Instead of a Tweet, #9
It’s 2:15 AM, and I just closed Twitch for the last time before I trudge off to bed. Since Saturday, I’ve been following Harris Bomberguy’s quest to beat Donkey Kong 64 with 101% completion.
I don’t watch a lot of streams. I certainly am not a big fan of catching them live, unless I know the person and want to show support. VODs are more my thing, because they’re easy to replay and fall asleep to and replay again. And yet, HBomb’s stream was constantly on in the background this weekend as he had guests ranging from Jim Sterling and Grant Kirkhope to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chelsea Manning join him in his Discord chat server to talk briefly about support for transgender rights — among a vast ocean of other topics.
It’s going to take me time to process what I witnessed.
I just watched tens of thousands of people donate over $340,000 to a trans kids’ charity. In less than three days.
How do you account for that? HBomberguy is a relatively popular YouTuber in leftist, philosophy and criticism circles, but even he was overwhelmed; at one point he balked at the amount of money he’d raised and said he hadn’t expected to make even one one-hundredth of that amount. Trans people from all over the world got to tell their stories and receive support from this impromptu community. I heard incredible conversations about trans people and autism, trans people and physical disabilities, and even trans people in conflict regions.
I’m not trans; I’m marginally nonbinary, or probably more accurately, gender non-conforming/maybe genderfluid. That’s the first time I’ll be putting this in the public like that, and that’s scary, but honestly, I’ve never received anything approximating a fraction of a percent of what some of the people featured — not to mention the people donating — have faced in their lives. Trans people live in fear. Not just of governments coming down hard on them, but every day they walk down the street they live in fear. They’re constantly harassed by cisgender people. Online, in the media, on the street. And a lot of the time, it seems like there’s just no end in sight to the bad news, the bullshit.
It’s out of fucking left field (ha) that so many folks came out of the woodwork to show this level of support to a trans charity of any kind. But it gives me hope.
(You know I’m gonna be the fucking anime nerd who drops fucking gurren lagann into this shit, right?)
The last two years have been hard. There have absolutely been moments where I have wanted to give up, and I know… too many people who feel the same. I know too many people who didn’t make it. We’re nowhere near out of the woods yet. The road ahead promises to be just as hard as the one we’ve already traveled. Yet I think it’s safe to say that today we’ll wake up a little bit stronger than we were yesterday.
Today maybe we’re a little bit nicer. We’re a little bit more confident. Maybe we’re a little bit more willing to say things like “Trans rights are human rights.” and “Black lives matter.” and “Nazis aren’t welcome here.” Look! There’s nothing we can’t do.
But hope without action is wasted.
None of us have to change the world. That responsibility is too much for one person to take on. We all can’t raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in a couple days. But if we’re in the position to do so, maybe we can help lighten even one of our friends’ loads. Maybe we can simply lend an ear, or a shoulder, or a hug. Maybe we can be a spark of positivity in an otherwise bleak, shadow-tinged world.
I’m going to go to bed. When I wake up, I’m going to do something to help.
See you out there.