The HER Galaxy $100K Apex Legends Open reversed its decision to disqualify a team that included a trans player after a player made allegations against the organizers.
What is this tournament? HER Galaxy is an initiative for women in gaming. With the tournament series of the same name, the organizers want to help eliminate the “immense gender-specific inequalities” in the gaming world, similar to what Overwatch 2 announced in 2022 with the “Calling All Heroes Challengers Cup”.
As part of that effort, there is currently a $100,000 Apex Legends Open – the largest prize pool for a women’s tournament in Apex Legends to date. Unlike Valorant, in Apex, men and women typically compete together in tournaments.
Recently there had been trouble because the Twitch streamer Nickmercs is said not to have invited enough women to his tournament. However, on May 19, the HER Galaxy tournament also came under fire when a player accused the organizers of her team being disqualified based on the identity of a member.
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Player raises allegations against the organizers
What are the allegations? On May 19, Team VEXX’s Sani “Rkxine” wrote that their team had been banned from the tournament less than 48 hours before they were due to compete in the upper brackets for a place in the finals. They would have already qualified.
The reason for the disqualification is said to have been a “known anti-trans member of the Apex community”. The person knowingly spread “rumors and misinformation” about Gab, a member of Team VEXX with the pronouns “she/they”.
Inclusion is now also an important topic in gaming. For example, a 17-year-old was asked for his pronouns during a Pokemon trading card game tournament so that he could be spoken about correctly during the broadcast. But the boy’s reaction led to his disqualification.
You can find the beginning of Rkxine’s thread here:
As Rkxine explained, Gab would never have had the opportunity to come out to her family and legally change her identity due to a “difficult living situation.” However, this had been agreed in advance with the admins of the tournament. There were no problems with the identity verification.
How were the reactions? The members of Team VEXX received a lot of support from fans. Twitter user Ira then shared clips of the player “wondernikki”, who is said to have been responsible for the disqualification, and criticized her for “public, malicious and anti-trans hatred”.
In the comments, Twitter users called for the player to be banned and Team VEXX reinstated. We have included the tweet with the recordings here:
Organization responds, initiates investigation
How did the organizers react? A statement from the admins of HER Galaxy followed on the evening of May 19th. It said that it had been decided to allow the team after all. The tournament was created to create an inclusive and welcoming space for women and trans women.
The events were an “educational moment,” according to the organizers, who also apologized for any “injury and confusion” caused.
The admins also announced that they had uncovered behavior that violated their code as part of an investigation: They had a zero tolerance policy for discriminatory behavior and had accordingly disqualified “this team”.
However, the organizers did not name names.
How did it all turn out? In the end, Team VEXX ended up in 9th place and thus qualified together with the other 9 best teams for the final, which is scheduled to take place in June.
In Valorant, the “Game Changers” have their own tournament circuit for women and other marginalized genders. There, a player was banned for allegedly lying about his gender identity:
Valorant bans players for 8 years for pretending to be non-binary to play against women