A professional gaming league program meant to recruit more women to online gaming featured more biological men than women in a promotional video posted Saturday.
League Championship Series (LCS) Game Changers was started in 2021 in order to “mentor and recruit women” into online professional gaming. Ten women participate in a two week long experience alongside coaches and mentors that runs from late September to early October. A web page for the program stipulates that applicants can “be a woman or of a marginalized gender.” (RELATED: Person Receiving High Doses Of ‘Libido Boosting’ Cross Sex Hormones Sentenced For Preying Upon Toddler, Preschooler)
“LCS Game Changers is a really important event to me and it’s very close to my heart. I’ve been in every iteration of the program since 2021, and the 2021 program was actually my first ever comp experience and so that was really exciting and really sparked my drive for the game in a really big way,” one player said in the video.
We had to ask the players:
What does LCS Game Changers mean to you? pic.twitter.com/yfBI3v2TUV
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) September 23, 2023
According to a community note posted under the video, “Of the 6 women in this video, 5 are transgender.”
“To me, LCS game changers means uplifting women and people of marginalized gender and demonstrating how, despite what people might think, we’re actually very talented,” another gamer says.
“I really view it as something to showcase what women and other marginalized genders are doing in esports. It’s not really something that’s on the forefront of a lot of people’s minds, but it’s something that’s really growing and ever increasingly important in the field,” another said.
Conservatives blasted the league on Twitter for featuring only one woman in their video.
“Feeling second-hand embarrassment for the only token women here,” commentator Lauren Chen said.
“‘Female-only video game league that turns out to be comprised entirely of men in drag’ The trans thing is basically impossible to parody at this point lol,” another said.