Game Developers Fear Anti-Trans Measures Could Hit Their Industry Next
As companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon follow President Trump’s moves to roll back diversity initiatives, trans and genderqueer devs worry their already struggling industry could follow suit.
Ashley Poprik has never been the model for a video game character. As a writer on projects like Spider-Man 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, they work on games, not as characters within them. In 2023, however, a cabal of angry gamers was convinced otherwise. They were furious over how Spider-Man 2’s Mary Jane looked; more specifically, they complained, she simply wasn’t hot enough.
The problem, these gamers falsely claimed, was that Poprik—then a writing intern with no ability to change a character’s face, let alone one based on a real-life model—had inserted themself into the game. Gamers concocted this conspiracy based on a photo of the writer, placed side-by-side with Mary Jane; in the photo, Poprik and MJ both sport long hair with a middle part, are smiling, and have a similar face shape.
Poprik, who identifies as gender-fluid, describes themself as having androgynous features. “A big narrative spun up that I was a trans woman, and so I was getting hate from any alt-right winger,” they say.
“I was getting so many death threats, pictures of decapitated women, and YouTube videos about me that were just straight made-up information,” Poprik says. “It forever changed the way I feel about video games.”
Eventually, things got so bad that Poprik had to wipe personal information from the internet out of fear for their safety.
Poprik has faced months of ongoing online harassment as well as in-person accusations of making things “woke”—especially for features within the games they had no involvement in. Yet in each case, Poprik says, they received no support or security resources from the companies they worked for.
“When a marginalized dev is harassed, they’re on their own,” Poprik says.
Today, being anything other than a cisgender game developer in the United States is more dangerous than ever. Online, transgender and gender-nonconforming developers become harassment targets at the whims of reactionary grifters railing against anything socially progressive or the result of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. Offline, President Donald Trump seeks to deny their existence with executive orders aimed at “restoring biological truth to the federal government,” restricting lifesaving health care for minors, and removing trans people from the military.
Other executive orders, though, pose a more imminent threat. Trump’s move to eliminate government funding for programs that battle discriminatory practices are already being mimicked by tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon. Developers fear their own employers could follow suit. Given that so much of what’s come to be known as “Gamergate 2.0” has focused on gamers railing against real or perceived DEI efforts, these worries don’t seem unfounded.
WIRED spoke with seven developers across the industry in workplaces ranging from AAA studios to small, independent companies. Many spoke to us only under the condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety or because they did not have permission to speak to the press on behalf of their companies. (WIRED independently confirmed all their identities and employment.) What emerged was a consistent narrative of fear, stress, and alienation that follows them into the workplace and is thriving in the online culture surrounding video games.
As Poprik notes, “being a queer person in games can feel really lonely.” Very few people seem to reach out to their affected colleagues, they add, and “sometimes it feels like the lack of any sort of support means they’re happy with the state of things right now.”
Ellen, a trans developer working in AAA games, says the thought of rolling back DEI initiatives in the games industry is particularly disconcerting because, while these programs offer support to employees, they also positively impact the larger games culture by fostering an industry that produces titles that speak to and welcome a larger group of players. (Ellen is a pseudonym.)
“At the corporate level, you're making a case why it's good business,” Ellen says. “But on a personal level you're trying to make sure your community has a space carved out in the company, and your fans have a space carved out in your games.”
Like the other developers WIRED spoke to, Ellen describes daily stress that bleeds over into her work. “The news comes like an assault,” she says. “Times like this just enforce that it's important to keep going, that art like only trans people could make needs to exist in the world more.”
Even as she wonders if she should leave the US altogether, Ellen is fearful of traveling within the country as well, given that protections for trans people vary by state. Laws related to even the basic ability to use the bathroom according to a person’s gender identity shift from place to place, and Trump’s recent moves are further complicating such matters.
Got a Tip? Are you a current or former game developer who wants to talk about work conditions, DEI rollbacks, or anything else related to game development? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at meganfarokhmanesh.76.
Return-to-office policies in the games space, for example, are removing developers’ ability to work remotely—including in states where they may feel safer. Developers who travel internationally for work could also be at risk of losing their passports. The State Department, following the president’s executive order on “gender ideology,” is no longer issuing documents with “X” gender markers, and has begun confiscating passports and related documents indefinitely when people attempt to renew theirs.
Professionally, this spells trouble for affected developers. Many gaming events take place across the US, from Los Angeles to Boston. These gatherings are business opportunities for game developers, where they can network, learn from peers, scout new jobs, find funding, or show their games. Next month, thousands in the gaming industry will gather in San Francisco for the annual Game Developers Conference. But some developers will be forgoing the show out of concern for their safety.
“I'm concerned I'm going to get trapped in the US,” an American developer based in Canada tells WIRED. It’s also unclear if they’ll even be able to enter the States with their current passport. “No way I'm going to risk it.”
The video game industry has a poor history of standing up to targeted harassment. It’s only in the past few years that companies have begun instituting policies and taking serious action against abusive individuals. Developers themselves have complained that their companies are not doing enough to weed out harassment online. More than a decade later, the impact of Gamergate remains as a playbook for mob-driven harassment, and the communities to utilize it.
Three developers WIRED spoke to pointed to the events of Gamergate—a large-scale misogynistic and transphobic harassment campaign by online trolls in 2014 that profoundly affected all of gaming culture—as a sort of canary in the coal mine.
“Even before the bathroom bills, around the time of the first Gamergate, you could see people getting more and more bold with their anti-trans beliefs and folks just brushing it off as a ‘joke,’” says one developer. “But then jokes became memes, and memes became popular, and then an entire culture of spreading anti-trans hate became acceptable and something we are supposed to tolerate.”
Over the past year, anti-DEI efforts intensified in gaming communities as people blamed perceived flaws and flops on diversity efforts, while ignoring the macro factors of a struggling industry. Conservative circles targeted small companies and consultants they perceived as having influence on progressive values in video games. They went after anything they considered antithetical to games they wanted made—stories without minorities or queer characters, fictional women they think are attractive, and narratives bereft of what they view as leftist political agendas. Similar anti-DEI sentiments have since ripped through the tech industry and expanded nationally.
The trans community in games has felt these attacks acutely. Controversies around inclusion on something as small as optional top surgery scars in a character creator made developers targets. “It's felt like a slow creeping horror of watching right-wing party after right-wing party realize we're a softer target than the rest of the LGB community,” one developer says.
Many developers feel frustration that the gaming industry overall has remained silent so as to not alienate an imagined audience. “It signals to players and their own workers that the company lacks a spine in standing up for their work, while signaling internally that the bottom line will always be dollars,” says another developer. “Can’t piss off the bigots, because they spend money.”
It’s even more disheartening for trans, genderqueer, and nonbinary developers who work at the very companies that won’t publicly defend them. “I know there's a lot of the rainbow capitalism, ‘Hey, we're all in it together. Look at all these flags we're waving,’” says Dax, a trans developer at a AAA studio. (Dax is a pseudonym.) “But in the end, it's a company making money. They want to appeal to as many people as possible.”
Even among progressive colleagues, Dax feels disappointed in what she feels are empty platitudes: apologies with no action, or sentiments that appear to be empathetic of her experience, but reinforce the idea that she’s suffering alone. “I remember being a cis white man, and I was scared of saying anything, or doing anything,” she says. ”I wanted to stay in my lane and not bother anybody, and that's what they're doing. The second I transitioned, I was treated differently in the industry, overall.”
Over the course of reporting this story, WIRED reached out to companies that have previously participated in corporate pride events or included trans or nonbinary characters in their games, including representatives at companies such as PlayStation, Xbox, Riot Games, and Activision Blizzard, and asked about supporting their employees. Only one company replied: Devolver Digital. In a statement, the indie publisher said that it respects the rights of all individuals and does not tolerate discrimination, victimization, or harassment based on a person’s race, sex, gender identity, or gender expression. The company added that it will continue to support its colleagues by ensuring their voices are heard.
The developers WIRED spoke to are asking for more from the places that employ them, the people they work with, and the players that enjoy their games. “We should be out there being shown off,” Dax says. Companies should not shy away from hiring or representing queer communities in their games, many of the developers tell WIRED, and they want to see company DEI initiatives highlighted, rather than hidden away.
The industry is already bleeding talent through mass layoffs; refusal to support its own employees may push many more out the door. Even before the current administration, trans and gender-nonconforming developers faced discrimination. “I went from being trusted with my knowledge to being questioned,” Dax says of her transition. “They suddenly are not giving me the same respect or understanding.”
Dax says that some people are casting blame on the trans community and its current predicament for being “so out and proud.” She disagrees with that idea. “I want to see [companies] take bold choices and stand with us instead of cowering, wanting to appease this very loud, very small group of people who just can't stop slurring and screaming and being unreasonably hateful. By saying nothing, they're siding with hate.”
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