0:00  
Back when I started, I got a lot of hate simply because I wasn't a white or a light colored Asian. That was a huge thing. And now it's all about it went from being black people can't cosplay to anyone can cosplay and we could paint ourselves black and it's fine. And that's like a 180 for me. So you went from making fun of my skin color and being like, you can't look like that to painting yourself and then washing it off. It's like afterwards. I am Rebecca Maynard, Beck's Cosplay Wonderland on all social media, but you can just call me Beck.

0:51  
A lot of new fans will treat women kind of like their statues like just objects. As you saw when that guy came up. He didn't even ask for my permission for the photo. He has somebody else to take it and just stood next to me like I was a statue essentially. And then you know, there's always the people over sexualizing women no matter what they're wearing the groping, the comments. Those are pretty much existed in any hobby, though, for women.

1:18  
Keep your filthy hands off me.

1:22  
Yes, ma'am.

1:25  
My name is Mickey Berman, also known as beggared cosplays. And I've been cosplaying in the Toronto cosplay community for about six years. I'd say the more underlying thing than anything else, just as being a woman in this more nerd geeky community is that I'm not taken seriously. That you'll they'll see you in a costume and it could be the most beautiful costume the most detailed thing and you've could have put hours and hours of work or lots of lots of money commissioning somebody to make it for you. And you're still gonna get somebody come up to you being like, Do you know who this character is? Do you know why they're wearing this? And that's if you put a lot of effort into one kind of costume. And the problem is, is that there's that underlying level of harassment and rudeness and bullying that exists in the community. But there's also another more sexual or physical harassment that happens as well. A lot of the characters that are popular in mainstream video games, comic books, and animes, which are a lot of what people cause play from, tend to be a little bit more on the revealing side. Now, they're drawn that way or their created that way and they're designed that way, and that's totally fine. But when people want to cosplay them, or dress up that way, there's often a lot of pressure on people to be as accurate as they can be. Which is hard to do if you are a 3D person trying to create the look of a 2D person. So not only do you have that layer of harassment because you're a woman in this community, but you also have it because you don't look exactly like the character or there's not one thing absolutely perfect about you. It's a it's a bit of a struggle with somebody who's just trying to be creative and show their love for their favorite characters, but they're met with a lot of bullying and a lot of harassment. I think there's a anonymity of being on the internet. I don't use my real name on my page or anything. I go wild. Elias and people will just post things being like Hey, babe, nice ass on that. I get sent about, I'd say 10 pictures of penises a week. It doesn't say anywhere that I want that.

3:40  
I'm Ilana Solomon, I think harassment, objectification and unwarranted touching generally seems to be a major issue. But I think also, probably some of the most respected cosplayers in the community are female. Those are the ones that are getting a lot more attention, so it's kind of like a double sided. I've seen it happen to friends that I've been with and I've always tried to kind of like call people out on it. mercifully, it hasn't happened to me.

4:06  
Denigrating women is a relic of the feudal age. Down with discrimination. Albrights, let's show that jerk what girls are made of!

4:14  
So cosplay is not consent is the idea that while people are in their costumes, just because they're dressed a certain way does not give you permission to touch them to be rude to them or to expect things from them. It's the same way how somebody would say, just because they're wearing a revealing skirt does not mean they want to be harassed on the street. It's the exact same principle just applied in a different setting.

4:37  
I was out of the game for a couple years, and it was good to come back and see signs that were saying that that conventions were not kind of standing for that kind of behavior. So it's that's been a good shift to see over the years.

4:48  
I think it's pretty much common sense that I don't understand why people are making a big deal about it. Like, yes, they're wearing a costume, it doesn't mean you can grope them take their pictures without asking them, get in their face. Like that's the same if you were wearing literally anything if you were at the beach, would you walk up to a woman in a bikini and grope her or say disgusting things to her take a picture without her permission? No. So I don't understand why like, it's a huge thing. It's it's common sense.

5:13  
More proof that action is being taken to prevent these sorts of measures. Like it sort of thing I someone was kind of being creepy to one of my friends and I kind of loudly said, Oh, hey, do I need to go find security, but at the same time, I probably wouldn't have known where to go to find someone if I needed to do that. Okay, if it just was more visually a safe environment. I think they're very proactive on making sure you know, people have badges and are in the flow of traffic is good, but I don't know that there's enough attention necessarily being paid to people's safety. 

5:42  
I'd say, taking the stigma away from reporting harassment would be the biggest issue because if someone is embarrassed or feels like it's that person's fault that they're being mistreated or harassed, they're not going to report it. They're not going to do anything about it. So I'd say shifting the blame from the victim to the abuser is the key.