The developer of MMO MechWarrior Online Piranha Games has changed its mind about renaming teams with "trans" in their name.

As initially reported by team member Daalpacagirl on Reddit, the two teams – KDCM V: Trans Rights and KCDM VI: Trans Fights – changed their names in solidarity with transgender players in the MechWarrior community.

Piranha took issue with this rebranding, saying in an email to one of the team leaders that its game was not an "appropriate environment" for such issues. Taking to Twitter, the studio's co-founder Russ Bullock said that "trans" is one of many words that players are unable to type in chat – per MechWarrior Online's EULA – nominally to fight trolls.

The company, however, appears to have had a change of heart, writing in a blog post that it intended "zero bigotry or ill will towards the trans community." Furthermore, Piranha has opted to allow the teams to have their previous names again.

"We do our best to apply the ToS and CoC in the fairest way possible. We are not perfect," live operations manager Matt Newman said.

"In particular, moderation action was taken to rename a competitive team using the names Trans Fights and Trans Rights. This was not the correct decision. We should have asked more questions and determined the true intent behind the name selection, and those having issues with them.

"Our actions obviously hurt and offended people, I apologize. We will do better. With the understanding that trans rights is not a political issue, we will allow the team to use either of their original choices as their team name. Additionally, we will be reversing any moderation actions taken in connection with this moderation.

"Finally, regarding symbols of hate and oppression in the game. Images that are created out of the decal system have no moderation tools due to their dynamic placement. Please report these issues to customer support using screenshots and we will do our best to remove them."