My name is Leona, I'm a trans woman, and I am a former game dev that worked on The Elder Scrolls Online from 2018 to 2022. I am reaching out to the LGBT+ community here on Reddit in an effort to bring attention to the issues I faced coming out of the closet while working in the AAA gaming industry. My career at Zenimax ended when HR at Bethesda's corporate office used my upcoming gender affirming surgeries as leverage to force me to resign and release the company from any potential discrimination lawsuit. This was in retaliation for raising concerns over how my manager had been treating me unfairly. I collected audio recordings and screenshots of my experiences there, and have now made all of that information publicly available in this video.
I completely understand that four hours is a lot to ask anyone to sit through. I had decided when putting this all together that it was important to keep as much context and chronology intact as possible, hence the lengthy runtime. So here is a list of timestamps to key moments in the timeline for those who wish to skip around the video:
00:04:25 - Screenshot of messages from my manager that I received via Slack while she outed me during a group meeting with my teammates.
00:22:35 - My manager does not take my inconsistent work photo issue seriously.
00:38:10 - I get told that I need to be given stricter work expectations due to FMLA. My manager assumes that my FMLA is for "the surgeries", and after probing for details as to why I am submitting FMLA forms to HR it gets suggested that my role be downgraded from Mid-Level to an Associate due to upcoming medical leave.
00:46:41 - I get pressured to not return to work early from my PTO, which turns into a conversation about why I need to be assigned unique assignments from the rest of the team, and ends with being asked how much work I could take on over that upcoming weekend.
01:02:54 - I try to explain to my manager (for the second time) how devastating it was that she revealed my new work photo before I had the opportunity, canceled the meeting we had agreed I would have the platform to come out on my own terms, and then pressured me to come out via Slack messages instead.
01:56:30 - Conversation with my manager where she asks me to "stick with DEADNAME" so that I can continue working through the technical issues I was experiencing due to my name change.
02:10:00 - Call with my manager where I am accused of being distracted from work by the technical issues that I was still facing, and that I created a "chaotic situation" by requesting a name change in the first place.
02:19:35 - Discussion with my manager's boss about certain events that he was present for, this one in particular is when we are discussing my name change being brought up in front of multiple people during a group discussion, some of whom had never interacted with me and were not aware that I was transgender.
03:13:27 - Final conversation I had with my manager and (new) producer where I am trying to address ongoing issues I have had logging in. For 3 months I kept hitting roadblocks or losing access to our tools due to my name change, and nothing seemed to fix it. I display a series of screenshots of the login issues I collected during that time. I also had my portfolio website blocked by the company's firewall after I updated my name and URL.
03:26:03 - The Head of Human Resources asking me "I don't understand, a fear of being outed to the public? Aren't you already out?", and I have to explain to them that being transgender is not the same as everybody knows that you are trans.
03:50:24 - I had contacted corporate HR at Bethesda, and they responded by viewing me as a liability. They used my upcoming surgeries as leverage to release them from any potential discrimination lawsuit by promising to pay my COBRA premiums, but only if I signed a resignation agreement with them.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
gj for the repost!
I saw that before on reddit, what an awul story :( !
ps: you don't need to make the repost disclaimer in all caps, scared me for a sec :,)