Blizzard Entertainment, owned by Activision Blizzard and maker of some of the most popular games currently available - including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Hearthstone - is forcing transgender people into a dangerous situation with their RealID system.

Currently, transgender users of the Battle.net service are forced to use their "legal name", or as it's more commonly known - their deadname, to access basic functionality which is part of the Battle.net client, owned and operated by Activision Blizzard. This includes core functions like cross-region chat, username switching, and even vital security functions like two-factor authentication.

This is an unacceptable state for things to be. Transgender people are forced to display their deadname to others if they want to talk to people cross-region, a dangerous and inexcusable practice which outs people as transgender. They are forced to reveal this to support staff should they move regions, and while the support staff may treat them with respect nonetheless, this can still be a distressing experience.

This is all to play video games. VIDEO GAMES.

This petition calls upon Activision Blizzard, and more specifically the Battle.net team at Blizzard, to remove this requirement from all services, allowing individuals to simply use their Battletags to access important functionality like the Battle.net authenticator, cross-region chat, and more.

A minimum standard for this would be to add a preferred name function, which will display to friends, while the legal name remains stored with Blizzard staff. The ideal is that this requirement is dropped entirely.

We also call Blizzard to work internally with their LGBT staff members, and to seek outside consultancy from LGBT support organizations to reach a better solution.