Trans players come up big at EVO 2022
Over this past weekend, fighting game fans and players came together to celebrate one of the biggest competitions in the space, EVO 2022. Two of the tournament’s champions were transgender/nonbinary players, Dominique “SonicFox” McLean and UMISHO.
EVO 2022 ran from August 5 to August 7, and included both official and community tournaments. The games featured in official tournaments included Tekken 7, Street Fighter V, King of Fighters XV, Guilty Gear Strive, Skull Girls 2nd Encore, Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Warner Bros. Games also sponsored a MultiVersus tournament at the event.
SonicFox and UMISHO won at Skullgirls 2nd Encore and Guilty Gear Strive, respectively. SonicFox is a nonbinary player who has competed in multiple different fighting games throughout their career. With this past weekend’s win, they’ve taken home EVO Championships in Injustice: Gods Among Us in 2014, Mortal Kombat X in both 2015 and 2016, Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019, and now Skullgirls in 2022. They were also awarded Esports Player of the Year at the 2018 Game Awards.
UMISHO, on the other hand, is a newcomer to the scene, having started competing in Guilty Gear Strive this year. This makes sense, considering the game released just over a year ago. During her relatively short career, UMISHO has seen significant success, taking second at the Vortex III tournament, first at the CLG Run It Thursdays #2 – East Coast tournament, and third at Heat Wave 2022. Now, they’re the reigning champion of one of the fighting game ecosystem’s newest titles.
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