Probably a bit late in the thread to post this, but I think not a lot of people would see it if I posted it to twitter. Probably not gunna surprise anyone
after i started transitioning:
- was harassed in my own stream by an army of alts. I don't know who any of them are but I am certain are from tf2 since that's all im known for
- branslam constantly berating me in jump servers, being transphobic and calling me trash at the game (idc about the latter)
- after i blocked and muted him, he changed his name to translam for some number of weeks
- called a tranny by so many ppl i cant count, most adding a 'kill yourself'.
- Cody and Akemi being transphobic to me in faceit, both got banned
- multiple ppl from the -tt circlejerk being openly transphobic to me
- close friends refusing to refrain from using the word tranny despite me constantly telling them to stop. one of them said that he doesnt consider it a slur because it 'sounds cute'. caused me to just leave that circlejerk despite having many good friends
- incredibly creepy and unwanted attention from some, mainly crypt and someone else from jump who i dont want to name
- not trans related, but ive been told to kill myself by itac for making a jump map
All these people I am name dropping are repeat offenders that show no signs of stopping their behaviour. I have some friends now that used to be awful towards me but have changed. I think that's important; there's always time to change your behaviour; youre not locked in to being a bigot.
The reason I stopped playing 6s and am VERY close to just leaving this game altogether is that it depresses, infuriates and frustrates me. A good amount is how 6s has changed over the years, but mainly because it reminds me of all these people, and how nearly none of them received any consequences over what they said. Most are in positions of power, and so I cannot really do anything about it. Hell, one of the most transphobic people in this community, mireal, has 3 jump maps named after him.
I don't really know what to do about it if I could even do anything. Ban players? Change those map names? That would help me personally but it isn't something that's going to happen. The most salient memories i have of this game are awful.. but i still love playing whenever i block myself off to these memories.
I've avoided posting something like this because I was an awful person too when I played. I've said shit that still haunts me and I feel that it invalidates everything that I just said, like I deserve it in one way or another.
Also, 'have thicker skin' is just an excuse sociopaths use to discredit the notion of empathy (paraphrasing from John Cleese here)