This year I was on a panel at GX3 called "Being Queer in Games Journalism". It's always struck me as an odd distinction, the question of whether to use "Games" versus "Game" in the title when talking about the field. (Oh, semantics.) Is "Games" more accurate for the plurality of experiences and gaming types, or is "Game" stronger as a categorical proper noun encompassing the general field of video games? The rest of the title is not in dispute.
This was my third year attending GaymerX as a member of the gaming press, and the second that I've been out as queer (my particular variety being genderqueer and demisexual—which is a half-stop, I suppose, along the asexuality spectrum) which means that I have all kinds of emotions about the con. I suspect that the first sentence of this paragraph will engender a number of comments that will resolutely ignore everything else in the rest of the article, but that sort of comes with the territory. My gender and sexuality honestly aren't something that come up much in the writing part of this job, except for perhaps being a little more socially conscious and invested about issues of character representation than I might otherwise be.
In terms of the con, GaymerX is, at heart, about a group of people who love games, and who want games that represent them, and they don't feel like those needs are being met. They may also feel like they lack a safe space to express their concerns, and be around others who share the same feelings. While I'm using "GaymerX" as a shorthand for the con itself due to its history, the name has been truncated to "GX#" to match the con philosophy listed on their website to be more inclusive:
We stand side-by-side with all communities who’ve been left out of mainstream gaming, and we are dedicated to providing a safe, harassment-free space throughout our entire convention. So no matter who you are, if you want to game with respect, you’re invited to GX3.
“I’ve never been discriminated against, harassed, or marginalized… I just think those things are wrong. Am I invited too?” Yes, you are. We really mean everybody.
It's also, beyond all of that, a pop-culture con, where the focus is primarily (but not completely, with panels on Bee and Puppycat, etc.) on games. There are two basic justifications for the existence of the con. The first is a somewhat ontological argument, adapting the infamous Lewis Law, that external comments about GaymerX tend to justify the existence of it.
This was clear enough attending GX3, where, due to a scheduling issue at the hotel, halfway through the con some of the convention rooms were taken over by corporate parties from COSTCO and Disney. Numerous attendees from the Disney holiday party, a black-tie affair, scowled or looked uncomfortable as they made their way through a hallway filled with LGBTQIA (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/ Transgender/Queer/Intersex/Asexual) and allied celebrants on their way in and out of GX3's dance party on Saturday night.
In one elevator ride down from our floor to the con, several of the GR staff heard drunken disparaging comments about con attendees from people who were clearly attending one of these corporate parties. Later—another elevator encounter—a father did an angry double-take, turned bright red, and shooed his young son away from the doors of a car going up because of the three con attendees inside wearing con t-shirts, and in one case kigurumi pajamas, in spite of the elevator being mostly empty.
Without asking them, there's no way to know if the Disney party attendees who looked uncomfortable around the con dance party felt that way because of prejudice or simply because the hallway was a little too small for that many people. What is clear is that the elevator encounters are emblematic of why GaymerX exists; that people acting in ways that express a prejudice or fear of queer people are common enough that even if (as in the case of the Disney party attendees) it's impossible to know if a person is scowling at them because they are in the way, or because they harbor a resentment of LGBTQIA people, they may feel emotionally or physically unsafe in those situations. The con exists to provide a space in which there is surety that one is free from having to deal directly with those judgments, or the phantom of them.
.@HarringtonVO @selmaleh and you Brian, somewhere out there. here's a pano of the room pic.twitter.com/3NfqAvLrGh
— Jennifer Hale (@jhaletweets) December 14, 2015
The second justification of GaymerX is much more practical: the attendees paid for it. Though GaymerX has corporate sponsorship, with a larger selection of companies contributing each year, the bulk of the costs have been paid for through crowdfunding; in some cases retroactively. During the closing ceremonies of GX3, the organizers mentioned that the high-profile hotel used for GX2 had cleaned out their organization completely, leaving them with a substantial debt. While a number of corporate sponsors stepped up to offer to help pay, con organizers rejected the offer by itself, and took their woes to their backers, who along with the sponsors' contributed not just enough to pay the debts, but to pay for this year's convention.
Purely in capitalist terms, the con is justified by the contributions of its backers and attendees; this further incentivizes game developer or publisher sponsorship, since the same people willing to pay for GaymerX are clearly willing to pay for the games they love enough to have created a con about them. GaymerX economically justifies its own existence.
Which is not to say everyone is happy with it. GX3 received some online criticism for blocking Twitter users from seeing the official GX3 stream, who had used the gamergate hashtag—particular drawing ire from gay gamers who used the hashtag—who claimed that GX3 demanded that its attendees maintain the same political and ideological beliefs as the organizers. On that account, it's a completely accurate complaint; GaymerX has a political and ideological alignment with feminist principles and critics, due in no small part to the attitudes of its organizers and the strong presence of women at the con. So while those who complained about this are accurate, it's doubtful whether they would enjoy the con, since it may be ideologically disparate to their beliefs.
On a personal level, this GaymerX was my favorite so far. At the first con I was very uncomfortable, due to the growing pressure and understanding that I wasn't a straight cis-gendered person; which was almost comically underscored when I was asked to write an article about the con from a straight perspective. At the second con, I was sick, and had to forego most of it due to an acute case of the sniffles and coughs. However, being healthy this year, around people with similar experiences of gender and sexuality, getting to see a number of panels with high profile creators, playing classic games in the arcade, and seeing a number of really innovative indie titles, GX3 really clicked for me. As one attendee tweeted, the all-gender bathrooms formed an oddly popular social melting pot; and I chatted briefly with Jennifer Hale and Sarah Elmaleh about their voice-acting panel while we washed our hands (all of us having rushed to the bathroom after it had ended).
Aaaaaand they're dancing @drstevew @miilovecats #GX3 pic.twitter.com/Xww5opWJF0
— Jessica Vazquez (@Daburninator22) December 13, 2015
The goals for any con connected to a social issue, whether it be ethnic issues, or those connected to sexuality or gender, is to ultimately be unnecessary in the eyes of the organizers and attendees. GaymerX may, if society changes to a degree that the con attendees no longer feel like they are the outlier in terms of representation, simply become identical to other gaming conventions; because the social issues that the attendees want addressed will no longer have question marks attached at the end. With sponsorship from companies like Intel, Harmonix, Blizzard, Ubisoft, etc., and talks from popular voice actors like Jennifer Hale and the Dragon Age writing staff (for the third year running), GaymerX already has high-profile content that often ties in directly with the social issues the con addresses.
I enjoyed GX3, but as I stated, the environment around it also illustrated its own necessity. I heard a comment from some of the organizers that they had figured out how to avoid the issue of having to share space with other parties next year. Which is to say, there will be a GX4, and most likely GaymerX cons for quite a while. Expect GaymerX to keep on existing as long as long as its attendees feel it's necessary; because they've already proven—three years in a row—that they're willing to pay for it.
