New Information and an IFPA Statement on the OBX Fall Flippers Incident

When I published our last update on the IFPA and the OBX Fall Flippers event last night, I thought that would be about as far as the story would go. With the discussion in the IFPA Discord server closed on the matter, and the IFPA team making clear their decision would be final, there wasn’t much else to report on.

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That changed this morning when I reviewed the full internal conversation that was held in the Women’s Advisory Board Slack server, covering the entirety of the discussions held from the first reporting of the incident at Flippers Arcade (which is referenced in the IFPA’s second statement) through the publishing of the IFPA’s initial statement. 

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Given the significance of these discussions and the fact that they involve named leaders of a governing body making decisions about a public-facing incident, I have opted to publish the Slack threads in a mostly unredacted form. Two small redactions were made to protect unrelated personal health information and the identities of involved non-leadership players. I have also omitted a section of the conversation that took place on Sunday that discussed unrelated disciplinary issues.

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In the last update, I highlighted some fuzziness around what appeared to be an internal communications breakdown among the IFPA team. Specifically, “This is where I believe communication within the IFPA falters. At about 3 pm the on-site IFPA Director relays a message that ‘We got it sorted.’ What was perhaps less clear to some was what exactly that meant for the situation.“ And these conversations fill in a lot of those missing details.

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After review and combined with all the other context I have about this incident, regarding the IFPA’s decision-making and motivations for certain communications decisions, a lot more is clear to me now. The logic Adam shared throughout the discussions seems straightforward and easy to follow. At no point does it appear that Adam was acting in bad faith or in a discriminatory or unreasonable manner. Though both Josh and Andy Bagwell are mostly silent in the Slack screenshots, I do not believe either was actively working towards goals of discrimination, silencing viewpoints, or, frankly, bigotry of any form. 

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Knowing all of this now, it’s tough to re-examine some of the discussions on the IFPA Discord and elsewhere, which sometimes crossed into bullying and harassment of both members of the IFPA team and others with differing views.

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I still find the incident at Flippers Arcade, perpetrated by Flippers employee Becky Connell, reprehensible and awful, and I wish we didn’t live in a world where that kind of treatment of others was commonplace. But I do believe that everyone involved in handling that situation from the IFPA side was doing their best in a challenging and stressful situation.

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IFPA Slack Conversations

These images were provided to me by Andy Bagwell (IFPA Director), Adam Becker (IFPA Director), and Josh Sharpe (IFPA President). Alongside the images, Andy Bagwell, with the support of Adam and Josh, had this to say:

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“I've stayed quiet and watched all of the discourse, and having now seen my own local players call Josh and Adam (and the IFPA) bigots I realized I can't stay quiet anymore. Josh and Adam are not bigots, and neither am I. I think that the only fair thing to do at this point is lay everything out to be seen and judged. The OBX decision was a total failure on the IFPA as a whole. The women members of the staff were not willing to allow that blame to be laid at their feet as well. One person is not to blame, the IFPA failed the organizer. All of the IFPA. The organizer was immediately in contact with the IFPA after the incident and rightfully trusted us to guide them. The IFPA confirmed the event could continue and would be sanctioned to this organizer during the event. IFPA staff onsite even confirmed to players that asked that the event would still be sanctioned. Those players stayed and participated because they were told the event would be sanctioned by the IFPA. IFPA staff participated in the event that weekend after the incident. The entire IFPA organization must accept responsibility for those failures.

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We have received a ton of private support on our decision with OBX, from players of all genders, including the trans community. They have all also shared the same sentiment, that they are afraid to post that support publicly because they will be targeted by the people that have been attacking Josh and Adam. I would encourage those people to speak out and show that support publicly, whether or not you have reached out to us yet. The people pushing this hatred campaign online are either being misled or willfully malicious, and it needs to stop. The attempts at communication up to this point were attempts to be civil, the response to that has been anything but. So again, I think the best course of action at this point is to lay out everything and allow you to make your own determinations. I do not think that the minds of the people who are made up on us being hateful bigots will change, but this is more about showing the community at large that we are not that.”

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Note: These screenshots were authorized to be shared and published by Josh Sharpe without the knowledge or consent of all parties. After publishing some names have been redacted at the request of those individuals. Any safety reports by individuals were made public prior, e.g. here and in widely shared public Facebook posts.