The Philippines eSports organization that caused a sh*t storm yesterday when announcing its discriminatory rule for an upcoming League of Legends tournament — limiting the number of gay or transgender women on a team — has reversed its decision.
Last night, Garena Philippines eSports, host of an "all-feminine" League of Legends tournament, announced a rule that would limit teams participating in The Iron Solari to one gay or transgender women per team. The reasoning behind such a ridiculous rule was mind-boggling; the organization claimed that lesbian, gay, or transgendered women "may probably have some unfair advantage."
League of Legends developer Riot Games responded to the news, expressing concern while promising to work with partners like Garena to "ensure consistency with our values across all regions."
Apparently, the persuasion (or all the backlash) worked as Garena announced a change in the rules and apologized to the LGBT community.
Here's the full statement issued today:
Our initial ruling on LGBT player restrictions within the Iron Solari League has created a lot of good discussion and debate over the past 24 hours. After discussing the ruling with our partners and re-examining our approach, we have decided to remove these restrictions completely. This means that any player who self-identifies as female will be allowed to participate. We sincerely apologize for any offense we caused to the LGBT and gaming communities.
Our original intent when we put together this tournament was to promote diversity in the competitive gaming community. Hence, we are grateful to our players who have consistently provided their feedback to help us learn and improve as we strive to develop an inclusive gaming environment for all. We'll also be keeping our promise of having an open dialogue with all parties as we plan this and future events.
We hope you will tune in to support these awesome teams and players in this upcoming tournament.
I'm glad the organization decided to change the rules, but it's ridiculous that it required "a lot of good discussion and debate." Seriously? What is there possibly to debate about regarding the participation of a gay or transgender women in a League of Legends tournament?
