has anyone tried contacting the lgbt media?

[SithRose]

Vulpy, once you're done refining it, let me know, I'll send it to my contact for his blog. That's a great story, and something that'll really help people understand why this community is so great.

[Vulpy]

Here we go. I think I finally have a piece I'm satisfied with. As far as I'm concerned, it's fair game for anyone who wants it--as long as it's posted in its entirety.

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Hello. My name is unimportant, but on the internet I usually answer to "Vulpy." I'm here to tell you a story. It's a story of a community I'm glad to have been a part of, what that community taught me, and where I hope that community is going. It is not, however, my story.

That's going to make this next section a little boring, I'm afraid. You see, every story requires context, and the context in this story happens to pertain to the narrator—that's me. I never professed to be an interesting person myself, but if you'll humor me, I think you'll find that this part is at least as important as what will follow.

I'm reasonably representative of a part of the country that exists at an odd intersection. On one hand, it is temperate and verdant enough to support the sorts of economic activities that have sustained humanity for most of its history—that is to say, farming and hunting. On the other, the terrain is arduous and rolling, with rocky mountains as far as the eye can see. That geography colors the psychology of Southern Appalachia: we, as residents of the area, are largely born from residents of the area. There has been very little movement in or out of the region in the centuries since its European (largely Scottish and Irish) colonization. We've gotten along just fine on our own, thank you very much, by being resourceful and tenacious...and by clinging to what is believed to be safe and effective.

So, you see, the jokes about "hillbillies" have some smattering of truth to them, as all the best jokes do. We are poor, we are white, we adhere to our beliefs tightly, and we view outsiders with suspicion. But we are changing, slowly. I can remember a time when people within walking distance of my childhood home didn't have running water, and I'm not even due for a mid-life crisis. These days, almost all of my cousins have smartphones and Facebook accounts.

I, even more than most of my peers, embraced technology. Living in an area so rural that the nearest gas station was half an hour's travel away meant that I even turned to technology for entertainment, and became an avid video gamer. Two short decades later, I live in a modestly-sized city with a high-speed internet connection that brings the world to me. I have more choices in entertainment now than before, but I've found that video games—especially online, community-based games—are an efficient and constantly-varying source of stimulation.

This is where the story truly begins. Almost eight years ago, I began playing the massively-multiplayer online (MMO) game City of Heroes. It let me live every nerd's fantasy by proxy: I could create my own comic book character in any way, shape, or fashion that I wanted and lead them into battle against the forces of evil. While doing so, I began to meet people I never would have had a chance to meet otherwise: a drug addiction rehabilitation counselor from Michigan. A video game beta tester from French Canada. A vice-president from a well-known bank in Arizona. Someone whose resumé includes installing audio equipment and fixing motorcycles in Northern California. Writers. DJs. Teenagers. Kids. Grandparents. From New Zealand. Ireland. Eastern Europe.  People I never could have met in Appalachia.

And I talked to them, using a little tiny chat interface in the lower-left corner of the screen over epic struggles against tyrants and evil aliens. I learned about how they saw the world, what challenges they faced. I appreciated that each life was different, almost incomprehensible to me (as my life was to them). But there was beauty in that, too. The differences powered that drive to communicate, to learn more. The differences assure me that, no matter what we do to one another, humanity will continue on.

It is my understanding that, among MMOs, City of Heroes has a large and well-organized LGBT community. I have never had a cause to interact with this community as a whole, but I can understand the appeal. After all, a great deal of the game's conceits center on customizing the player experience: unlike the real world, no virtual citizen of Paragon City is going to insinuate that your game character is less of a person for having a gender identity that doesn't fit neatly into clearly-predefined roles. The game world accepts your character as you are—gay, straight, transgender, asexual, robot, alien, sapient plant mass—with no expectations placed upon your background or identity.

But, as I said, I never had reason to interact with the LGBT community in the game as a whole. What I did have were many chances to interact with members of that community. Usually, we would bond over in-game experiences—defeating a difficult enemy, say—before striking up conversation afterward about who we were and where we were from. On the few occasions someone has admitted to being non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, it has often been with some measure of apprehension. So, I talked to a few of them about that.

The stories I've heard as a result aren't mine to share. I've given my word that I wouldn't, and I will hold to that word here. However, as a result of hearing those stories, I've grown to appreciate the unique challenges faced by LGBT people in Appalachia, America, and abroad. I've begun to seriously ask my culturally-homogenous family hard questions. Is a non-traditional marriage really such a bad thing, provided that no one forces a religious institution to anoint it? Would anyone choose a lifestyle that would result in such discrimination unless it truly felt like a part of who they were?

Over time, I even began to wonder: what would it be like to internalize a story such as this? I started to play with the idea in a safe, consequence-free environment, using a fictional character to give me a solid outlook on the issues at hand. Thus was born a character who, tragically, may never live to see his story told. But more on that at the end of this article.

I write, you see. I mean, I wrote this. But I write fiction, too. One day, if you read a story about a young man with mystical powers of light and sound control who struggles to cope with his identity as a gay person in light of his father's more conventional view of masculinity, I hope you'll think of me. That story may have started because someone from Southern Appalachia—who barely had cause to think about LGBT issues before—met some people who lived very different lives while playing a computer game.

City of Heroes is scheduled to be shut down on November 30, 2012. The game is apparently profitable, but its publisher is refocusing its business aims. If you'd like to know more about City of Heroes and the effort to save it, visit http://www.savecoh.com

[DrakeGrimm]

...that'll do, Vulpy. That'll do.

* DrakeGrimm wipes at cheers and mutters incoherently about ninjas chopping onions...

[Vulpy]

...that'll do, Vulpy. That'll do.

I'm glad you approve. Frankly, I didn't feel like that was my best work, but I've been writing quite a bit these last few weeks--over and above studying--so I doubt I could have pushed it any harder. It might be a bit searingly honest in a place or two, but I hope none of the parties involved are depicted in a manner that would be unflattering.

[emu265]

I'm glad you approve. Frankly, I didn't feel like that was my best work, but I've been writing quite a bit these last few weeks--over and above studying--so I doubt I could have pushed it any harder. It might be a bit searingly honest in a place or two, but I hope none of the parties involved are depicted in a manner that would be unflattering.

I don't think so at all.  Very, very well done.

[SithRose]

It's been forwarded to my contact.