WotC Kotaku reports that "Wizards Of The Coast Deadnamed Trans Employees In Front Of Their Colleagues During Union Election, Apologized, Then Did It Again"

[saviirkad]

I think it's worth pointing out that the "second time" being reported may very well be a mischaracterization.

Both instances were likely a single act of pulling a report and submitting it to involved parties. That it was not a misdeed that got caught out and then repeated a second time, but a single misdeed that had a bigger scope of effect than initially known.

 

[Maxperson]

That's fine. I'm okay with you disagreeing with me. But my attitude has always been the same-- I don't go to any of the threads or subforums involving games and/or companies I don't care about, because I have better things to do with my time. So it just perplexes me why some many people seem to want to keep themselves perpetually upset rather than just washing their hands of the game/company they hate. I have never seen the point.

That's okay if they don't like the product, or the politics of a CEO or something. It's not okay when a company is repeatedly engaging in bad behaviors. Bad behaviors need to be stood up against, not ignored and allowed to continue and grow because you just would rather ignore it.

That said, I don't really think this is even a bad behavior on the part of WotC. As others have said, it's probably just a bureaucracy error. If the complaint was that the sent the Pinkertons to someone's house again, I could believe that. If they said that WotC just out and out said that they weren't putting any other editions into CC, despite saying that they would, I could believe that. However, WotC has always gone out of their way to be inclusive, so this latest report seems very out of character for them. Without a lot more, I'm not going to believe that it's anything other than a mistake.

 

[Older Beholder]

At the university I work at they don't change email addresses despite people's names changing. Which sucks and can lead to unintentionally deadnaming lecturers and support staff in some cases.

After reading the article I emphasize with the frustration and hurt that these kind of mistakes can cause, but I find it hard to not give WotC the benefit of the doubt on this one. I mean, if someone had more than one strike for anti-inclusiveness on these forums, shouldn't we give them the benefit of the doubt rather than automatically think the worst of them?

 

[Retros_x]

I understand why you have your disdain... I just wonder why you keep hanging around places involving WotC to maintain your disdain rather than just moving on with your life and go to places where you no longer have to deal with them.

I mean if it would be easy to just find your dream job in your dream environment by free will, everybody would do exactly that.

 

[Horwath]

Why is this a news and who is surprised by this?

It's bureaucracy and HR... Did you expect ANY level of competence from those people...

if you are bothered by that personally, you will just have to call and send like 200 emails to HR to maybe fix it, next year.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I would say, as a trans woman who has multiple sources of employment and must use my dead name on legal documents due to the US federal government currently not recognizing trans identities, my reaction to this is disappointed but not surprised. This kind of thing happens all the time with employers, because they have to keep track of two different names for you and sometimes things get messed up in the data entry process. It sucks, but I think the federal government is more to blame than the employer in most cases like this. This doesn’t really register to me as the same level of corporate evil as refusing to voluntarily acknowledge the union does. Like, it’s good to know, and to criticize WotC for, but “sorry, we’ll try not to do it again” is in my opinion a reasonable response to hope for.

I have no idea about the legal status of names, but if the US government generally doesn't recognize the names and forces people to keep using their deadnames as legal name, then problems like this will arise. And it might in fact be even very important that WotC uses their legal names, even if that means deadnaming then - you probably also don't want the unionization to fail or union elections to fail because the used identities aren't recognized legally.

 

[MGibster]

It's bureaucracy and HR... Did you expect ANY level of competence from those people...

I’m in HR, and I’d like to think I’m both competent and compassionate. I’m happy to use whatever name my employee prefers when I communicate with them, but their legal name is used for all business processes.

I’m the primary gatekeeper for name changes at my company. When an employee changes their name, I get a notification, and I approve or deny the change according to the documentation provided showing their name changed.

It is not that difficult to change your legal name here in the United States. In Arkansas, you can file a petition with the court for $165 and they’ll waive that fee if you can’t afford it. From there you get a new ID, Social Security Card, and inform everyone who needs to be informed of you name change.

 

[Deset Gled]

It is not that difficult to change your legal name here in the United States. In Arkansas, you can file a petition with the court for $165 and they’ll waive that fee if you can’t afford it. From there you get a new ID, Social Security Card, and inform everyone who needs to be informed of you name change.

I'm going to push back on this a little bit. It seems like it should be easy to change your legal name. But the SSA, the DMV, and passports all operate on different systems and need to be updated separately. And, as you may have heard, recent changes involving passports and RealID have required some people to provide a birth certificate, which is a whole 'nother mess.

Also, the "inform everyone who needs to be informed" can be very tricky. Credit cards, utility bills, anything from your alumni association to you zoo membership. Professional societies - as we've just learned, getting that information to a union who has to manage both an Excelsior list with legal names and a list of preferred names can have hiccups. Professional certifications. Diplomas (and imagine what could happen if your old school doesn't exist anymore). How do you manage public awards and accolades? Scientific/academic publications are a big problem; I know married women who maintain their maiden name for publications and a separate legal one because it's often the easiest way to maintain their professional identity.

The whole process can take years. And during that transition time, you have to keep track of everything that's been updated and everything that hasn't, and make sure you use the right name with the right people. And at the end of all of that, you still have to just go by hoping no one, anywhere, in any part of the process made a mistake you have no way of knowing about that will bite you later.

Changing you name is hard. Getting the legal name change and Social Security Card is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Afroconan]

They're child's play compared to Nestle or Monsanto.

To hear some people say it, WotC is worse than ExxonMobil and prints the books on baby seal leather...

 

[Afroconan]

After reading the article and this quote:

“[I don’t want] to paint WOTC as anti trans,” one impacted employee, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “That hasn’t been my experience. I’ve loved working here so much because of how supported I as a trans person feel every day. The actions here are jarring to me because they are so at odds with the kindness and support I experience daily.”

I think it's safe to take the charitable position, and strike this as a f*ckup from HR and the challenges of systemic bigotry as @Charlaquin pointed out.

I think @DEFCON 1 's take sounds, at best, out of touch in the context of the topic but I can't help but agree with the sentiment that, at some point, it gets really tiresome to read all these "WotC Bad " takes. Specially when it seems some'll grab on to any little thing to confirm that bias and keep simmering in it.