Female Valorant pro reportedly turned away from VCT trials by male players

A female Valorant pro has reportedly been turned away from VCT team trails by male players who did not want to “play with a woman”.

According to veteran esports reporter Rod “Slasher” Breslau, a female Valorant pro is being turned away by tier one VCT team trials due to male players not wanting to “play with women.”

Slasher revealed the fact during a live stream with Sean Gares, a former Valorant coach and caster, as they were discussing VCT Game Changers player Melanie ‘meL’ Capone. 

After Gares complimented meL’s IGL-ing abilities, Slasher revealed, “Every single team that she has tried to scrim with, at a tier one level, has refused to try out because there was at least one player on the team that does not want to play with a woman.”

“It definitely tracks in terms of how esports has been historically,” Slasher said of meL being rejected from scrims. Further pointing out that it also happened in Counter-Strike with Michaela “mimi” Lintrup, a VCT Game Changers Champion who was once a CS pro.

“I heard this exact same thing in Counter-Strike,” Slasher said. “[mimi] was the best female player… They had won every single championship in the women’s league, she was doing great, she was the best player on her team.

“And when I was speaking to her, she was telling me she couldn’t even try-out for tier two teams, or even tier three teams, for the exact same reason. Is that players on those teams did not want to practice with a woman.” 

With the VCT and Challengers calendar now already at its end, it leaves Game Changers to round out the year. Regions across the world will now fight to send their best team to the year-end Game Changers Championship in November.

Slasher addressed his comments on September 19, clarifying that MeL was not denied tryouts because of her gender every time she attempted to join a team.

in some scenarios that meL was unable to trial for teams, it was due to her buyout or other reasons that had zero to do with sexism. mixed gender esports teams should absolutely be more commonplace than they are now, and I don't want this situation to further us from that reality

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) September 19, 2023

“In some scenarios that MeL was unable to trial for teams, it was due to her buyout or other reasons that had zero to do with sexism,” he said.