20 years ago I was quite involved with the tabletop gaming world, and the fringes of the SFF world, as an author. Hit Amazon or Wikipedia and you can see the tracks of my time there.
For me it was a good escape and a creatively rewarding outlet in a tricky period of my life.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that for many others it was a community where they opened themselves to harassment and abuse just by their very presence. And that should never have been acceptable.
Many people, including a few I worked with, have been accused of harassment and assault. There was a wave a few years back. And now there’s been a second round of exposures.
The fact that it was such a positive place for me, and such a negative one for people less white, straight and male than me, is a pretty good example of exactly how privilege works.