[This is (mostly) what I said to a crowd of students at the University of Northern Iowa earlier this month. I was part of a panel with Brianna Wu, Maddy Myers, and Samantha Kalman to discuss issues of representation in the games industry. A video, which includes the other talks and a Q&A portion, is eventually coming. Maddy published the text of her speech on her blog. Enjoy!]

I want to thank everyone for coming tonight, and thank the University of Northern Iowa for giving all of us such a cool opportunity to visit the campus and speak to students today. It’s been an honor, and I’m so happy to be have been a part of it.

I’ve spent the last few months, since I knew I was going to be speaking here, deeply considering what to say here tonight, the token male on a panel full of amazing women, to speak in honor of a month celebrating women’s history. I don’t want to mansplain. I have a voice, but it is not the most important voice. It is not the only voice. Social issues have been important to me for a few years now, and I’ve learned so much along the way.

There are uncomfortable truths about many of the issues that face women in the games industry, and it starts with how much we–men–aren’t really listening. For a long time, I wasn’t listening, either. Not because I hated women, not because I didn’t care about women’s issues, but because I had no idea what they even were. I was so wrapped up in everything that mattered to *me*, I didn’t know what was going on in the world around me.

The other uncomfortable truth, one that I’m hesitant to even speak out loud, is that men, for whatever reason, tend to listen to other men, rather than women. This is wrong, and it’s frustrating, but broadly speaking, I’ve found it to be true.

Knowing this, what can we do? Specifically, as a man, what can *I* do? This is why–a member of the gaming media, proud feminist, ally–I wanted to share how I’ve tried to balance all of it.

I don’t think we can talk about any of this, however, without acknowledging GamerGate’s impact. What I want to posit is that GamerGate has, in some ways, been a positive for the games industry. I say this because GamerGate has existed for years. It’s not new. I’ve seen it first-hand in the articles I’ve written, and the people on this panel have experienced it by just being women in the games industry and having an opinion. This idea that games are only for men, that games should stay the way they are, that we shouldn’t challenge our assumptions about what games can be, is not new.

What’s new is that more people finally give a [insert bad word].

I remember when GamerGate started. I was sitting in bed, hungover, reading the infamous blog known as “The Zoe Post.” In this post, as we all know, an ex-boyfriend of Depression Quest designer Zoe Quinn made a series of accusations, alleging she traded sex with the press for positive articles about her game. This was quickly debunked, but the train had already left the station, as Quinn had been a regular target for a while now.

As news editor for the gaming website Giant Bomb at the time, I was the one who ultimately made the call on what’s published in our news section. This was not news; it was tabloid gossip. The allegations didn’t add up. Top to bottom, it reeked of BS. We posted nothing, and to this day, I don’t regret that one bit.

The rest of the gaming media, more or less, made the same decision. Especially after it was clear the allegations had no merit, there was nothing to write about. This was not a story.

I thought GamerGate, which was not called GamerGate at the time, would go away. It didn’t, not by a long shot. But, like I said, GamerGate has always existed, it only recently acquired a label that made it easier to talk about.

As a reporter, you don’t write about every protest. There has to be a story to tell. I didn’t think there was a story to tell with GamerGate, so we didn’t publish anything. But, then, women in the gaming industry started getting harassed, their personal information was dumped on the Internet, and people were being literally chased out of their homes.

You might not want to write about a protest you don’t think has any merit, but when those protesters start metaphorically lighting houses on fire, you have to report that. That’s what was happening here, and it should have been the tipping point. It should have been when the games industry, in a loud and unified voice, called this what it was. They didn’t. We didn’t. I didn’t. And so, we failed.

It is so important for people to speak up, to join in the choir.

When you speak up, you might get harassed. This is an uncomfortable fact of life. Of course, if you’re a white dude like me, the level of harassment is going to be markably different than a woman or trans or queer individual. All harassment sucks, but given that we’re privileged enough to know our harassment will be low, we have a responsibility to speak up. The more people who speak up, the more people that are speaking in one voice, and the less likely it is women are the only targets. In essence, we have to give them more targets.

That I’m even suggesting a way to make things better is to more evenly distribute harassment to bring the overall level of harassment down speaks volumes about where we’re at right now.

But it’s more than that. When one of gaming’s best designers, Tim Schafer, speaks about gender equality, this argument reaches a new audience. When Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and director of The Avengers, speaks about gender equality, this argument reaches a new audience. People who might never have thought about feminism because it never entered their orbit are suddenly wondering what Joss Whedon is talking about. “If it’s important to him, maybe it should be important to me.”

Along the way, we pick up new people, folks who were once ignorant, just like me.

This is especially critical for anyone who has an audience.

I can’t tell you how many notes I’ve gotten from readers over the years who told me “I used to be one of those jerks in your articles telling you how much this stuff was a load of crap, but over time, it started to sink in. Now, it matters to me. Now, it’s important, and I want to tell other people about it, too.”

This all happens one person at a time. You help them, they help someone else. Little by little, person by person, change happens.

I want to say I had an magical epiphany a few years ago, but it’s not true. I’m proudly wearing a “#FeminismMatters” button on my shirt on this stage right now, but I haven’t been a feminist for long. I didn’t know what the word really meant until relatively recently. But I’m also not ashamed of that. We’re all ignorant in one way or another, but it’s how we learn from our ignorance that truly shows our inner character.

As I learned about other life experiences, about people different than me, my eyes opened wide. I wanted more people to understand what I now understood. If I’d been ignorant for this long, I had to assume I wasn’t alone. And so I used my platform at Giant Bomb to start talking about these issues, I leveraged my digital megaphone on Twitter to raise awareness and give others a voice.

Early on, I was hesitant to even call myself a feminist. I didn’t really know what the term meant, and mistakenly assumed you had to be a woman to be a feminist. When I expressed this anxiety over the term on Twitter, the response I got back was pointed:

“Do you believe woman should be treated equally?”

Hmm, yep, definitely.

“OK, you’re a feminist.”

And it was that simple, at least for me. It’s not so simple for everyone else, and while the true answer is multi-faceted, I have one theory why: people don’t know how to make mistakes.

We are all flawed, but we don’t like to talk about those flaws.

As I’ve started talking more publicly about these issues, I’ve made tons of mistakes. The use of woman vs. female, trans vs. transgendered–the list goes on and on. The language and vocabulary surrounding these issues are brand-new to many, complicated, deeply nuanced, a little intimidating, and when trying to do the right thing, I’ve screwed up plenty of times.

Here’s what’s so vitally important: a mistake isn’t a big deal, owning up to it and learning from the mistake is what matters.

Let me share an email I got a few weeks ago from a person named Nicholas, and apologize in advance for uttering a word I’m not fond of:

“First off, just want to say that I really enjoy the work that you do, and am a big fan of the [video you worked on]. With that out of the way though, I noticed that a couple of times you used the word "tranny.” Now I don’t want to jump to conclusions - I see that you follow several trans people on Twitter - but I felt it valuable to get clarity on these uses of that word. Again, much respect, and I hope you don’t take this as an attack.“

This email broke my heart, but Nicholas had a point.

There are a few ways to respond to an email like this. All too often, what I see online are people doubling down on their own ignorance. "I believe in equality! It was just a joke. It’s not really important.” They see themselves as allies, people who are sympathetic to the causes of women, people of color, and trans individuals. To be accused of being transphobic feels horrible. I’m one of the good guys, why are you trying to nit-pick me?!

But the truth of the matter is that I screwed up. These videos were recorded before I’d become more conscious of trans issues and kinds of language that can perpetuate a culture of fear for trans individuals. I was not being malicious in my use of that slur, but nonetheless, I’d used a slur. So I decided to write back with this:

“That was period in my life where I was ignorant of the power of language. I’m glad to have matured and become wiser since then. Please accept my apologies.”

Own your mistakes. Learn from them. Be empowered by them. I find that critical to being an ally, even if I’m not a perfect one.

We’re not perfect now, nor will we ever be. But we share a common goal of making the world, whether it’s in the games industry or elsewhere, a better, more inclusive, and safer place for people from all walks of life. The truth is, we can always do better. So let’s do better together. Thank you.