Xbox Live Has A Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy?

Apparently so as a female gamer found out just recently. She identified herself as a lesbian and her account was suspended when she reported others gamers for harassing her:

My account was suspended because I had said in my profile that I was a lesbian. I was harassed by several players, ‘chased’ to different maps/games to get away from their harassment. They followed me into the games and told all the other players to turn me in because they didn’t want to see that crap or their kids to see that crap. As if Xbox live is really appropriate for kids anyways! My account was suspended and Xbox live did nothing to solve this, but instead said others found it offensive.

What is the Xbox Live official stance on this any way? From their Terms of Service:

In regards to sexual orientation, for gamertags or profiles we do not allow expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other. Players can, however, self identify in voice communication where context is more easily explained to all players involved.

My first reaction to hearing this was to lay the blame at the feet of Xbox Live. After all, it doesn’t seem fair that anybody for any reason should have to put up with harassment in any form… that’s just not right. But after thinking about it for a day or so, I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to cross the line and side with Xbox on this ruling.

Why? Well, it seems to me that the official stance from Xbox is “We don’t want to have to deal with this sort of issue, so we’re just going to ban this type of interaction in all forms.” I think is smart from a business perspective, as Xbox Live is a place for gamers to come together and play games… not to promote social, economic, or even religious ideas. Microsoft can’t (and doesn’t want to) get in the middle and become a babysitter to make sure that no one’s feelings ever get hurt.

So in order to prevent this from happening, they’ve created Terms of Service (rules mind you that every person who signed up for an Xbox Live account agree via digital signature to abide by) so that these issue wouldn’t rear their ugly heads in the first place. This lady broke these rules, hence we was banned.

It is still sad to me that the harassment had to take place… but I’d bet this is exactly why these rules were created and all members have to sign off on them.

Am I wrong? Of course not.