The earliest form of GamerGate was the "Quinnspiracy", which blew up when it became apparent that Zoey Quinn had slept with some games journalists (including Nathan Grayson) and, for reasons only known to them, suddenly ranked in publicity despite of her "game" being a pretentious piece of garbage. Naturally the journos didn't really like being outed as corrupt, so they claim (and keep claiming) that the initial GG Anons on 4chan went after Quinn because she happens to be female, rater than because she and her affairs were the needle that broke the camel's back.