Trans woman wins biggest prize in women's e-sports

[ZeldaFighter]

https://www.them.us/story/vader-trans-fortnite-streamer-milk-cup-2025

Of course they did.

At the elite level the differences between winning and coming second, third or what have you are tiny. This means that what can look like a small amount of wearing down can have a disproportionate result in placings in competitions. Being even only slightly off your best can see you losing.

Adding to the other information you've been given, but the gaming industry is still incredibly sexist on all levels, whether you are a woman gamer who feels the need to hide your sex online to avoid the seemingly inevitable abuse, to the women who work in the industry and are subjected to sexism, harassment and assault.

I have read that there is a slower reaction time between visual stimulus and female reflexes. I will see if I can find it. Emma Hilton said something about it a while ago.

There is physical differences, but women are generally more comfortable with other women. Probably wary of men due to general domestic male violence or sexual assaults/coercive boyfriends when growing up, and if you want to encourage women to participate in an activity, running a women’s only group is not unreasonable.

If your aim is to encourage women’s participation, to increase the numbers of participants and revenue or reach etc, making women and girls comfortable and confident seems worthwhile, and excluding men with that aim is fine.
Then allowing males into the group defeats whatever purpose there was. Just run it mixed and have less female participants, it’s less hypocritical.

These women weren't competing at (I genuinely don't know what game to say here, I don't think any games are "girly")... I don't know creating and maintaining a Sims family, they were playing Fortnight which is a multiplayer competitive shooter.

It's not that women aren't as competitive, it's that girls are told off and punished from an early age for something that boys are lauded for.

I rather doubt women make up anything close to 50% of the players of games like Fortnite. Women play a lot of games, but the genre of game does make a difference. Of course this makes female Fortnite players all the more a minority, so you think they'd especially benefit from having their own competitions.

Anatomy isn't the problem, it's the way women are treated.

DD likes online gaming, but she takes great pains to make sure noone knows she's female, because the level of shit she gets for it is off the scale. There's a huge portion of that community who are utterly misogynist, who can't cope with the idea of losing to a girl, who dish out rape threats, or get a bit stalky, or any number of other behaviours that have a massive chilling effect on female gamers.

So DD makes sure she uses a stereotypically male name, she never uses voice chat, she doesn't get close to anyone she plays against. She'd never do an in person competition for instance, because it would run the risk of ruining her hobby. So she'd never choose to enter a competition like this.

A trans woman won't have the same issues, most of them sound male so aren't outing themselves by simply talking in a game.

This is why female spaces are important, even when the physical differences between men and women don't affect things. Gaming, chess, darts, pool, all need dedicated female competitions, just to give women and girls the chance to engage in these activities without abuse.

or get a bit stalky

Yes, massive issue. When I was younger, being the lone woman in various mainly male groups definitely left me with a target on my back. You had to have a boyfriend or you'd find yourself being sidled up to (best case) continuously. Of course then you'd get the abuse because 'the only reason your here is <boyfriend>' and if you split with that boyfriend, you lost your friend group - it was catch-22 all round.

It’s just a reminder of why the Supreme Court ruling was so important here. In the UK it’s been clarified that you can’t make a resource for women, which you presumably think is important to do in some way, and then allow men to participate. Or at least, if you do that, men can sue you for discrimination.

The exact reasons why men overwhelmingly dominate particular areas of competitive activity, and whether they win or not, are of interest but don’t have to be central to the argument any more (if they ever were).

This isn't about having a physical ability to use more power, this is about women who are already under-represented in this arena being yet again booted out of their own competitions by a man.

Women playing games online / in e-sports are frequently abused, sexually harassed and exploited by male players and yet here we are, with a man achieving the top spot and a decent sum of money instead of an actual woman.

This has to stop.

Really? You would align yourself with a bunch of MRA incels? (Yes obviously not ALL male gamers). I don’t think you understand quite how misogynistic and toxic the gaming world is. Oh and many of them are also vocal TRAs, although coming from a position of extreme and open misogyny.

Women play a lot of games, but the genre of game does make a difference

It truly does.

I've been gaming since the advent of home computing in the 1980s. Aside from a few years in the late 80s/early90s when console gaming really pulled ahead of what was then known as "IBM" style PC's, I've played almost exclusively PC games, and not the typical twitch-style FPS stuff predominant in competitive gaming and esports.

I have no interest at all in the likes of Fortnite, COD etc, the entire genre just doesn't appeal to me. I do play MMOs and some online co-op stuff, but I can't say I've ever encountered death threats, targeting because of my sex, rape threats etc. I do get the typical over-friendliness from male players, but at most it's condescending stuff like trying to be overly-helpful, offering free loot etc, and generally just assuming I don't know what I'm doing.

I think the games that naturally attract sweaty basement-dwelling types will inevitably have a completely different vibe and female players will undoubtedly meet with an entirely different reception, but it's not at all true that all gaming is hostile to women and girls or that it just isn't possible to game online without encountering utterly toxic male behaviours. The more nerdy, niche, and cerebral games I play tend to have really chill communities, but I'm not surprised that the FPS stuff seems to exist in largely a toxic male environment. I'll admit this is quite likely nothing more than gaming snobbery on my part, but I do believe that a lot of console gaming is aimed at low attention span, quick fix, no need to engage brain gamers, so that's where the lizard-brained are naturally going to congregate, and the general vibe of those communities will reflect that.

I thought I was clear that I am not comfortable with the thought and it was not on all issues? I am VERY aware of how toxic gaming can be, and I am very aware of how misogynistic the wider gaming culture is. I am well aware that some of these men will see me as little more than a breedsow and I should be back in the kitchen.

However, I do think they can raise some reasonable points/issues that should be discussed and responded to. I don't think it's helpful on any topic to refuse to engage with someone just because you don't like what they otherwise say.

Men tend to be in the more extreme ends of everything (at the very top and very bottom) and women more in the middle/average. Women are just better "all-rounders".

In other words, the are plenty of reasons why women don't compete as well vs the men at the top - whether it's physical, competitiveness, motivation, social, or having other commitments. Either way, it doesn't matter. The fact is, women need their own category in order to win prizes. So, if you're against having a women-only category based on biological sex, then you're saying you only want men to win and women can settle for not winning anything.

Imagine having a self-sacrifice competition/selfless award... women will win all the way and men will need their own category... 😜

Completely agree with this. Fucking cheating thief!

Women and girls get a lot of grief in the gaming world and have far less opportunities to progress in teams. It's really common to use male pronouns and names and hide the fact you are female. As you know nothing about the gaming world perhaps you could refrain from pontificating

If only that was how the internet worked eh and you could only comment on stuff you already were well informed on 😁

lots of people have quoted me and informed me of some of the challenges and I thanked them for the information and perspective

some of us work in highly male dominated fields and have spent years arguing we are equal and just as good as
men and fighting our corner hard.

There is a balance to be struck between fighting to protect women’s hard won spaces where appropriate and necessary but not reinforcing the stereotypes that we’re weak, delicate and overall best left completely separate from men in all areas

Having a competition for women is an additional incentive/advert to an underexplored market with potential. It doesn’t affect open competitions or men’s ability to play in any other type of competition.

It's actually a reasonable question, and in the UK the presumption is that there has to be some justification that's proportional in setting up a single sex event that functions as anything other than an association.

One possible justification is that e-gaming, in particular, is a difficult arena for women because of the extreme aggression shown by male players that enters into the realm of sexual harassment. That limits who women and girls self-select to compete against and therefor limits their ability gain experience playing against the top tier of players. In addition, the extreme aggression is arguably a necessary ingredient to success in e-gaming which has a biological basis as well as a deep cultural conditioning basis. Both of which, incidentally, trans women would have benefited from even if their transition has resulted in a suppression of their testosterone levels.

Anecdotally, trans women exhibit the same extreme sort of aggression as 'cis' men do before transitioning, and if anything can be more aggressive toward women after transitioning. So, a strong case can be made for women needing their own competitions and in particular for those venues to exclude trans women.

If it's an award meant for elevating women then you need to leave it to actual women otherwise it makes no fucking sense!

That's the difficult bit. It mostly seems to be women on both sides of the argument. I've literally never heard a bloke discuss any of this aside from the occasional passing comment that men shouldn't compete in women's sports etc.

In this instance it may even be more accurate to say that women support it as there may be more in favour than against.

It would be interesting to see some numbers compared to the wider population - proportion of regular gamers and of e-sport players that are male, female; proportion that are transwomen, transmen.

The numbers in some physical sport can be really startling (not all of them). I remember disc golf coming up a year or so ago when at least one transwoman won a competition (and John Oliver sneered at the idea this might be an issue), which I’d never even heard of, and finding that it had a lot of players. In the USA, association members of the sport are about 10k female and 130k male. A championship winner in the female category impacts a bigger proportion of the total field.

Yes, I know they were playing fortnight, that was kind of the point of my comment.

This is fine as far as it goes.

But it does rather mean that we also have to accept that men might want men only groups, clubs, competitions, for no other reason than they'd prefer them.

Some wouldn't accept that.

"Yes, I know they were playing fortnight, that was kind of the point of my comment."

Then I don't understand your point about how you think it's nothing to do with socialisation, and instead somehow being that girls are apparently not as competitive for boys in context of Fortnight being an inherently competitive game played in a literal competition.

I don't believe you really think that women only competitions are a thing just because women "prefer" them that way.

You have already had it explained to you why there are women's single sex competitions for things like gaming and pool, including how males have faster responses and the controllers being made for man sized hands.

So, I think ignoring all of that and coming back with "well if it's just because you prefer it that way, don't complain when sexist men jump on this as an excuse to exclude women for no reason at all" is just childish.

FWIW, in case you weren't aware, men do have lots of groups, clubs and competitions (may I direct your attention to most sports) etc that are single sex already, so that's good news isn't it?

I've yet to hear of a woman complain about the men's sheds initiative for example, in fact I and the other women I've heard speak about it are all for groups like that. There is a clear difference between misogyny and needful single sex groups, clubs, competitions, support groups for both sexes. I don't think it's too hard to tell the difference between the two personally.