League Revising Rules After Trans Players Rejected From Women’s CSGO Tournament – Kotaku

Posted: Published on May 8th, 2017

This post was added by Alex Diaz-Granados

Late last week, news broke that a womens CSGO tournament hosted by ESL rejected a team of trans players because they couldnt provide official documentation stating they were female. The incident was eye-opening for everybody involved.

Sly Buehl Rigilio, a transgender player who lives in Sicily, Italy, tried to register her team in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive 5on5 Female Open Summer 2017, a tournament hosted by ESL and organized by Munich Finest Gaming. As first reported by BuzzFeed, however, Rigilios dreams of competitive glory were cut short by a very rude awakening. Upon submitting her request to ESL, she received the following response:

No males are allowed. Please take care fake your gender can be penalized.

Surprised and more than a little upset that her and her team had apparently been rejected based on their appearances, Rigilio reached out to Munich Finest Gaming, who said theyd need to see passports that designated Rigilio and her teammates as female. They also said they couldnt understand why she was so enraged about the whole thing. ESL head of communications Anna Rozwandowicz added that the two companies had to do it that way in order to comply with German law. I completely understand the teams frustration at the situation, but I also understand that our admins have done their jobs by following the rules as it was required of them, she said at the time.

Unfortunately, Rigilio and her teammates didnt have that kind of documentation. Gender isnt just as simple as what was written on your old passport, theres more to it, Rigilio told BuzzFeed. Some of us have already started [hormone replacement therapy], and some others are fairly new to coming out and expressing themselves as a female. I know some of the girls in the group have yet to go through the trouble of getting their info changed on [their passports], so we are out of luck.

In the aftermath of the incident and in light of the publicity it received, I reached out to the ESL to find out if they plan on making any changes. Rozwandowicz said that shes now working with diversity-focused partner organization AnyKey to revise the rules.

We believe that esports and gaming should and can be an inclusive, and I have taken steps internally to revisit the tournament rules and to align them with AnyKeys recommendations, she told Kotaku. We definitely want to make sure that this will not happen again, so Im working with admins and AnyKey to investigate this case and advise on a policy change.

Rigilio, however, is still pretty disappointed. I have yet to hear anything from Munich Finest or ESL, she told Kotaku. No apologies, nothing of any sort whatsoever.

A longtime gamer and Counter-Strike player, Rigilio was hoping to make a real push into the high-stakes world of competitive play. Now, though, shes reconsidering.

Ive yet to compete in other tournaments, but my team and myself were initially planning on joining one of the FaceIT female-only tournaments, she said. But ever since we were treated the way we were with ESL, weve been discouraged to try and do so. We really dont want to go through the same abuse as we did with ESL.

See the rest here:
League Revising Rules After Trans Players Rejected From Women's CSGO Tournament - Kotaku

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