#magic fandom

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It’s a Friday night, and Topp’s Trade Center, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, is, to say the least, packed. At the counter to check out, five or six men and teen boys stand in line to pay to play Magic: The Gathering in the weekly Friday Night Magic (FNM) bracket. All who play will get a small discount later in the evening on packs of cards, and one lucky winner will get a mythic rare card for free.

Meanwhile, in the gaming room, two college-aged men are deep in a heated Magic: The Gathering match, while a half dozen other men look on. Two women of about the same age walk in and sit down by themselves across the room from the others, and begin to play their own match, completely ignored. Of the 30 or so people that have come in for FNM, they are the only women in the store.

“There still is a low percentage of women at FNMs and such I go to—often I’m the only one there, or just one of two,” says Lily Haaron, a woman player from Seattle.

According to Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Magic: The Gathering, over 12 million people worldwide play Magic. Of that, somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of players are male. The women who do play frequently state that they feel unwelcome in game stores that host Magic events. They cite instances when they were not taken seriously, were the butt of hurtful and often discriminatory jokes, or were even harassed by other players because of their gender. However, many women in the community have started clubs and social media groups specifically for women, in order to create safer spaces for women to play.

“Many male players see the community as of and for primarily other male players,” says a female Magic player going only by the name Joy, who began playing around 2013 but has only been heavily involved in the community in the past year.

Joy says that she initially felt drawn to the complexity and depth of the game’s lore, which follows the story of several different characters that are also printed as playing cards in the game. She says, “I read the entire story of Khans of Tarkir block and loved it, and have been keeping up since,” referring to the story published in once-a-week chapters prior to the release of “blocks” of new cards.

Many players enjoy the social aspect of the game. After all, it is called Magic: The Gathering, which refers to how people must gather together in order to play. “I enjoy that Magic gets me out of the house every day,” Joy says, “On weekdays, my job gets me out of the house. On weekends, Magic does.”

But the social aspect can be rougher for some than for others. Ally Robertson, a trans woman and regional Magic judge from Maine says that, while she has never experienced harassment herself, she has friends who have. “When [one of my good friends] was still new to Magic, [she] had a store owner tell her that if she went out back and gave him oral sex, he would concede to her,” she says. “The local judge at the time just laughed, like most of the store.”

The game was invented in 1993 by a white man, and for many years it appealed only to white men, to the exclusion of women and non-whites alike. “What I have experienced, both at my LGS (local game store) and online, is a male-dominated culture that manifests in subtle and not-so-subtle ways,” says Joy.

The creators of Magic have since attempted to increase the number of woman players, though the demographic statistics vary depending on who you ask. For example, Mark Rosewater, the lead designer for Magic, said on his blog, “market research shows the gender breakdown of male to female is 62% to 38%.”

Jesse Reynolds, a former store owner from Evanston, Illinois has an even more stark view of the demographic differences. He says, “If [other store owners] say that more than 5% of their players are female, they are lying.”

Participation in competitive events, such as the professional tours and even FNM, closely resembles what Mr. Reynolds says, which suggests that while women are attracted to the game itself, there is a significant barrier keeping them from playing competitively.

“I’ve been treated like crap by guys when I go play Magic,” writes a Tumblr user going by the URL chelsea-beleren-vess. “Or ignored when I’m like ‘hi how are you?’ Or asked if I’m here with my boyfriend. They don’t take me seriously.”

Some players say that, although the community as a whole has a long way to go, the company itself is inclusive in a way that its consumers are not. “Wizards of the Coast has demonstrated a commitment to making Magic a more inclusive gaming experience, and so far, I think they’ve done well,” says Joy.

Indeed, Wizards is unlike other media in its representations of women and non-binary individuals. The company has actively remade edited versions of card art that previously objectified female characters, even after having received backlash from male players that saw nothing wrong with the original art. Wizards also wrote new female characters into the story, some of whom are lesbian or bisexual. Two years ago, the company released Alesha, Who Smiles At Death, a card based on the company’s first openly transgender character, and in the past year it introduced an entire race of people, called the Aetherborn (pronounced EE-ther-born), that are non-binary, using they/them pronouns.

“I love that they have characters like Alesha, or the Aetherborn. It definitely adds to mine and my partner’s experience of playing the game and it also makes conversations about inclusivity easier,” says Ms. Robertson. “On the flip side, though, it’s frustrating when people on coverage misgender the Aetherborn or assume their next coverage pair consists of two men. As a whole, Magic is still a ‘boys club’ and any attempts to expend that mentality usually end in backlash.”

So what might improve the gender disparity at Magic events? What might draw more women to Magic? Some say that it is the responsibility of Wizards of the Coast. Others say that the privileged majority in the community need to step up and be more inclusive. Yet others argue that those who have been harassed or discriminated against need to report their experiences. No surefire consensus has been made, though perhaps all suggestions have their merit.

“I feel on a local level stores need to do more to try and get women into the game, and support women communities with it,” says Ms. Haaron.

Ms. Haaron wants to see more groups like the Lady Planeswalkers Society, a women-led group of Magic players that hosts events specifically to draw women into the game and create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for women players. The society has had moderate success, purporting to have over 80 active chapters throughout the world and more than 1600 followers on Facebook. However, 1600 followers out of the 12 million that Wizards claims play is not even a dent in the community.

Some argue that Wizards of the Coast hasn’t done enough to create an inclusive community. “I think Wizards needs to take more direct action against stores that have unwelcoming environments,” says Ms. Robertson. “If a store gets repeatedly reported for an environment where players are degrading women, or making rape jokes, Wizards should step in and tell that store to keep their player base in line or lose DCI sanctioning.”

DCI sanctioning refers to the ability of a store to host official Magic: The Gathering events. Many stores make their money by hosting such events, so being sanctioned is good for both the store and for Wizards. Furthermore, participating in sanctioned events helps competitive players advance to the next level of competition, so it’s good for the players as well.

When players are repeatedly harassed or made uncomfortable during the events, things get a little complicated. Wizards has rules put in place to punish players that make the environment uncomfortable for others, but those rules are just not strict enough for some.

Ms. Robertson says, “I think jokes that promote violence or jokes that use minorities as a…punching bag should warrant an immediate disqualification, or at least match losses.”