The Greatest Booby

There is a lot of confusion about 3rd doses of the COVID vaccines for immunocompromised people and general boosters for all people.  The confusion is being made worse by news outlets referring to all 3rd doses as “boosters” even though that isn’t technically true.  There are differences in timing for these 2 groups because the 3rd dose is serving a different purpose for each group.  To understand the difference I need to briefly explain the difference between a primary series and a booster shot.

Primary Series:  The immune system’s initial exposure to the antigen (Infection) contained in the vaccine.  The goal of the primary series is to get the immune system to create antibodies to an infection.  The number of doses in a primary series varies from vaccine to vaccine.

Booster Shot:  A vaccine given after the body’s immune response to the primary series.  The goal of a booster is to ensure that the body’s immune system doesn’t “forget” how to fight the infection over time.

EXAMPLE:  All kids get 5 doses of DTaP (The tetanus shot) between 2 months and 4 years of age.  These 5 doses are the primary series.  At 11 years of age you get a Tdap.  This is your first booster for tetanus (And the other stuff).  After the Tdap, you should get a tetanus booster every 10 years so your body doesn’t forget how to fight those infections.

With that in mind, let’s talk about the third dose for immunocompromised folks vs the third dose for everyone.

Immunocompromised:  People with a compromised immune system require a third dose of the COVID vaccine as part of their primary vaccination series.  This dose is given at least 28 days after dose #2.

Booster Shot:  Research is showing that our immune system will “forget” what it learned from the COVID vaccine over time.  It is thought that giving a booster dose 8 months after completing the primary series (That’s after dose 2 for most, but after dose 3 for immunocompromised people).

@filthybonnet regularly weaves hateful, dehumanizing terf posts into her PotO blogging. More recently, she has made numerous disgusting comments that Lucy St. Louis’s hiring is mere “virtue signaling.” Few people challenged her on it, but when they did, she doubled down. She isn’t alone - other fans have made similar comments, letting their hatred for Cameron MacIntosh become racialized criticism of Lucy. There has been a general insensitivity towards Lucy: comments about her wig, complaints about the inclusive lyric changes, racist asks being published over and over. This should be challenged publicly. If you see people in the fandom making racist posts, call them on it.

People in our fandom seem reluctant to deal with these issues and as a result they fester. What we think is a “nice” place isn’t actually that nice if it tolerates terfs and racists. And on that point I agree with @trans-flint/@cefantomeenhabitnoir. Despite that my saying so before has landed me on his list a third time, I do actually believe this. 

The list is another thing we don’t talk about. I have never addressed the accusations made against me publicly. I don’t want it to seem like I don’t talk about it because I don’t care about being called a racist. I was called some disgusting names after reblogging this post on critical thinking after phandombigotryarchive’s call out of Madame Faust. I reblogged that message because I disagreed with what PBA did. I do think it’s important to call out racism in fandom, but I don’t believe PBA’s goal was ever to actually address racism in fandom, otherwise she would be active today, posting about the racism against Lucy St. Louis. PBA was out to destroy another author, and I don’t agree with that. I did not respond to PBA’s accusations against me because they were absurd. She had no evidence that I am a racist person - because there is none. She knows nothing about me - she couldn’t even get my nationality right (I am white, but I am not Brazilian, and have never pretended to be something I am not). She was clearly angry and nothing I could say would change that, so I kept quiet.

But the list continuously harms people in the PotO fandom and I think by not talking about it we are making it worse. This list of “transphobes” and “racists” includes both trans people and people of color. The list is managed and promoted by @trans-flint/ @transphandom/ @cefantomeenhabitnoir, who is white. So there is this very messed up dynamic of a white person accusing fans of color, many of them Asian, of being racist. Pharoga creators in particular were singled out as being racist and writing “Orientalist” fics even while many Pharoga writers and artists are themselves Asian and actually have lived experience with Orientalism. A white person doesn’t get to tell Asian creators they are being Orientalist. Especially when that white person has also written Pharoga fic. They seem to have deleted it all. So, @trans-flint gets to delete their fics without consequence, while the majority of people on their list are there permanently, without evidence, without opportunity to defend themselves. This is wrong.

The result of this list is not a safer phandom. The result is writers and artists of color leaving the phandom because they do not feel safe, because the list affects their mental health. It means less Pharoga content, less PotO content with a canonical person of color, and less LGBTQ+ content. If posting support for trans rights lands someone on the list again, the result is fewer people in the phandom willing to reblog trans fics and art and support for trans rights. You know who probably doesn’t care about being put on this list? The actual terfs and racists.

but we’re not

because the sun is traveling through space too

so what the earth is actually doing is this

If it works it works.