My story

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I've been going over whether or not to share my experience with abuse or unpleasant situations as a trans person in the games industry, because purely existing as trans in the gaming space is enough to attract negative attention which I don't really want to deal with right now. I feel like many of these experiences pale in comparison to others being shared or thanks to all the TERFs on twitter these days, that my experiences aren't valid. But, I realise that despite my reservations, keeping quiet about stuff like this for fear of reprisal is also part of the problem. So, here we go.

Back when I was occassionally outwardly presenting due to not having the confidence to go full-time yet (around 2010-2014):

- Christmas party, being told I was "almost" passable. Pressured by a male colleague to dance with them despite me refusing, they insisted saying it would be "embarrassing for a man if a guy dressed as a woman wouldn't dance with them." Most of the other people there egged it on until a female colleague pulled me away from the situation.

- Halloween house party with colleagues and expanded friend circles, cornered and asked why I dress the way I do. Person was genuinely interested and trying to learn, fair play to them - sadly interrupted by dudebros going "it's fucking creepy, no-one would shag THAT" and "it's embarrassing." Hardly anyone said anything in response.

- Walking home one night with colleagues, eventually just me and a contract worker I didn't really know that well. We'd been chatting most of the night as a group so I had no reason to suspect anything. Stopped me to tell me that he thought I was a freak and an abomination. Then pinned me against a wall and said he probably "still 'would' if he was drunk and desperate enough." Thankfully a random stranger happened to be passing by and saw what was going on and intervened.

- After another house party with colleagues, this time at the house share I was in. Woke up in the middle of the night feeling weight on top of me, wasn't really sure what was going on. Eventually wormed around enough to fall out of bed with a very loud thud. Heard my bedroom door open and shut a few seconds later. Still rather dazed I locked the door, and slept with the light on for the next few weeks. At the time I was transitioning from night shift back to regular hours so downplayed it as sleep paralysis. But the more I think back on it, the more my gut twists and I feel uneasy about it.

These are the big points. I know I was also definitely the topic of conversation in some group chats at work, and in passing - but I brushed it off as "banter" at the time because we were all mostly in our early 20s and I didn't know any better. I know one guy went around bragging that he was an "expert on people like me" because he had paid to fuck a ladyboy when he was in Thailand. I'd taken it up with my then manager at the time and got told I should just deal with it because I chose to lead an "alternative lifestyle."

In hindsight, considering how any time a female employee got promoted rumours instantly started spreading about who she'd slept with to get there - I should've noticed the red flags. But I was young, and probably naive and still a bit star struck to be working where I was.

Anyway after that house party incident I pretty much went into regression and jut tried to be as present as cis-normative as possible. I just dressed male to blend in and not rock the boat because I figured life would be easier that way. It certainly meant less wolf-whistles and "look at the size of its hands" comments from passing Irish chavs on the way to/from the office. If I'm being honest I believed a lot of what had been said, that I was a freak, ugly, that no-one would want to be with me, and heck that I DESERVED what I got, and internalised so much of it that I'm still trying to untangle that mess of feelings to this day. I've been deeply unhappy inside and my weight has ballooned. (Incidentally that's why you rarely see me post photos of myself on here.)

Anyway,

Not outwardly presenting (2015-Present):

- Generally when asked I'd say my preferred pronouns are she/her but I never really made an issue over it, nor demanded it, and accepted people slipping up because I wasn't presenting. Still I've heard a couple of "THAT wants to be called she" comments in passing. Again I let it roll off me because I'm fat blob at this point so I felt like I could see where they were coming from (as stupid as that sounds).

- Night-out with, let's just call them a "celebrity employee," visiting from Irvine who at the time I'd considered a bit of an inspiration. We'd spoken occassionally on facebook but this was the first time in person. After a while he says "I just wanted to say I'm glad to see you're not really a woman because I used to think you were the ugliest woman I've ever seen." Pretty much got talked down from making an official internal complaint about this because "he was probably just drunk at the time."

- After the lay-offs at Blizzard last year, a photo from my personal (very locked down) facebook account ended up in a thread on a... certain website in a certain corner of the internet... discussing the lay-offs and laughing about all the CMs etc. affected with the comment "YES! I hope it kills itself." I've since pruned my friends list down and I have no idea who it was, but given that my friends list on facebook was pretty heavily skewed toward employees or ex-employees I have some suspiscions.

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ALL of these experiences have happened during my time at Blizzard. None of the people referred to in the above situations work at Blizzard anymore, many not even in the wider gaming industry so I don't see the value in naming and shaming them at this stage. The incidents in the early 2010s largely (but not exclusively) involved part-time contract workers from agencies which were hired for expansion launches and were not prone to as much of a culture-fit test as regular employees. Like I said I tried to shrug a lot of it off as "banter" at the time (though in hindsight I realise what a toxic way of dealing with it that was) - had it been the Ireland of today, maybe I would've had the courage to mnakie more of an issue out of it.

Anyway - despite these experiences I want to clarify this post isn't to bash on Blizzard. For the most part I've made some great friends during my years at Blizzard, and generally most people have been accepting. However, I will say that when push has come to shove, it has more often been female colleagues that have stood-up for me in these situations. That's not to say I haven't had supportive male friends, as I'm lucky to have some great ones, but generally in the group settings where some of this stuff happened - there was a deafening silence from many of the male colleagues who claim to be allies.

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