If We Go Down then We Go Done Together

Queer people have long faced oppression and censorship in media and stories. One of the most well-known examples is that of the Hays Code, which forbid movies from depicting things like queerness explicitly (Juda, n.d.). Crucially, this was not done by any government but instead by film studios themselves setting the limits of what was allowed to be shown (Juda, n.d.). This is important because despite the gains of queer people in the past while, we are under attack gravely once again. As you are no doubt aware, there has recently been attacks weaponizing payment processors in an attempt to get works seen as “adult” and “pornographic” off of video game retailers such as Steam and Itch.io. This has impacted queer people especially hard. In addition to things such as pornographic sex games which have been wrongly banned from sale, games made for and by queer people have been delisted and taken off search on these platforms as well (Bevan, 2025). As of now these queer games are caught up and swept along for the ride, however, there are designs to include queer works in these pornography bans, with everyday works of queer love being shouted down as pornography (Capaccomplished8072, 2025).  In the background to this, two other things have happened that are also censorious. The United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act has come into force. Requiring websites to implement invasive age checks on certain content. In addition, YouTube has announced it will start screening US users of the site using an age-guessing AI, greatly limiting the videos available to watch, including much queer and other transgressive works (Laputan Machine, 2025).

People are fighting back. There has been an ongoing campaign to call these payment processor phonelines and junk them up as long as possible in an attempt to both cost the companies money for being forced to pay the call centres that are not helping other customers while also making their voices heard in a way that is not possible to be ignored. There have also been campaigns through things such as an ACLU petition. These are laudable acts that should continue, and every possible lever should be pulled.

Queer people deserve to make art and be paid for it, no matter the content of that art. Whether it be pornographic or not, sexual or not, and explore transgressive ideas in any manner they choose.  This must not be stopped no matter what governments or large companies say. Even if we happen to lose these battles we must not stop creating. Our existence must be shared with the world for use to find each other and thrive. There are a variety of ways to do this and the rest of this blog will be describing them.

The first and in my opinion best way to keep creating without censorship is to create your own space, away from the large platforms. As the death of twitter and the censorship of Youtube shows, platforms will never be your friend. We must return tov the ethos of the old internet. Instead of large companies masquerading as public goods we must build our own networks on places we control. Start that website, build that forum. Set up things such as RSS feeds and email newsletters to share your work with others. This is easier and cheaper than it may seem. I created this website using a few simple tools and absolutely no knowledge of the internet’s inner workings or coding. It costs around $200 CAD a year to run including the email platform, hosting, domain registration, and an email hosting service. One could do it significantly cheaper and with more independence if they desired to learn more than I did. My method is not without flaws, My email newsletter is run by ghost which uses Stripe, the culprit in the censorship of Itch.io as a way to get monetize, additionally, hosting costs would increase to $40 a month should one choose to monetize. However, there are other similar options available out there.

Building community will be key to get us through this. It may seem at odds with what I said above but just because we must branch away from the large platforms does not mean we can’t use them. We can use them to meet new people and connect while still pushing people to view and discuss on our own little corners. No person is an island, and it takes a village to grow people. We are better when we are together. I am not calling for solitude, quite the opposite. We are a powerful mass of people and partaking in collective action is how we stop this. Things like the call centre campaign are a great way to push back. We must go further though. Our history is full of queer resistance, and we must look back at that history to learn what was effective and emulate it and push for new tactics. Social media uproars and one day boycotts are not enough.

Building links with sex workers and the people who create pornography and other such media is paramount. We share the same struggle. Should sex work fall into the realm of the obscene, queer content will not be far behind. Doing this will require an true good faith alliance. We must have solidarity with each other. This will mean supporting pornographers. We must realize that while somethings in the pornography space may make us uncomfortable, that does not make them wrong. Pornography is ethical when all involved are giving true, free consent and are paid fairly for their work, as is prostitution. Many queer people participate in sex work and creating pornographic images and stories as well. We must not abandon them because of their chosen profession. Queer people, particularly trans people, are often shut out of the traditional economy due to discrimination. Sex work is the way they support themselves, we must support them and have their best interests at heart with our activism. This requires truly listening to them and supporting them rather than taking centre stage consistently.

The most important thing to do however is to keep creating. We may be pushed underground but we have always survived and possibly thrived there. The zine scene and punk communities can be our guide. We have had foreparents from before the internet and we can use its new power in interesting ways, but we must not forget our history. Yet we will need to use the transformative power of the internet as well. In person communities are all well and good for large cities yet we must not forget our siblings who are not able to flee to safer spaces. Doing the work of art and spreading it is easier than ever; we must use every tool in our tool chest to spread our messages while not locking ourselves in gardens we do not control.

Bibliography

Juda, A. (n.d.). LGBTQ Films in the Ithaca College Library. Retrieved August 12, 2025, from https://libguides.ithaca.edu/c.php?g=869643&p=6242177

Bevan, R. (2025, August 12.). Game devs say that itch's adult content ban is targeting lesbian games, even if they're safe for work. Thegamer. https://www.thegamer.com/adult-game-ban-affects-lesbian-lgbtq-yuri-content-itch-io-collective-shout/#threads.

Laputan Machine. [laputanmachine.bsky.social]. Apparently, they added a way to demo what happens with your youtube account if the magic AI determines you're a minor. [bsky post] Bluesky. https://bsky.app/profile/laputanmachine.bsky.social/post/3lw5l4tqlts23

[Capaccomplished8072]. If you've seen my posts across reddit, I like to post lots of LGBT content across the website. [reddit post] Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/1int1vb/why_does_lgbt_fanart_get_called_porn_or_nsfw_when/