UPDATE: Microsoft Disallows Public Lesbians on Xbox Live

[Anton P. Nym]

Ah I see. People get banned for putting the word lesbian in their profiles, but people can spam ****** ****** ****** during games in which players are abusing glitches and lagging their connections and get away with it.

Go M$.

Maybe you could be part of the solution and report these bastards so they know who's misbehaving, instead of sitting aside and uselessly whining that Microsoft doesn't have more surveillance powers than the British government.

-- Steve

 

[sanzo]

This is mildly upsetting...but I have to ask...why can't we just keep our sexual orientation to ourselves in online games?

With the number of players unsuccessfully hitting any girl with a mic online, she may have told them she was a lesbian to shut them the fuck up. Then the homophobes went around and kicked here out of every game she played on.

Going onto Xbox Live and calling yourself a lesbian is hardly the best way to avoid people harassing you though.

The point is, she shouldn't have to worry about that. The people who harass her for being a lesbian should get banned, not her. This whole "Don't do x because society can't accept it" thing is bullshit. People shouldn't have to change themselves to fit in with society's fucked up norms.

Sorry, that was rant-ish, and not meant for you personally. Just had to get it off my chest

 

[kodenine]

You shouldn't have your sexual preference on your gamer profile. I don't put Heterosexual on my gamer profile! I'm tried of sexual inappropriateness being confused with gay rights!

 

[shatnershaman]

Too bad she didn't read the Terms of Use, could have avoided this mess.

 

[joeychuckles]

It seems that if XBox is going to have a section called "About Me" and encourage players to reveal facts about themselves, they can't censor the information that is placed there. There are words that have been identified as "offensive," but gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc are no more offensive than white, tall, skinny, etc. These are descriptive words. Obviously (and sadly) the homosexuality issue remains controversial in the global arena, but I feel very sorry for the children of those parents who "don't want their kids to see that kind of thing" - the truth is, their children will grow up in a world with many people different from themselves in countless ways, and these parents are sowing hate and discord in minds that should be encouraged to learn, question, and celebrate diversity.

 

[Phat_Frank]

You shouldn't have your sexual preference on your gamer profile. I don't put Heterosexual on my gamer profile! I'm tried of sexual inappropriateness being confused with gay rights!

but you shouldn't be harrassed by people if you do!

 

[k3v1n]

I wonder why would she put her sexual orientation on a goddamn profile...

 

[Doug]

Honestly, if you keep your sexual orientation to yourself, you wouldn't have this problems, however, everyone knows that most XBL users are ASS HOLES, so by putting that in her profile, she was asking for trouble. But this has intrigued me, I am going to put "supporter of gay rights" as my saying, and see what people say.

True. Fortunately, I don't have an Xbox Gold account. Nor do I want one. I prefer the PC for online gaming.

 

[sanzo]

She had it coming.

In these games, you're either a target or a team mate and I neither want to know, nor particularly care about your sexual orientation, or, frankly, anything about you other than 'how well you fire a gun'.

bolded for emphasis: Sorry, I gotta call bullshit on that.

While we lack information about this whole thing, I highly doubt she was joining servers just to talk about her sexual preference.

Hell, it is x-box live. Some moron probably called her "fag", to which she replied "It's lesbian, get your orientations right." I certainly wouldn't count it out of the realm of possibilities

 

[jdnoth]

Probably shouldn't blow this out of proportion. I doubt it's an official company stance or anything.

 

[KaZZaP]

I have a thing for Asian chicks you don't see me putting that on my page. I'm sure foot fetish Frank doesn't have that on his page. She didn't deserve what happened to her but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

 

[zombiekitten]

the term Gay should be blocked because it would become over used by adolescent males who arent good enough for band activities much less Athletics.

That said, too block someone due to public admission of sexual orientation is wrong. Conservatives think they rule the world and it pisses me off.

And as the courts will say. This is a private service. there are rules within the service and said service can apply whatever rules it wishes. You pay to use this service so inherently one should know the applicable rule set. If one does not agree with said rules, choose a diff service.

Of course, this person bought an XBox instead of a PC so u are stuck in the land of (Conservative) Political Correctness known as MS.

More proof that consoles suck

 

[sanzo]

This is mildly upsetting...but I have to ask...why can't we just keep our sexual orientation to ourselves in online games?

With the number of players unsuccessfully hitting any girl with a mic online, she may have told them she was a lesbian to shut them the fuck up. Then the homophobes went around and kicked here out of every game she played on.

Going onto Xbox Live and calling yourself a lesbian is hardly the best way to avoid people harassing you though.

The point is, she shouldn't have to worry about that. The people who harass her for being a lesbian should get banned, not her. This whole "Don't do x because society can't accept it" thing is bullshit. People shouldn't have to change themselves to fit in with society's fucked up norms.

Sorry, that was rant-ish, and not meant for you personally. Just had to get it off my chest

But the people harassing her weren't the ones that got reported, she was. It would be awesome if Microsoft has the manpower to go through every single complaint and do a lengthy investigation before they actually ban anyone, but they don't. They saw someone getting a lot of complaints filed against them and they banned that person; simple as that.

People get banned for no reason all the time. The only reason this lady is getting any kind of press is because she happens to be a lesbian.

I'll agree with you there: This stir is being caused by her sexual preference. Honestly, though, it shouldn't be. Her being a lesbian shouldn't give her any sort of special treatment, but it also shouldn't have been the reason she was banned

I'll also agree that it'd be impossible for Microsoft to deal with every type of complaint they get; they just stepped into a shit-storm this time

 

[Phat_Frank]

I have a thing for Asian chicks you don't see me putting that on my page. I'm sure foot fetish Frank doesn't have that on his page. She didn't deserve what happened to her but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

wait..... do you know me?

 

[sanzo]

The point is, she shouldn't have to worry about that. The people who harass her for being a lesbian should get banned, not her. This whole "Don't do x because society can't accept it" thing is bullshit. People shouldn't have to change themselves to fit in with society's fucked up norms.

Sorry, that was rant-ish, and not meant for you personally. Just had to get it off my chest

Well it's one of those 'life sucks' deals. I think it's wrong that I can't do various substances in the privacy of my own home because the government deems them 'illegal'. The problem with living in society is sometimes you have to let a few things ride, even if they're terribly unfair. People always attempt to fit into society, it's the way humans function, Jung's persona and all that.

I guess I just want to avoid conflict, it's easier to just leave your profile blank then worry about this kind of stuff. If I detailed my politics on my profile, I'd probably being getting alot of comments too. I don't because I want to have fun, not listen to people harass me.

mspencer82 has made a few excellent points. We don't know if this woman is actually innocent or could very well have justified complaints against her. It is also true that the terms of service agreement states that they do have the right to do what they did. This is a very tricky issue indeed.

Such is society's problem: These types of issues will probably never get fixed...still, it doesn't mean we can't be outraged by them

 

[teknoarcanist]

My guess would be that a number of homophobic players reported her for being offensive, and Microsoft banned her based on that. I don't think MS really investigates every specific case like some kind of Grand Inquisitor.