When I started work yesterday I was excited to go and make banana bread after work. Then I saw this tweet from Mermaids:

Thank you to @Hbomberguy who is currently raising money for Mermaids by live-streaming himself playing Donkey Kong on twitch 🙏🏻 Live Now ⤵️ https://t.co/UhyXMebL1s — Mermaids 🧜🏻‍♀️ (@Mermaids_Gender) January 19, 2019

… and I had something else to rush home to.

The brilliant HBomberguy has been running for almost 37 hours and that’s important for reasons beyond the $140,000+ raised for charity. Here are some reasons why:

Mermaids is a charity that does essential work and have been under attack by TERF groups like A Women’s Place in the last few weeks, putting their funding in jeopardy, and by doing that putting the safety and health of young trans or questioning children at risk. This shows once again how powerful individual content producers are to spreading a message. At the Transgender Europe Council, I helped run a seminar on trans representation in media and a much-discussed issue was trans people or organisations losing control of their own message by filtering it through uninformed, mislead or malicious external sources. An individually controlled medium like this livestream has maintained a shocking level of positivity (thanks to brilliant communities and good moderators ❤ ) as well as an undeniable and overwhelming amount of support, donations and visible trans representation. Something this big attracts backlash from them trans-hatin’ rowdy kids but they are swept away in the torrent of good old fun #thanksgraham. This livestream and the supportive aura surrounding it reminds me of Trans Pride from last year. For so very long it was easy never to come across trans themes, but with the slow growth of trans pride movements within and outside of larger LGBTQIA+ communities trans people and allies are emowered to speak out and shout about what is important to us as individuals and as a group. The immense sense of freedom in expressing something about yourself you are finally allowed to take joy from is a powerful space to be in. The viewership of this livestream have been setting up a big multicolour trans pride event online in support and celebration of such a good cause. This is an example of good praxis for those who have a platform and a cause they want to help. Even through this stream was started to spite known trash tweeter and TV writer Graham Linehan, the use of the platform of a youtuber BREADtube personality to support a charity that does essential work is a brilliant example of using privilege and power to help others who need it at the time. You need to look after yourself, yes, but the cultural battle within LGBTQIA+ spaces (at least within countries like the US, UK and Scandinavia post marriage-equality legislation) shifted to be around trans rights, so it makes sense to fight that good fight and benefit the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. It’s been a great place to link up with new commentators and creators to follow, like the party that’s so big everyone wants in, it’s become a great way to find other trans-positive personalities to follow and mix those audiences, sharing ideas and other places needing support, like #transcrowdfund on twitter, a hashtag for trans people needing direct support to maintain their lives as well as the brilliant @CaseyExplosion on twitter who managed the chat and was essential to inviting personas like Contrapoints and Three Arrows. Plus, HBomb is being real good about getting trans creators on and we can always use a boost! This truly is our lord Sobek’s great commons and meeting of the minds. Under all this, it’s a challenge that’s fun to watch and Donkey Kong 64, a janky-ass game is contributing good to the world.

If you’ve not already give this a look- this is an important thing happening ! (Oh and should probably donate to Mermaids, they’re wonderful) The stream will be going for many hours more as HBomb descends further into sleep deprivation and eats raw tofu for all that good SOY and I’m just excited to see what happens next! I’m celebrating with appropriete banana bread and girl pills.

Remember to stay hydrated and take your meds!

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