Hey Gaymers,
As you may be aware, events have transpired in the last 48 hours that directly and indirectly affect GaymerCon and our community that we would like to address.
Here are the facts, as we are aware: Over the weekend the Reddit sub-group r/Gaymers received a cease-and-desist letter from Chris Vizzini of Gaymer.org over the trademark of the term “gaymer.” We received no such letter, and there was a brief question whether we were involved in any way with the cease-and-desist because of an article and tweet by Gaymer.org in favor of us. We assure you we were not involved, a fact later confirmed by Mr. Vizzini, who has also removed his article about us.
We personally have never had an interaction with the site. Our only engagement was back in early 2012 when we had registered GaymerCon with the state. We saw that Gaymer.org had registered the trademark for use but we took note of the phrasing of Mr. Vizzini’s quote about this issue from 2007:
“…My intention with registering the TM was to protect my self from misdirected traffic. .com, .org, .bunghole, whatever. And to protect yourself from that, you’d have to register each domain seperately. And at 1200 bux a pop, that was not feasable, so I had to register gaymer the word.
Im not trying to swipe anything from anyone. Just protect something I’ve put countless hours and thousands of dollars into developing. So I appreciate your uninformed petition against the trademark. What is wrong with people?
If someone wants to make panty hose and call it Gaymer, i dont give a shit. I just dont want ppl swiping what I have an interest in, and thats this site and all the members.”
Based on this statement, and specific instances of the term “gaymer,” which we can personally recall dating back far before any knowledge of Gaymer.org came to our attention, we believed that we could use the name GaymerCon to accuratly reflect the community that we were trying to build.While we understand Mr. Vizzini’s desire to protect his trademark and not lose it to generic usage, we feel strongly that “gaymer” is a generic term. Even if it had not been used before 2001 (it had), we feel that it’s so commonly used by the gay geek community, (including not just Reddit and Gaymer.org, but also GayGamer.net, Facebook Groups, and even reality shows) that it is unfair to have that term coined and locked down to ONE community.
LGBTQ or ally, we are all trying to bring the cause that r/Gaymers has helped champion to the larger public and show the gay geeks of the world that there IS a safe space for them and that there IS a community for them. We respect, love, and cherish the r/Gaymers community, as well as all the gaymer and gay geek communities across the world.
We understand the legal challenges potentially at issue, but we feel that “gaymer” is a widely used, generic term and that what affects our brothers, sisters, and allies at Reddit affects us as well. We are in full support of our communities, and wish to lend our support however we can.
Moving forward, if r/Gaymers is forced to change its name, such a result could set in motion a mass rippling effect with various legal implications affecting all commnuities of gaymers everywhere. Although Mr. Vizzini’s trademark does not cover public conventions like ours, we understand the issues r/Gaymers and Toronto Gaymers are now facing, and support the need to keep the term gaymers synonymous with gay geeks and available for use by all.
We’re confident that this matter can be resolved in a way that benefits the entire community. The original intention of this trademark was to protect the community, and its imperative that we all reach a common ground and not splinter ourselves with infighting.We love gaymers.
We are gaymers.
We support and stand by our fellow communities.
Thank you for reading this and your continued support of GaymerCon and our cause.
– The GaymerCon Team