Ivan Temansja finally felt free to come out as gay when he moved to Canada. But coming out as a “gaymer” — that was a different story.

“When you play games online, ‘gay’ is a slur. ‘You fag. That’s so gay.’ You hear it a lot.”

He had long played fantasy role-playing games as a boy in Indonesia, but was tired of being treated like a low-level dwarf. So in 2009 he sought out a group that hosted monthly gay gaming meet-ups. Soon after, they became Toronto Gay Gamers — which now boasts nearly 400 members, and will march for the second time in the Pride Parade this year.

“I feel like I’m free to be myself,” Temansja said. “No one questions it if I play as a warrior or a hunter. They know I can fight.”

The group is now one of the largest of its kind in North America. For Sunday’s parade, they are planning a live-action role-playing game, in which members will dress as Pokemon that the crowd can “summon” to do battle.

At a recent meet-up at O’Grady’s on Church St., the bar was packed with lanky men in their twenties. Some crowded in front of an Xbox 360 playing Mass Effect 3, a sci-fi action game that features a gay romance. Others played tabletop games like Bananagrams and Settlers of Catan. Competitors traded lighthearted taunts and even the phrase, “That’s what she said.”

Nick Taylor, a post-doctoral researcher at York University, said more games than ever are being made for LGBT people and women — but some straight male gamers are reacting with hostility.

“As the audience for games grows wider, there’s a hostile and deeply conservative reaction to it opening up,” he said.

This is clear from the homophobic outcry that met Mass Effect 3 earlier this year, or the misogynistic threats lobbed at Anita Sarkeesian, the blogger who launched a Kickstarter project to examine women in games.

Still, like mainstream gaming culture, Toronto Gay Gamers is male-dominated. At the meet-up, only a few women could be spotted playing board games.

Temansja said they want to attract more diversity, but changing the name — to “Queer Gamers” or “LGBT Gamers” — isn’t on the table yet. The group is loosely affiliated with GayGamer.net, a U.S. website.

“All we can hope is that we create a safe space for anyone who loves to game . . . ‘gamer’ shouldn’t have a gender association. It should be about winning.”