On the weekend of November 7-9, Flippers Arcade hosted a set of IFPA endorsed tournaments. During the registration period on November 7, an anonymous transgender woman attempted to use the women’s restroom and was forcibly removed by a Flippers Arcade employee under the pretenses of a proposed North Carolina law which had not yet passed.
In the two weeks since then, several things have happened:
- The IFPA has released two statements, one of which states that Flippers Arcade is prohibited from hosting further IFPA events for the following year, at which time the situation will be re-evaluated, and another making it clear that the results of the event would still be endorsed/sanctioned despite the IFPA’s own rules stating otherwise, and going as far as to threaten bans from the IFPA’s Discord server for continuing to discuss the matter there;
- The entire IFPA women’s board has resigned;
- Many players have opted to either suppress themselves from IFPA ranking or opt-out of IFPA ranking for future events;
- A petition on change.org has been started to IFPA director Adam Becker, currently standing at 1391 signatures as of the early afternoon (CST) on 2005-11-21 as I write this.
I condemn the blatant discrimination against a competitive pinball player on the basis of gender identity. This has no place in our community. It is extremely disappointing that the men in charge of the IFPA completely ignored the input of the IFPA women’s board.
The Bayou City Pinball League (BCPL) has always stood for inclusion of all pinball players regardless of gender identity. This philosophy unfortunately has significant conflicts with the way the IFPA has handled the OBX Fall Flippers situation.
The sum total of this is that I, both individually and in my role as BCPL Commissioner, do not feel comfortable supporting the IFPA in the current climate. For this reason and to protect the reputation of the BCPL for at least the immediate future, any BCPL events will not be IFPA endorsed.
I hope that this is relatively short-term and either the IFPA makes a meaningful effort to address the ongoing community concerns, or an alternative organization forms to address these issues. I believe everyone deserves a seat at the table, and as so eloquently stated by a fellow pinball player, “If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.”
Shawn K. Quinn
Commissioner, Bayou City Pinball League
