Lesbian banned from Live after admitting sexual preference

Pat: Helping to ‘get the word out’. Then saying MS are awesome.

I was being sarcastic. I find the fact MS bans people for “upsetting” people by saying they’re gay abhorrent.

This is really sad and I take it offensively even though I’m straight. It seems our human rights are being taken away everyday.

How could anyone misunderstand what you were saying there?

Bah… post was referring to what Pat said.

My advice for her is to abadon xbox live and get rid of her 360 and instead get a PS3 and move on to PSN. And do you really need to divulge your sexual preference because the last time I check, being a lesbian doesn’t make you a better or a worse gamer. I am totally against hiding in the closet but when it becomes irrelevant enough that you don’t need to set yourself up for any homophobic reaction, take the easy route. While I’m not implying things are honkey doree at PSN, at least you’re not forking out money to be insulted and of course PSN has a older more mature crowd. Live is the breeding ground for right wing christian dogma. Why? The simplest answer is Halo 3 and Gears of War- the building block for religious fanatics. Killzone 2 on the other hand is our training tool to finally get rid of God and Religion.

I knew he was being sarcastic Psycho, i was just winding him up.

what the fuck, this is weird.

mykem…

O_o

I like this part in the article:

“…even one case of a guy whose name was actually “Richard Gaywood” but his tag was suspended anyway because apparently the word “gay” is so offensive that it doesn’t matter if its actually your name. ”

Why didnt you report that news, eh Pat?

That one was ages ago. If I recall correctly it happened automatically when they added to the banned word list.

Jesus, Gekidami, give it a break. Pat isn’t the Eye of Sauron, he can’t report on the entire bloody universe.

Are there any stories of heterosexual people having their accounts suspended because they’ve put “I am straight” or similar on their profiles?

Xbox Live it is not place to say what you gay, lesbian, love suck cock, prefer anal sex, love fucking with monkey
Serious Xbox Live it is game service, there play not only adult

I’m finding it very difficult right now to resist the urge to create an account named thuperlumberjack on Live.

Stephen Toulouse (XBL Banhammer guy) tweeted about this on twitter earlier:

“re: the consumerist story. Expression of any sexual orientation (straight or gay or otherswise) is not allowed in gamertags (cont)”
“However we’ve heard from the user base they want that capability, so I am examining how we can provide it in a way that wont get misused”
“I can’t say any more at the moment, except to say I’m working right now in finding a way to safely express relationship preference.”

http://twitter.com/Stepto/status/1250237116

Typical Microsoft tbh.

Pat isn’t the Eye of Sauron, he can’t report on the entire bloody universe.

Great now I have a mental image of a small house somewhere in the UK with a big red eye hovering above it.

On topic: I shall write something like that in the about me section on my PS3 to see what happens.

I don’t really care what a persons sexual preference is, and I don’t thinks that its cool to harass someone who lives an “alternative” lifestyle if you will. At the same time, use your brain and know that if you put something like that on your GAMER profile it will get a reaction. Go make a political statement where it belongs.

thanks MS for making gaming much much more about Social Life and having fun ,than competition

on a side note WHY THE FUCK should we care about u or anybody`s really SEXUAL Preference !
+being lesbian actually will attract ppl 2….u know

Gamer Tag? More like GAYmer tag, amirite?

Seriously though. Holy shit, MS, holy fucking shit. This offends me. I’m bisexual, not gay, but this still offends me, it’s just stupid.

There isn’t really much point to putting your sexual preference there anyway, but it doesn’t mean they should be banned. Plus, TV programs show gay people all the time, yet Coronation Street hasn’t been banned from TV.

@Gamoc “Plus, TV programs show gay people all the time, yet Coronation Street hasn’t been banned from TV”

That’s totally missing the point if you ask me, Microsoft have a blanket ban on the word gay in gamertags to prevent people using it in an offensive way (and lets face it with the amount of childish people on the internet in general some people would use it to try to offend other people). Unfortunately this means that people who use it properly to express their own sexual nature also get banned/can’t use it. This is not Microsoft banning Gay people or banning the reference to Gay people in games or anything like that, this is just Microsoft attempting to offend less people by banning the word than the number of people who would be offended if the word wasn’t band (and was then used inappropriately by some people).

She had ‘lesbian’ in her profile, not ‘gay’, and she was banned because people complained about her using the word ‘lesbian’ because they found it offensive.

Am I in San Francisco again?

Ok sorry, replace the word gay in my comment above with the word lesbian and it still stands. I’m not saying that banning is the right way to go about handling this, but then it appears neither do Microsoft if you have seen Stephen Toulouse’s comment they are currently working on a way to allow people to express their sexual orientation without opening it up to abuse.

The fact is your comment comparing it to not banning Coronation Street is absurd sensationalism.

No, it’s not, it’s simply that she was stopped from expressing her sexual orientation and BANNED because of doing so, whereas there are definitely gay people on TV, yet the programs aren’t banned, the programs aren’t banned from having gay people on them, etc.

I honestly have no idea why anyone should make excuses, she stated her sexual preference and Microsoft banned her because of it. They should have INSTANTLY unbanned her when she complained, but didn’t. Pathetic.

I agree they should have unbanned her after reviewing the case (that is pending what the actual gamertag was as I couldn’t see it anywhere), but there is a major difference between scripted programs on TV and user entered text on the internet.

From what I see Microsoft did NOT ban her for being a lesbian, they appear to have banned her for the use of the word Lesbian in her gamertag. I say ‘appear’ becuase unless Microsoft releases a statement expressing the exact reason for the ban we can only speculate.

LIVE is not for women and children anyways. lol.

She was banned because people complained about her saying she was a lesbian in a profile – apparently, they found it offensive.

It’s also worth mentioning that the gamertag isn’t the same as the profile. She didn’t have lesbian in her gamertag, did she?

In her profile, it was only there for people who viewed her profile, and she wasn’t forcing these offended people to view her profile all the time, they did that of their own volition. So I can’t see how an immediate ban in reaction to this is at all fair.

It’s a profile for pete’s sake. So if people want to define themselves by their sexuality in it then they should be allowed too.

Maybe Atheists will be next on the ban list.

Well, no offense to the gay community, which I support, but there just isn’t any reason to involve your sexual preference in your gaming unless you’re trying to meet people, trying to offend people or just trying to start shit. I mean if I were into bestiality, I wouldn’t put dog fucker in my tag simply because it doesn’t have anything to do with the price of teat in China. You’re there to game, not share which gender you prefer to screw. Just like I wouldn’t put confederate flags all over my car and attempt to drive through Harlem unless I was trying to cause problems or rub it into other people’s faces. Simply put, the basic rules of friendly interaction with the general public is don’t discuss sex, religion or politics because it only ever causes problems, keep the “sharing” to within your circle of friends and you won’t find yourself offending or being offended by others. That said, she should not be banned for it, that’s homophobic nonsense, but she should have kept her sex life where it belongs, in the bedroom like everyone else and yes I understand that gays have a need to express it because of so many decades, nay, centuries of persecution, but we get it already, hurray for your gayness, now can we please move on and just get along for pity’s sake?!

Sigh. Most likely she did not say “I am a lesbian!” in her profile, but she probably ambiguously mentioned “gay.”

For the not-so-bright, it’s the word “gay” that triggers the response in all these anecdotes. Is banning all uses of “gay” on your service a great policy? Maybe not, but it’s a far cry from homophobia considering that the overwhelming majority of the word’s usage on XBL is as an insult.

Major lollage at Microsoft’s “anti-gay policy.” C’mon, people. User your heads. This is 2009. You think that if MS were seriously banning gay people that a few gays and their ambulance chasers wouldn’t have already made tens of millions off of them? They certainly wouldn’t have “high ratings” from the various international hippy-dippy groups.

Another triumph for Microsoft’s almost entirely blinkered approach to online harassment!

Getting abuse from random morons? No problems! We’ll sort that out in seconds for you… by banning your account.

/slow clap

“My advice for her is to abadon xbox live and get rid of her 360 and instead get a PS3 and move on to PSN.”

Because the homophobes are only on Xbox Live, amirite?

I’ve been bashed on *both* services simply because I “sound gay”. You know the kind of voice. It’s never bothered me enough to complain to the higher ups about it, but its still not acceptable behaviour.

This is seriously fucking stupid on Microsoft’s part. Gamertags and profiles that degrade both men and women and promote drug culture and violence are acceptable… but admitting you’re homosexual isn’t?

And anyone who wants to argue that point, or state that the expression of sexual preference isn’t selective by Microsoft… show me an example of someone who has been banned for stating they’re straight, or you don’t have an argument to go on.

Banning the victims. Nice move Microsoft.

hey o’connor maybe you should try the voice changer. Even though this is text you still sound gay in every post. In one word – MantheFuckup!