Local Tournament Ruling Sparks Controversy
The international League of Legends community went into an uproar following a post regarding Garena Philippines’ ruling of a local tournament, citing its sexist nature.
Yesterday, Garena Philippines issued an update about its “all-feminine” tournament, The Iron Solari. This update was geared towards the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. After the tournament’s first leg, they “consulted and talked with various parties including the female teams who joined the 1st leg of Iron Solari, and a number of LoL players belonging to the Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered Women community“.
Garena PH stated:
“…we always want to make sure we are able to have an inclusive environment where no one feels left out, and of course for everybody to enjoy. On this angle, we believed that allowing more to be eligible to join is obviously the answer and as many of our female teams have expressed — Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered Women members are their friends too. On the other hand, for any competitions, we seriously look at ensuring there’s a fair level playing field for all participants.”
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This led to Garena PH to issue two rules. The first was to address the recruitment of LGBT players as part of the team:
“1) Each team will be allowed to have a maximum of one (1) Gay/Transgendered woman for the entirety of the tournament day. Therefore, teams cannot do the following: Team_A’s first game will be 4 female members and 1 gay, then on Team_A’s second game, they will have 4 female members and replace with another gay or transgender member.”
The second rule was to state the consequences in the case of any team violating the previous rule:
“2) Any team who has violated the above provision, regardless if intentional or otherwise, whether discovered during the day of the event or some time after, will have all their team members (the female members as well as the Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered women member) sanctioned with a 1-year ban on all Garena-organized events, including subsequent Iron Solari Tournament.”
The ruling was met with massive backlash when it was posted on Reddit a few hours ago. League of Legends fans homed in on the statement that “Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered Women members may probably have some unfair advantage”, criticizing it for its sexist nature. Word quickly spread beyond the Philippine community, which caused Riot Games — the company that owns League of Legends — to respond on Twitter:
LGBT players are welcome at official LoL tourneys. We're working with partners to ensure consistency with our values across all regions.
— Riot Games (@riotgames) February 3, 2015
Garena Philippines has yet to make a statement regarding the community’s response.
Source: Garena PH
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