British gamer HBomberGuy has been raising funds for trans charity Mermaids by live playing Donkey Kong 64 all night.

On 14 January, the gamer announced on YouTube he was going to pull an all-nighter to help the UK charity.

After anti-trans activists pressured The National Lottery to withdraw funding from Mermaids, the charity has received the support of LGBTIs and allies.

Doing his bit to support trans kids

HBomberGuy explained in the video he ‘chose to support [Mermaids] because as a person living in Britain, I find the media discussion around this issue to be woefully misinformed, and I’d like to do my bit to help support the people who do the hard work of contributing to people’s thinking on an issue’.

He furthermore added: ‘I chose Mermaids specifically because when they were designated some funding via the National Lottery, Graham Linehan, a comedy writer who did some work on a good show 20 years ago, a very normal man who is very angry about trans people all day nowadays, went on Mumsnet and told them to email the National Lottery en masse.’

The charity streaming on popular platform Twitch began on 18 January and is still going on at the moment of writing. The gamer has been able to raise nearly $33,000 after having played for 15 hours.

He aims to play until the 101% completion of the game, a goal he has never achieved so far.

UPDATE: On 21 January, HBomberGuy was able to raise nearly $339,000. He went to get some well-deserved rest, before resuming to play on 20 January. The streaming is now offline but had been active for longer than 57 hours.

Mermaids thanked the gamer on Twitter

Mermaids thanked the gamer on their Twitter account on 19 January.

We’ve just woken up to see that @hbomberguy has been playing Donkey Kong all night to raise money for Mermaids and is still playing! So far he’s raised a staggering $26,000 and still has hours to go! Thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you 🙏🏻 https://t.co/UhyXMebL1s — Mermaids (@Mermaids_Gender) January 19, 2019

‘We’ve just woken up to see that @hbomberguy has been playing Donkey Kong all night to raise money for Mermaids and is still playing! So far he’s raised a staggering $26,000 and still has hours to go!’

WOW! The amazing @Hbomberguy has just smashed $30,000 raising money for Mermaids playing Donkey Kong LIVE 🎉⤵️https://t.co/ncanojEbPk As a thank you, we’re going to give Hbomb and his top 10 amazing donators a Mermaids goody box 🎁🧜🏻‍♀️ (fan art by @edddiejamesc) pic.twitter.com/DkgYG6snEP — Mermaids (@Mermaids_Gender) January 19, 2019

‘WOW! The amazing @Hbomberguy has just smashed $30,000 raising money for Mermaids playing Donkey Kong LIVE,’ they tweeted.

‘As a thank you, we’re going to give Hbomb and his top 10 amazing donators a Mermaids goody box,’ they also added.

Public figures have weighed in to support the twitch stream and invited their followers to donate. Democratic US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted about it.

If you’d like to use this as a good moment to support the queer community, there’s a charity twitch stream going on for @Mermaids_Gender: https://t.co/vCvvqRhAwb — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 20, 2019

‘The support has been overwhelming’

‘Mermaid has been having a difficult time over the last few weeks. We’re still waiting for the outcome of the review, but the support has been overwhelming,’ Mermaids CEO Susie Green told GSN.

‘It’s helping to deal with the uncertainty knowing that we have a huge amount of support and we’re eternally grateful.’

Mermaids is currently awaiting the outcome of the review, due at the end of January 2019.

The charity had planned to use the money to open 45 contact points around the UK. The contact points will serve as catch up spaces for people accessing Mermaids’ services.

‘Whatever the outcome, it will not stop us from supporting trans kids and people and their families,’ Green also said.

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