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To respond to the gay Genestealers comment, I think it is something that should be explored in lore. Now, pure strains are canonically pansexual—they will impregnate any sapient hey can hold down with their reproductive cells. But what happens when they “impregnate” a gay man or woman? Does the victim feel compelled to breed? Do they bring in a same sex spouse and fulfill other functions for the brood? Does any experience “in the closet” make them better infiltrators, or does their sudden change in priorities give them away?

For me, I already know what happens if a Genestealer gets someone like me. The metaphor for the cucked parent tricked into raising his cuckoo offspring taps into a trope with a lot of cultural weight, taking a real life “horror” and exaggerating it. So, what trope or subconscious horror would genestealer implantation tap for LGBT gamers? What would be the experience of a gay implanted or a 2nd/3rd gen genestealer uninterested in breeding with the opposite sex? Where is the hook for those gamers?


PS: Fo Genestealers only target sapients? Are there grox or ambull broods out there?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
To respond to the gay Genestealers comment, I think it is something that should be explored in lore. Now, pure strains are canonically pansexual—they will impregnate any sapient hey can hold down with their reproductive cells. But what happens when they “impregnate” a gay man or woman? Does the victim feel compelled to breed? Do they bring in a same sex spouse and fulfill other functions for the brood? Does any experience “in the closet” make them better infiltrators, or does their sudden change in priorities give them away?

For me, I already know what happens if a Genestealer gets someone like me. The metaphor for the cucked parent tricked into raising his cuckoo offspring taps into a trope with a lot of cultural weight, taking a real life “horror” and exaggerating it. So, what trope or subconscious horror would genestealer implantation tap for LGBT gamers? What would be the experience of a gay implanted or a 2nd/3rd gen genestealer uninterested in breeding with the opposite sex? Where is the hook for those gamers?


PS: Fo Genestealers only target sapients? Are there grox or ambull broods out there?

afaik, only sapients, and assuming that the reproductive system get's highjacked as is implied atleast in the codices i own one would assume that sexual identity would be forcefully overridden in order to generate more cycles. Alternatively if not capable to do so (which is unrealistic, we are talking about a splinter hive mind with immense psychic presence and mortal humans), it may well be that they are treated as "fodder" or "waste" / biomass to feed the patriarch and princelings.
Iow, just as you "devolve" mentally into a subject in all manners if you get the "kiss" and considering the immense controll of the patriarch and later hive mind you'd basically lose that aspect of your identity since it's useless.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
To respond to the gay Genestealers comment, I think it is something that should be explored in lore. Now, pure strains are canonically pansexual—they will impregnate any sapient hey can hold down with their reproductive cells. But what happens when they “impregnate” a gay man or woman? Does the victim feel compelled to breed? Do they bring in a same sex spouse and fulfill other functions for the brood? Does any experience “in the closet” make them better infiltrators, or does their sudden change in priorities give them away?

For me, I already know what happens if a Genestealer gets someone like me. The metaphor for the cucked parent tricked into raising his cuckoo offspring taps into a trope with a lot of cultural weight, taking a real life “horror” and exaggerating it. So, what trope or subconscious horror would genestealer implantation tap for LGBT gamers? What would be the experience of a gay implanted or a 2nd/3rd gen genestealer uninterested in breeding with the opposite sex? Where is the hook for those gamers?

These are interesting matters, but are not exactly stuff for codex lore or BL books - which is a shame, but they want to write mostly inoffensive shlock, not deep introspections into human nature. It's a topic that maybe could get a fair chance in either the Warhammer Horror or Warhammer Crime imprints, but i think 'mainstream' GW is just to gun-shy to approach any of that. They barely acknowledge sexuality exists at all in any detail, even though they have a whole god of depravity and related stuff in their settings, obviously the stick to the ruleset where ultraviolence is okay, but boobs are risky and anything further than that is right out.

In theory Genestealers have 2 roles when infiltrating

1) Weaken the current top species to be low/now threat when a hive fleet comes

2) Convert enough stealers that it generates enough of a signal to lure in a hive fleet.


This latter one is why if nothing comes to eat the Cult, the Cult will just keep growing and go from 1 planet to a system to potentially many systems.




So in theory they could take over other species. Heck stealers taking over Eldar is a thing, though rather like Chaos taking over Eldar and such, its not something we get represented at table level and thus also tends to be minor in the lore

I would also expect the Genestealer bio-curse to operate in a more complex way than simply messing with the sexual drive.

That's because civilization has gotten very good at separating sexual drive from actual reproduction (contraception and abortion on one side of the equation, IVF and sperm/eggs banks on the other), so simply messing with the sex drive is unlikely to work on any post-industrial civilization.

So I imagine that the bio-curse doesn't necessarily touches sexuality but rather imprints an actual desire to be parent.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
To respond to the gay Genestealers comment, I think it is something that should be explored in lore. Now, pure strains are canonically pansexual—they will impregnate any sapient hey can hold down with their reproductive cells. But what happens when they “impregnate” a gay man or woman? Does the victim feel compelled to breed? Do they bring in a same sex spouse and fulfill other functions for the brood? Does any experience “in the closet” make them better infiltrators, or does their sudden change in priorities give them away?

For me, I already know what happens if a Genestealer gets someone like me. The metaphor for the cucked parent tricked into raising his cuckoo offspring taps into a trope with a lot of cultural weight, taking a real life “horror” and exaggerating it. So, what trope or subconscious horror would genestealer implantation tap for LGBT gamers? What would be the experience of a gay implanted or a 2nd/3rd gen genestealer uninterested in breeding with the opposite sex? Where is the hook for those gamers?

These are interesting matters, but are not exactly stuff for codex lore or BL books - which is a shame, but they want to write mostly inoffensive shlock, not deep introspections into human nature. It's a topic that maybe could get a fair chance in either the Warhammer Horror or Warhammer Crime imprints, but i think 'mainstream' GW is just to gun-shy to approach any of that. They barely acknowledge sexuality exists at all in any detail, even though they have a whole god of depravity and related stuff in their settings, obviously the stick to the ruleset where ultraviolence is okay, but boobs are risky and anything further than that is right out.

 Easy E wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The question is how do you make the hobby more inclusive?

Why does it need to be more inclusive though? What tangible or practical benefit is there to such a thing?

Because that is what the OP is asking about.

 ForgedSteel wrote:
what can we do as the community to encourage more people -of all walks of life- to join?

So out of respect for the OP, I figured I would try to answer his question.

Thank you! I appreciate the response!

Vulcan wrote: Which is a problem in and of itself. When white guys do games about white guys it means we're being exclusionary, which is WRONG. If we do games about non-white non-men, it's cultural appropriation and is WRONG. So when you've written the rules so that everything I do is WRONG, what is my motivation to try and be RIGHT?

It can't all come from me. You've got to meet me halfway. Or is the point not to be all-inclusive... but to include everyone BUT me?

I don’t think anyone in this thread has argued from that position though.

The closest I think we came was touching on the difference between a culture influence on a design, and a design being based on a cultural stereotype.

This is the thorny issue of course. Because no culture is homogenous. One person might be genuinely offended by the model. The next might not care at all. And there’ll be lots of opinions in between.

Example of personal experience? I’m Scottish. In my own peculiar way as I live in England, I’m sort-of minority. I personally get offended by Bad Scottish Accents in film and TV. I personally might find a Scots inspired model range too reliant on stereotypes. I find the Nac Mac Feegle hilarious. I find CalHab (a relatively short lived Judge Dredd spinoff, written by a Scot, insultingly offensive. Another Scot may have entirely different, or indeed no opinions upon those. Indeed there will quite possibly be as many opinions as there are Scots. All of us right in our own opinion. Because we’re not homogenous. There’s no newsletter sent round tell me what to clutch my Kilt and shoot “Hoots!” over.

Ultimately it’s not for anyone else to tell me what I should or shouldn’t find offensive. Especially a person that isn’t a Scot. Yes, that has happened. Not that long ago here on Dakka as it happens.

And here’s where the true problem of Cultural Appropriation comes from. Because as with a lot of issues and areas riddled with nuance and grey areas, it’s the Bad Faith Actors you need to watch for, as quite often, they’ll be randomers trying to dictate what is or isn’t offensive. This can include people not of a culture trying to say something is cultural appropriation, and the same from the other side of the argument. And yes, you do (as is appropriate for this example) get “No True Scotsman” arguments. That somehow if the next Scot in line isn’t bothered by something, they have to hang up their Haggis and turn in their Caber because Wee Jock McPlop has decided they speak for all, and No True Scotsman can ever disagree with Wee Jock McPlop and his pal, Toley Joe,

So yeah. Nuance. Significant grey areas. All I ask as someone to whom a representation of their culture can appear in various media, is that people listen if I see it as problematic. Not agree. Not do anything. Just….listen.

Side question, Doc - what do you think of people from England who move up to Scotland and adopt the Scottish cultural trappings, including wearing kilts?

 Easy E wrote:
Great point, this thread is about diversity around the table.

Now, an argument could be made that the diversity around the table could be improved with diversity on the table too. However, that is the least likely driver.

The biggest driver is communities not only being inclusive to different players showing up around the table, but actively courting and asking diverse folks to take a place at the table.

yeah, for all the screeching in this thread about quotas and tokenism and all kinds of fever dreams, the actual actions we'd be talking about is we maybe just act and talk like we're not afraid of girls or minorities, and run events in places that don't scare them off.

Don’t really have an opinion on that to be honest.

It irks me when English blokes wear a Kilt to a wedding, if only because they’re almost certainly only doing it for attention.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Don’t really have an opinion on that to be honest.

It irks me when English blokes wear a Kilt to a wedding, if only because they’re almost certainly only doing it for attention.

To be fair, everything done at a wedding is for attention. My first though at my wedding wasn't "I want people thinking about how easy it is to reach my junk" but different strokes, you know?

Not Online!!! wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
To respond to the gay Genestealers comment, I think it is something that should be explored in lore. Now, pure strains are canonically pansexual—they will impregnate any sapient hey can hold down with their reproductive cells. But what happens when they “impregnate” a gay man or woman? Does the victim feel compelled to breed? Do they bring in a same sex spouse and fulfill other functions for the brood? Does any experience “in the closet” make them better infiltrators, or does their sudden change in priorities give them away?

For me, I already know what happens if a Genestealer gets someone like me. The metaphor for the cucked parent tricked into raising his cuckoo offspring taps into a trope with a lot of cultural weight, taking a real life “horror” and exaggerating it. So, what trope or subconscious horror would genestealer implantation tap for LGBT gamers? What would be the experience of a gay implanted or a 2nd/3rd gen genestealer uninterested in breeding with the opposite sex? Where is the hook for those gamers?


PS: Fo Genestealers only target sapients? Are there grox or ambull broods out there?

afaik, only sapients, and assuming that the reproductive system get's highjacked as is implied atleast in the codices i own one would assume that sexual identity would be forcefully overridden in order to generate more cycles. Alternatively if not capable to do so (which is unrealistic, we are talking about a splinter hive mind with immense psychic presence and mortal humans), it may well be that they are treated as "fodder" or "waste" / biomass to feed the patriarch and princelings.
Iow, just as you "devolve" mentally into a subject in all manners if you get the "kiss" and considering the immense controll of the patriarch and later hive mind you'd basically lose that aspect of your identity since it's useless.

Sure. But I imagine if the scenario were written by someone with an LGBT perspective, they might be able to mine some real horror gold with tropes about being forced to live a lie, or even darker SA as conversion therapy (a form of real violence exaggerated by grimdark aliens into nightmare fuel. The Ciaphas Cain books already use date rape tropes to add horror to Genestealer implantation.). There are plrobably angels and nuances I wouldn’t ever think of from my experiences that could add layers of meaningful horror to a genestealer infestation.

Even just “use them as fodder” could become weighty for a community that often has to deal formerly-loving parents disowning and expelling them when they are most vulnerable.

"every man woman and child saw a different face, a different skin tone, a different temperament, when they looked upon the emperor"
From The Master of Mankind

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
To respond to the gay Genestealers comment, I think it is something that should be explored in lore. Now, pure strains are canonically pansexual—they will impregnate any sapient hey can hold down with their reproductive cells. But what happens when they “impregnate” a gay man or woman? Does the victim feel compelled to breed? Do they bring in a same sex spouse and fulfill other functions for the brood? Does any experience “in the closet” make them better infiltrators, or does their sudden change in priorities give them away?

For me, I already know what happens if a Genestealer gets someone like me. The metaphor for the cucked parent tricked into raising his cuckoo offspring taps into a trope with a lot of cultural weight, taking a real life “horror” and exaggerating it. So, what trope or subconscious horror would genestealer implantation tap for LGBT gamers? What would be the experience of a gay implanted or a 2nd/3rd gen genestealer uninterested in breeding with the opposite sex? Where is the hook for those gamers?


PS: Fo Genestealers only target sapients? Are there grox or ambull broods out there?

Does this actually get explored in the fluff of 40K? Major squick right there. No wonder the average woman wants nothing to do with 40K!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Have your read the Deathwatch novels - the "interactions" between the Stealer hybrids and female non-members of the cult is pretty brutal - physically and mentally!

Anyone ever consider the impact of this sort of fluff on the average woman? This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that keeps women away in droves.

Which brings us back to my point. IF this sort of thing is integral to the Genestealers, then changing it changes the nature of Genestealers. But if you don't change it you can't realistically expect more women 40K players.

So what's the priority for GW? Making the game more appealing to women, or keeping the nature of the Genestealers intact?

That's not a rhetorical question.

The xenomorph in Alien is a metaphor for sexual violation exaggerated into something monstrous. With Genestealers, it’s not even a subtext. It’s the text.

Most GW books don’t really dwell on Genestealers. The Ciaphas Cain books do. Guardsmen go out for an evening on the town…and wake up in an alley or something the next morning, sometimes injured, with no memory of how they got there. Sometimes they remember trusting a friendly face. In the end, they are considered tainted by their former friends and isolated (then killed). That’s taking the horror of Cosby and putting a monster face on it. It comes from a similar kind of disturbed horror as the xenomorph. That kind of horror has to resonate on some level besides scary fangs and claws.

Of course all that is assuming you can take 40k seriously enough. Kinda hard to have horror when you are very well aware the whole thing is just a pretext to roll some dice and move plastic toys.

I mean, not really covered.

I’d say the true horror of GSC is the Cult aspect. That once infected, you’re utterly beholden to the will of an utterly, unfathomably alien mind. Your children are hideous crossbreeds, yet you have utterly unconditional love for them. You free will is just…gone.

It doesn’t matter what your orientation or preferences were before. That’s…all overridden. Terrifyingly for me? You’re happy about it.

Total, irreversible brainwashing. Your will bent to the whims of another, with no way back.

Also worth keeping in mind the “kiss” of a Genestealer isn’t a Genestealer trying to do the mattress mambo with you. The main evidence of implantation according to a Cain novel is a small mark on the neck, and thanks to the hypnotism aspect, amnesia on the infectee.

Beyond that, the rest just…isn’t covered. There’s no mention of female infectees just becoming baby farms, or standard relationship within a culture being overridden. There’s no mention of male infectees forcing themselves upon anyone.

So the horror is largely left to the reader.

The DW novel people are referring to with regard to GSC is not good, at least not the actual GSC aspect of it. Its a really bad shock and awe section that has AFAIK not been replicated in other books or in Codexes. Instead of an actual insidious Cult it's literally just Aliens with the whole hive aspect and it was disturbing to read but not in a "good" way.

The newer books with GSC are unsettling rather than disturbing and it works far better. You still have the aspect where some women are compelled by the Patriarchs control to couple with a Hybrid and produce more members for the Cult but its nowhere near the Alien-r**e-fantasy stuff in that DW novel. The Cults are far more insidious and based around truly integrating into a society to remain as hidden as possible rather than having r**e-meetings in the local town hall to boost the Cults numbers.

Honestly? I find the removal of free will the creepiest aspect of the GSC. It’s the same sort of dread as I get from the Leagues of Votann, where their passions and focus seem to be the result of genetic engineering, to make them more efficient and less truculent workers. To have your entire self overwritten by another, and in doing so, losing the capacity to care that it happened in the first place.

Genuinely horrifying.

It's getting off track thanks to a dumb sidebar that deliberately misses the point.
Diversity doesn't mean players pick out and tell people the sexual orientation or gender identity of their models and nobody who is pro-diversity is saying it is.
When it comes to gender identity and sexual orientation that's where the novels and named characters come in. Portraying characters that represent a variety of things such as race, sex, gender or sexual orientation as normal people because that's what the are, normal.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:



Sure. But I imagine if the scenario were written by someone with an LGBT perspective, they might be able to mine some real horror gold with tropes about being forced to live a lie, or even darker SA as conversion therapy (a form of real violence exaggerated by grimdark aliens into nightmare fuel. The Ciaphas Cain books already use date rape tropes to add horror to Genestealer implantation.). There are plrobably angels and nuances I wouldn’t ever think of from my experiences that could add layers of meaningful horror to a genestealer infestation.

Even just “use them as fodder” could become weighty for a community that often has to deal formerly-loving parents disowning and expelling them when they are most vulnerable.

A persons conscience is nothing more than a combination of material place of it (body), memory and a selfrealisation, out of which you maybee are willing to assume that we have a will and controll over the first, on the most fundamental level. Or don't. Ultimatly it's irrelevant since language seems to indicate that we atleast assume that we have a will due to having concepts of responibility and agency but that is basically violence torwards wittgenstein using language theory to justify theories about free will.
Genestealers warp the memories as they do the body and reduce the selfrealisation (or expand) from an "individual body - mind structure" into an collectivly connected hivemind in which your former self get's obliterated by the demands of the collective which you serve happily as you have always. Or atleast get manipulated into serving the totality represented by it, if you want to use Adorno.

Again. There is nothing LEFT that you could qualify as a consciousness with free will, bar the memories warped by an utterly alien entity, of the person, you don't require a specific background to realise the utter alien horror and the literary gestus of pointing to the fact that said person lost their "will" / Consciousness.

IF you attribute agency to a person with conscioussness then it becomes even worse, because fundamentally you aren't even a severly impaired person anymore, you are nothing more than part of the organism that is represented spiritually by the Patriarch of the cult, incidentally the only being then justifying the descriptor of person. And even he represents nothing more than a severly impaired person so long the hive mind isn't within reach to take over. Your patriarch is nothing more than a single cell for an organism so large it travels between galaxies, you yourself are nothing more than a single atom making up that cell, arguably even less.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The question is how do you make the hobby more inclusive?

Why does it need to be more inclusive though?

Why shouldn't it be? Why should we not want more people to be encouraged to join in, in the same ways we were all once encouraged to join?

I'm all for demographics, and the targeting thereof, but there has to be a reason behind it.

More people = more good. And why should those people only come from a select few demographics?

My group has a man of Saudi origin. Would having two of such people be better somehow? What precisely would change?

Why would it be worse if more joined in?

H.B.M.C. wrote:Representation is important in children, but anyone who needs to see themselves represented in media - especially science fiction or fantasy filled with creatures, races and species that aren't real - probably has self-image issues.

Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Honestly, sounds like you're painting a pretty big brush there, and I don't think you intend it with any sort of sympathy or empathy.

Maybe some people *do* have image problems, because they see things like "why do we NEED diversity", implying that people need to justify why they should be welcomed into community groups?

Maybe that's a reason why representation is important - to tell people that "hey, those chuds asking you to justify your presence in the community? We don't agree with that".

Better yet, in media that is fantastical and unrealistic, as you say, why is there a need for "accuracy"? It's filled with things that aren't real - why not include some of the real things in there?

Demographics exist for a reason. Changing something to bring in other demographics risks alienating and driving away your current demographics.

I'll ask you the same question that you asked: "why do we need to pander to our current demographics though?"

Now, the obvious answer is "because why would we do that, that's just mean to people who have an interest in our material and their fee-fees might be hurt". Good. We understand empathy. Why shouldn't that empathy extend to people who want to join in, or otherwise might appreciate an olive branch? And why are we trying to appeal to people who get upset that other people are allowed to be a part of the same community?

Surely it would be better to make something that caters to different demographics rather than dramatically changing something that doesn't.

Describe these "dramatic changes"?

Gert wrote:Portraying characters that represent a variety of things such as race, sex, gender or sexual orientation as normal people because that's what the are, normal.

Ding ding ding, we got a winner.

Diversity isn't about "we need to fill our quotas of XYZ folks", it's about "XYZ folks exist, because that's normal, and we are normalising the existence of XYZ folks in this world". When we see uproar about "oh WOW look they added a gay character, oh WOW they added a black character, oh WOW they added a trans character, etc etc - look how WOKE they are" - that implies that gay, black, trans, etc folks *aren't* normal, and that their very existence is some kind of political slight. And, as we've seen from certain figures in the warhammer hobby, those things *are* seen as "woke" or "political" (case in point, Decimus Felix).

"Diverse" folks are normal. Why are we debating whether to allow normal people and normal things into our fantasy games?

 Gert wrote:
It's getting off track thanks to a dumb sidebar that deliberately misses the point.
Diversity doesn't mean players pick out and tell people the sexual orientation or gender identity of their models and nobody who is pro-diversity is saying it is.
When it comes to gender identity and sexual orientation that's where the novels and named characters come in. Portraying characters that represent a variety of things such as race, sex, gender or sexual orientation as normal people because that's what the are, normal.

So things done at the corporate level and that we have no control over then.

Open your favorite search engine, type in Bud Light, and search for News.

As a bonus, open Youtube and search for Bud Light Compilation.

I understand that this might not be big news outside of the US, but you should understand why GW and other corporations might be unlikely to go in this direction in the future.

Yeah because you can't control or influence every single thing within the wider hobby. You can foster an welcoming environment where people feel safe to be themselves. You can challenge bigots within the community and you don't stop fighting bigots because complacency is how they get in. That is what you can do.

 Gert wrote:
Yeah because you can't control or influence every single thing within the wider hobby. You can foster an welcoming environment where people feel safe to be themselves. You can challenge bigots within the community and you don't stop fighting bigots because complacency is how they get in. That is what you can do.

At the core of it, it's about not being a raging donkey-cave edgelord personally, stopping people you personally know from being raging donkey-cave edgelords as well if you can manage, and excluding the people that fail to clear this very, very low bar after you gave them enough chances to be better. Literally the first step to being a diverse environment is being an environment people of all walks of life want to actually enter and be part of, instead of being kind of just stuck there by the fact that other, more sensible places won't have them, because they're raging donkey-caves. A test, again, this community sadly fails in a lot of places. I won't call out specific people, but take a look into any of the 'hot' 40k 10th edition threads in this very forum, and try for a moment to look at it from the perspective of a person new or even just casually interested in the hobby. Look at the way people there treat each other, talk to each other, talk about the game and each other, and ask yourself from a vantage point that is as neutral as you can manage, if you wanted to invest time and money to become a member of a community that is represented to you, for now, by that thread.

Before you can work towards fostering diversity, specifically, it would pay well to foster a livable community in general first.

(Not talking about 'you' you personally, but in general, of course)

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Honestly? I find the removal of free will the creepiest aspect of the GSC. It’s the same sort of dread as I get from the Leagues of Votann, where their passions and focus seem to be the result of genetic engineering, to make them more efficient and less truculent workers. To have your entire self overwritten by another, and in doing so, losing the capacity to care that it happened in the first place.

Genuinely horrifying.

But that’s just one layer.

When the Borg turned Picard into Locutus, that was a violation. I think Picard actually likened it to rape once, even though it wasn’t sexual. They took his bodily autonomy away from him, used him as their vessel. The Genestealers do that. And they utilize xenomorph SA horror. And Cronnenberg body horror. They fit in a number of horror aspects that appeal to different people. That’s why they resonated and became a big part of the setting where psychneuen, enslavers, and gyrinxes did not.


They combined different ideas and different perspectives of horror into one creature. And even if those aspects aren’t graphically explored in most of their appearances, they’re not exactly hidden either.


Bringing in more perspectives helps make the setting richer. Bring in more, and maybe another faction finds new life.

We can make the hobby as welcoming as is humanly possible, yet still the hobby will not appeal to some.

People have a wide range of tastes, even within the hobby we see a large diversity of appeal. For some it is the models, for some it is the painting, for some it is the conversion aspect, for some it is the tournament scene, for some it is the lore, for some it is the story telling, for some it is the social aspect, etc.

No demographic is homogeneous, so not everything is going to appeal to everyone. Which is totally fine, all part of the rich and wonderful human experience of life.

 Gert wrote:
Yeah because you can't control or influence every single thing within the wider hobby. You can foster an welcoming environment where people feel safe to be themselves. You can challenge bigots within the community and you don't stop fighting bigots because complacency is how they get in. That is what you can do.

Can do, should do, and in my case have been doing.

But it's worth remembering we're not omniscient; if someone in the far corner is muttering terrible things I can't hear from 20 feet away there's precious little I can do about calling it out unless I'm told about it. If I miss a week and someone in my group is being creepy toward a woman who wanders in while I'm not there, there's not a lot I can do about it at the time it occurs, and again I can't do anything about it if I'm not told about it until years later.