So I have tried several times to right this post. I've been asked onto this panel because of my position with Incubation SIG, because of the work we have done with NZ CODE and as an Out transgender woman.
I've watched my community in absolute despair over the past two weeks over the commentary around a cis woman boxer. One one side, we see purity policing as a Not White woman who isn't the picture of white feminine perfection gets scapegoated for being not that by people from the Hasbeen Wizard Lady to various politicians throughout the world on the political Right. Only to see our "allies" come back with "It's okay, she's a real woman, she's not trans!" (Facepalm). And of course, the riots in the UK and some of the behaviour around the US election that looks frankly bizarre to Antipodean eyes.
If you're in the workplace, or if you're in an International space or a place where you are meeting people, I urge you to act with basic kindness and baseline politeness if you meet a trans, gender diverse or Intersex person at the moment.
I also urge you that if DEI is something that you use as a convenient intellectual scapegoat, particularly when speaking about political candidates to take a second look at what you're saying and what it says to those around you. In creative industries, heterogenous teams have a habit of performing better versus every metric. And it's no surprise why, people bring different ideas and problem-solving to the table from their different backgrounds and life experiences.
Being an overt supporter of a political candidate that would disadvantage someone because of their gender, ethnicity, parental status (or lack thereof), religion (as long as it doesn't encroach on the rights of others) etc. sends a pretty tough message and people are going to make a decision about how much they trust someone.
I'm watching the US election at the moment with the same paralysed sense of foreboding that many of us feel who don't get a say in that election, but are effected by the inevitable international flow on. On one side, you have a faction screaming about freedom and yet want to police everyone's bodies who's not a straight, cis, white, man. Who want to police their status on their decisions or ability to even have children or not. On the other you have an imperfect but resurgent faction who are at least offering a taste of Not Another Old Guy Who Can't String a Coherent Sentence Together (and one of said old guys has a series of criminal convictions and rape allegations against him). It's just not rocket science to see how things have changed. And some of out domestic politicians will take any form of validation if the flow on is "yes, we can externally police consenting peoples' bodies."
Ecosystem support - incubators, event organisers, NGOs, and so on - are the glue of the industry, connecting individual developers and studios to form a larger whole. As such, we have a crucial role in making DEI efforts stick by changing the culture of the industry. But what kind of concrete steps can we take to ensure our DEI legacy is more than just pretty words?
Suvi Kiviniemi 🔜 gamescom europe, Vee Pendergrast, Pedro Santoro Zambon, PhD additionally to all the amazing work they do, are board members of IGDA Incubation SIG and we're thrilled and proud of this session at devcom, joined by not less amazing Jakin Vela, PhD of International Game Developers Association (IGDA®) and Russ Clarke of Payload Studios.
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4moBrilliant idea!! Who’s idea was this??