I'm breaking the collaboration between myself and b4nny for my map, Cardinal, as well as departing from competitive TF2 as a whole. I figured you all deserve to know what's going on.
I will still be updating this map to see it out, but working with the competitive community as a whole has drawn to an end for me.
It's no specific incident that created this, just a long stream of constant negative experiences that made me slowly move further and further away from that community. What made me decide to break it off now was just a culmination of everything.
I've been experiencing harassment due to being trans ever since Sunshine became popular. If you've ever wondered why I never show up on any competitively-focused streams, or interviews about my maps, even though I've been offered multiple times? That's why. I keep myself distant because I know so many people in the competitive community hate my guts. Not because of what I do, but who I am; and I know this from what I see.
The recent events happening involving multiple specific high-level players, alongside the responses made from certain others, lead me to fully understand it is not a scene which I want to be in. Nothing was specifically targeted at me as an individual, but trans harm affects all trans people. I see no desire by the top players themselves to improve their community, only the messed-up moral high ground they poise themselves on, claiming that the publicity being given to these issues is 'bad professionalism'.
I don't gain anything from this. Hell, I'd be better off if I left that place silently, without a word, quietly updating my maps until they completed, then vanishing. I vanish enough as it is; it wouldn't be hard. I lose access to testing, connections to Valve, and immensely valuable feedback. I am voluntarily withdrawing from the competitive TF2 community not because I gain social points for doing so, but because of people who neglect to care about attempts to bring to light deep-seated issues in the scene. I am withdrawing because I do not feel like the scene will ever learn to care about people like me.
If you are planning on making content for the competitive community, please do so with great caution.
I will continue to update and test this map on TF2Maps. Nothing regarding my role here will change whatsoever, I promise. I am only departing from the competitive community.