The world of esports has, in recent years, launched initiatives to create new opportunities for marginalized genders. In 2021, Riot Games hosted its first VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Game Changers tournament, a top-tier competitive circuit for players of marginalized genders. The program has now reached its fifth year. 

The university has followed this trend in its own esports program. In 2023, it introduced VALORANT Sphinx, its first team solely for marginalized genders. Soon after that, it introduced its second team, Overwatch Phoenix.

Kaitlyn Huynh, a senior animal sciences major and VALORANT Sphinx’s team captain, believes that having these spaces for marginalized genders has encouraged more players to participate in esports.

“You see it a lot when we’re at the Involvement Fair and we try to get people to join,” Huynh said. “Sometimes you see other girls that walk by and eye you down, and you can tell they play video games, but they don’t always walk up because they feel like they’re going to get judged. It’s so helpful to have other women standing at the booth.”

Sylv Chen, a sophomore majoring in game studies and esports as well as computer science, joined VALORANT Sphinx on a whim during their freshman year. They chose to join a team for marginalized genders because of the community it offered. 

“With marginalized genders, it’s like you kind of all understand the struggles that you’re going through, so you’re all very supportive of each other,” Chen said.

Esports function very similarly to traditional sports. They hold tryouts, which usually take place at the beginning of the fall semester, and spend about 10 to 15 hours each week practicing in addition to six to eight hours of matches, depending on how many leagues they are playing in. Each team has a coach who reviews their gameplay, and every player receives a custom jersey.

Shelby Turner, a freshman cognitive sciences major who joined VALORANT Sphinx after participating in an esports camp with Huynh, feels that the team’s closeness is what makes it special.

“They’re genuinely the sweetest group of people ever,” Turner said. “I’m so happy that these are the people that I got to play my first full year with.”

Though Huynh has been asked to join the university’s coed team, she has chosen to stay with VALORANT Sphinx because of her teammates.

“I like the women and nonbinary teams because it feels more like friends rather than just competition,” Huynh said. “I’d rather just stay where I am even if I’m not competing at the highest level that I could be. I’m able to make memories with my friends and have a good time instead of just having the competition.”

The university’s esports program is still mostly male, but since the inclusion of VALORANT Sphinx and Overwatch Phoenix, the number of players of marginalized genders has grown from just a few to a third of the program’s players in only three years, Huynh said. 

Chen believes that the advantage male players have over marginalized genders begins early in their lives.

“Men are kind of told to play games when they’re young, and they’re kind of told that it’s normal for them to, and so they get a lot better very quickly,” Chen said. “It’s not super normalized for marginalized genders to play competitive video games. So I think when that becomes more normalized as a whole, then we’ll start to see more of these players get a lot better.”

Turner’s earliest memory of video games was playing Minecraft with her father and LittleBigPlanet with her mother, while Huynh grew up playing Call of Duty with her father. They both believe that playing video games from a young age led them to eventually participate in esports.

“It’s insane to see so many of us that enjoy gaming and playing at the highest level that we can play, but also being able to keep each other up when there’s a lot of sexism and stuff in those games especially,” Huynh said. “It’s very interesting to see everyone come together and lift each other up.”