Unlike the vast majority of anti-trans legislation, hate groups are attempting to pass these restrictions without the public at large knowing they exist. This secrecy is far more insidious, and needs to be immediately addressed.
If you want to help, the two things that will make the most impact are SPREADING AWARENESS, and participating in PUBLIC COMMENT while it is still open.
‼️LINK TO FDA COMMENT PAGE‼️
Document: FDA-2025-P-7321
As of the time this article was written, ALL public comments were from hate groups in support of this registry. Every single comment in opposition will help.
Disclaimer: This article is very guilty of intersex erasure, despite the fact that intersex people of all ages would be affected by these regulations the same way trans women are. However, as this is the most comprehensive and direct article currently available, it should still be widely distributed, for the sake of trans women, nonbinary people, and intersex people who will all be affected should it pass.
I did my comment, and you should to! Be advised that when making a comment like this on a proposed regulation, the depth of your statement does matter. I strongly encourage you to take the time to read this article to get informed on what this proposal entails, and write a detailed response concerning one or two aspects that you believe you can write cohesively about and prepare a sensible counter-argument; try to draw from other sources if you can, even if you're just quoting other articles in support and in defense of HRT and transfeminism. I encourage everyone to review this official list of what they're expecting from a quality comment.
Remember, all public comments may have been from this hate campaign at the time of posting, but it was only 60. I know plenty of Discord servers bigger than that, let's show that we outnumber this hate and that we're gonna outlive this nightmare.
Update on this because I just had time to post my comment, and when you initially look at the docket, some of the information you might see on there is a touch misleading!
For one, when you look at the document comment buttons at the top, it says there are 61 comments. All the comments that I clicked through there are in support of petition. BUT (and here's the important thing) the comments that have been posted for public view is NOT the same number as the comments that have actually been recieved.
If you look to the side of the page, you might notice this:
If you click the more details button, you'll see a small section that reads "In some instances, agencies do not publicly post all comments received. You can only access those comments that are posted to Regulations.gov by the agencies. The number of accessible comments, therefore, may be lower than the total number of comments listed in the card below."
This basically means that, out of the 6,897 comments that have been recieved, the agency has only decided to post 61 of them. The latest post of those 61 dates back to Febuary 27th. Clearly, that leaves 6,836 comments unaccounted for, and not posted.
(Likely, because the 6,836 not posted are in opposition to this petition.)
Now, if you go to comment like I did today, you might notice this:
This is a lie! The comment period is still accepting late comments, but what you have to do is click the Docket Document tab, which will bring you to two documents. The acknowledgement letter is closed for comments. THE CITIZEN PETITION IS STILL ACCEPTING LATE COMMENTS.
There's still some time to put in your comments people! Never loose hope, and never stop!
day barely even started and I already had to hear "thank you for being our wives, sisters, aunts" and "keep being women and giving birth and being delicate unlike us men" as compliments for international women's day
I'm Anna Stamborski, I live in South Minneapolis and am a faith-based organizer who was as… Anna Stamborski needs your support for Twin Citi
People are still getting eviction notices and many are forced to stay home, unable to work or go about their daily life due to the very real fear of being terrorized, kidnapped, imprisoned, and deported by ICE. Donating to this goes directly to families in need!!! Even though the news cycle is starting to forget about metro surge, we can't lose momentum!
"Good morning everyone! We have incredible news — your donations are about to go twice as far.
John Wilson, founder of the Wilson Foundation, has generously offered to match every dollar we raise through February 27th — up to $50,000. That means every contribution you make right now will be doubled.
Please share this campaign with anyone in your network who might want to be part of this — the more we raise together before the 27th, the greater the impact we can make for our neighbors."
PLEASE share this! I am in touch with the organizers and have seen them work nonstop for over a month now to make sure people aren't being kicked out onto the street. Your donation will go twice as far, and every little bit helps!
PSA: if you're watching the new Knives Out mystery (Wake Up Dead Man), please be aware that around 1 hr 34 minutes in, there's a series of flashing/strobing lights. the sequence lasts about a minute.
[ID: comment reading "I have epilepsy went to see it yesterday and covered my eyes too late and had a seizure and all I could think was why are we STILL not putting strobe warnings on movies..." /end ID]
To be specific [spoiler warning for Wake Up Dead Man] there is a scene in the rain, the priest will slip on mud, run into the woods, and a fist will knock him out. Close your eyes immediately when you see the fist. Don't open again until you start hearing conversations.
when u look at 2017 and think “oh that’s only like 3 years ago” and it’s actually 12,000 years ago and everything is gone and everyone you know has been reduced to ash and the world is completely different
I want to say thank you so much for all the love and support on my art 🙏 Feel free to use my artwork for personal use only - like your Tumblr banner, profile picture, etc. (credit appreciated)
Also, if you’d like, I’ve made some of my pieces available as free phone wallpapers here
Every time you have GenAI make you an anime waifu with three titties and a dumptruck ass a family doesn't get to have a drink or bathe.
Every time you ask Copilot to write you a PowerShell script to stroke your boss' ego, a city experiences a brownout.
Every time you chat with your AI "girlfriend" a farmer doesn't get to water their animals.
Using these tools actively hurts you and your community, while at the same time enriching some shitheel who would happily step on your neck to make an additional dollar. Don't use them. Actively remove them from devices you own. Disable them whenever possible. Go out of your way to avoid them. It's honestly not hard. You've been using the internet just fine without GenAI hallucinating at you.
My mom has tick-borne encephalitis. She's a shell of herself at the moment.
This is a reminder that there is a vaccine (that she did get and still she's been sleeping about 18 hours a day for a week so far) and you should definitely get it if you live anywhere that's highlighted in red on this map and you go outside and/or have pets that go outside, because this virus is truly terrifying, trust me.
Source : Im, J. H., Baek, J. H., Durey, A., Kwon, H. Y., Chung, M. H., & Lee, J. S. (2020). Geographic distribution of Tick-borne encephalitis virus complex. Journal of vector borne diseases, 57(1), 14–22.
For the record she's the second person I know who's gotten it this year, against literally zero person in my entire life so far so be careful.
The other person I know who's gotten it has been in the hospital for weeks and he has cognitive issues that might never go away.
I hope my mom won't. But she's not been thinking right, she struggles to write, she loses her balance when she walks, and I have to repeat everything I say to her twice because she doesn't get it the first time.
Get the fucking vaccine. The number of ticks has been increasing steadily due to climate change, and it's truly a public health issue. Protect yourself.
every morning i'm forced to read some of the worst takes known to man. what on earth is this. where do i even begin with all the problems with this take?
“Harmful mind viruses” seems like it’s gonna be the new conservative and neopuritanical-smolbean-pseudo-leftist term for “complicated thoughts” in about three Internet Discourse Cycles from now
I just wanted to make a little quicklist of actions I've seen posted around that you can take in regards to the payment services restricting what we are and aren't allowed to buy and sell. Most of these take under a minute. Feel free to add to it!
Petition
Change.org (US)
ACLU (US)
Parliament (UK)
Call
Mastercard (US): +1-914 249-2000
Mastercard (Int.): +1-636-722-7111
Visa (US + Can): +1 (650) 432-3200
Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440
PayPal: +44-0203-901-7000
Mastercard (Aus): 1800-120-113
Mastercard (US): 1-800-307-7309
Mastercard (UK): 0800-96-4767
Contact Your Rep in Support this Bill (US)
Fair Access to Banking Act, H.R.987 in the House, S.410 in the Senate.
Just to clarify, there's a bill that would STOP credit card companies from controlling who's allowed to spend money on porn or "risque" (read: queer) content. If you don't think big business should be able to tell you what to spend your own damn money on, call your senators and reps to let them know! It's the Fair Access to Banking Act, H.R.987 in the House, S.410 in the Senate.
Banks and credit cards should not be in the business of making moral judgments about what their customers spend their money on. Their job is to facilitate transactions, period. If it's not illegal, then they should have no say on who buys guns or porn or junk food or any other thing somebody might decide is objectionable.
If you live in the US and have any interest in seeing this h*rny interactive fiction published and attainable, please contact your representative in support of this bill. It takes under a minute. Find Your Rep.
Writing high fantasy is harder for me than it used to be because I'll write "The door swung open" and I'll imagine some tumblr user with three different grad degrees in medieval history dunking on me with a 2,000-word post about how door hinges weren't invented until 1956 and before that they'd just smash them open with axes and rebuild them each time.
Regarding Steam, Adult Content Bans, and Making an 18+ Game
Hey guys;
There’s been a major shift in the gaming scene recently that could have some very serious consequences for queer creators and the adult content they make and unfortunately, TCM is (what I fear) a pretty prime target. I know no one likes reading long blog posts but please at least skim the following write up. A lot's going on and frankly, I'm very, very anxious for TCM.
Bear with me, the situation is complex.
What Happened:
Steam, the largest videogame marketplace in the world, caved to pressure from payment processors like Mastercard and Visa to delist games and effectively censor content that goes against the TOS of the payment processor.
This is incredibly shitty.
Visa and Mastercard now have direct say in what content is “objectionable” on the world’s largest gaming marketplace. They are the entities that get to decide what art is “degenerate” and what art is suitable for their advertisers.
Adult content has long been a target of Mastercard, which has been constantly putting pressure on companies like Etsy, OnlyFans, Patreon, Pornhub, Fansly, and more for multiple years now to deplatform and censor not only real-life content featuring real people, but also overtly fictional and drawn content as well.
LGBT+ art is a prime target for being slandered as deviant; we’ve seen it throughout our history, and this is only becoming more evident as queer sex workers, content creators, and artists are getting financially deplatformed all across the internet.
Several ultraconservative groups are behind the pressure on Mastercard, including swerf and terf clubs.
This goes beyond region or payment method. It doesn’t matter how you pay for Steam games; once a game is delisted, it cannot be purchased via any method.
Since this change to Steam’s TOS and as of this writing, over 80 adult games have been delisted, and I’d like to take a second to emphasize what this means. Being delisted on Steam is the same as having a game functionally permabanned. Delisting means that anyone who has the game can still access it, but the title is taken off the marketplace completely, and new players will never see it or be able to access it.
Steam is effectively being held at gunpoint. Without the ability to accept payments from the two largest, most duopolistic processors in the world, its continued resistance would likely destroy them as a marketplace. This attack on Steam gives Mastercard and Visa an unprecedented amount of power over gaming as a whole and has already had huge consequences. This sets a disturbing and wholly unfair precedent of disproportionately silencing queer and/or politically charged art.
What’s shocking about this is that in the past, Steam has worked to maintain a high level of neutrality in its content offerings. As long as games were rated properly and appropriate themes were disclosed during the rating process, Steam generally let explicit content slide even if their content was questionable to some. The problem now lies in the fact that corporate overlords have now taken the power to decide what is and is not artistic expression, and historically, that does not bode well for anyone challenging or commenting on the status quo. If you’re queer like me, you know you challenge the status quo by simply existing.
The Future is Unknowable
Unfortunately, it just got a lot murkier for me and for TCM. Because TCM’s queer leanings, its focus on sexualized men and monster fucking, the game will certainly be seen as transgressive to any remotely conservative leaning weirdo looking for a power trip. I don’t know if we’re on the chopping block and there’s literally no way to prepare.
I’ve heard several people mention Itch.io as an alternative, and, firstly, please understand that I adore Itch. Itch is where TCM got its initial start and early community from, and I owe a lot to Itch’s commitment to its devs and the freedom to produce whatever content they want. The problem is that if payment processors put pressure on Itch, too, they will be forced to acquiesce. I can’t stress enough that Steam is astronomically larger and more powerful than Itch- and if they didn’t have the resources or independence to hold to their ideals in the face of pressure from Mastercard, Itch won’t either. At this point, it's less of a criticism or doomerism on my part and simply an ugly, unfair fact.
This kind of uncertainty alone is enough to stagnate a lot of business in any industry. This puts the burden on me to either pre-emptively censor the game myself or to cope with the immense financial instability of going forward with unclear and/or unfair guidelines that- once again- disproportionately target queer creators.
We saw it with the widespread tariff confusion earlier this year that had a pronounced effect on global commerce. Stephanie Sterling elaborates on the burden of uncertainty in this video about YouTube’s unclear and inconsistent demonetization rules and the clamps it puts on artistic content. She’s a lot more articulate than I am and paints a really robust picture about why having vague content policies- like the ones Mastercard is pushing- throws a wrench in the whole creative cycle, especially for artists hoping to make a living via their art.
What This Means for TCM
Honestly, this could mean a lot of things, and unfortunately, I just don’t know what the road ahead will look like in 6 months. Or even next week. Because I really value transparency, I wanted to lay the situation out for y'all so you can hopefully see where I’m coming from and why this is so incredibly devastating to hear about.
I invested a ton of money into making this game. More than that, it's been about five years of my life with no other projects on deck, building this game and community from the ground up. I believe in this project, and I believe in queer adult entertainment that’s inclusive and fun and sexy. I really do.
But if I get financially deplatformed, I can’t create.
Essentially, I planned to invest my own money up front, offer the base game (Amir, Mori, and Akello’s full routes) for free, and then make DLC in the form of additional character routes and charge money for those to recoup costs and eventually get me out of the hole. I hoped that people would really enjoy the base game, get a feel for my writing style and Atlas’ art, and hopefully find that a paid DLC for another character is a worthwhile purchase. Now, I’m reevaluating how I want to move forward, and I wanted y'all to be a part of that 1) because I need you to see what factors I’m dealing with and 2) I’d like to give as much of a heads up as possible if plans change.
So, right now, the game is in a state called “Early Access”. This tells players that the game is still in development, still getting updates, and generally taking player feedback/bug reports into account as development furthers. Once the game is “completed,” I was going to take it out of Early Access and into “Fully Released”.
One option I’m now considering is charging for the game once it hits that fully released state.
People who already have the game will not be affected by this at all. You’ll get the Full Release without having to pay. (Anyone who has the game in their Steam Library before the changeover will get the Full Release for free.). The Full Release won’t have significant content changes but will probably have minor bug fixes, polish, things of that nature. I’m not sure what price point I would set it at. But like most options, there are pros and cons to this- namely, I made it clear that I wanted to keep this chunk of the game free, but I’m worried that might not be possible. The benefit to structuring things this way is that I may be able to recoup some of the development costs before a potential delisting, which would essentially terminate my ability to make extra content like I’d intended.
Talking Numbers
I would like to share my budget with you so that you can see the figures I’m looking at. Again, my ultimate goal here is gaining yall’s understanding first. I know it’s disappointing to talk money and numbers when we’re all surviving out there, but things are getting dire. (Note that these numbers are general but close estimates.)
Artwork includes: Sprites, CGs, Logo Design, Menu, GUI/UX assets and implementation, other In-Game Assets, Commissions for birthday posts/special occasions, Trailers, Animations, Capsule Artwork, etc
Ads, Hosting, and Business Misc includes: Ad runs on websites like Furaffinity and Tumblr, Hosting and Domain fees, Business Name Registration, Studio Peaches logo
Custom Music includes: 6 custom-performed and recorded tracks exclusive for TCM
The game does pull in some money on the regular, and I cannot stress enough how grateful I am for my patrons, kickstarter supporters, and for my itch donors because your generosity and loyalty have helped add some stability to this situation, and I’ve gotten good at making your every dime count.
And just for transparency, here’s what the Kickstarter ended up looking like:
Now, with Kickstarter, I have to emphasize that these numbers don’t represent failure- this was pretty much what I expected going in. Kickstarter is a great way to raise awareness of projects, and in that respect, the TCM Kickstarter was very successful, even if I cut it perhaps a little closer than I had intended.
So, now you can kind of start to see where the stress is growing. Over the past five-ish years, I’ve invested close to twenty thousand dollars into this project, and although I have wonderful patrons, backers and itch donors, I’ve barely put a dent in that debt. This is what game development costs for a game of TCM’s quality. Currently, I pay Atlas commission rates for their work, but I had hoped to be able to actually employ them. I personally have never been paid for the time and labor I’ve put into this game, and I work on it about 30 hours a week, every week.
TLDR
To recap, there are several reasons I’m taking the time to write this up today:
Prepare TCM community for the possibility of changes coming to the plans going forward
Inform the community of some very alarming developments happening on gaming platforms
Help show the community just how much game development costs, and how imperative it is to find a financially viable future for this project.
Prayer circle we don’t get delisted
The bottom line is: TCM needs to make money if it is going to continue being developed. If the game gets delisted and deplatformed, I might need to make serious changes to keep this project alive. I may need to make serious changes to mitigate what’s already happening to adult games.
Things are scary out there for artists and especially for queer artists. I have absolutely no idea what the future holds for TCM and no idea how much worse things are going to get before they get better. Transparency has always been a priority for me, so definitely expect updates and announcements as things evolve and change over the coming months. Just please understand that I may have to pivot or change tact depending on what Mastercard decides is a violation of their content guidelines.
For better and for worse, nothing is set in stone today, but that does mean I’ll need to continue monitoring the situation closely, and I’ll do my best to keep everyone informed of TCM’s development with as much notice as I can.
Finally, I encourage all of you to do further research into this on your own. I encourage you to sign the petition that the ACLU has been circulating as a first step towards fighting this unfair hold payment processors have on our content. I encourage you to talk to performers excommunicated from OnlyFans and Patreon for having “objectionable” material. I encourage you to talk to Furries who were booted from Fansly for being incorrectly labelled as deviants with bestiality kinks. I especially encourage you to look into the oppressive, hateful groups pushing for this kind of artistic suppression and pressuring Visa and Mastercard to tighten (comprised largely of swerf, terf, and bog-standard conservative purity politics). Send angry emails, support your favorite creators, and cultivate safe online spaces for queer adult content.
As always, please hit me up with any questions you might have- I can be reached in all the usual places: Here on Tumblr @tricitymonsters, on discord @pockatuck or via the TCM server, or even email if you have something longer to send > [email protected]
Some source links for you:
ACLU Petition: https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy
PCgamer Article Breaking the Story: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/steam-introduces-new-rule-prohibiting-certain-kinds-of-adult-content-that-might-make-visa-or-mastercard-unhappy-financial-deplatforming-in-action/
VICE Article that was pulled that lists the groups behind the push: https://web.archive.org/web/20250719204151/https://www.vice.com/en/article/group-behind-steam-censorship-policies-have-powerful-allies-and-targeted-popular-games-with-outlandish-claims/
Please read this and check the links at the bottom and sign the ACLU petition if you can. We need to push back on this and the bullshit of its ilk. You hold the money, you hold the power, so fight with it. Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal are not authorities and have no right to basically make these decisions for you or declare what is or isn't acceptable content. It will be a step towards greater control later on, so we need to fight now.
