Meowdy y’all!
Thanks for joining us in the Catnip Corner! You'll be getting all kinds of things here, like:
Solidarity Resources: info on useful stuff for trans, queer and BIPOC folk.
Genderful Guest Posts: past guests come back to talk about what they're up to.
GenderMeowster stuff: expansions on tweets/toots, more about what's going on in the community, etc.
GenderMeowster's Affiliates: what are GenderMeowster's favourite people getting up to?
Whatever else we think up!
Ideas? Questions? Let us know! Your input is really helpful.
For our first outing, I want to tell you about the amazing 23hr raid train on twitch that me and a bunch of other streamers did on Sunday March 11th, to raise funds for Genderful co-host and Clowder friend, filmmaker Atlas O Phoenix.
Mutual Aid is a big topic, but it essentially boils down to doing what we can to help those in our community get what they need.
That could be money, items, referrals, info, whatever. It's what the Solidarity Resources are for: a collection of things we've found and put together. It's what the raid train was for. And by and large, our very intersectional communities are glad to help out how they can. Most of us have needed help at one time or another, and want to give that back when we're able. Others haven't had those experiences, and want to help others get out of them.
That's what mutual aid is. Getting help right now to the people that need it. No charities, no middlepeople, no questions about what might be happening with your money—just you, helping someone out because you can.
Our sister organisation Gender Federation is new, but being built around the necessities that we come across as we do these things. So it's being tailored to what's needed, making it far easier to host mutual aid events like this. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, and helping it take shape with a super talented team has been amazing.
Our other partner in the 23hr endeavour was The TransVerse, an inclusive trans community, with many great people willing to give their time and effort. They have so much knowledge, and they’re always willing to share and help out. You can find them all over the place, on Twitch, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, so go give them some subs and follows.
And how did that 23hr raid train go?
Well, I kicked it all off at 9pm PT—that’s my timezone. And 23 hours later, I was on stream again with Emily and Atlas, when we hit (and then surpassed) our $3500 target!
That money gets Atlas halfway to being able to move into a better, safer living situation. And that was all raised by the generosity of a loving, giving, community.
Next week, we’re going to start building the Mega List of our Solidarity Resources collection. To get these right away, you can join the discord server, but the list will be pinned and updated regularly.
And you can still give to Atlas, to help with that move, at pally.gg/tip/genderfederation, or support them in an ongoing way using one of their patron plans.
That’s all for today! Thanks for being here for this very first post; thanks to Lee for doing the audio part; and thanks to my excellent gfx team for the cool logos and banners you see, and the ones yet to come!
I’m excited about what me and my team can do with this platform, and I’m very excited to have Lee as our…Chief Catnip Caretaker…?? No.
I definitely need some help on giving it a proper name. What do you think?
Give me some ideas: the sillier the better, and bonus points for alliteration. The winner will be decided by the Clowder Contributors—who are the wonderful folk that keep everything going—and will get to pick a game off the Giant Random Game Codes list.
And please do share and subscribe! We've got so much good stuff ahead.