In the wake of recent high-profile homophobic missteps, Major Nelson has revealed that Microsoft recently met with representatives of GLAAD to talk about all that icky gay stuff.
Microsoft has had a rough ride of things lately, so to speak; in February, the company issued an apology after a lesbian gamer had her Xbox Live account suspended for revealing her sexual orientation in her profile. A month later it was sued by a former Lionhead Studios employee who claimed he suffered long-term harassment over his sexual orientation, a case which was settled out of court in April.
But lest anyone get the idea that Microsoft has something against “the gays,” Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb and Xbox Live Policy Director Stephen Toulouse revealed in a recent podcast that the company has met with members of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to discuss matters relating to gay gamers on Xbox Live.
“I can’t talk about what we discussed specifically except to say that we provided them with a lot of information about what we do today, why we do what we do and how we do it,” Toulouse said. “And then we asked them the question, ‘How can we do this better?’ And we have some ideas. Here are some ideas. That dialog was super, super helpful. I think it was a great engagement. Justin and Jeffrey who came out from GLAAD really appreciated the effort that we’re putting into it – and had great ideas, like they brought up some stuff we hadn’t thought of.”
Toulouse said GLAAD was a “great group to work with” and seemed very enthusiastic about the results of the meeting. “The GLAAD folk totally understand a variety of things, they’re really great to work with. They want to enable communities to be safer. They just want to enable communities to be safer – that’s what my team tries to do as well, so it was a great thing.” He added that Microsoft would have more to say about the meeting with GLAAD and Xbox Live policies in the future.
Source: GayGamer
