is it so hard to get people to agree with our constitution's guaranteed freedom of speech? It's like pulling teeth every time -- yes, I know, you see no good reason for this to be allowed, it could offend someone, someone could hurt themselves, it doesn't seem like it benefits anyone, that's not the direction I think our society should go, blah blah blah ... it's always the same fight. We need to eradicate that meme entirely, for a better society.
I'd like to find out the full story as this sounds suspicious. IMO, if she added a note to her profile that she's a lesbian and was subsequently banned, they have treated her unfairly. If that's the case, the people who carried out the banning may well have broken the law. She'd certainly have my support, for one.
However, for all we know, she could have been causing trouble and getting into arguments with people over other issues. The linked report doesn't go into much detail other than her claim that she was banned for mentioning that she was a lesbian. I'd like to see some evidence, either way.
Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
which overpowers the right of the majority not to be offended by them.
This right here is where you go off the deep-end and become someone who is need of a serious ass-kicking.
Let me bold this for you: there is no right for anyone to not be offended. Now go pay attention in Civics class before I run you off to a gulag.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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?"
What SHOULD they write in it? That they're a gamer? Gee, you don't say, never would have expected to read in a GAMER profile that the person is a GAMER. If you aren't writing a little bit about who you are in your profile for /just about anything/ then your profile is completely useless.
And for the record, I've heard and seen many gamers talk about their families or relationships both in game and on profile pages. It's neither uncommon nor completely inappropriate in itself. Banning somebody for it, even if there are people out there who are irrationally intimidated by and intolerant of your preferences in a sexual partner, is simply absurd.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.