Former Version1 VALORANT player Alexander “Zander” Dituri has called for prominent community figures and professional players to denounce the sexist and transphobic comments made toward players during the Game Changers Championship, which concluded on Nov. 20.
The Game Changers Championship, which highlights the best women and players from marginalized genders in the world, led to a minority of viewers sending hateful messages in the stream chats. Others attacked the players through their social media accounts as well. As a result, Zander has called for more to be done to combat this toxicity, with the VALORANT community aiming to become fully inclusive.
He said prominent figures and professional players need to denounce the sexist and transphobic comments made toward the Game Changers players. “I hope to see change in the future because it’s truly disgusting,” he said on Twitter yesterday.
One community member compiled a list of hateful comments made in the stream chat during Game Changers. Most of the toxic comments were addressed to Cloud9 White player Bob Tran, who is a transgender woman.
On Twitter, Bob said she struggled to ignore the hateful messages and even felt like she deserved it.
Prominent streamer and content creator Jonas “AverageJonas” Navarsete said he had to ban several users because they made sexist or transphobic comments in his Twitch chat during the event. He also called for a change to be made and asked those responsible to “do better.”
The VALORANT Game Changers circuit, which peaked at over 230,000 viewers according to Esports Charts, saw G2 Esports take down Shopify Rebellion in the grand final.
