Garena PH hit for gender discrimination in League of Legends tourney

Garena Philippines announced on February 3 that the number of “lesbian, gay, and transgendered” women who can join the Iron Solari League of Legends tournament will be limited to one per team. This was supposedly to address concerns that “Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered Women members may probably have some unfair advantage” when competing.

Online rage
 

Top comments on the article all display confusion and anger at Garena’s ruling. Many questioned how Garena would confirm the trans status of participants and some asked what would happen if bisexual women wanted to join the tournament.

"In what universe would somebody's sexual preferences, gender identity, or current genital load-out have any impact on their ability to compete in a digital medium?" said Andrew Welter.

"If this is your attempt to be inclusive, I shudder at the thought of your normal behaviour and strongly discourage anyone, man, woman, or otherwise, to participate in anything you organize," fumed Ana Coelho.

 

Garena said that it consulted previous Iron Solari participants and LGBTQ LoL players before making its decision regarding the rules. They cited that while they wanted to be inclusive, they also wanted to maintain an even playing field for everyone.

 

"when playing computer games, all that matters is the skill of the athlete. Gender should not be an issue in such a ruling," professional gamer Paul Christopher Romagos told GMA News Online.

 

Some people are also worried that this will turn eSports in the Philippines into a joke, and that the reputation of the Philippine gaming community will be tarnished in international circles.

 

"Why the f*ck is there even a need to question which one is legit to participate on an all-female league(?)," commented chalkzone908.

 

"Why just why do they need to complicate a very simple tourney. Why the need to add (these) rulings?" added kaisergrim.

 

The ire even spilled over onto Reddit.

 

"Speaking as someone who is LGBT like...how was this even allowed to be announced? How was this even remotely close to acceptable? It sounds like a sick joke, one that just leaves me shaking my head in shame at the misunderstanding that exists," said celestya.

Riot Games backs LGBT 
 

Meanwhile, Riot Games—the developer of League of Legends—Tweeted this in response to calls from players to intervene.

 

LGBT players are welcome at official LoL tourneys. We're working with partners to ensure consistency with our values across all regions.

— Riot Games (@riotgames) February 3, 2015
 
 
 

 

The Iron Solari is Garena’s “all-feminine” tournament. The second leg will be taking place on February 22, at The Net.Com in Manila.

Garena PH apologizes

 

Our initial ruling on LGBT player restrictions within the Iron Solari League has created a lot of good discussion and debate over the past 24 hours. After discussing the ruling with our partners and re-examining our approach, we have decided to remove these restrictions completely. This means that any player who self-identifies as female will be allowed to participate. We sincerely apologize for any offense we caused to the LGBT and gaming communities.

 

Our original intent when we put together this tournament was to promote diversity in the competitive gaming community. Hence, we are grateful to our players who have consistently provided their feedback to help us learn and improve as we strive to develop an inclusive gaming environment for all. We’ll also be keeping our promise of having an open dialogue with all parties as we plan this and future events.

 

We hope you will tune in to support these awesome teams and players in this upcoming tournament.

Just a few months ago, the video game world went into uproar when the now-infamous GamerGate “movement” came to life. Claiming to be a call for ethics in video game journalism, the Twitter hashtag quickly became linked to the ongoing harassment of women in the industry. — TJD, GMA News