I consider myself a conservative. I am a Republican, I did not vote for Obama, I like guns, I’m Catholic, and I believe in the Death Penalty. Nevertheless, I have absolutely no qualms about a person’s sexual preference. I have gay friends. I have lesbian friends. I watch lesbian themed programming. A lot. Xbox Live does not want you to know there are lesbians gamers out there according to this report.
Here is an excerpt:
I had a similar incident, only my account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian. I was harassed by several players, ‘chased’ to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn’t want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap.
Is this story true? Maybe. I can understand that MS wants to shield younger gamers from adult material, but this is overstepping the issue. A sexual preference is in the same context as race or religion. Is an African-American Christian really any different than an lesbian African-American Christian? Not really. This is a slippery slope that no one wants to go down.
To be honest, this is pretty sad. While I know MS is also making people change mottos and gamertag with “heterosexual”, why should one’s sexual preference be a point of contention? If someone is gay, they’re gay. If someone is straight, they’re straight. If someone wants to put in they’re Irish in their profile, it’s no different. Shame on Microsoft for this.
There aren’t people that do that sort of thing for a living are there? I’m talking about wierd religious or other lobby groups – their funding and activities.
When I was reading this, I was thinking WTF. So if i put in my bio that im stright, should I get ban. I just dont get how this is not appropriate for kids. If kids even see her bio, than i bet they seen that word before. And screw those people who was harassing her!
I think Live shouldn’t have the option to list sexual preference, political affiliation or religious beliefs whatsoever. Online gaming is rife with stupid trash-talking, so why give the idiots more fuel for the fire?
microsoft are homogaylesbians so i don’t see why they hate on their own kind.
jk jk. but in all seriousness they take this kind of stuff too far.
This whole situation strikes me as very contrived. The user in question prominently touts that she’s a lesbian and then fails to use the features available to all Live members which make it easy to block users you find offensive.
Why didn’t she just block the users harrassing her? This would have made it impossible for them to track her from game to game and would have made it extremely unlikely they would show up in random online matches with her (matchmaking factors in your preference when you click “do not prefer” for a particular member).
MS’ Terms of Use forbids stating your sexual preference in your gamer profile specifically because they’re trying to protect those users from harrassment. Sounds like she intentionally violated this policy to fabricate a situation to advocate her cause. She was not banned, but suspended – so the system worked perfectly. When a user gets a high number of complaints in a short period of time the system automatically suspends the account pending further investigation.
Boom. El Cid nailed it.
To set the record straight, Microsoft does not allow anyone to post their sexual orientation, including straight, gay, or bi, either as a gamer tag or on a players profile. Microsoft choose to do this because of the age groups Xbox live appeals too. A large portion of gamers are teenagers, who sadly think it is entertaining to make fun of sexual orientations. The easiest way to solve the problem is prohibit anything sexually oriented.
The girl who posted she was lesbian was not banned by Microsoft. Her account was suspended, meaning she could not play games online until she removed her sexual orientation posting. If she had instead posted “straight” her account would also be suspended.
I have been playing Xbox live for years, I know for a fact she could have easily blocked any gamers who were harassing her.
When i first read this story i was understandably annoyed at the removal of the profile based on sexual orientation. However if what Aaron says is correct and MS dos not allow sexual orientation statements whatever the orientation is then it would seem fair to do this. As long as accounts that state people are heterosexual are also removed for the same reason
My question though is if there is not a box on sexual orientation to tick or fill, why did the user put it there.
When we go to the bank we don’t say ‘hey I’m a lesbian do we?’