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Several people have been kind enough to let me publish their thoughts on fandom, community, and queerness to celebrate Pride in the Library. Today's piece is a conversation between @academicdisasterfic and his boyfriend, @saintgarbanzo. If you missed it, @saintgarbanzo organized a fundraiser to help support @academicdisasterfic with funds for top-surgery. This fundraiser has met its goal, and is referenced to throughout their conversation.

In this conversation, @saintgarbanzo is chickpea in bold, and @academicdisasterfic is rooney, in regular text.

chickpea: ok baby. let's talk about the gift economy in fandom. it’s something that's part of our politics but many of us struggle with feeling like our worth is tied to our production, even in fandom. has your fundraising experience changed your understanding of those concepts for you?

rooney: Short answer: yes.

Long answer: I think part of what drew me to fanfiction in the first place was a complete divide from capitalism. It’s such a relief in this world of productivity culture. I started writing purely because I loved it and I never thought anyone would read my fics. But then people did, and that meant everything to me. After this fundraiser, I truly understand why the gift economy is so imperative to fandom. People are doing me a favour by donating to my surgery, reading my fics, or writing fics that I love to read. It still feels overwhelming to have as much support as I did. I haven’t processed it at all, I can’t actually fathom it, and I initially had this dread about how I was never going to be able to repay the fandom for what it did for me - it’s not true for all trans men, but for me, this surgery will save my life. But fic saved me too, and I know the same applies to many. When I thought about it like that, I realised that I would do the same thing for anyone here, and it would make me happy to do it. I’d never think they had to pay off that debt. The difference between capitalism and the gift economy is that one is about power and competition, and the other is about the cyclical nature of community. Debts don’t exist, because we don’t give from a finite pool of resources. We give to each other from an endless pool of infinite possibilities.

chickpea: i had that same realization. initially the only way we felt comfortable asking for help was by offering an exchange, but then the exchange wasn't really necessary. everyone just offered up their resources–money but also their time and talent and attention. i go back and forth between feeling guilty/indebted and trying to remind myself that this is how communities are supposed to function and i can feel grateful without feeling guilty.

you talked about fandom's resistance to capitalism being an initial draw. what about its queerness? my first fandom interactions were very much based in fandom being a safe place to explore queerness. i want to hear about the relationship between your gender realizations and this community.

rooney: You know, I didn’t even think about it in that way - it was more, “I need a queer space, I want it to be a creative space”. It was so apparent to me, even before I knew I was trans, that whatever community I invested in had to have queerness at its core. Back in 2010 when I was figuring out my sexuality, fandom and shipping on Tumblr became really important to me, so I already knew it was there and when I started to explore it, that’s when a lot of gender stuff happened.

I think so many trans people have a more nuanced relationship with their body than is portrayed as the mainstream trans narrative of just being born in the wrong body. I worked very hard before learning I was trans to love and respect my body, and I’d never call it wrong. But reading about queer men fall in love was truly a lightning bolt moment. I’d always felt like an outsider in sapphic spaces - I’m bi/pan/whatever so I do really love women and femmes, that was never the issue - but I realised that I wanted my partners to be perceiving me differently, that I wanted to be treated as a queer man. I think the transgression and fight against purity culture in fandom was so crucial to it - the feelings of displacement and disconnection aren’t articulated the same way in published literature. One of my first fandom friends was @softlystarstruck who writes amazing trans characters with a variety of bodies and sexualities and genders. That sort of representation, of bodies coming together in all those different ways, specifically in sex, made me feel like there was hope - that transness and pleasure aren’t incongruent but born of the same instinct. We have to desire the things that will bring us joy.

chickpea: i love you

rooney: i love you too baby

chickpea: i love that you talked about displacement within queer communities. we've all seen and experienced queerphobia and racism, the demands for productivity, toxicity, discourse that's both helpful and harmful etc. you're someone in fandom who i really admire for the way you acknowledge and navigate the problematic parts of fandom while still focusing on building community in a healthy and joyful way.

can you talk a little bit about being a trans man who consciously decides to stay in hp fandom?

i’ve definitely struggled with my participation here and your fundraiser has brought up those arguments for me again, because we've harnessed this really material and transformative help for you as a trans person, that was carried pretty much entirely by this community.

rooney: Ooft, the big question.

First off I have to make it clear that I completely understand trans people who don’t want to engage with the HP fandom, because it’s a fucking hard moral and ethical quandary to navigate. But also, I don’t think anyone, including other trans people, should judge those of us who find the inherent transgression of fandom empowering and freeing. That’s my go to answer.

I understand the ethical problems of HP and its fandom. The series is just flagrantly racist. It’s heteronormative, homophobic, and all around “ethically mean spirited”, as Ursula Le Guin so eloquently put it. But it’s still something that I loved, and more importantly, the fandom is so strong not in spite of the series' flaws, but because of them. The more broken it is, the more there is to fix - and we’ve put in Desi Harry and Black Hermione, we’ve written whole essays on why Wolfstar is canon, we’ve taken terrible things like “house elves love to be enslaved” and written complex, thoughtful interpretations of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed. We’ve fucked with it all. Some hasn’t gone far enough, particularly in regards to the way we think about and portray people of colour. But overall, we’ve improved upon something without a single cent from that work going to J.K. Rowling. I find people in this fandom have had a much deeper understanding of the problems in the series for the longest, because we examine it so critically and closely.

No one’s perfect, but we’re all trying - at least, most of us are - and we’re doing things that make the lives of trans people and other marginalised people better. And I’m a trans person who can attest to that, and I know you are too. Universal maxims like “any engagement with HP is transphobic!” don’t even begin to understand what fandom is, what it does, and why it exists. (Those universal maxims also tend to be hugely influenced by Western morality and the legacy of Christianity)

And yes - my fundraiser, and how this community came together to support a trans person in need, really shows all of it in a tangible way. The people here are here to support and uplift those who need it.

chickpea; i often fall into the trap of feeling like if my resistance doesn't transform my oppressors then it doesn't count. i’ve written posts about racism in fandom and a lot of times i still approach it from the position of like, how do i make this palatable, if i just say it with the perfect tone then it will be more approachable and i'll like, convert the racists. i write it with the idea that i have to reach the unreachable. but over and over what i see is that those posts strengthen the people already on my side. and i think it's the same when we're talking about the effects on queer people of engaging with hp. like, a lot of times the argument is that our silly little stories don't translate into real resistance, because people think of "real" resistance as legislative changes and boycotts, as efforts that transform and educate or punish oppressors. and our trans fanfic isn't convincing any terfs that they're miserable pieces of shit. but it bolsters other trans people. it supports us as individuals in this community. i think that the emphasis on whether or not hp fandom engagement translates to "real world" resistance focuses too much on that idea of reaching the unreachable people. we're here and we're doing it for each other, and i *know* it's effective because every queer person i've met in this community has a story of being strengthened by a fic, or a post, or an illustration.

i want to bring it back to joyfulness in fandom. how has it encouraged you to cultivate more joy for yourself and others?

rooney: Honestly, I think that idea about remembering who we’re actually doing this for is so important. And also I believe we can plant seeds for change through joy. Because here’s the thing - change doesn’t originate from someone signing a piece of paper enacting legislation. That’s an important part, but that person enacts legislation because they represent their communities. Communities who believe joy is possible are stronger, because they have something to fight for. Joy is essential to resistance. I want to reach my community with my words and make them strong. And perhaps then those sentiments will reach further, because we will feel supported by each other and capable in our own lives of challenging bigotry and violence, knowing we are not alone. I am convinced that is how change happens.

But I don’t just want to be happy so I can fight better. I want to cultivate joy because I deserve it, because I’m a person. Transphobic rhetoric dehumanises trans people, and that disconnect from our humanity can be internalised; perhaps we don’t feel worthy of indulgence, frivolity, the whimsical and beautiful and luxurious parts of life. Fuck that. Every human deserves access to joy. Treating myself cruelly will not change anything about me - depriving myself of joy when I fuck up doesn’t make me fuck up less the next time, and it doesn’t help the people affected by said fuck up. But treating myself well, indulging my creativity and dreaming and desires, actually does change me. It makes me better to the people around me, and better to myself, which means I have more energy for others and myself, which means I give more - it’s the gift economy, it’s cyclical.

So fandom just makes me happy because it does. I love watching these dumb boys in love. And rather than try and analyse that or judge it, I let myself accept it, and go with it, purely because it’s joyful and life affirming and connects me with the world in a new and beautiful way. It’s really just the power of storytelling, I think - it calls to something primal in us. Maybe it reminds us that we’re humans in this world that wants us to be more like machines.

Fandom makes me joyful because it reminds me of my humanity, I think. With every fic I read or gorgeous artwork it’s like I’m accessing this part of my humanness that I have to keep segmented and separate from my work life, my life where I have to so much of the time be productive and disciplined. Here, I feel all of my flaws acutely and deeply, and all of my wonders, and it’s soul deep. How wonderful to be a human and to feel so keenly - how preferable to a life of trying to stay in the boring, lonely middle.

chickpea: your soulful intellectual rigor is very attractive

rooney: i think that’s my favorite thing you’ve ever said to me.

chickpea: a lot of times i have to frame my self-care and creative work in terms of resistance because that's the only way i can allow myself to have it. but you are so fundamentally right. cultivating joy isn't only for the collective, it's for me. i need to think about pleasure and joy less as a fuck you to the people trying to crush me, and more as a gift. giving yourself that gift of joy really does give that gift to others, and that's such a beautiful, community building action.

thank you for the reminder that being in community is about engaging with our humanity. it's a perfect conclusion to our whole discussion. humanity is gorgeous and gross and so is fandom and stories are reflections of that, and those reflections are so special to so many of us.

thank you for letting me trick you into processing your feelings.

rooney: for the record i encourage all of your attempts to trick me into processing my feelings.

Thank you both for joining me in the Library. I loved what you both had to say about fandom being a gift of joy to ourselves and community being a gift we give to each other. Thank you so much for the privilege of reading your conversation as a way to celebrate Pride in the Library.

If you want more @academicdisasterfic, be sure to check out his work on AO3! I particularly love his fic like the sun came out, because it so accurately portrays the way people who truly love each other treat each other - with gentleness and kindness and patience.

If you want more @saintgarbanzo, be sure to check out his work on AO3 as well! I love Sweeten to Taste because I'm always a sucker for a beautiful food description, and also because I love the thoughtful and nuanced discussions Harry and Draco have in this fic about justice and forgiveness and what we all deserve even when we've been wronged and when we have wronged others.

🏳️‍🌈 Lots of Love and Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

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