Lesbian Woman Gets Griefed and Banned On XBL

It seems harsh, but at the same time I don't see why some people feel the need to proclaim their sexual orientation to everyone, especially on a online videogame network.

Discuss amongst yourselves, respectfully..

http://consumerist.com/5160187/identifying-yourself-as-a-lesbian-gets-you-banned-on-xbox-live

Wow, this is really stupid. Maybe she was being a bit of an attention whore for telling everyone about it like that, but the way MS reacted? What the hell's up with that!?

Today I received a message from another gamer calling me a fag. I am a lesbian, so they aren't too smart if they cant get their anti-gay slurs right.

Hmm, I don\'t know. I agree with you \'Shinks in that, you know, why even put it in your profile? No-one wants to know about that shit. I don\'t have \"I\'m a straight, red-blooded male looking for action\" or anything like that in mine. It just makes her sound like one of those horrible militant lesbians. The sort that walks about with t-shirts on that say \"YES, THESE ARE MY TITS.\" or \"I HATE MEN.\", with a short crop-top hairstyle.

The sort that insist on challenging blokes to a drinking contest, repeatedly claiming \"I bet I can drink you under the table. You blokes think you\'re so hard. You don\'t even know what us women have to go through! You couldn\'t handle child birth!\" etc, and you\'re just sitting there thinking \"What? Go away and die you pathetic militant queer\". So, if she in anyway matches this description, and comes across as such on XBL, I can totally see why people rip it out of her.

I mean, can you imagine it? Some fucking uppity lesbian giving you grief for no reason at all. Then (hypothetically), after several complaints filed against her, someone at MS checked her account and decided to ban her. So she does what these people always do when backed into a corner, and she plays the \'gay card\'. The article you link to doesn\'t really give enough information to have a solid opinion on the matter, and mine is only based upon the sort of person I think she might be. She might have been really nice. Who knows? She might have been the innocent target of a bunch of American white-trash Christians who are scared of blacks and/or gays.

( Edited 26.02.2009 23:07 by Martin_ )

THAT'S WIGGITY WIGGITY WACK!

It's ironically offensive that they find something so non-offensive offensive...

Oversensitivity causing one to not be sensitive/respectful to one's self, sounds a lot like it's the work of ban-bots!

KEEP BANHAMMERS NATURAL FOLKS!

Did you read the bit at the end Martin? Something about MS banning a guy who actually had the sirname "Gaywood" (poor guy.... his first name was Richard too...)

I hate feminism too (it sounds like you were describing one to me) they think all men are scum, when it's only a handful of lads that treat women like crap. I'm a nice guy, honest! But I'm not sure this girl was really being feminist... Maybe you're jumping to conclusions a little

Well, to be fair, 'gay' has been made pretty much an illegal word around here, and yet you're defending someone who had it as their gamertag? If someone joined C3 with 'Gay' as, or in, their username, then there'd be a massive uproar from a select few, and you would force that person to change it. How is this any different? And I did say that I could easily have been wrong about her. It's simply the most likely conclusion that one can come to, seeing as she put it in her XBL profile. No-one puts that sort of crap in their XBL profiles, unless they think they've got something to prove.

Read this then Martin.
EDIT: Nevermind you\'d already seen it.

But if that\'s not completely ridiculous then what is? The guy\'s own sirname got him banned!

( Edited 26.02.2009 23:25 by SuperLink )

If someone joined with the name "Gay", I personally wouldn't have a problem with it. I mean, if he was cool and all and wasn't a total dick (ah ), then it would be all right.... right? People shouldn't really take offense to words.

SuperLink said:
Read this then Martin.
EDIT: Nevermind you\'d already seen it.

But if that\'s not completely ridiculous then what is? The guy\'s own sirname got him banned!

That is ridiculous, and affirms that the word \'gay\' is not owned by anyone, and that C3\'s stance on it is over-zealous.

Keven said:
People shouldn\'t really take offense to words.

I agree. The only time an \'offence\' has been committed is when someone is directly insulting someone. I think that XBL and C3 essentially vetoes the word \'gay\' is ridiculous.

( Edited 26.02.2009 23:35 by Martin_ )

I do think people are overreacting to the word gay.. I'd sooner ban the expression "son of a bitch" than the word gay.

Son of a bitch is a weird one, though. The one you say it to takes offense, but you're actually insulting his mother in a direct way, so his mom should come after you instead of the guy himself.. Unless his mom is 90 and on life-support, then it's just sad.

Why did I type this? I really don't know. Sense - This post makes none. Same with taking offense to the word gay, but that's probably a matter of time. In a few years gay will be accepted as a term you can use to express your opinion about things. Like 'cunt', 'balls', 'bastard' and the likes.

I'd love for an actual bastardchild to walk up to someone using the word bastard to give him a stern talking to because he felt insulted by the use of the word bastard as an insulting term. That would totally make my year. Yup.

My nephew actually is a bastard. I look forward to calling him it in the future.

I LICK WILLY!!!!!!!!

Much Love, Martin xxx

( Edited 27.02.2009 00:56 by icyweiner5 )

But why? There was some jokes about child abuse floating back and forth on a thread the other day, and as a lot of you know from the thread about sexual perversion a few weeks ago- I was abused as a child. Now, joking about child abuse around someone who was abused as a child is potentially much more offensive than saying "that is gay", is it not? I didn't kick up a fuss. Do you know why? Because I knew that they were not directing such comments at me, or trying to upset me personally.

I simply refuse to stop using the word 'gay' in anyway that I choose, and in the way I've always used it. Realistically, how many complaints did you get, and from how many different people? It's pretty draconian to enforce such a pathetic rule. Surely there's a more democratic approach to this. Perhaps if a thread was created with an attached poll, asking if it should be banned or not?

Hollyoaks is gay. Ha.

Back on the main topic, I think there's no reason to put that you're a lesbian in your profile on a games console. Saying that, I see no harm in it. Those who complained and got all homophobic about it are the ones who should be banned. (if what she says is true)

Yeah. To be honest, there's not much to have a 'discussion' about here, since there's so little information available on what really happened. We're all just hypothesizing.

Martin, you need to get over it. It's been determined that certain uses of 'gay' are offensive. This isn't a democracy, those are the rules.

You can't just 'refuse'. If you keep doing it, you'll end up banned.

*gets popcorn*

Man that's fucking bullshit, Microsoft has no right to ban someone for reasons like that what the fuck is up with it. People can't even use their names in their pro. (my friends last name is Peacock.) yeah Microsoft just try to be child safety oriented thats fucking bull.

hehe.. oh the relevance.

Jacob4000 said:
Martin, you need to get over it. It's been determined that certain uses of 'gay' are offensive. This isn't a democracy, those are the rules.

You can't just 'refuse'. If you keep doing it, you'll end up banned.

Ban me, then. Go on. Use your little ban hammer. I'll only be back on in no time at all, just like all the other times I was banned. The point I'm trying to make her is- if you ban 'gay' in this manner, then you need to ban every potentially 'offensive' phrase. The fact that you don't means that there's something incredibly wrong going on. A double-standard, if you like. It's just fine for much more potentially 'offensive' stuff to be going on, but saying 'Hollyoaks is gay' isn't acceptable? You don't give a shit about much else, but we must tread on eggshells around a minority of gay people? Let me repeat that- a minority of gay people. Most gays don't care. I know this from friends, etc. It's beyond pathetic. It's political correctness gone mad. And you know how much I hate political correctness.

To be honest I agree with Martin.

I was abused as a child as well, and do I complain about every single abuse/rape-joke that I see being made?

FUCK, man! Calling stuff gay shouldn\'t be offensive. You don\'t hear shit complaining about other stuff being called shit as an insult?

Sure, shit can\'t talk, but I bet you that if it could it wouldn\'t complain. It\'s just a phrase being used. (and if you were actually shit, it\'d really be hard to deny you\'re shit and that you\'re vile, but that\'s a different matter).

I don\'t use gay for every single bad thing I see, I just say gay when stuff actually draws a picture in my mind of two men humping eachother. Like a guy wearing skinnyjeans and a low-cut v-neck shirt over it, with a bony figure, while wearing his hair like only a girl would usually wear it.

Would that be considered offensive/bannable? If so,, *One Epically Badass Facepalm*

I actually got nauxious for a long time whenever I heard the word rape. If you\'re going to make a fuss about the word gay I\'m fine with it, but then I demand you ban every person that makes a rape-joke, because they HORRIBLY offend me, the minority out of the minority of people that have been abused, that takes offense to the rapejokes people make. Oh, and also put a filter on rape. I don\'t want to see the word anymore, just ****. Wouldn\'t want to offend me, right?

FUCK.

( Edited 27.02.2009 12:10 by Faust D. Stroyer )

GR781 said:
This is all very interesting, but as I said, create another thread if you want to talk about it. I'm more than prepared to defend the policy, but I'm not going to be goaded into arguments on irrelevant topics.

Lesbian Woman Gets Griefed and Banned On XBL

It's sort of relevant, though.

I'm not going to make a new thread seeing I've said pretty much all I want to say, but I'm guessing Martin will probably do it sooner rather than later. Or, I'm hoping he will, anyway

1. This is why you shouldn't give out person information
2. How is being a lesbian "offensive"?
3. Fuck Microsoft if they don't fix this how it should be fixed.

I think this might only be half of a two sided story, she might have been using the fact that she put lesbian in her profile, as an excuse for her using abusive language and such. But then again, I might be wrong.