Thread by @delaneykingrox

Having over 20+ yrs experience & several games of the year under my belt, Transitioning from presenting male to female goes like this.

As male: headhunted by studios, flown to interviews overseas.

As female: email response to CV "we don't think you would be happy here"

Applications: 10, interviews 8, offers 7.

As female: applications 10, interviews 2, offers 2 (1 as junior)

Salarypresenting male: $aud 100+
Highest salary presenting female 45,000. On contract.

I cannot stress this enough.

If you are a woman in games, you are being screwed over.

If you are intersex or transgender and plan on socially transitioning, SAVE A FUCKING HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY BEFORE HAND IF YOU CAN

Because fuck this

Oh, and one of the companies that headhunted me for lead cinematics modeler as a male, turned me down instantly as a female for a junior art director role- I had 8 years experience as art director.

Just in case you think our industry is woke. It pretends to be.

Incidentally, I still need to eat and pay rent amidst this bullshit.

Commission slots open for friday onwards if you want some assets made by an industry veteran who made the mistake of having breasts

DMs open.

Already getting abusive messages from dudes.

Thanks.

That's really helping prove my point.

I have worked on TVCs, Cinematics, covers and Game Characters for Civilization IV, Unreal Tournament 04, Dragonage: Origins, God of War Chains of Olympus among many others, and my clients included Fuel, Animal Logic, Ubisoft, Rocksteady, Turbine, Turbosquid and Autodesk.

I am intersex, and decided to transition from presenting male to female. I figured, my industry is very lefty and cool, this should be okay. I may lose a few friends and contacts but on the whole my experience should carry me forward.

Nope.

Of course ontop of all this, it isn't like I can now travel to work.
Is America safe for trans/intersex people? Can I get insurance without outing myself?
Dubai is out, Singapore was out last I checked (I used to go there all the time to do seminars and masterclasses).

Yay

So all in all, I am very dissapointed in my industry. It talks a good game, but the bugs are readily apparent when you switch player skins.

Do better. There is a massive talented, experienced woman and non binary workforce and you are passing us over and treating us like we are invisible.

ko-fi.com/dellak

Yes. I absolutely had privilege.
Yes. I knew I would lose privilege.
No. I had no idea the full extent.
No. Women are not making it up when they tell you the way they are ignored, undermined, talked over and passed over.

Women and NB game devs are in general wonderful to each other in building community, mentoring and reaching out. That is not where the problem lies.

No, I am not trying to guilt people into hiring me. I am just scribbling highlighter over a BIG problem.

Thank you so much for the generous Ko-fi donations. That's food and transport for the week sorted.

Lots of positive messages too. Xxxxx

Just to clarify, I don't think I am *entitled* to a job.

No, I am *qualified* for a job.

Just like I was four years ago.

Only now I have to deal with men who think me being upset with inequality somehow equals me feeling entitled.

Go get a *cheaper* haircut, you jerk.

I ran one art department for 7 years. I wrote the first official game artist curriculum in Australia (AIE). I wrote design docs for 3dsmax when I was at Autodesk. I visited major film studios to train them in Mari. I was special guest on stage at the SIGGRAPH 3dmsax launch.

I redesigned The Skaarj for Unreal. I helped design the Bigworld toolset which pioneered non barycentric morph targets, cross blended normal map wrinkles and jitter blending over anims to break up run cycles.

Now it's "we don't think you would enjoy it here"

Not even a job interview, just an email straight off the bat telling me how they think I will feel.

Let that sink in. I am being told how they think I feel and turned down before they have even met me or asked me any questions.

Did I miss the update where wiring unreal shader networks must be done with a penis?

I have a wacom pen. That's... kind of similar?

I can go get some tape or something.

Oookay, on that note I am going to bed.

Have fun humans.

A few clarifications:

1. This post is to highlight the bullshit of meritocracy because my merit hasn't changed. The perception of my merit has. This is for all women and NBs.

2. Yes, I am intersex- which means doctors classify me as falling between male and female.

2b. It seems some people are still unclear on what intersex means... here is my breakdown:

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/995525175255879682?s=19

3. A few bugbears:

Intersex is not a 'reproductive condition' it is a naturally occuring state in evolution.

'Transgender people' not 'transgenders'- thats a grammar issue.

4. I cannot follow conversations you are having with trolls as a lot of them are blocked. I recommend you do the same.

Trolls love biscuits.

5. I am very dubious of women whose take on this is amounts to "women have it harder so don't transition then".
Primarily because they don't understand why people transition, and secondly because they want to uphold the status quo that oppresses women.
Hmmm. Sounds fishy

6. My mentions are rolling faster than my app can untangle things. If I don't like or respond to you it's probably because of that.

7. My DMs are a bit of a trash fire too. May take a while to respond.

8. Uh... hi to the 1000+ followers I gained overnight. Yikes.

Meritocracy only works when merit is perceived.

As it is not perceived equally, meritocracy is no excuse for failing to hire minorities.

Meritocracy is the goal, but can only come by changing false perceptions.

Do not give up. Shout louder.

As for me, I have a child in Australia, and a partner who has her own career here.

I think I have to do remote contract work for the foreseeable future.

I hope that by the time I go back to looking for a senior job worldwide, dudes have taken a good hard look at their bullshit.

For those who want to share their stories for on inequality in the dev industry I suggest using a hashtag #LevelLoad

It's only being used by oveflowing skips at the moment. Which... fits.

Well over 200+ letters of encouragement and support, a LOT of these are people saying they experienced the same.

Gonna take a while to work through. Maybe a few days

Dm question: how to help fix

1. Have a Black-out name/gender/age CV policy. You can request applicants to give you one prepared.

2. Lgbtiqa sensitivity train your teams. A person can come in one day and open some eyes.

3. Enforce your policies. This send clear messages.

4. Right now, bring all female employees up to equal male pay levels. No excuse. No exceptions. Announce this as policy.

5. As male managers, read books on being a woman in business to educate yourself on issues women face. You can do this in one afternoon.

6. Focus your awareness on female/NB employees vs male employees needing to *qualify* their statements. This is a huge emotional drain.

7. When you run meetings, pay attention on talked-over having their input stolen. Ask them in private afterwards if they experienced bias.

8. Count apologies in meetings.

9. Review all job posts for gendered language. It is amazing how many management jobs say things like "build HIS team".

10. Assume bias. Don't assume everything is fine because noone is saying anything.

A few guys saying there is no gender bias and "I was fired for other reasons".
No.
I am just talking about applications. Not even actually being at work, which is a whole different garbage fire, but simply applying.

Also, politely, go fuck yourself.

Note that this is via DM. If you are attacking someone via DM with something you are not comfortable discussing publicly, you know you are in the wrong straight off.

Oh, and if you think it is okay to attack women about their twitter feed being the problem, you should probably take a look at your own. You know, with your 5 followers.

Just remember that John Lasseter can get a job.

Me? I ran what is now the Wargaming .net art department for over 6 years, with clients like Microsoft. I was the last art employee standing at both the layoffs, and trained several teams.

As a boy.

Surely you don't think I magically changed beyond gender presentation?

That's... kinda proving the whole point of this thread.

Same person.

Completely different experience.

Cooler hair.

That's enough troll prodding for now.

Oh, more clarification needed.

I switched teams 4 years ago, and it started then.

Back then I never mentioned I was intersex or trans in the application. It was just gender and name that changed.

The years I applied successfully for work was all the way up to 2013.

In 2014 I switched gender on my CV. The dry up happened then and continued until now.

As most of the women talking about it here can attest, studios for the most part simply do not respond. At all.

The only senior job I was offeree was by a woman.

*offered.

Obvs.

So that's before you factor in the lgbtiqa stuff.