Blog
Some Comments Require a Blog Post
09/23/2025
We've just experiences a bit of an internet rite of passage, and frankly I think it's really amazing that I've gone this long without experiencing it. It's a testament to how embracing and accepting of others the people who have found my site have been for the last... lord, decade plus?
But I guess it was more or less inevitable; I've gotten some transphobic/homophobic feedback.
To be perfectly honest, my initial response was excitement. It meant that the effort we put in trying to have some decent representation in our version of DC is angering the right people, and that has to mean we're on the right track, right? I started crafting my response right away, and it was full of righteous grandstanding and conversational elbow-drops off my moral high ground. As I got into it, though... It occurs to me that the last thing the internet needs is one more argument. I don't know how the world looks in the future when you're reading this, but as I write this in the past, the world is not exactly the most welcoming place right now, and I've always kind of prided myself on the vibes I try to put out here. This is my hobby. This is where I go to relax. I don't need this negativity.
I deliberately adapted the very awkward and unwieldy comment system on this website specifically so i have full control over what shows up here. I put the comments up and respond to them manually. If I don't want to share a comment, it doesn't get shared. I obviously am not going to give any bandwidth to that comment, but I do feel like I have some degree of moral responsibility to at least respond. I don't have a way to do it directly, so I'll just make it public, and they can read it, or not... totally up to them.
But I guess it was more or less inevitable; I've gotten some transphobic/homophobic feedback.
To be perfectly honest, my initial response was excitement. It meant that the effort we put in trying to have some decent representation in our version of DC is angering the right people, and that has to mean we're on the right track, right? I started crafting my response right away, and it was full of righteous grandstanding and conversational elbow-drops off my moral high ground. As I got into it, though... It occurs to me that the last thing the internet needs is one more argument. I don't know how the world looks in the future when you're reading this, but as I write this in the past, the world is not exactly the most welcoming place right now, and I've always kind of prided myself on the vibes I try to put out here. This is my hobby. This is where I go to relax. I don't need this negativity.
I deliberately adapted the very awkward and unwieldy comment system on this website specifically so i have full control over what shows up here. I put the comments up and respond to them manually. If I don't want to share a comment, it doesn't get shared. I obviously am not going to give any bandwidth to that comment, but I do feel like I have some degree of moral responsibility to at least respond. I don't have a way to do it directly, so I'll just make it public, and they can read it, or not... totally up to them.
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I am not saying this as a condemnation, but it's really clear that you're a fan of comic adaptations, not comics. A comic fan knows that Richie from Static is based on Rick Stone from the original Static Shock comic. They know that Rick being gay is an important part of that story. They recognize that all the heteronormativity Richie performs in the TV series is just that: a performance.
I am not trying to pull rank on you here... I'm not going to point out that I read more comics in a year than you have read or will read in your lifetime. I can say that I do a huge amount of research and outreach with fans and creators of comics from all walks of life, and that of the huge variety of people that I have the privilege of interacting with? I would say very easily that the majority of them are queer. For you to say that the primary audience of this sort of geek culture is straight men isn't so much a statement of fact... It's you trying to draw a battle line in a battle that nobody but you is fighting. You don't own this thing. It isn't exclusively for you. It's for everybody. That includes you. It also includes everybody else. You're going to have to wrap your head around that sometimes. |
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All that said... none of this is really my core point. It's this: when I read you saying a bunch of hateful stuff that tries to undermine the personhood of whole groups of people? I don't hear your point at all. I hear you, trying desperately to find some sort of external target to vent your own feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing.
Please understand, I'm still not condemning you for this. We live in a rough time. It's easy to feel hurt, or othered, or ignored, or disempowered. It's easy to feel so downtrodden that people expecting you to empathize with other people, to consider their human experience, feels like a slight against YOU. It's not fair that we're asking you to look outside yourself and consider that people can be different than you and that's okay. You have your own problems. I get it.
Personally... I have more faith in you than that. I don't believe that it's impossible for you to see your fellow humans as deserving of your love and respect. I think you CAN do it. You're not now, but I believe in you, and your ability to move beyond this petulantly childish worldview and open your eyes to how different and weird and amazing humans can be if you just let them be themselves.
It's honestly not even that hard. You just let yourself be human as well.
Please understand, I'm still not condemning you for this. We live in a rough time. It's easy to feel hurt, or othered, or ignored, or disempowered. It's easy to feel so downtrodden that people expecting you to empathize with other people, to consider their human experience, feels like a slight against YOU. It's not fair that we're asking you to look outside yourself and consider that people can be different than you and that's okay. You have your own problems. I get it.
Personally... I have more faith in you than that. I don't believe that it's impossible for you to see your fellow humans as deserving of your love and respect. I think you CAN do it. You're not now, but I believe in you, and your ability to move beyond this petulantly childish worldview and open your eyes to how different and weird and amazing humans can be if you just let them be themselves.
It's honestly not even that hard. You just let yourself be human as well.