Female and LGBTQ gamers face constant abuse. For many, it’s enough to give up playing

For a long time, video games provided a refuge for Simone Anders, an escape from the isolation she sometimes felt in the real world. Over time, however, this refuge began to crumble., are riddled with insulting slurs, making people like them – a trans woman – feel far from welcome.Credit:“It’s very commonplace to see an aggressive use of slurs, often unprompted,” Anders, 27, says. “If you reveal you’re not male, not, you hear a wide array of slurs.

“As a trans person, living is already a kind of activism, a living resistance ... I still game, but I don’t use those spaces because I find it exhausting. You can deal with it for a while, but eventually, it just piles up.”by consulting firm Bastion Insights, which surveyed 601 Australian gamers aged 16 and over, LGBTQ and female players were most likely to face harassment, with 92 per cent of LGBTQ and 83 per cent of female players having experienced or observed some kind of abuse while gaming.

Advertising has exacerbated this problem says University of Sydney digital cultures lecturer Dr Mark Johnson. Though the industry has become more diverse in the past few decades, gaming has been largely marketed as a space for young white males, arguably encouraging them to feel a degree of ownership., Kasumovic adds, in which competitive social hierarchies form.

In an attempt to reduce this, Maddy limits her use of voice chat. However, when she does use it, the derogatory language tends to increase, with some teammates even leaving a game simply because they’ve realised they’re playing with a woman. Anders agrees, noting that many games tend to merely “obstruct” players from certain parts of the game rather than ban them. “The action taken is performative in a lot of ways.”To improve these systems, Jackie Hallan, interim chief executive of ReachOut, says tech companies need to work directly with young people during development.

There is also value in campaigns involving industries outside of gaming, Kasumovic says. Beauty company Maybelline New York recently launched a campaign to raise awareness of online harassment against female and LGBTQ gamers.

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