Game Chats: Is “Lesbian” Profane?

Smite Initial release date: March 25, 2014 Developer: Hi-Rez Studios Genre: Multiplayer online battle arena

A new poll in the forums of Smite asks why the game has deemed the word “lesbian” worthy of being censored. 

In gaming chat rooms “bad” words are often censored out with either the basic asterisk sign, or clever symbols tied into game play. On occasion the words being censored contain a curse word. For example, “assassin” is sometimes censored to “******in” for the word(s) “ass.” Last year the Summoner’s War Reddit channel started a thread asking “What’s your favorite/oddest censored word in game chat?” There are some amusing responses.

The Smite player Ickorus wrote in the game’s forums “Why is the word lesbian (and lesbians) considered profanity? I asked support, but was told that this was the place to post such matters. What say ye?”

This player also included the email exchange with the company. From Ickorus:

From: Me
Subject: Profanity filter – Lesbian

Message Body:
I was dismayed yesterday to learn that the word “Lesbian” is blocked, for whatever reason. This is hardly a derogatory or offensive term. I know plenty of lesbians who are decent people.
Similarly descriptive terms like “homosexual” and “gay” are allowed but not the female version. Talk about offensive.

I thought I’d let you know by e-mail so you could quickly fix this, without the embarrassment it would cause by a forum post.

Then the response from the company to the email:

Subject
Profanity filter – Lesbian

Discussion Thread
Response Via Email (HiRezIsiah) 04/25/2016 12:56 PM
Hello elfick,

We appreciate the feedback and constructive criticism of Smite and I have forwarded this to the appropriate person in the studio.

In the future, feedback like this should ideally be posted on our forums: http://forums.smitegame.com/forumdis…neral-Feedback

Our development and community management team checks for feedback like this every day.

Best regards,
HiRezIsiah
Hi-Rez Studios Customer Support

Ickorus additionally included a poll for other forum members which asks, “Should the words ‘Lesbian’ and ‘Lesbians’ be removed from the profanity filter?” The two response options are “Yes” and “No, I’m an Asshole.”

At the time of writing this article, there were four responses for “Yes” and several comments upset that the other option labeled dissenters as “assholes.” Others have pointed out that Smite has seemly been very gay-friendly in the past.

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Al Rosenberg

Al Rosenberg

Gay weirdo. Talk to them about tiny games, big books, trash, and all things illness.

One thought on “Game Chats: Is “Lesbian” Profane?

  1. ‘At the time of writing this article, there were four responses for “Yes” and several comments upset that the other option labeled dissenters as “assholes.” ‘

    Only an a$$hole would consider the word ‘lesbian’ worthy of censorship. Just saying.

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