What's the Point of the Meowsterverse?

I'm glad you asked!

Meowdy y'all!

Welcome back to the Catnip Corner. If you don’t know me, or you do and still have questions, excellent! I like answering questions, so if you have them let me know.

But in order to know what you don’t know, you need to know something to begin with. So I’m here today to tell you a bit about me, and my community.

I started streaming in July 2020 because I liked playing games, and I liked interacting with people watching. Along with that came my hopes of creating, and being a part of, a comfy, cosy, safe community for trans folk, and anyone else who needs it (and isn’t a bigoted creep).

So the streams started. And as community developed, I started a server—Meowster’s Clowder—for people to hang out when I wasn’t streaming.

Now, I have a lovely community, and amazing staff who do so much to strengthen the community and keep it safe, and work so hard behind the scenes on everything from video/audio editing to finding Solidarity Resources. I couldn’t do this without them!

Love you all <3

But what is it that I’m trying to do?

It’s no secret that trans people are under serious attack. It’s not a recent thing. We’ve always lived our lives with some level of fear. The more we’re seen, the worse the anti-trans rhetoric gets. And at some point that rhetoric, if left unchecked (which it has been), turns to action.

Violence. Accusations. Insults about our looks, our health, our brains. A media taking up the cry to divide people by platforming, to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people, the bigots that cry “I’m being silenced!”, “They’re taking over everything!” “Think of the children!” and worse, while we sit here without a voice. Unless we’re patronizingly asked to enter into a pretend “balanced” debate with one of them, thus making their platform legitimate.

The majority of people wish us no harm. But that’s not enough.

Lots of people love us and encourage us to be who we are. But that’s not enough.

Even when people stand with us as allies, raising our voices and contributing in myriad real ways to try and help us. It’s not enough.

Because fearmongering has become the easy way to sell easy opinions to people who don’t want to think for themselves, or fact check, or move out of their comfort zone.

Right now there is an attempted trans genocide happening in the US, and the UK is attempting to remove protections for trans people from the Equality Act. It’s happening because not enough people care enough about us to help turn the tide, to push back, to shout the truth over the lies.

On top of all of that, many trans people are autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent. So many trans folk are BIPOC. So many trans folk are nonbinary. Each of these things, and a whole lot more I didn’t mention (because I want this post to not be a novel), marginalises us further into groups that are being stepped on and silenced. Groups that are seeing the rights they clawed and fought for—and were never able to count on actually receiving anyway—just…removed again.

Because the people doing this have been planning for years. Funding test groups in the UK has been one part of a much wider strategy by those who want anyone not like them to stop existing in their world.

And trans folk are the easiest of targets. Because of the marginalizations we have, because people don’t want to come out and stand with us, raising us up. Because the people sowing the seeds are trained, practised, and funded. while we’re just begging to be allowed to exist.

It is absolutely vital that trans people have safe places to go online. The outside world was never safe for us, but right now it is actively dangerous. Being online doesn’t stop us from being targeted. But a place to go, where the moderation and attitude is geared specifically towards making a space safe for trans people (and then by extension anyone else who needs it), can be a place of rest and recuperation, with others who share these needs, and give so much love to each other.

I’m out there. I’m trans and I’m talking about being nonbinary, being transmasc, injecting T and seeing the results, making every game gayer. And I have other people doing those same things alongside me, every day.

Together we are stronger, safer, and more able to shield ourselves and each other.

And our flag is pretty

Together, we can make our own noise. Not by rioting, not by inviting nazis to come play with us, not by giving frenzied speeches, rewriting history, fudging interactions, and just plain making things up about how awful the not-us people are.

Together, we can create safety, joy, acceptance, and all of the other things the anti-trans influencers want to take away.

That’s why I’m here. That’s why my team are here (and I‘ll be introducing you to them all). That’s why my community members are with me.

So stick around. There’s more on the way. And if you’d like to delve deeper, we’re here for you!

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Who’s that voice? It’s Lee! Give their substack a look!