The proverbial “safe house” within a video game triggers a sigh of relief. It’s a home base where one can take stock of their wellbeing, regroup with their team, unafraid of whatever’s beyond its doors. In a lot of ways, Las Vegas Gaymers, an LGBTQ video game meetup group, has become that for players across the Valley.
The group, like so many things in gaming culture, began on Reddit, in 2012. Gaymers founder Jade Winsatt posted a photo on the r/Gamers subreddit about being a lonely gaymer looking for friends, and the queer community responded.
“Several other people in the area reached out and said, ‘I’m in Las Vegas, why don’t we actually do something?’ And from there, it has grown to be pretty large,” says Andrew Jenkins, president of Las Vegas Gaymers. “We have over 1,000 members in the group, and on average, we see about 15 to 25 people at our in-person events, depending on what we’re doing.”
After Winsatt left the group, Jenkins took up the mantle, along with core organizers Mike Chen (creative director), Garr Allen (community coordinator), Tim Avist (vice president) and Anthony Del Rio (event coordinator). These days, Facebook is the most active place for members to interact, when they’re not gathering at West Sahara bar the Phoenix for Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros: Ultimate or Magic: The Gathering at the Henderson Equality Center.
“I’ve been coming for about two years and decided to get more involved, because I like the environment that it creates for the queer community,” Allen says. “There’s a lot of placement on being sexualized or hookup culture in other groups, but that’s not the environment created here. It’s a really good place for making friends.”
Del Rio, who has been with the group since it began, agrees. “Out of all the groups I’ve ever floated around, this is the one I’ve stuck with, because it feels like a chosen family,” he says, explaining that the Gaymers have even supported members struggling financially during difficult times.
Chen, a first-generation Chinese American who moved to Vegas five years ago, tried several other groups before he discovered the Gaymers. “[The others] felt a little transient,” he says. “I grew up in a lot of small towns, and it’s really difficult to find communities, especially growing up queer. Not having the ability to develop within your early teens, and then trying to live out your early teens and find the friends that you want in your adulthood but not really knowing how. … Las Vegas Gaymers was a really good way to do that.”
Through the group, Chen also found a romantic partner in Jenkins, who says he can relate to being a lonely queer teen, having grown up in Salt Lake City. Avist, who organizes the group’s video game tournaments, also found love within the group. It wasn’t intentional, but they’re thankful it happened.
Stereotypically, gamers tend to be shy, favoring online connections, Jenkins says, but many do commit to turning up for events. On average, Gaymers members tend to fall in the mid-20s to mid-30s age range, with teens as young as 17 attending all-ages events at HyperX Arena at Luxor, Meepleville Board Game Cafe or beyond.
“But even though most gaming tournaments are generally younger skewed, I do have competitors in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s range, depending on what game it is,” says Avist, who provides all of his own video gaming equipment for the events. Those older gamers have inspired him to even host “retro nights,” for which he breaks out classic, ’80s-era games on vintage consoles he has collected.
And, the Gaymers say, every venue that has hosted their events has showed support for what they do. Shawn Hunt, co-owner of the Phoenix, is an active member of the group. The bar sponsors prizes for its weekly events, and local chip-tune band Decaying Tigers often performs during them.
Gaymers meetups also go beyond gaming, giving members a chance to engage over picnics and outings at the Ice Rink at the Cosmopolitan.
On the schedule right now: Video game tournaments every Tuesday at the Phoenix; board games at Meepleville the first Sunday of every month; and a collectible card game meetup every third Sunday at Henderson Equality Center. And on February 18, the Gaymers will return to the LVL Up Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center for a Poké Ball crafting contest.
Las Vegas Gaymers celebrated their 10th anniversary last year, and Jenkins says watching transformation of group members has been exhilarating.
“I’ve really come into myself in the last few years,” Allen says. “It’s hard for me to comprehend that I’m still discovering who I am, but I have realized that I am nonbinary, I’ve accepted that identity, and it’s partly because of the environment this group has created. I truly feel more comfortable being me and expressing myself in a new way.”
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