@SwimTrekBlue has had, and will continue to have, tremendous success as a team. At the same time, we’ve resigned ourselves to the reality that we will probably never get signed, no matter how much we win. For those who don’t know, most organizations have an unofficial quota for the number of ciswomen they must have on their GC roster. This goes against the entire premise of GC, but I understand it exists because of sponsor expectations. Even so, it reinforces the sentiment that transwomen are not women. The anticipated backlash from us winning Stage 1 caused the comments on the winning tweet to be disabled preemptively. That didn’t stop the widespread wave of hate directed not only at our team, but at gender identity and GC as a whole. There are many people in the VALORANT space with transphobic, enbyphobic, and misogynistic views. A creator in the space (ardiis), who openly displayed, facilitated, and supported those views while watch partying GC games, was banned for less than a month. The part that upsets me most about this slap on the wrist is that it effectively says what he believes and promotes isn’t a serious issue. I believe it is. At the root of his beliefs is the idea that being born female makes you inferior. That belief should not be tolerated. SwimTrek Blue doesn’t practice, and we don't have a fixed identity as a team, but that isn’t because we’re lazy nor are we winning because we're 'not women'. We prioritize differently from other teams. Our individuals’ mental and emotional wellbeing matters more to us than how fleshed out our tactics are. When our players are happy, we’re the best version of ourselves, regardless of our tactics. A few years back, stax said 'I want to be strong enough so when my teammates make mistakes, they believe in me to win the round no matter what'. I think this team resonates strongly with that, we all play freely and with confidence and believe in our teammates to close regardless of what we do 🐸❤️