A former Elder Scrolls Online developer spoke out on alleged transphobic discrimination she claims she received after she came out as a trans woman at ZeniMax.
In a Reddit thread from July 10, former employee Leona highlighted a four-hour-long video she posted to YouTube where she delves into her accusations that she was singled out from the developer team by her manager and progressively pushed out of the company in 2021 and 2022.
“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,” she wrote on the Reddit thread. “This was in retaliation for raising concerns over how my manager had been treating me unfairly.”
She said she worked with ZeniMax without issues for three years, but that the behavior of her manager changed after she came out as transgender in 2021.
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In the video, she shared screenshots of conversations with her manager and recordings of audio calls where she was apparently wrongly blamed for various mistakes or poor performance at her job, especially after asking for paid time off for transition-related medical reasons.
“My velocity was fine for years, until i came out as a trans girl. then, it was a way Elphaba was using to push me out, essentially,” she explained in the video.
After months of tense exchanges between Leona and her manager, she says she contacted corporate after failing to tackle the issue with the help of ZeniMax’s HR team, but it was also ineffective.
In January 2022, Leona claims her manager conducted a yearly review of her performance. “She said I didn’t do my work, I was rude in meetings, that I made inappropriate comments in workplace forums… criticisms of my work ethic and character. All of which were lies.”
After that review, she refused an offer to “resign and release them [ZeiniMax] from any potential discrimination lawsuit.” The company also offered to pay for both her gender transition surgeries, she claims, and she felt those were “held as hostage” to push her out.
Leona says she worked under another manager for two more months, but ultimately accepted the offer after her first surgery in March 2022.
“I wish I didn’t, I wish I wasn’t so scared. But I signed. Because if that offer was still on the table after I proved indisputably that I was being targeted by [my manager], corporate would find a way to get rid of me no matter what.”
The testimony of Leona received much traction over social media. She’s received support from various Twitch partner Locke, and from users in the Reddit thread’s comments. ZeniMax hasn’t publicly responded to Leona’s statement. We reached out to ZeniMax for comment but, at the time of writing, haven’t received one.
Published: Jul 11, 2023 03:45 am