Man disguises himself as a woman in all-female CSGO tournament

Olivia Richman Published 20/05/2020

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

A male Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player decided to dress up as a woman, wig and all, to sneak his way into a CSGO tournament meant for female gamers only.

Lenovo’s Legion of Valkyrie tournament was a 32-team tournament meant for female CSGO players only. The tournament had a prize pool of $1,000, with $600 of it going to the first-place team. With so many tournaments taking place online recently, they decided the only way to make sure there wasn’t any identity fraud was to demand that all players compete with their webcams on. The rules also stated that the participants had to take part in a 15-minute video call room before the start of the competition.

“Players must use a Video Call (while playing), through either mobile phone or PC to verify that the player is the same person who registered in this tournament,” the rules read.

Despite the strict gender requirements, one male gamer decided that he would still attempt to crash the tournament. He sported a black black wig, large glasses, and a medical mask. The tournament organizers asked him over Discord to remove the mask, sensing that something might be up. That’s when they finally realized that a man had infiltrated their tournament for a chance at the prize money.

Lenovo’s female CSGO event requires players to play with the camera on. But someone was found to be a guy with a wig LMAOOOOO pic.twitter.com/OvDHf1z2pS
— Flora ୧⍤⃝???? ???????????? (@PanYijingFlora) May 19, 2020

While this seemingly obvious disguise somehow got him past the 15-minute pre-tournament video call, his team didn’t make it out of the first round.

Despite the comedic tone of the tweet revealing the man in a wig, the bizarre situation did bring on some serious discussions on “segregation in esports.” One CSGO fan asked why women even needed their own tournament.

I think the reasoning is that usually men start playing competitive shooters in their early teens or younger, and women usually don’t get interested until later, so if they do try to get competitive, they reach a massive brick wall of being years behind in experience
— alxndra (a_newdeal) (@a_newdeal) May 20, 2020

In an interview with WIN.gg, former CSGO star Stephanie “missharvey” Harvey discussed the importance of having female-friendly events, but also expressed hope that one day women will be able to compete in the same tournaments without being targeted, harassed, or singled out.

“Female tournaments, at the moment, are the only initiative we have towards female gamers. Because of those events, we’ve seen female teams even being sponsored. Those are band-aids, in my opinion. They serve a purpose, but underneath the band-aid the problem is still there. The goal is to mix everyone into a melting pot. Then those tournaments wouldn’t even need to exist,” missharvey explained.

She went on to say that for a lot of women, competing in an all-female event is more approachable, and these tournaments would hopefully get women to participate in competitive gaming more broadly.

Lenovo has yet to make a statement on the man-in-a-wig situation, but it seems his inferior CSGO skills were enough to get him disqualified all on their own.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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