#and white cis male imagination is STILL by and far the only one being funded and produced even if there are more women queer PoC on screen

[rawliverandgoronspice]

ok guys in an extremely tragic twist of faith my hyperfixated brain betrayed me and the article will actually just be about female characters in game in general using EoW as a jumping board, which does fill my soul with dread and weariness instead of joy :((

(perhaps for nothing, maybe it will be great but still I'm SO DISAPPOINTED)

[yeagerinc]

(I was originally going to make this a long Twitter thread but people are talking about there being a tweet limit now? So I’m just posting it here and linking it in a tweet. That's why it's in small tweet sized segments.)

Let me start by saying that I am a mostly-white CIS gender male hetero in his mid 30s. Let that color how you feel about my words however much or as little as you wish. Thats up to you.

TW: Harry Potter

Let me start by saying fuck JK. I can’t imagine winning the lottery of life and getting to be the creative mind behind a fictional world that shapes and enriches the lives of a generation, only to take that power and wield it for hate and bigotry. She deserves to have her works and name forgotten and to have only the void to speak her words into.

And with that in mind Harry Potter as a franchise is dead to me. I don’t want to play that game. I don’t want to rewatch the movies. I don’t want to read her books.

Let me be clear this is not a big ask of me. Harry Potter was never more than a passing fancy of mine from time to time growing up. Don’t give me too much credit. I don’t know that I’d be as easily able to divorce myself from something like Final Fantasy or Sonic the Hedgehog or StarGate.

I don’t think you should play the new HP game. I don’t think you should buy it. I don’t think you should stream it. Even if you try to offset that by donating to Trans causes you’re still promoting the game and could encourage others to buy it by showing it off. Funding a fire department is nobel, but don’t do it in a way that fuels the fire in the process.

There are plenty of people who don’t care. They buy the game and support JK BECAUSE of her anti trans stance. Fuck those people. I hope their follower counts crater their names forgotten. I’m sure a lot of you agree with me so far.

But what we hope isn’t happening. JK is still making bank. The hateful streamers are bolstered. The game is selling remarkably well. This is frustrating. Aggravating. Infuriating. In the face of these we feel helpless. We get angry. And unfortunately we lash out.

I have control issues I have to keep in check. I know the feeling of something big or small not being as I wish it to be. I often battle that white hot rage. Losing my absolute shit over things is something I actively have to talk myself out of more often than I like to admit.

And let me tell you. Not once has letting that anger get the best of me ever made things better. Not once did it fix the problem. Not once did it change things to be better. At best it does nothing. At worst it almost cost me my closest friends.

That’s the reaction I’ve seen to the new HP game. Steamers hate raided. Death threats. Verbally harassed and demonized. Treated not like people but like soulless heartless monsters to be destroyed. This is wrong and fixes nothing. It’s just us letting our darker emotions lash out without restraint.

No hearts are changed. No minds are changed. Trans people are not made more safe by these actions. I don’t think we expect these actions to do any of that but when you scream in rage “you are with us or against us” people rarely choose with you and are often pushed to against you. These actions do harm to our own cause.

You can’t tell me that a streamer hoping to raise money for Trans charities by playing this game is the same as the ones who proudly write “TERF” on their chest. I’ve already made it clear that I don’t think that idea is a good one. But you can’t tell me someone whose heart is in the right place deserves hate because you don’t agree with their methods.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it is better to raise money off this game for a good cause. Maybe that will do more good. I honestly don’t think so but how the hell can I be so sure? How can I run out and try to police the internet using my hate as a weapon over something that kind hearts can disagree on?

Now if you want to unfollow these steamers, stop supporting them, swear off their content, you are 100% justified in doing so. They are not owed your support if they make decisions that are counter to your values, even if their heart is in the right place. Let them see the consequences of their choice in viewer and follower count.

That is far more likely to get them to stop and rethink about what they are doing. But attacking them? At best they may stop making content because they can’t emotionally deal with backlash. At worst you’ve made them feel like your enemy. And people crave community. And the TERFS will welcome them with open arms.

But I get it. I’m sure we all hoped that any streamer who played this game would see their viewer count plummet and they’d get the message and change and the game would flop and JK would watch another part of her empire crumble as a result of her words and actions. That didn’t happen and we, understandably, got mad. But don’t let your anger make things worse.

TLDR: Fuck JK. Fuck HP. Fuck that game. But don’t attack people for playing it. Just unfollow.

[lgbtqueeries]

A School Project as an Ode to Larry Kramer --32 Million and Counting

TLDR; This speech was a project for a Queer Studies class that I participated in. It is a speech in the form of Larry Kramer’s speech about AIDS activism in 1983 called “1,112 and Counting”  I also wanted to bring into awareness what has changed in the 37 years since his original speech. The audience is meant to be the queer community, just like his was, but also to be open to those that would listen. Due to its nature, it encompasses public health, politics, humanity, and activism. I didn’t intend for this to be the case but as the project progressed we were diagnosed to be going through a pandemic much like that of what those in the 80s experienced. To this degree, I didn’t mean to scare but frustrate the reader, much like Larry Kramer. I wanted my speech to be uniquely mine, but be reminiscent of the effect that he garnered. I plan to post this to my Tumblrs LGBTQueeries and the-unending-kerfuffle as well as my Instagram @one_steph_from_death. I want to place this speech out into the world. Please feel free to reblog and share and comment and chat with me in the comments!

Larry Kramer started his count when the number was 1,112 and counting. In 1983. Think about that again. In 1983. Thirty-seven years ago. He screamed for help then, knowing full well we’d be obliterated as a group unless we stood up. He refused to be forced to die. 

To frame this, a former entertainment star had been elected to the most powerful political seat in government. His staunch political and religious opinions led to the death of innocent people. He could have saved them by using his voice and asserting a need for research, laws, and education, but instead, let them die impoverished and discriminated against. If the hate and violent crimes didn’t get them, the sickness creeping in would. 

Worst of all, as a community, we knew that he didn’t speak for us. We knew that this hate would kill us, yet we still remain silent. We remained silent as the hate trickled into the deepest pores of our community. We let the hate fester, building up and attaching to the difference among us until it finally separated us and dismantled us. We let the bigotry we so desperately try to run from infiltrate our ranks and break us apart into factions. 

They were treated like lepers and untouchables (Barker & Cran, 2006). Hospital workers were nearly absent, just present enough to not be liable for neglect. Visitors were few and gay lovers, if they stayed, were sent away. Imagine that, slipping away in pain as you lose your vision and ability to breathe, your body starts deteriorating as it is filled with cancer and opportunistic infections. Alone. All alone. 

And when you (inevitably) died your casket wasn’t lined in silk with cushions and roses. Yours was lined with plastic and biohazard material. Your brittle, thin body was crumpled up in the discarded sheets and hospital gowns and thrown into a garbage bag. No one was going to claim you, so no point in going to the morgue. Your toes, if you still had them, weren’t tagged, just set aside with all your other hospital belongings.

But the pain didn’t end there. Like the weekly garbage men, bags were taken to empty spaces and distributed into large, unmarked graves (Kilgannon. 2018). A secluded hole lost to history. A supposed bygone of the middle ages, but here to dispose of Jane and John Does. 

If I was to scream like Larry Kramer, to these separated groups, I’d go hoarse within hours. As of 2018, 35 years after his speech, we have lost 32 million people to HIV/AIDS (CDC, 2020).  That doesn’t include the people from the last 2 years. 

We lost 32 million innocent people. 

Yes, we lost gay men and IV drug users but they are still human. They still had the same dreams and aspirations as everyone else. They could have lived to be designers and playwrights just as well as becoming doctors and lawyers. We lost everyone one from, every walk of life. We lost painters, poets, magicians, musicians, surgeons, dentists, lawyers, physicians, firefighters, police officers, farmers, framers, parents, children. Their blood is on the hands of those that slowly took the life from them. The government is not free from their crimes. 

But honestly, that’s not where the frustration and anger ends. Our history is being erased. Purposefully and eagerly. This situation that I’ve laid before your eyes seems to be that of 1983 and the pain of Ronald Reagan. The horror sounds painfully identical to what we deal with today.

  Our current administration has continued some of these misinformed ideas and hateful actions. The Ryan White Fund, a fund specifically created to create a money source for HIV/AIDS research and treatment have received cutbacks and other plans set in motion like PEPFAR aren’t fairing well either. They are better in this term than in the past, but frankly, that’s not too comforting. This fund was the lifeblood for many organizations and they soon will be bled dry (Forsyth, n.d.). This does not take into account the other actions towards queer people in general. This takes into account only one facet of the government that is working against us. What about the judicial branch and the possibility to be tried for attempted murder for not disclosing your status to your partner (CDC, 2019)?  It’s not like you have to do the same for other STIs. “On the count of giving chlamydia to your partner without disclosing your last date of testing, how does the jury find the defendant?” This doesn’t take into account the possibility you didn’t know of your own status. 

And what if you wished to give blood? Say you’re gay and we’ll even go so far as saying you’re HIV-. They’d turn you away. They’d send you back for 12 months for not being able to prove you didn’t have sex with your male partner for 12+ months. May I remind you that lesbians and heterosexual men and women have gotten HIV and therefore can pass it along? This is possibly a law of Reagan’s 80s, but it’s still in effect TODAY (“LGBTQ Donors”, n.d.).

But I digress. The government is still not free from their crimes and institutionalized hate. I don’t wish to get too political but it is inevitable with the fact we’re all stuck in the past. Again, it’s not where my frustration lies. 

My frustration is formed in the same disappointment that Larry Kramer had. In 37 years not much has changed and that the voice that we have as a community. We gained it with protests through organizations like ACT UP but we’ve apparently been diagnosed with laryngitis because we’ve become oddly silent. HIV/AIDS is not a disease of history. We haven’t cured the earth of this disease. It’s here and stuck to us like your legs to a hot vinyl seat. It affects everyone and intersectionality can increase your risk (CDC, 2019). There’s a reason it’s no longer called “Gay Related Immune Disease”. Yet where the hell are we?

It affects the young and the old. Yet we remain silent, pretending it’s not occurring. 

We can blame it on the straight, cis majority but we are complicit in our own erasure, assimilation, and silencing. 

We let our history fall by the wayside and be covered up with rainbows and pride flags used by businesses in marketing. We let our history be encapsulated by a month handed to us by the majority. 

We let the atrocities that happened be forgotten along with many of the names. 

We isolate those now that are HIV+ from queer-friendly functions, both blatantly and subtlely.

But most importantly we lost our gusto to fight for a better future for the generations that come after us. That’s what stings the most. 

It’s important to remember that this disease is no longer a death sentence. You no longer have to feel the weight of shackles weighing you down towards the underworld. Provided, that is, you have insurance and can pay for your medications. But that is another government issue for another speech. With one pill a day, just like your Flintstones vitamins, you can live a normal life. You can date and with proper precautions, have sex and not pass it along to your partner. Undetectable = Untransmissable (UNAIDS, 2018). 

While this may be a reality for us in our modern-day. I refuse to let those that sacrificed themselves for this cause be forgotten. We lost 32 million people and while I can’t list them all here or scream them to the heavens, I’ll damn well try. Those that came before us, despite their flaws, paved the way for us and I refuse to let them slip away because our government doesn’t like it. Join me in sharing the stories. If you want to see face to face, the humans that we lost, follow accounts like @theaidsmemorial on Instagram. End our silence. If it’s painful for you, imagine how it must feel for the friends and families of those that lost someone of the 32 million. They need your help to speak up. 

We started this with 1,112 and counting. Now we’re at 32 million and counting. Let’s end the counting and start the protesting.

Works Cited

Barker, G., & Cran, W. (2006, May 30). Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/aids/ 

Centers for Disease Control. (2020, January 16). U.S. Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics 

Forsyth, A. D. (n.d.). Powerpoint presentation.

HIV and STD Criminal Laws. (2019, July 1). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/law/states/exposure.html

HIV by Group. (2019, October 25). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/index.html 

Kilgannon, C. (2018, July 3). Dead of AIDS and Forgotten in Potter's Field. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/nyregion/hart-island-aids-new-york.html 

LGBTQ Donors. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-donate/eligibility-requirements/lgbtq-donors.html 

UNAIDS Explainer. (2018). UNAIDS Explainer. Retrieved from https://www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/undetectable-untransmittable_en.pdf