FemHype

12 Hours

[Trigger warning: homelessness, sexual assault, suicide, police brutality, and misogyny.]

I’ve never been homeless before.

I’ve always been poor.

When it comes to the many thin and transparent layers of poverty, every new day feels like a potential step in the right or wrong direction. I was raised by a single mother with a disability, gradually cast out over the years from a white middle-class family too deep in their nasty bias to financially and emotionally support a deaf woman and her biracial daughter. I’ve been on the cusp of prestige—occasionally visiting my grandparents’ gated beach-side community in my younger days and marveling at the borderline fantasy land at my disposal.

More familiar became the sting of poverty—living in trailers throughout junior high and moving to a new apartment every few years afterwards with the omnipresent hope that my mother’s Section 8 benefits wouldn’t dry up anytime soon…

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Published by cypheroftyr

Tanya DePass is the founder and Director of I Need Diverse Games, a non-profit organization based in Chicago, which is dedicated to better diversification of all aspects of gaming. I Need Diverse Games serves the community by supporting marginalized developers attend the Game Developer Conference by participating in the GDC Scholarship program, helps assist attendance at other industry events, and is seeking partnership with organizations and initiatives. Tanya is a lifelong Chicagoan who loves everything about gaming, #INeedDiverseGames spawn point, and wants to make it better and more inclusive for everyone. She founded and was the EIC of Fresh Out of Tokens podcast where games culture was discussed and viewed through a lense of feminism, intersectionality and diversity. Now she’s a co-host on Spawn on Me Podcast. Along with all of that, she’s the Programming Coordinator for OrcaCon, she often speaks on issues of diversity, feminism, race, intersectionality & other topics at multiple conventions throughout the year. Her writing about games and games critique appears in Uncanny Magazine, Polygon, Wiscon Chronicles, Vice Gaming, Paste Games, Mic, and other publications.