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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is charging 18 people arrested at an unpermitted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12089373/san-francisco-supervisors-demand-answers-after-pride-weekend-police-raid\">block party during Pride\u003c/a> weekend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Video footage from the event shows police in riot gear storming the Stud Alley block party on June 27 in a chaotic scene that led to 20 arrests. Everyone who was arrested was cited and released the same night. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the district attorney’s office announced that 18 people were charged with unlawful assembly, failure to disperse and resisting and obstructing an officer. They were set to be arraigned the following day at the Hall of Justice. However, the arraignment did not happen and has been rescheduled for Aug. 25, 2026. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The charges come after public scrutiny over the police response at Stud Alley over Pride weekend, as well as arrests made following the Trans March in San Francisco the day prior. Supervisor Jackie Fielder has since submitted two letters of inquiry to Mayor Daniel Lurie and law enforcement officials about what advocates said was an aggressive crackdown this year. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8280-scaled-e1783705450346.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12090481\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">San Francisco Police Department officers form a line on Turk Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood during the Trans March on June 26, 2026. (Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I was deeply concerned to see video footage and reports of San Francisco police officers clashing with San Francisco residents and visitors participating in Pride activities in two separate incidents: Trans March and an event known as ‘Stud Alley,’” Fielder’s memo said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stud Alley has taken place for six years in the South of Market neighborhood during Pride weekend. The event drew hundreds last year, as well as some criticism from neighbors, but police monitored the party then rather than shutting it down or making arrests at the scene.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This year, around 11 p.m. on June 27, police arrived at what they said was an unsanctioned block party on Kissling Street, where around 300 people had gathered. Officers ordered attendees and a DJ performing at the event to clear the area, and two adults resisted. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shortly after, some people reconvened on another block on Washburn Street, where officers declared another unlawful assembly. At the second dispersal order, 18 people were arrested. Police said two vehicles and barricades were vandalized, and there was graffiti. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The encounter came just one day after police also arrested five people in the Tenderloin, following the Trans March. In a statement, SFPD said they were responding to vandalism complaints that day, and that one individual assaulted and sprayed paint on a person.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The response has drawn criticism and renewed concerns from the city’s transgender community and allies. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We were appalled by the behavior of SFPD at the end of the march,” a letter from Rainbow Families Action, a group of families and parents of transgender children, said. “All hell broke loose around us. A large pack of police officers came charging past us, weapons drawn and with a terrifying enough urgency that one officer fell … We were terrified. Our kids were terrified.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some families said they did not feel safe bringing their children to other pride events after the police response on Friday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8302-scaled-e1783705687955.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12090480\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Police and protesters look at one another during the Trans March on June 26, 2026, near the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco. (Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I felt betrayed,” said Katie, who attended the Trans March with her transgender daughter, and asked not to use her last name to protect her child’s privacy. Katie said her family had a fun time at the march all day, until police cars started racing by them and armed officers chased people off of the street as they turned down Market. “They were not prioritizing the safety of the people.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Organizers of the Trans March met with Lurie earlier this month to discuss the response that led to four arrests. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They are demanding that the district attorney drop charges against the individuals arrested after the march, and asking the city to invest in long-term safety planning through healthcare, housing and employment for the transgender community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are committed to cooperative efforts to ensure our LGBTQ+ community members can safely participate in Trans March and other Pride celebrations,” Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor, said in a statement at the time. “We invited trans community leaders and city leaders to City Hall today to initiate a series of conversations that will take us toward safety and visibility for our transgender community in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I was deeply concerned to see video footage and reports of San Francisco police officers clashing with San Francisco residents and visitors participating in Pride activities in two separate incidents: Trans March and an event known as ‘Stud Alley,’” Fielder’s memo said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Stud Alley has taken place for six years in the South of Market neighborhood during Pride weekend. The event drew hundreds last year, as well as some criticism from neighbors, but police monitored the party then rather than shutting it down or making arrests at the scene.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This year, around 11 p.m. on June 27, police arrived at what they said was an unsanctioned block party on Kissling Street, where around 300 people had gathered. Officers ordered attendees and a DJ performing at the event to clear the area, and two adults resisted. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Shortly after, some people reconvened on another block on Washburn Street, where officers declared another unlawful assembly. At the second dispersal order, 18 people were arrested. Police said two vehicles and barricades were vandalized, and there was graffiti. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The encounter came just one day after police also arrested five people in the Tenderloin, following the Trans March. In a statement, SFPD said they were responding to vandalism complaints that day, and that one individual assaulted and sprayed paint on a person.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We were appalled by the behavior of SFPD at the end of the march,” a letter from Rainbow Families Action, a group of families and parents of transgender children, said. “All hell broke loose around us. A large pack of police officers came charging past us, weapons drawn and with a terrifying enough urgency that one officer fell … We were terrified. Our kids were terrified.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Some families said they did not feel safe bringing their children to other pride events after the police response on Friday. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I felt betrayed,” said Katie, who attended the Trans March with her transgender daughter, and asked not to use her last name to protect her child’s privacy. Katie said her family had a fun time at the march all day, until police cars started racing by them and armed officers chased people off of the street as they turned down Market. “They were not prioritizing the safety of the people.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Organizers of the Trans March met with Lurie earlier this month to discuss the response that led to four arrests. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They are demanding that the district attorney drop charges against the individuals arrested after the march, and asking the city to invest in long-term safety planning through healthcare, housing and employment for the transgender community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We are committed to cooperative efforts to ensure our LGBTQ+ community members can safely participate in Trans March and other Pride celebrations,” Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor, said in a statement at the time. “We invited trans community leaders and city leaders to City Hall today to initiate a series of conversations that will take us toward safety and visibility for our transgender community in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is charging 18 people arrested at an unpermitted \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12089373/san-francisco-supervisors-demand-answers-after-pride-weekend-police-raid\">block party during Pride\u003c/a> weekend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Video footage from the event shows police in riot gear storming the Stud Alley block party on June 27 in a chaotic scene that led to 20 arrests. Everyone who was arrested was cited and released the same night. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, the district attorney’s office announced that 18 people were charged with unlawful assembly, failure to disperse and resisting and obstructing an officer. They were set to be arraigned the following day at the Hall of Justice. However, the arraignment did not happen and has been rescheduled for Aug. 25, 2026. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The charges come after public scrutiny over the police response at Stud Alley over Pride weekend, as well as arrests made following the Trans March in San Francisco the day prior. Supervisor Jackie Fielder has since submitted two letters of inquiry to Mayor Daniel Lurie and law enforcement officials about what advocates said was an aggressive crackdown this year. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8280-scaled-e1783705450346.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12090481\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">San Francisco Police Department officers form a line on Turk Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood during the Trans March on June 26, 2026. (Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I was deeply concerned to see video footage and reports of San Francisco police officers clashing with San Francisco residents and visitors participating in Pride activities in two separate incidents: Trans March and an event known as ‘Stud Alley,’” Fielder’s memo said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stud Alley has taken place for six years in the South of Market neighborhood during Pride weekend. The event drew hundreds last year, as well as some criticism from neighbors, but police monitored the party then rather than shutting it down or making arrests at the scene.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This year, around 11 p.m. on June 27, police arrived at what they said was an unsanctioned block party on Kissling Street, where around 300 people had gathered. Officers ordered attendees and a DJ performing at the event to clear the area, and two adults resisted. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shortly after, some people reconvened on another block on Washburn Street, where officers declared another unlawful assembly. At the second dispersal order, 18 people were arrested. Police said two vehicles and barricades were vandalized, and there was graffiti. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The encounter came just one day after police also arrested five people in the Tenderloin, following the Trans March. In a statement, SFPD said they were responding to vandalism complaints that day, and that one individual assaulted and sprayed paint on a person.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The response has drawn criticism and renewed concerns from the city’s transgender community and allies. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We were appalled by the behavior of SFPD at the end of the march,” a letter from Rainbow Families Action, a group of families and parents of transgender children, said. “All hell broke loose around us. A large pack of police officers came charging past us, weapons drawn and with a terrifying enough urgency that one officer fell … We were terrified. Our kids were terrified.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Some families said they did not feel safe bringing their children to other pride events after the police response on Friday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8302-scaled-e1783705687955.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12090480\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Police and protesters look at one another during the Trans March on June 26, 2026, near the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco. (Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I felt betrayed,” said Katie, who attended the Trans March with her transgender daughter, and asked not to use her last name to protect her child’s privacy. Katie said her family had a fun time at the march all day, until police cars started racing by them and armed officers chased people off of the street as they turned down Market. “They were not prioritizing the safety of the people.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Organizers of the Trans March met with Lurie earlier this month to discuss the response that led to four arrests. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They are demanding that the district attorney drop charges against the individuals arrested after the march, and asking the city to invest in long-term safety planning through healthcare, housing and employment for the transgender community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are committed to cooperative efforts to ensure our LGBTQ+ community members can safely participate in Trans March and other Pride celebrations,” Charles Lutvak, a spokesperson for the mayor, said in a statement at the time. “We invited trans community leaders and city leaders to City Hall today to initiate a series of conversations that will take us toward safety and visibility for our transgender community in San Francisco.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "new-details-emerge-about-sfpd-arrests-and-use-of-force-during-trans-march",
"title": "New Details Emerge About SFPD Arrests and Use of Force During Trans March",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco Police Chief Derrick Lew offered new information about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12089373/san-francisco-supervisors-demand-answers-after-pride-weekend-police-raid\">arrests, use of force and surveillance\u003c/a> during San Francisco’s Pride Weekend on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a dozen transgender residents and their allies packed San Francisco’s Police Commission meeting on Wednesday night to demand accountability for what they described as a violent, militarized police response to two events in late June. That included the June 26 Trans March, which ended in arrests near Turk and Taylor streets, blocks from the site of the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria uprising; and an unpermitted block party the next night in the South of Market neighborhood, known as the Stud Alley party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video of both \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaEvoG-RX3M/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==\">spread widely online\u003c/a>, leading District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder to file a \u003ca href=\"https://static1.squarespace.com/static/65023928e628bd272e752a09/t/6a431dd60898a511080e40e1/1782783446423/LOI+into+SFPD+re_+pride.pdf\">letter of inquiry\u003c/a> demanding the department, Mayor Daniel Lurie and other officials explain what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One after another, speakers told the commission they had come to celebrate — and instead watched officers wade into crowds with batons and rifles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no reasonable world where armed police officers should be allowed to instigate violence by charging into an unarmed crowd of thousands,” one speaker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A trans resident named Leah said people were shoved and handled aggressively, some left with bruises, and that one person reported a concussion. Another speaker, who said she had fled political persecution in Russia, told the commission the officers reminded her of what she had left behind: “people who have been sanctioned by the state to protect us, [who] attack us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090418\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090418\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hundreds participated in a march for Trans Rights in San Francisco, California, on June 26, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kane C Andrade)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Several framed the response as a betrayal of the city’s reputation as a refuge. “If trans people cannot feel safe in this city in San Francisco, what message does that send to the rest of the country?” Leah said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chief Derrick Lew, appearing before the commission during his regular report, pushed back on what he called misperceptions about the operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The San Francisco Police Department supports the LGBTQ community full stop,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trans March arrests, he added, “were not targeted at the transgender community” but at “a few people amongst thousands of peaceful participants who chose to break the law” — conduct he said would have drawn arrests “at any event.”[aside postID=news_12089373 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250128-SFImmigration-25-BL_qed.jpg']Lew said the proximity to Compton’s Cafeteria was not chosen “to demean, offend or disrespect,” but was simply where suspects were encountered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the chief’s account, around 7 p.m., officers saw several people using paint-filled, Super Soaker-style water guns to spray buildings, vehicles and security cameras along the route. A police drone tracked two suspects to Turk and Taylor, Lew said, and captured footage of them stuffing the water guns into a paper bag and stripping off outer clothing and face coverings to “blend back into” the crowd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When officers moved in, he said, a crowd of roughly 300 surrounded them, linked arms, chanted “let them go” and threw glass bottles; one person climbed onto a patrol car and another pried open its door to try to free the detained suspects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What began as “targeted enforcement,” Lew said, “evolved into a crowd management situation” after officers met interference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He reported six arrests at the march, on charges that included felony vandalism with a hate-crime enhancement, conspiracy, resisting arrest and battery on an officer, and more than 20 acts of vandalism, mostly to security and license-plate-reader Flock cameras. In an earlier statement to KQED, SFPD reported five Trans March arrests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Stud Alley Pride Weekend party the following night, Lew said, a crowd that grew past 100 blocked Kissling Street with boulders and later built barricades on Washburn Street out of wood, traffic cones and plumbing pipe, spray-painting anti-police graffiti.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090481\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8280-scaled-e1783705450346.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Police Department officers form a line on Turk Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood during the Trans March on June 26, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officers declared an unlawful assembly and made 20 arrests, mostly for unlawful assembly and resisting or delaying an officer, he said; two officers suffered minor injuries, and a group slashed the tires of two Waymo vehicles. In the past, the party, a six-year SoMa tradition, had been monitored rather than shut down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sharpest exchange of the night came over use of force. In response to questions from Commission Vice President Kevin Benedicto, Lew confirmed there were eight uses of force at the Trans March and one at the block party — but said he did not have details on what those incidents entailed — drawing repeated criticism from the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve clearly and carefully, meticulously tracked instances of vandalism at the Trans March,” one speaker said, “but it’s extremely troubling that you can’t seem to cite even one use of force.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others said the count did not match what they witnessed. One commenter described seeing an officer knock a woman to the ground beside her; another said she encountered an older woman, jeans torn and bleeding, who had been pushed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090480\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090480\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8302-scaled-e1783705687955.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Police and protesters look at one another during the Trans March on June 26, 2026, near the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Several returned to the same question: why officers moved into a dense crowd to arrest suspects already identified by drone, rather than making arrests later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who put property over human life and health?” asked one Mission District resident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others questioned the use of drones, and Flock automated license-plate cameras at LGBTQ events, citing reports that such data has been shared with agencies in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Karen Fleshman, a District 5 resident, told the commission that cameras funded by a single tech billionaire — in reference to \u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/san-francisco-gets-invasive-billionaire-bought-surveillance-hq\">Ripple founder Chris Larsen\u003c/a>, whose $9.4 million gift funded a new crime investigations center — had spread across the city, and that “the people of San Francisco don’t want a surveillance state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Police Accountability said it is auditing SFPD’s use of surveillance and license-plate readers, an inquiry it opened in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12090478 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8343-scaled-e1783706096233.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Demonstrators and police officers clash during the Trans March on June 26, 2026, near the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Not everyone objected to police at community celebrations. San Francisco police have long had a heavy presence during Pride, including marching in the main parade — something that has drawn objection from many in the LGBTQ community in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917710/sfpd-officers-to-march-in-pride-amid-complicated-feelings-uniform-compromise\">recent years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A retired police officer said officers had helped make a recent Juneteenth celebration a success, and Commissioner Mattie Scott pushed for a prevention-focused approach, with community “ambassadors” and strategic planning ahead of large events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Commissioners Benedicto and Cindy Elias asked that Fielder’s letter and the department’s response be posted publicly and agendized for a future meeting, and pressed Lew on holding a town hall of the kind SFPD convenes after officer-involved shootings. Lew said he was in talks with supervisors about some form of public discussion and that the department’s response to Fielder is due July 16.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many who spoke, that was not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Shame on all of you,” said activist Michael Petrelis, faulting the commission for not formally placing the Trans March on its agenda. “When cops show up, trouble starts. That is the lesson I take away from what happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco Police Chief Derrick Lew offered new information about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12089373/san-francisco-supervisors-demand-answers-after-pride-weekend-police-raid\">arrests, use of force and surveillance\u003c/a> during San Francisco’s Pride Weekend on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a dozen transgender residents and their allies packed San Francisco’s Police Commission meeting on Wednesday night to demand accountability for what they described as a violent, militarized police response to two events in late June. That included the June 26 Trans March, which ended in arrests near Turk and Taylor streets, blocks from the site of the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria uprising; and an unpermitted block party the next night in the South of Market neighborhood, known as the Stud Alley party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video of both \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaEvoG-RX3M/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==\">spread widely online\u003c/a>, leading District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder to file a \u003ca href=\"https://static1.squarespace.com/static/65023928e628bd272e752a09/t/6a431dd60898a511080e40e1/1782783446423/LOI+into+SFPD+re_+pride.pdf\">letter of inquiry\u003c/a> demanding the department, Mayor Daniel Lurie and other officials explain what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One after another, speakers told the commission they had come to celebrate — and instead watched officers wade into crowds with batons and rifles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no reasonable world where armed police officers should be allowed to instigate violence by charging into an unarmed crowd of thousands,” one speaker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A trans resident named Leah said people were shoved and handled aggressively, some left with bruises, and that one person reported a concussion. Another speaker, who said she had fled political persecution in Russia, told the commission the officers reminded her of what she had left behind: “people who have been sanctioned by the state to protect us, [who] attack us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090418\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090418\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/A64A3904-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hundreds participated in a march for Trans Rights in San Francisco, California, on June 26, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kane C Andrade)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Several framed the response as a betrayal of the city’s reputation as a refuge. “If trans people cannot feel safe in this city in San Francisco, what message does that send to the rest of the country?” Leah said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chief Derrick Lew, appearing before the commission during his regular report, pushed back on what he called misperceptions about the operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The San Francisco Police Department supports the LGBTQ community full stop,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Trans March arrests, he added, “were not targeted at the transgender community” but at “a few people amongst thousands of peaceful participants who chose to break the law” — conduct he said would have drawn arrests “at any event.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Lew said the proximity to Compton’s Cafeteria was not chosen “to demean, offend or disrespect,” but was simply where suspects were encountered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By the chief’s account, around 7 p.m., officers saw several people using paint-filled, Super Soaker-style water guns to spray buildings, vehicles and security cameras along the route. A police drone tracked two suspects to Turk and Taylor, Lew said, and captured footage of them stuffing the water guns into a paper bag and stripping off outer clothing and face coverings to “blend back into” the crowd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When officers moved in, he said, a crowd of roughly 300 surrounded them, linked arms, chanted “let them go” and threw glass bottles; one person climbed onto a patrol car and another pried open its door to try to free the detained suspects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What began as “targeted enforcement,” Lew said, “evolved into a crowd management situation” after officers met interference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He reported six arrests at the march, on charges that included felony vandalism with a hate-crime enhancement, conspiracy, resisting arrest and battery on an officer, and more than 20 acts of vandalism, mostly to security and license-plate-reader Flock cameras. In an earlier statement to KQED, SFPD reported five Trans March arrests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Stud Alley Pride Weekend party the following night, Lew said, a crowd that grew past 100 blocked Kissling Street with boulders and later built barricades on Washburn Street out of wood, traffic cones and plumbing pipe, spray-painting anti-police graffiti.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090481\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8280-scaled-e1783705450346.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Police Department officers form a line on Turk Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood during the Trans March on June 26, 2026. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officers declared an unlawful assembly and made 20 arrests, mostly for unlawful assembly and resisting or delaying an officer, he said; two officers suffered minor injuries, and a group slashed the tires of two Waymo vehicles. In the past, the party, a six-year SoMa tradition, had been monitored rather than shut down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sharpest exchange of the night came over use of force. In response to questions from Commission Vice President Kevin Benedicto, Lew confirmed there were eight uses of force at the Trans March and one at the block party — but said he did not have details on what those incidents entailed — drawing repeated criticism from the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’ve clearly and carefully, meticulously tracked instances of vandalism at the Trans March,” one speaker said, “but it’s extremely troubling that you can’t seem to cite even one use of force.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others said the count did not match what they witnessed. One commenter described seeing an officer knock a woman to the ground beside her; another said she encountered an older woman, jeans torn and bleeding, who had been pushed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090480\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090480\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8302-scaled-e1783705687955.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Police and protesters look at one another during the Trans March on June 26, 2026, near the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Several returned to the same question: why officers moved into a dense crowd to arrest suspects already identified by drone, rather than making arrests later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who put property over human life and health?” asked one Mission District resident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others questioned the use of drones, and Flock automated license-plate cameras at LGBTQ events, citing reports that such data has been shared with agencies in other states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Karen Fleshman, a District 5 resident, told the commission that cameras funded by a single tech billionaire — in reference to \u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/san-francisco-gets-invasive-billionaire-bought-surveillance-hq\">Ripple founder Chris Larsen\u003c/a>, whose $9.4 million gift funded a new crime investigations center — had spread across the city, and that “the people of San Francisco don’t want a surveillance state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Police Accountability said it is auditing SFPD’s use of surveillance and license-plate readers, an inquiry it opened in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090478\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12090478 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/DSC8343-scaled-e1783706096233.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Demonstrators and police officers clash during the Trans March on June 26, 2026, near the intersection of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Deja Whitney)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Not everyone objected to police at community celebrations. San Francisco police have long had a heavy presence during Pride, including marching in the main parade — something that has drawn objection from many in the LGBTQ community in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11917710/sfpd-officers-to-march-in-pride-amid-complicated-feelings-uniform-compromise\">recent years\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A retired police officer said officers had helped make a recent Juneteenth celebration a success, and Commissioner Mattie Scott pushed for a prevention-focused approach, with community “ambassadors” and strategic planning ahead of large events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Commissioners Benedicto and Cindy Elias asked that Fielder’s letter and the department’s response be posted publicly and agendized for a future meeting, and pressed Lew on holding a town hall of the kind SFPD convenes after officer-involved shootings. Lew said he was in talks with supervisors about some form of public discussion and that the department’s response to Fielder is due July 16.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many who spoke, that was not enough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Shame on all of you,” said activist Michael Petrelis, faulting the commission for not formally placing the Trans March on its agenda. “When cops show up, trouble starts. That is the lesson I take away from what happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "in-a-rainbow-trimmed-robe-at-the-world-cup-a-gay-qatari-doctor-advocates-for-equal-rights",
"title": "In a Rainbow-Trimmed Robe at the World Cup, a Gay Qatari Doctor Advocates for Equal Rights",
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"headTitle": "In a Rainbow-Trimmed Robe at the World Cup, a Gay Qatari Doctor Advocates for Equal Rights | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Formally dressed in a traditional Qatari bisht, Dr. Nasser Mohamed strolled past a crowd of several hundred people \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12086953/the-world-cup-has-arrived-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area-is-anyone-else-coming\">outside Chase Center\u003c/a> as the England-Croatia \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/world-cup\">World Cup \u003c/a>match was shown high above on the big screen. His gold-and-black robe featured a flourish: rainbow piping down each sleeve and the words “love” and “freedom” written in Arabic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why the World Cup is really powerful, because people don’t need to hear about who I am — I can just walk, be seen, and that’s it,” he said. “We don’t have to say a word.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years ago, when the World Cup was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-sports-soccer-international-gay-rights-54e5b2a4f51e471ca3a8f10816af201b\">played in his home country\u003c/a> and Mohamed was already living across the world in San Francisco, he came out and became an exceptionally rare openly gay man from Qatar, where gay sex is prohibited and he can’t dress how he’d like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mohamed is speaking up again for those without a voice. The 39-year-old now feels secure enough to walk around with confidence, and without fear of harm, while wearing chunky heeled boots, mascara and 2-inch dangly earrings. He still gets regular backlash and hate, but he has also found support and kindness from around the globe that helps drown out the death threats and divisiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am so loved in San Francisco, really, truly,” Mohamed said of the city he moved to more than a decade ago. “I have not worn this since I was a kid in Qatar, and San Francisco put it back on my shoulders, with rainbows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For him, donning the bisht for everyone to see is important: “The emir of Qatar put it on (Lionel) Messi at the last World Cup to celebrate Messi. We should be celebrated too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Mohamed campaigns for love at the World Cup\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An LGBTQ+ activist and family doctor who treats HIV, “Dr. Nas” — as he is known — launched his “Love is the Goal” campaign ahead of the World Cup and Pride Month, hoping to humanize all people taking part. For a video, he combined soccer lingo with references to love, such as him reading “love is kickoff, the very first touch,” and someone else offering “love is the assist, finding you exactly where you are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Saving a life like mine is very expensive, and I know that, and this is the hard truth,” Mohamed said. “So that’s why I had to pave my own path and get out. I lost everything. I’m disowned completely. I had to build myself from scratch, the ground up, all of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088758\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Nasser Mohamed, of Qatar, is photographed, Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, Qatar plays its final group-stage match, against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Seattle. Mohamed won’t be there, but he was at the team’s first game, on June 13 in Santa Clara, California. He had clear and visible security, and was escorted by California state Sen. Scott Wiener to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/qatar-switzerland-world-cup-score-c1232e9fc7bcde023a14db26e767e90e\">the 1-1 draw with Switzerland.\u003c/a> A photo from the day has more than 12 million views on social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As I was passing, everybody was taking pictures of me with the senator,” he recalled. “It was so dramatic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And emotional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the stadium I couldn’t speak because if I started talking I’m not going to stop crying, because when am I going to see Qatar again in my life?” Mohamed said through tears. “When is it ever going to happen again? I don’t know. When am I going to see home? I can’t see Mom and Dad, even when they were getting hit by missiles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Even in exile, Mohamed still cheers for Qatar\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After the game, he hosted a dance party at the San Francisco Mint highlighted by a performance \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zOTqlMJ9w\">“Let Your Love Shine,”\u003c/a> written by close friend Simon Tam and sung by Debby Holiday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nas’ journey moves me because it is rooted in extraordinary courage and an enormous heart,” Tam said. “He’s taken his own truth and turned it into a way to help others feel seen, worthy, and less alone.” [aside postID=news_12088198 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260622-WCJORALG-KQED-05-KQED.jpg'] Tam believes Mohamed can change the world — and that’s the doctor’s hope, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first step to heal is to witness things the way they are,” Mohamed said. “My endgame is for every child to belong with their own family and their own society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it breaks his heart knowing he can’t go back to Qatar, he says. Mohamed says he has been ostracized by his own family because of his sexuality and for standing up to power to help others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has aided moves out of Qatar for others, including a transgender woman who told The Associated Press she had been imprisoned and tortured because of her identity. The woman spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear for her safety. The AP could not independently confirm the woman’s account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AP did not contact Qatar’s government prior to publication of the story, and the government did not respond to subsequent later requests seeking comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mohamed is thankful for this new existence, embracing the obstacles that come with his work, even as he believes his safety could be at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all fled persecution and took political asylum in the U.S., and now we invited all of them to come here to play soccer,” he said. “I didn’t feel safe leaving my apartment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, after everything, he roots for Qatar — and the Americans. He plans to watch the U.S. during the round of 32 next week in Santa Clara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am cheering for both the United States and for Qatar with love,” he said. “They both had homes for me and, when I challenge either of them, it is out of love, and I mean it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "In a Rainbow-Trimmed Robe at the World Cup, a Gay Qatari Doctor Advocates for Equal Rights | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Formally dressed in a traditional Qatari bisht, Dr. Nasser Mohamed strolled past a crowd of several hundred people \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12086953/the-world-cup-has-arrived-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area-is-anyone-else-coming\">outside Chase Center\u003c/a> as the England-Croatia \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/world-cup\">World Cup \u003c/a>match was shown high above on the big screen. His gold-and-black robe featured a flourish: rainbow piping down each sleeve and the words “love” and “freedom” written in Arabic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why the World Cup is really powerful, because people don’t need to hear about who I am — I can just walk, be seen, and that’s it,” he said. “We don’t have to say a word.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years ago, when the World Cup was \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-sports-soccer-international-gay-rights-54e5b2a4f51e471ca3a8f10816af201b\">played in his home country\u003c/a> and Mohamed was already living across the world in San Francisco, he came out and became an exceptionally rare openly gay man from Qatar, where gay sex is prohibited and he can’t dress how he’d like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mohamed is speaking up again for those without a voice. The 39-year-old now feels secure enough to walk around with confidence, and without fear of harm, while wearing chunky heeled boots, mascara and 2-inch dangly earrings. He still gets regular backlash and hate, but he has also found support and kindness from around the globe that helps drown out the death threats and divisiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am so loved in San Francisco, really, truly,” Mohamed said of the city he moved to more than a decade ago. “I have not worn this since I was a kid in Qatar, and San Francisco put it back on my shoulders, with rainbows.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For him, donning the bisht for everyone to see is important: “The emir of Qatar put it on (Lionel) Messi at the last World Cup to celebrate Messi. We should be celebrated too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Mohamed campaigns for love at the World Cup\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An LGBTQ+ activist and family doctor who treats HIV, “Dr. Nas” — as he is known — launched his “Love is the Goal” campaign ahead of the World Cup and Pride Month, hoping to humanize all people taking part. For a video, he combined soccer lingo with references to love, such as him reading “love is kickoff, the very first touch,” and someone else offering “love is the assist, finding you exactly where you are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Saving a life like mine is very expensive, and I know that, and this is the hard truth,” Mohamed said. “So that’s why I had to pave my own path and get out. I lost everything. I’m disowned completely. I had to build myself from scratch, the ground up, all of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088758\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088758\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/AP26172718919179-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Nasser Mohamed, of Qatar, is photographed, Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in San Francisco. \u003ccite>(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Wednesday, Qatar plays its final group-stage match, against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Seattle. Mohamed won’t be there, but he was at the team’s first game, on June 13 in Santa Clara, California. He had clear and visible security, and was escorted by California state Sen. Scott Wiener to \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/qatar-switzerland-world-cup-score-c1232e9fc7bcde023a14db26e767e90e\">the 1-1 draw with Switzerland.\u003c/a> A photo from the day has more than 12 million views on social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As I was passing, everybody was taking pictures of me with the senator,” he recalled. “It was so dramatic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And emotional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the stadium I couldn’t speak because if I started talking I’m not going to stop crying, because when am I going to see Qatar again in my life?” Mohamed said through tears. “When is it ever going to happen again? I don’t know. When am I going to see home? I can’t see Mom and Dad, even when they were getting hit by missiles.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Even in exile, Mohamed still cheers for Qatar\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After the game, he hosted a dance party at the San Francisco Mint highlighted by a performance \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zOTqlMJ9w\">“Let Your Love Shine,”\u003c/a> written by close friend Simon Tam and sung by Debby Holiday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nas’ journey moves me because it is rooted in extraordinary courage and an enormous heart,” Tam said. “He’s taken his own truth and turned it into a way to help others feel seen, worthy, and less alone.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Tam believes Mohamed can change the world — and that’s the doctor’s hope, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The first step to heal is to witness things the way they are,” Mohamed said. “My endgame is for every child to belong with their own family and their own society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it breaks his heart knowing he can’t go back to Qatar, he says. Mohamed says he has been ostracized by his own family because of his sexuality and for standing up to power to help others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He has aided moves out of Qatar for others, including a transgender woman who told The Associated Press she had been imprisoned and tortured because of her identity. The woman spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear for her safety. The AP could not independently confirm the woman’s account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The AP did not contact Qatar’s government prior to publication of the story, and the government did not respond to subsequent later requests seeking comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mohamed is thankful for this new existence, embracing the obstacles that come with his work, even as he believes his safety could be at stake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all fled persecution and took political asylum in the U.S., and now we invited all of them to come here to play soccer,” he said. “I didn’t feel safe leaving my apartment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, after everything, he roots for Qatar — and the Americans. He plans to watch the U.S. during the round of 32 next week in Santa Clara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am cheering for both the United States and for Qatar with love,” he said. “They both had homes for me and, when I challenge either of them, it is out of love, and I mean it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "the-55b-deal-that-has-sims-players-worried",
"title": "The $55B Deal That Has Sims Players Worried",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When shareholders of gaming giant Electronic Arts approved an acquisition of the company by a group that includes Jared Kushner’s private equity firm and the Saudi Public Investment Fund late last year, it rocked the entertainment industry. The sale worth an estimated $55 billion sent the player community of the EA-owned game The Sims scrambling, afraid that a game known as a haven for LGBTQ+ expression might be changed for the worse. In this second part of our exploration of the inclusive history of The Sims franchise, we dive into what the deal might mean for the game, how it’s reshaping the future of the industry, and why a popular Sims streamer is ready to walk away from the game in protest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7131851733\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/lilsimsie\">Kayla Sims\u003c/a>, Twitch streamer and YouTuber known as “lilsimsie”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/zefrine/\">Zefrine\u003c/a>, Twitch streamer and organizer with The Players Alliance\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jessica Croft, senior designer at EA on The Sims 4 \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083135/bay-area-gamers-rally-against-electronic-arts-55-billion-acquisition\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Area Gamers Rally Against Electronic Arts’ $55 Billion Acquisition\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-gaming-is-the-new-oil-how-the-ea-buyout-diverges-from-the-traditional-playbook-\">‘Gaming is the new oil:’ How the EA buyout ‘diverges from the traditional playbook’\u003c/a> — Nicole Carpenter, \u003ci>Game Developer\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://aftermath.site/rep-maxwell-frost-lilsimsie-stream-ea-saudi-arabia-interview/\">Congressman Teams Up With Popular Sims Streamer To Oppose Saudi Purchase Of EA\u003c/a> — Nathan Grayson, \u003ci>\u003ci>Aftermath\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/us-representative-maxwell-frost-voices-protest-over-saudi-buyout-of-ea\">US representative Maxwell Frost protests Saudi buyout of EA\u003c/a> — Diego Argüello, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Game Developer\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/games/816750/the-sims-ea-buyout-content-creator-program-departures-lilsimsie\">Sims streamers are distancing themselves from EA, but for some the choice is hard\u003c/a> — Ash Parrish\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>,\u003ci> The Verge\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://simscommunity.info/2026/06/17/ea-advertisement-brands-history/\">EA Advertisement Isn’t New: A Look Back At The Sims’ History With Brands (And What Comes Next)\u003c/a> — Callum Bowyer,\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci> Sims Community\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://cepr.net/publications/electronic-arts-and-private-equity/\">Private Equity’s EA Takeover: Corruption, Contradictions, and Exploitation\u003c/a> — Daniel Stone, \u003ci>Center for Economic and Policy Research\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sul Sul! That’s “hello” in Simlish. This is the second part of our deep dive into the queer history of The Sims. Do you like these deep dives? Whether you call yourself a Tabbie or a Tab Head or part of the Tab Hive, if you’re a fan of Close All Tabs, it would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to us! Okay, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is a med pack in my backpack, so if anyone like, tweaks their ankle or falls or something, in this lower pouch there is a second pouch, you’ll find all sorts of medical stuff in there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In early May, a colorful group of gamers assembled in a grocery store parking lot in Redwood City, California — preparing to march on the headquarters of video game giant Electronic Arts. They called it a “raid,” which, in gaming terms, means a big battle with the intention of taking down the boss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This has concluded your safety brief. All right, woo! We did it! And then once you’re here, everybody look at me. We’re just going to grab a quick photo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a small group — maybe a dozen — but passionate. They’re part of an organization called The Players Alliance. They pulled up in elaborate costumes, with some wearing plumbobs, the gems from The Sims. Some wore the more common green ones, which float above the heads of happy Sims. But several in the group donned red plumbobs — typically seen on unhappy Sims, which is an iconic way to express anger toward The Sims’ parent company.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The group had gathered to protest the $55 billion deal that would take EA private and transfer ownership to a group of investors that includes a firm led by Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The Players Alliance created an online petition addressed to U.S. Secretary Scott Bessent, calling on him to block the buyout. They had over 70,000 signatures by that point, printed on a comically long scroll. The plan? Rally other players, block the buyout, and, of course, stream the whole thing. Streamer and organizer, Kase Cosgrove, took the mic for much of the demonstration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kase Cosgrove: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woo! Here we go! Welcome everyone! We are here to… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They staged a boss fight, which involved taking down giant cardboard heads of the guys in charge of the buyout. Picture a huge Jared Kushner cutout surrounded by disapproving gamers. Then, they turned to a cutout of EA CEO Andrew Wilson. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! He’s betraying you, he’s betraying us, he’s betraying the workers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then came the big finale. The group unfurled the massive roll of paper printed with a portion of the 70,000 signatures. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the gaming community. These are the people that signed their name on the dotted line that joined us. And I need you to know, this isn’t all of them. We have over 70,000 signatures — something we did in two months, not two years. I also want to add that this is 50 feet, a thousand signatures — this would span over a half mile at this size. It’s simply too big. And we’re only growing… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Rachel… Better known as Zefrine. She’s an organizer and Sims creator who spoke about why she opposes the buyout. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims is a game about life and like, that’s everyone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kase Cosgrove: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sims, the game about life, they should use that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All colors, all walks of life. Yeah, like all of that. And that’s why we’re here today. Like me specifically, for a myriad of reasons, not only for the integrity of the industry, the jobs, the security, and the more that they continue to just treat it like the cash cow that it’s viewed to be by people who don’t care about us — the more that those spaces are going to become inaccessible to people who can no longer afford them. I love this… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many gamers are concerned about the EA buyout — fearing employee layoffs, decreasing quality of games, and aggressive monetization. But for Sims players, the threat feels especially personal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mivyard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a bisexual, there weren’t a lot of games where you could just have anybody, romance anybody else. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a Sims creator who goes by Mivyard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mivyard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was really important for me, especially when I was younger. So this game has a really special place in my heart and just the thought of it being taken over by people who might want to censor that aspect and that representation for the community is really frightening. So, when the news about the buyout dropped, a lot of Simmers and Sims streamers were like, “Oh my god,” like, “What do we do?” Like, what action can we do to actually… have an effect on the situation? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does this deal really entail? If it goes through, what are the consequences on the gaming industry and its workers? And, is there anything that can stop it? Last week, we dove into the queer history of The Sims. Today, we’re looking at the present reality of EA and the future of this beloved game. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Picking up where we left off last week’s deep dive: let’s open another tab. What does The Sims mean to players? How many hours do you have logged on The Sims 4? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh dear, let me open it and I’ll find out. 10,522. And actually, it’s more than that, because I had like 1,700 hours in the Create A Sim demo as well — and then, now they’re all logged with The Sims 4 regular game, but doesn’t count those. So, it’s… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my god!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Probably like 12,000, which — yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. No, but like it’s my job, right? So it’s totally fine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Kayla Sims. She’s a Twitch streamer and YouTuber better known as LilSimsie. She has millions of followers. Almost every day, like five to six days a week, viewers tune in to watch her play cozy games. Think: farming sims like Stardew Valley, or social games like Animal Crossing. These are games that revolve more around creativity, slowing down, and exploring. It’s the complete opposite of first-person shooters like Call of Duty and Halo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing Animal Crossing from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve been playing Animal Crossing for a couple of weeks now on this channel and unfortunately my island is still really, really ugly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cozy games aren’t necessarily low stakes. One of the most popular games of the genre is The Sims. It’s a game where a lot can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing The Sims from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh well, we decorated the tree… No!!! Why is this happening? Oh my god, the tree’s on fire! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims community is so different from other gamer circles online. At the Game Developer Conference in 2023, Phillip Ring, an executive producer for The Sims 4, gave a talk on developing DEI content in games. He cited a demographic study conducted by The Sims team. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Phillip Ring from GDC Vault website]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">43% of our audience identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community. And 38% of audience are people of color. That’s far exceeding traditional gaming demographics on these dimensions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And 64% of Sims players are cis women. 17% are gender fluid or trans. Just over 20% are cis men, which is incredibly rare in gaming, an industry that’s long been marketed to men. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Phillip Ring from GDC Vault website]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a tremendous testament to the progress that we are making towards The Sims being a place where all players can represent themselves and see the world as they imagine it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that sometimes gaming gets a bad reputation. People think about horrible hate speech being spewed in voice chats and stuff, but The Sims is just not like that. I think that actually a lot of marginalized folks kind of flock to The Sims because it is so welcoming and so accepting. And so, it’s just a really wholesome, wonderful place to be. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Obviously it’s heavily made up by a lot queer folks, a lot people from the LGBTQ+ community are in The Sims community. There’s a lot of women in The Sims community as well. I think it’s just in general kind of a different demographic from a lot of other really major games titles, especially games titles that have been around for this long. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What has The Sims meant to you throughout your life? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It might sound silly, but honestly, The Sims has meant everything to me. When I was a kid, I really had a hard time in middle school and high school. I was kind of having a lot of mental health struggles and then my dad got cancer, and I was really like, going through it when I was in school. And The Sims was a real escape for me back then — not just playing the game, but like the community as a whole. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was almost like a utopia, right? Like I could like escape into this game where everything was fine. And it was a creative outlet for me to like, work on building houses and making characters and like, telling stories and stuff. And it’s kind of, I think, shaped me now and shaped my hobbies and my interests to this day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like many Simmers, Kayla started playing The Sims as a kid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I finally managed to convince my parents to buy it for me after a long time of begging. I was like, “No, this is like named after us. We need to play it,” you know? “It’s fate.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In high school, Kayla started taking video production classes. It was the mid-2010s. Reaction videos and short form content hadn’t taken over yet. This was the golden age of YouTube. Gaming playthroughs and daily vlogs were blowing up. Kayla loved watching them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is around the time that my dad was diagnosed with cancer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After months of being sick, her dad was diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer. Kayla’s parents went to Tampa for treatment, leaving Kayla and her younger siblings with their grandparents, two hours away. And Kayla felt really alone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I was really looking, I think, for an outlet, and like, maybe also some community, because I was playing the game alone… And I think I was really like, kind of grasping to see if I could find some people that were like me and make some friends. So I started making videos just for fun and I really poured so much into it. I’ve spent all my free time playing the game and recording it and thinking about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At 16 years old, Kayla started posting videos of her attempt at completing the, “Sims 4: 100 Baby Challenge.” Basically, you have to birth and successfully raise 100 in-game babies. Once your Sim can no longer have babies, you pick an heir, get them pregnant, and keep going. The goal is to build a family tree with all 100 babies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing The Sims from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi everybody and welcome back to Part 3… I think? Of Let’s Play The Sims 4: 100 Baby Challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It took Kayla five years to finish the challenge. To be fair, she was also making other videos about The Sims: reviews, playthroughs, speed builds — but still, it was five years of her life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing The Sims from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- It’s over. We- It’s done. We did it. Little did I know when I was 16 years old and starting this stupid challenge that I would be 21 when I finished it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the time it took Kayla to raise 100 in-game babies, her dad’s health stabilized, she built a huge following, and she found a community of fellow Simmers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I ended up making so many friends that are lifelong friends to this day, 10 years later. I was so shy and so anxious and to meet some of these other girls that were my same age, and they were also really shy and really anxious and having some similar mental health struggles, and they we’re also really into The Sims. And so, it was really, really powerful, I think, for me to make some friends that I felt like I could truly be myself with, because I don’t know if I had that in person and at school. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As her channel grew, Kayla started doing charity streams, fundraising for various causes. Her big one is an annual, month-long fundraising campaign for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Just last month, she raised over a million dollars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla’s livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">999,000! Woo! Oh my god! One million. *screaming*\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her dad often pops in for those streams. Fans call him PapaSimsie or LilDadsie. And every year, Kayla takes a break from playing The Sims while she and her mom shave her dad’s head, live on stream, as part of the fundraiser. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla’s livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She’s embarrassed. Yeah. \u003cem>[laughing]\u003c/em> Of me? Of bald daddy? \u003cem>[more laughing]\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad’s kind of weird. I mean that in a good way. But, you know, he really hams it up for the camera. And I think that people enjoy that. He’s really gotten involved with some of those things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla’s livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can call me bald daddy. Stop!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now, the whole Sims family is also involved in Sims content. It’s the Simsie-verse. Over the years, Kayla started working directly with Maxis, which is owned by EA. Back in the day, the company flew out Sims creators to play test games early and give feedback directly to developers. It was mutually beneficial — the creators got early access footage that they got to post, and Maxis got to drum up some promotion for upcoming game content. A symbiotic relationship, if you will. In her reviews, Kayla’s been a pretty harsh critic of the pre-made buildings in the earlier Sims expansion packs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s one build that just, like, never ceases to amaze me, and it comes in Get Famous. It’s like this celebrity mansion. There’s five bathrooms. No toilets. There’s like space for a toilet. They’ve — clearly, they meant to put it there, and they just didn’t put one. Why?\u003cem> [laughs] \u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The developers at Maxis were definitely keeping tabs on the criticism. So, they asked Kayla to work on a few builds for upcoming releases. She created three buildings for the expansion pack Snowy Escape, which came out in 2020. And then again, for another expansion pack a few years later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s all to say that Kayla’s life had become completely intertwined with The Sims. I mean, it’s her last name! Her parents were involved. She built a career out of playing this game. These playthroughs and reviews and silly challenges paid her bills. And, she played it in her free time, too. The Sims had become her job, but it was still the safe space that it was for her as an anxious, lonely teenager. Which is why she was so heartbroken when news of the EA buyout went public. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I couldn’t even believe it, to be honest, and I was so, so sad and scared. I mean, like, tears have been shed over this by me, because I feel like they’re tearing something away from us, you know? It’s really frustrating to have something that has been such a safe space for so long be bought out by people that are not safe. And I think that a lot of Sims players kind of echo that same sentiment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, we know that this is a $55 billion deal — a truly unfathomable amount of money. Beyond the staggering price tag… what does this buyout really entail? Game studios are sold and acquired all the time — why are players so concerned about this one in particular? We’re opening a tab on that in just a minute. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcasts. Okay, after the break: the EA buyouts and The Players Alliance. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Time to open a new tab: the EA buyout, explained. In October, Kayla joins other major Sims creators in leaving the EA Creator Network. This is the official partnership program for The Sims, and it opens the doors to huge perks. Creators in the network get early access to game packs, an affiliate code to share with their followers, and invites to beta testing sessions and special events. Some creators in the network even get paid collaborations. Stepping down from the Creator Network means giving up a lot of opportunities for Simmers like Kayla. But, as she learned more about the buyout deal, she knew she couldn’t stay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Upon first seeing it, I was like, “I do not want this to happen, I hope that it will not go through, and I want people to be aware of what is going on.” I kind of in good conscience do not want to work with EA directly and like, support them behind the scenes or have any like, contractual obligation to them if this sale goes through. I had hoped that by a large creator like myself and also a bunch of other large Sims creators leaving the network, it would kind of take a huge stand and hopefully send signs to them about how much we do not want this to happen and how strongly we stand against it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s talk about the details of this deal. In September last year, EA announced that the brand and its catalog had been sold to an “investor consortium” in a $55 billion deal. This group of investors includes the tech-focused private equity firm Silver Lake, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. That’s the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this deal alone could buy the entire music industry. I think that sometimes we forget just how big gaming is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The consortium didn’t publicly disclose the planned ownership breakdown. That part actually came from a filing with Brazil’s antitrust regulators — spotted by the Wall Street Journal. So, once EA is delisted from the NASDAQ, Affinity Partners will own just 1.1%, and Silver Lake will own 5.5%. The Saudi Public Investment Fund will own a whopping 93.4% of the company. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there’s a lot of concerns about censorship within The Sims, I think, also, because of those new owners that do not have a great track record with human rights. They actually have a direct track record of criminalizing LGBTQ+ expression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Saudi Arabia, engaging in same-sex relationships is punishable by flogging, and in some cases, death. Gender expression is also criminalized. Multiple human rights reports note that it’s “illegal for men to behave like women,” and “dress in women’s clothes,” and vice versa. Publicly advocating for the rights of LGBTQ people is also illegal, and those who do? They also face arrest and imprisonment. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, PIF, already owned almost 10% of EA prior to the buyout. Now, PIF will own the vast majority of EA and its portfolio — including The Sims, a game that’s been a haven for queer players. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so a lot of queer players of The Sims are really, really worried about those new owners for that reason too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims team has addressed the concerns. In October, they posted a statement to the game’s official channels, thanking players for being part of the community. They said, “Our mission, values, and commitment remain the same. The Sims will always be a space where you can express your authentic self.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In our last episode, we talked to Loel Phelps, the senior design director for The Sims 4. As the self-described “shepherd of ideas” for the game, Loel has guided over a decade of updates and expansions to make The Sims more inclusive. I asked him about the concerns over how new ownership could change the game, particularly for queer players who found refuge in The Sims. Here’s what he wants players to know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Loel Phelps: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I believe in this team. The sec- like I said, the second I joined, I felt a very welcoming presence. I felt like there was a diverse group of people who are passionate creators, who have very different lived experiences from one another, just like everybody who’s here to play the game. So, inclusivity is foundational. It’s the lifeblood of who we are and the product we build. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why would Saudi Arabia, a notoriously repressive country, want anything to do with a company behind the most explicitly queer game on the market? Well… The Sims is just a tiny piece of EA’s portfolio. I mean, EA Sports is its own division. It’s huge. Saudi Arabia has been a major investor in e-sports and video games. By investing in gaming, PIF is diversifying the Saudi economy beyond petroleum, while also buying global cultural relevance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As one business professor put it in an interview with the industry news site, Game Developer, “Gaming is the new oil.” The ripple effects go way beyond diversity and inclusion. It could fundamentally change the gaming industry as we know it. Okay, lock in. You’re about to get a lot of details. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the EA deal is the largest leveraged buyout in history. A leveraged buyout means that the buyer uses borrowed funds to acquire a company — almost like a mortgage. The buyer puts down the down payment and the bank finances the rest. Except, the buyer isn’t the one who has to pay it off. The company that was just bought does — using its own assets and revenues to pay off the debt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, $55 billion, right? The investment group that bought EA chipped in a collective $36 billion, but there’s almost $20 billion left. Where does that come from? Now we have a new player, JP Morgan Chase Bank, which financed the remaining $20 billion. Well, who’s going to pay back the bank? EA.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a massive deal that’s being financed by $20 billion in debt that EA is going to have to carry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, EA actually makes a ton of money. In the 2025 fiscal year, the company pulled in nearly $7.5 billion of revenue. But their profit — what’s left after paying business costs — was just over $1.1 billion. And as multiple financial experts and market analysts have warned us, EA is probably going to have to make some pretty significant changes to pay off $20 billion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, they’re gonna need to pay that off quickly because the investors wanna make money. And people are really concerned about things like layoffs of a lot of the people that work at EA — possibly replacing them with AI, which would just ruin the heart and soul of the game. And it’s really scary, I think, as a step for the gaming industry as a whole. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Days after it agreed to the deal, EA published an employee FAQ assuring workers that, quote, “There will be no changes to your job, team, or daily work as a result of this transaction.” This FAQ was actually made public in an SEC filing. Multiple experts have said that EA will likely double down on their existing revenue streams — sports franchises like Madden, cash cow mobile games that revolve around in-app purchases, and microtransactions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re already pricing a lot of people out. And if we have this new standard set — because now it’s the norm — I really am worried about it getting even worse and preventing people from being able to play these games. I worry about the kids of the future being able play things like this because the prices are just so extreme and it’s only going to get worse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Simmers have already complained of changes. In March, The Sims 4 unveiled the Marketplace, a virtual store of Sims custom content created by other players. It essentially gives players a way to sell customized in-game clothes and furniture directly to other players. However, creators only take home 30% of their sales. EA gets the remaining 70%, and when it first launched, players could only buy this stuff using a special currency called “Moola” — which they had to buy with real-world money. Simmers weren’t thrilled about the microtransactions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of @goofylilshady playing The Sims 4 from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, if you thought this game was expensive, now guess what? It just got a little bit more expensive! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then just this month, EA quietly launched its new Advertising department, which will focus on integrating brand partnerships with other ads directly into gameplay. Now, for The Sims, this could look like brand collabs that the game has already done, like giving players free Coach bags in-game, or free IKEA furniture that looks just like the real IKEA furniture. It could also look like an unskippable pop-up ad that interrupts the game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s not just about The Sims. Obviously my personal experience is with The Sims, because that’s my favorite game and this thing that I’ve been playing for so long, but it really does affect all games across the entire industry, even beyond just EA games. I think that a private equity buyout of this scale is completely unprecedented and will probably have ripple effects across the entire industry forever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of sets the model for future buyouts, future private buyouts. It sets the model for potential mass layoffs and these like really big AI concerns that we have over replacing developers. And I’m really concerned about that aggressive monetization because already, games are so expensive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leaving the Creator Network alone wasn’t enough for Kayla. She wanted to do more. So, she joined The Players Alliance. And, what is that? Well, that brings us back to the protest — and to open a new tab: How are gamers fighting the EA buyout? You’ve actually gone further than just leaving the network and not promoting the new games — you joined The Players Alliance. What is that? What are they trying to achieve? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, The Players Alliance is a group of gamers that is working to help fight corporate greed, just in general, in the gaming industry — right now, a lot of talk about the EA buyout and ways that that impacts the gaming industry as a whole. So, that’s kind of a heavy focus of them at this current moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Players Alliance is trying to gain signatures for its petition to block the deal. They’ve collected over 72,000 signatures so far. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, my friend Zefrine and I, we had kind of been talking a little bit about wanting to do something and wanting to do more, and I had been thinking privately about ways that I could try and get involved and do more and not… I didn’t really know where to start. Because I — you know, I’m just one person, like, I don’t know how to do something like this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You heard Zefrine at the top of this episode — during the rally outside EA’s headquarters. She’s one of the lead organizers for The Players Alliance, which she describes as a gamers’ union. Her dad was a union guy too, so she grew up among organizers. When she heard about the buyout, she knew she had to get involved and that she could leverage her platform to get the word out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kayla and I are actually very close friends. And… It kind of gives me chills to talk about it, but we both had a dream the same night that we did a livestream together — like the same night. And then I just decided, I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to see, how stupid can we get? How silly, goofy can we get? Let’s shoot for the stars.” And then we… She said, “Are you kidding me? We have… Like, I had the same dream last night!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zefrine had been working with The Players Alliance, and she kind of had this idea to work with a Congress member, and like, reach out to them and ask them to maybe do a stream with us or like, to speak more openly about this. And fortunately, I have- my congressman, Maxwell Frost, had already signed an open letter in Congress about the deal and so we felt like that was actually a really, kind of kismet opportunity to try and reach out to his team. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maxwell Frost is the first Gen Z member of Congress. He’s known for being more… online than his colleagues. He’s more in the know. And it helps that he’s already a gamer himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think, what better of a person to reach an audience like that — like, he’s young, he’s in touch, he’s understanding of like, what’s going on with things, and his voice is so powerful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With The Players Alliance, they organized a live stream with the Congressman, back in April. Here’s the setup: Zefrine acted as a moderator, taking audience questions and passing them on to Kayla and Maxwell. Like, a guided fireside chat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Begin clip of Players Alliance livestream]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Maxwell Frost:\u003c/strong> Saudi Arabia is essentially trying to acquire every part of gaming you can think of. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s going to put us in a really tough position in terms of national security, in terms of censorship and what that government believes, and in terms of the workers who create the games as well. So, I really think the FTC needs to step in here. They can sue to stop the merger. The Department of Justice can also sue to stop the mergers as well. I think there’s so many reasons why they need to do it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I completely agree. And I hate to interrupt you, but how is your energy looking in the game, and maybe we should go to bed? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Maxwell Frost:\u003c/strong> \u003cem>[laughing]\u003c/em> My energy’s kinda low and it’s really dark. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[End clip]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this whole discussion happened while they played Stardew Valley. Zefrine said they picked this game for a reason. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stardew Valley — it’s an indie smash hit, and I think it’s just so comfy and cozy and approachable, and it’s made by one guy. And I think, it’s really important, especially among all this, to highlight the amazing things that can be done. You know, when you let your developers pour their hearts into something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We kind of wanted to make it really approachable for the viewer and like, make it something that was similar enough to my regular content that maybe it wouldn’t just be a click-off like, “Oh, who’s this random guy she’s talking to? I don’t need to watch this.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I was going to ask like about the livestream itself. It really cracked me up watching Maxwell Frost explain like, how the downfall of democracy with foreign involvement while also trying to break open a geode, because you guys are playing Stardew Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of the Players Alliance livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, can we open the geode? Yeah, okay. If you come back to like where the cabins are, you can follow me, I’ll show you where Clint is. Clint? Clint… Nice, dude, Clint is the guy that opens the geodes? Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leading up to that and going into it, I was like, “I’m not equipped to be talking to a Congress member.” Like, I just play video games. But he is so nice, and he was so excited about the game as well. It’s really funny to watch the video back, and he’s like so locked in, like staring at his screen while he’s talking. It’s really fun. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, it was amazing that he offered to join us, and I felt like he had a lot of really great things to say about how it was working and what people can do to get involved. I think that it inspired a lot of people to sign the petition that we’ve been trying to share. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So let’s talk about the petition itself. What is the goal of it? What are you trying to bring awareness to? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the petition itself, is to the Secretary of the Treasury. And the ultimate goal is to hopefully have him stop the deal because he has the power to block it. But I think even beyond that, having a massive petition with so many signatures, really sends signs to EA and to the new buyers about how much the community opposes it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that because we have so many really valid concerns about national security and data security of Americans — this would be a foreign monarchy having almost complete control over a company that has hundreds of millions of people buying their games, it’s one of the biggest entertainment industries in America — and so the hope is that because of those concerns, we can get the government to help prevent the deal from going through. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kayla has hoped that lawmakers will at least be able to stall the deal. Nearly 50 members of Congress signed a letter to FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson — calling for a thorough review into the labor market consequences of the buyout. The House Judiciary Committee opened a probe into Jared Kushner’s quote, “foreign entanglements and staggering conflicts of interests,” AKA, his financial ties to Saudi Arabia. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there’s renewed scrutiny of the buyout now, thanks to his involvement. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The deal is expected to close by the end of this fiscal quarter — so, sometime this summer, if not by the end of the month. Regardless of whether the deal goes through, Sims creators who continue to promote the game have been bombarded with questions from followers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ahead of the Players Alliance collab with Congressman Frost, the Sims team reached out to members of the EA Creator Network over Discord. The messages were private, but screenshots quickly leaked online. They said the team was aware of the planned livestream and included guidance on how creators could answer their followers’ questions about the buyout. The message also said, quote, “There’s no expectation for you to engage with or respond to this conversation. You will always be free to express your honest opinions, but it’s also completely okay if you’d prefer to step back from the conversation entirely.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For months, Simmers like Kayla and Zefrine have been grappling with what it means to disentangle themselves from a game that’s meant so much to them. What does that even look like? Alright, we have time to open one last tab, right? The Sims creator dilemma. Many high-profile Sims creators left the EA Creator Network, but Zefrine decided to stay, even though she’s one of the lead organizers for the Players Alliance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I try to keep them relatively compartmentalized. Obviously, because I have like my contract and I respect that contract — it’s been like this huge goal for me to be in the Creator Network and be a part of that. And I think that in every company, no matter where you are, you still need good people that are willing to advocate for it from within. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some people choose to step away because they feel like their power is that way, but I’m not afraid to be noisy or outspoken about certain things. And um, I talk to my community, I see things online, and then I… advocate directly to the people who make the game, and I think that’s a really powerful thing. So that’s personally what I have chosen to do. And I’m still like continuing to play it because it can get quite complicated for like a lot of people, but it’s something I’ve enjoyed since I was eight years old. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it truly was like, it saved my life to be fully honest with you. Um, and… It allowed me to discover like, queer representation within myself and like those things like through storytelling or through building. It’s just such a powerful outlet. I’m using my voice and my platform that I’ve been gifted by this community essentially, to make sure that that integrity stays in place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While she stayed in the network, Zefrine has also been very involved in organizing protests and collecting signatures. And then there’s Kayla. She’s been criticized for continuing to make Sims content, even after she left the EA network. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that for anyone on YouTube, it’s kind of impossible to just like, quit cold turkey with your bread and butter. Like, I think that that’s really a turnoff to your entire audience and I don’t think that it’s practical. So, from day one, my goal was to start incorporating more other games onto my YouTube channel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She plays Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing and a new game called Paralives. It’s an indie game that’s very similar to The Sims. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s been scary, I think, because I was nervous, again, that people wouldn’t care… But it’s been fun for me to experiment a little bit — because I kind of have like a format. I sort of know what it takes to make a good Sims video, but I don’t really know what is takes to make a video about some of these other games. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when Kayla does return to The Sims, she follows some new rules she set for her channel. She hasn’t been reviewing or promoting any of the newer packs or game content. In fact, she hasn’t being buying them at all. She’s hesitant to even speak negatively about any of newer stuff because it’ll bring attention to a company that she refuses to financially support. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like, her current Sims content is a time capsule of Sims releases up until 2025. So much of Kayla’s identity is tied up in The Sims — like fundraising with her dad, working with Maxis, and meeting so many of her best friends through the game. I mean, this is someone who has like, 12,000 hours in the game — her last name is literally Sims. And she admitted that she does really miss it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love The Sims so much and like, seeing this new content come out and like for example, when the most recent expansion pack came out and I chose not to play it and not to review it — that’s the first time in like 15 years that I haven’t played new Sims content and that made me really sad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, I love the game. I want to continue to play the game, I want continue to support the game, I want The Sims to exist because I think it’s such an important pillar of the gaming community. There’s nothing else like it in the entire world, and it’s so special, and I wish so desperately that I could feel comfortable continuing to support it, but it just feels morally wrong at this point. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No matter what happens with EA, and the buyout, and the Saudi investment in the gaming industry, the Sims team has made a lot of assurances that the game won’t change. Well, the microtransactions have been amped up, but the game is still as queer and inclusive as it was last year, before EA shareholders approved the buyouts. Last episode, we talked to Jessica Croft, a senior designer for The Sims. When I asked her about the player concerns we laid out in this episode, here’s what she said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Croft: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re still the same team we’ve always been. We are the same folks that made the sexual orientation update, that made pronouns update, that fought for diversity and representation throughout our long history. Our values haven’t changed. Like, we still believe the exact same things we’ve always believed. And I could also say that — I could claim this till I’m blue in the face, and you might still not believe me — I would say don’t trust our words, trust our actions. Watch what we do next, watch the next few years of releases, and take from that the understanding that we haven’t changed, we still hold the same values. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, LGBTQ inclusion in games rarely feels revolutionary. It’s a given. Of course you can be a demon-blooded lesbian in Baldur’s Gate. It makes total sense that the main characters in Hades are canonically bisexual. Marry whoever you want in Stardew Valley. The Sims opened the door for these games to be… so gay. The buyout doesn’t change what The Sims has come to mean to so many queer people over the last 26 years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From the very first accidental sapphic kiss at E3, this game has been a trailblazer for what it means to actually see yourself in a story. The future of EA may be uncertain, but the queer history of The Sims is undeniable. Will it stay this gay? I really hope so. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for this extra deep, deep dive on The Sims. Let me tell you — the tabs on this one almost got out of control. I cannot open another without crashing this episode. But if you’re hungry for more, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay, happy pride. Let’s finally close all of these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. This episode was edited by Chris Hambrick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes producer, Maya Cueva, and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro V2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember I was trying to have my Sim adopt a baby, because I realized like, “Oh, you can adopt a baby. That’s cool. I want to try that.” And so, I clicked the button and then nothing happened. And I was like, “That’s weird. Let me do it again.” Nothing happened. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thought, “That’s weird. Let me do it again.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, I adopted like six babies by accident, and then, I didn’t know that you had to take care of them, which, in hindsight is like, “Well, of course you do.” But you know, I was a kid, so I wasn’t taking care of them — and they all got taken away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>[laughs]\u003c/em> Oh no. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, and I, yeah, I harbored a lot of guilt about that back then. Now I kind of think it’s funny, but I was like, “What is this game? This is a nightmare!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "When shareholders of gaming giant Electronic Arts approved an acquisition of the company by a group that includes Jared Kushner’s private equity firm and the Saudi Public Investment Fund late last year, it rocked the entertainment industry. The sale worth an estimated $55 billion sent the player community of the EA-owned game The Sims scrambling, afraid that a game known as a haven for LGBTQ+ expression might be changed for the worse. In this second part of our exploration of the inclusive history of The Sims franchise, we dive into what the deal might mean for the game, how it’s reshaping the future of the industry, and why a popular Sims streamer is ready to walk away from the game in protest.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When shareholders of gaming giant Electronic Arts approved an acquisition of the company by a group that includes Jared Kushner’s private equity firm and the Saudi Public Investment Fund late last year, it rocked the entertainment industry. The sale worth an estimated $55 billion sent the player community of the EA-owned game The Sims scrambling, afraid that a game known as a haven for LGBTQ+ expression might be changed for the worse. In this second part of our exploration of the inclusive history of The Sims franchise, we dive into what the deal might mean for the game, how it’s reshaping the future of the industry, and why a popular Sims streamer is ready to walk away from the game in protest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7131851733\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/lilsimsie\">Kayla Sims\u003c/a>, Twitch streamer and YouTuber known as “lilsimsie”\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.twitch.tv/zefrine/\">Zefrine\u003c/a>, Twitch streamer and organizer with The Players Alliance\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jessica Croft, senior designer at EA on The Sims 4 \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083135/bay-area-gamers-rally-against-electronic-arts-55-billion-acquisition\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bay Area Gamers Rally Against Electronic Arts’ $55 Billion Acquisition\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/-gaming-is-the-new-oil-how-the-ea-buyout-diverges-from-the-traditional-playbook-\">‘Gaming is the new oil:’ How the EA buyout ‘diverges from the traditional playbook’\u003c/a> — Nicole Carpenter, \u003ci>Game Developer\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://aftermath.site/rep-maxwell-frost-lilsimsie-stream-ea-saudi-arabia-interview/\">Congressman Teams Up With Popular Sims Streamer To Oppose Saudi Purchase Of EA\u003c/a> — Nathan Grayson, \u003ci>\u003ci>Aftermath\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/us-representative-maxwell-frost-voices-protest-over-saudi-buyout-of-ea\">US representative Maxwell Frost protests Saudi buyout of EA\u003c/a> — Diego Argüello, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Game Developer\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/games/816750/the-sims-ea-buyout-content-creator-program-departures-lilsimsie\">Sims streamers are distancing themselves from EA, but for some the choice is hard\u003c/a> — Ash Parrish\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>,\u003ci> The Verge\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://simscommunity.info/2026/06/17/ea-advertisement-brands-history/\">EA Advertisement Isn’t New: A Look Back At The Sims’ History With Brands (And What Comes Next)\u003c/a> — Callum Bowyer,\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci> Sims Community\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://cepr.net/publications/electronic-arts-and-private-equity/\">Private Equity’s EA Takeover: Corruption, Contradictions, and Exploitation\u003c/a> — Daniel Stone, \u003ci>Center for Economic and Policy Research\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sul Sul! That’s “hello” in Simlish. This is the second part of our deep dive into the queer history of The Sims. Do you like these deep dives? Whether you call yourself a Tabbie or a Tab Head or part of the Tab Hive, if you’re a fan of Close All Tabs, it would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to us! Okay, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There is a med pack in my backpack, so if anyone like, tweaks their ankle or falls or something, in this lower pouch there is a second pouch, you’ll find all sorts of medical stuff in there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In early May, a colorful group of gamers assembled in a grocery store parking lot in Redwood City, California — preparing to march on the headquarters of video game giant Electronic Arts. They called it a “raid,” which, in gaming terms, means a big battle with the intention of taking down the boss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This has concluded your safety brief. All right, woo! We did it! And then once you’re here, everybody look at me. We’re just going to grab a quick photo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a small group — maybe a dozen — but passionate. They’re part of an organization called The Players Alliance. They pulled up in elaborate costumes, with some wearing plumbobs, the gems from The Sims. Some wore the more common green ones, which float above the heads of happy Sims. But several in the group donned red plumbobs — typically seen on unhappy Sims, which is an iconic way to express anger toward The Sims’ parent company.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The group had gathered to protest the $55 billion deal that would take EA private and transfer ownership to a group of investors that includes a firm led by Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The Players Alliance created an online petition addressed to U.S. Secretary Scott Bessent, calling on him to block the buyout. They had over 70,000 signatures by that point, printed on a comically long scroll. The plan? Rally other players, block the buyout, and, of course, stream the whole thing. Streamer and organizer, Kase Cosgrove, took the mic for much of the demonstration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kase Cosgrove: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woo! Here we go! Welcome everyone! We are here to… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They staged a boss fight, which involved taking down giant cardboard heads of the guys in charge of the buyout. Picture a huge Jared Kushner cutout surrounded by disapproving gamers. Then, they turned to a cutout of EA CEO Andrew Wilson. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! He’s betraying you, he’s betraying us, he’s betraying the workers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then came the big finale. The group unfurled the massive roll of paper printed with a portion of the 70,000 signatures. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Players Alliance demonstration]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the gaming community. These are the people that signed their name on the dotted line that joined us. And I need you to know, this isn’t all of them. We have over 70,000 signatures — something we did in two months, not two years. I also want to add that this is 50 feet, a thousand signatures — this would span over a half mile at this size. It’s simply too big. And we’re only growing… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Rachel… Better known as Zefrine. She’s an organizer and Sims creator who spoke about why she opposes the buyout. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims is a game about life and like, that’s everyone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kase Cosgrove: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sims, the game about life, they should use that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All colors, all walks of life. Yeah, like all of that. And that’s why we’re here today. Like me specifically, for a myriad of reasons, not only for the integrity of the industry, the jobs, the security, and the more that they continue to just treat it like the cash cow that it’s viewed to be by people who don’t care about us — the more that those spaces are going to become inaccessible to people who can no longer afford them. I love this… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many gamers are concerned about the EA buyout — fearing employee layoffs, decreasing quality of games, and aggressive monetization. But for Sims players, the threat feels especially personal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mivyard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a bisexual, there weren’t a lot of games where you could just have anybody, romance anybody else. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a Sims creator who goes by Mivyard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mivyard: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was really important for me, especially when I was younger. So this game has a really special place in my heart and just the thought of it being taken over by people who might want to censor that aspect and that representation for the community is really frightening. So, when the news about the buyout dropped, a lot of Simmers and Sims streamers were like, “Oh my god,” like, “What do we do?” Like, what action can we do to actually… have an effect on the situation? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does this deal really entail? If it goes through, what are the consequences on the gaming industry and its workers? And, is there anything that can stop it? Last week, we dove into the queer history of The Sims. Today, we’re looking at the present reality of EA and the future of this beloved game. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Picking up where we left off last week’s deep dive: let’s open another tab. What does The Sims mean to players? How many hours do you have logged on The Sims 4? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh dear, let me open it and I’ll find out. 10,522. And actually, it’s more than that, because I had like 1,700 hours in the Create A Sim demo as well — and then, now they’re all logged with The Sims 4 regular game, but doesn’t count those. So, it’s… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my god!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Probably like 12,000, which — yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. No, but like it’s my job, right? So it’s totally fine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Kayla Sims. She’s a Twitch streamer and YouTuber better known as LilSimsie. She has millions of followers. Almost every day, like five to six days a week, viewers tune in to watch her play cozy games. Think: farming sims like Stardew Valley, or social games like Animal Crossing. These are games that revolve more around creativity, slowing down, and exploring. It’s the complete opposite of first-person shooters like Call of Duty and Halo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing Animal Crossing from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve been playing Animal Crossing for a couple of weeks now on this channel and unfortunately my island is still really, really ugly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cozy games aren’t necessarily low stakes. One of the most popular games of the genre is The Sims. It’s a game where a lot can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing The Sims from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh well, we decorated the tree… No!!! Why is this happening? Oh my god, the tree’s on fire! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims community is so different from other gamer circles online. At the Game Developer Conference in 2023, Phillip Ring, an executive producer for The Sims 4, gave a talk on developing DEI content in games. He cited a demographic study conducted by The Sims team. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Phillip Ring from GDC Vault website]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">43% of our audience identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community. And 38% of audience are people of color. That’s far exceeding traditional gaming demographics on these dimensions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And 64% of Sims players are cis women. 17% are gender fluid or trans. Just over 20% are cis men, which is incredibly rare in gaming, an industry that’s long been marketed to men. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Phillip Ring from GDC Vault website]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a tremendous testament to the progress that we are making towards The Sims being a place where all players can represent themselves and see the world as they imagine it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that sometimes gaming gets a bad reputation. People think about horrible hate speech being spewed in voice chats and stuff, but The Sims is just not like that. I think that actually a lot of marginalized folks kind of flock to The Sims because it is so welcoming and so accepting. And so, it’s just a really wholesome, wonderful place to be. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Obviously it’s heavily made up by a lot queer folks, a lot people from the LGBTQ+ community are in The Sims community. There’s a lot of women in The Sims community as well. I think it’s just in general kind of a different demographic from a lot of other really major games titles, especially games titles that have been around for this long. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What has The Sims meant to you throughout your life? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It might sound silly, but honestly, The Sims has meant everything to me. When I was a kid, I really had a hard time in middle school and high school. I was kind of having a lot of mental health struggles and then my dad got cancer, and I was really like, going through it when I was in school. And The Sims was a real escape for me back then — not just playing the game, but like the community as a whole. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was almost like a utopia, right? Like I could like escape into this game where everything was fine. And it was a creative outlet for me to like, work on building houses and making characters and like, telling stories and stuff. And it’s kind of, I think, shaped me now and shaped my hobbies and my interests to this day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like many Simmers, Kayla started playing The Sims as a kid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I finally managed to convince my parents to buy it for me after a long time of begging. I was like, “No, this is like named after us. We need to play it,” you know? “It’s fate.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In high school, Kayla started taking video production classes. It was the mid-2010s. Reaction videos and short form content hadn’t taken over yet. This was the golden age of YouTube. Gaming playthroughs and daily vlogs were blowing up. Kayla loved watching them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is around the time that my dad was diagnosed with cancer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After months of being sick, her dad was diagnosed with an aggressive blood cancer. Kayla’s parents went to Tampa for treatment, leaving Kayla and her younger siblings with their grandparents, two hours away. And Kayla felt really alone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I was really looking, I think, for an outlet, and like, maybe also some community, because I was playing the game alone… And I think I was really like, kind of grasping to see if I could find some people that were like me and make some friends. So I started making videos just for fun and I really poured so much into it. I’ve spent all my free time playing the game and recording it and thinking about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At 16 years old, Kayla started posting videos of her attempt at completing the, “Sims 4: 100 Baby Challenge.” Basically, you have to birth and successfully raise 100 in-game babies. Once your Sim can no longer have babies, you pick an heir, get them pregnant, and keep going. The goal is to build a family tree with all 100 babies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing The Sims from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi everybody and welcome back to Part 3… I think? Of Let’s Play The Sims 4: 100 Baby Challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It took Kayla five years to finish the challenge. To be fair, she was also making other videos about The Sims: reviews, playthroughs, speed builds — but still, it was five years of her life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla Sims playing The Sims from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- It’s over. We- It’s done. We did it. Little did I know when I was 16 years old and starting this stupid challenge that I would be 21 when I finished it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the time it took Kayla to raise 100 in-game babies, her dad’s health stabilized, she built a huge following, and she found a community of fellow Simmers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I ended up making so many friends that are lifelong friends to this day, 10 years later. I was so shy and so anxious and to meet some of these other girls that were my same age, and they were also really shy and really anxious and having some similar mental health struggles, and they we’re also really into The Sims. And so, it was really, really powerful, I think, for me to make some friends that I felt like I could truly be myself with, because I don’t know if I had that in person and at school. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As her channel grew, Kayla started doing charity streams, fundraising for various causes. Her big one is an annual, month-long fundraising campaign for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Just last month, she raised over a million dollars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla’s livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">999,000! Woo! Oh my god! One million. *screaming*\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her dad often pops in for those streams. Fans call him PapaSimsie or LilDadsie. And every year, Kayla takes a break from playing The Sims while she and her mom shave her dad’s head, live on stream, as part of the fundraiser. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla’s livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She’s embarrassed. Yeah. \u003cem>[laughing]\u003c/em> Of me? Of bald daddy? \u003cem>[more laughing]\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My dad’s kind of weird. I mean that in a good way. But, you know, he really hams it up for the camera. And I think that people enjoy that. He’s really gotten involved with some of those things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of Kayla’s livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can call me bald daddy. Stop!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now, the whole Sims family is also involved in Sims content. It’s the Simsie-verse. Over the years, Kayla started working directly with Maxis, which is owned by EA. Back in the day, the company flew out Sims creators to play test games early and give feedback directly to developers. It was mutually beneficial — the creators got early access footage that they got to post, and Maxis got to drum up some promotion for upcoming game content. A symbiotic relationship, if you will. In her reviews, Kayla’s been a pretty harsh critic of the pre-made buildings in the earlier Sims expansion packs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s one build that just, like, never ceases to amaze me, and it comes in Get Famous. It’s like this celebrity mansion. There’s five bathrooms. No toilets. There’s like space for a toilet. They’ve — clearly, they meant to put it there, and they just didn’t put one. Why?\u003cem> [laughs] \u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The developers at Maxis were definitely keeping tabs on the criticism. So, they asked Kayla to work on a few builds for upcoming releases. She created three buildings for the expansion pack Snowy Escape, which came out in 2020. And then again, for another expansion pack a few years later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s all to say that Kayla’s life had become completely intertwined with The Sims. I mean, it’s her last name! Her parents were involved. She built a career out of playing this game. These playthroughs and reviews and silly challenges paid her bills. And, she played it in her free time, too. The Sims had become her job, but it was still the safe space that it was for her as an anxious, lonely teenager. Which is why she was so heartbroken when news of the EA buyout went public. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I couldn’t even believe it, to be honest, and I was so, so sad and scared. I mean, like, tears have been shed over this by me, because I feel like they’re tearing something away from us, you know? It’s really frustrating to have something that has been such a safe space for so long be bought out by people that are not safe. And I think that a lot of Sims players kind of echo that same sentiment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, we know that this is a $55 billion deal — a truly unfathomable amount of money. Beyond the staggering price tag… what does this buyout really entail? Game studios are sold and acquired all the time — why are players so concerned about this one in particular? We’re opening a tab on that in just a minute. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcasts. Okay, after the break: the EA buyouts and The Players Alliance. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Time to open a new tab: the EA buyout, explained. In October, Kayla joins other major Sims creators in leaving the EA Creator Network. This is the official partnership program for The Sims, and it opens the doors to huge perks. Creators in the network get early access to game packs, an affiliate code to share with their followers, and invites to beta testing sessions and special events. Some creators in the network even get paid collaborations. Stepping down from the Creator Network means giving up a lot of opportunities for Simmers like Kayla. But, as she learned more about the buyout deal, she knew she couldn’t stay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Upon first seeing it, I was like, “I do not want this to happen, I hope that it will not go through, and I want people to be aware of what is going on.” I kind of in good conscience do not want to work with EA directly and like, support them behind the scenes or have any like, contractual obligation to them if this sale goes through. I had hoped that by a large creator like myself and also a bunch of other large Sims creators leaving the network, it would kind of take a huge stand and hopefully send signs to them about how much we do not want this to happen and how strongly we stand against it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s talk about the details of this deal. In September last year, EA announced that the brand and its catalog had been sold to an “investor consortium” in a $55 billion deal. This group of investors includes the tech-focused private equity firm Silver Lake, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. That’s the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this deal alone could buy the entire music industry. I think that sometimes we forget just how big gaming is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The consortium didn’t publicly disclose the planned ownership breakdown. That part actually came from a filing with Brazil’s antitrust regulators — spotted by the Wall Street Journal. So, once EA is delisted from the NASDAQ, Affinity Partners will own just 1.1%, and Silver Lake will own 5.5%. The Saudi Public Investment Fund will own a whopping 93.4% of the company. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there’s a lot of concerns about censorship within The Sims, I think, also, because of those new owners that do not have a great track record with human rights. They actually have a direct track record of criminalizing LGBTQ+ expression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Saudi Arabia, engaging in same-sex relationships is punishable by flogging, and in some cases, death. Gender expression is also criminalized. Multiple human rights reports note that it’s “illegal for men to behave like women,” and “dress in women’s clothes,” and vice versa. Publicly advocating for the rights of LGBTQ people is also illegal, and those who do? They also face arrest and imprisonment. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, PIF, already owned almost 10% of EA prior to the buyout. Now, PIF will own the vast majority of EA and its portfolio — including The Sims, a game that’s been a haven for queer players. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so a lot of queer players of The Sims are really, really worried about those new owners for that reason too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims team has addressed the concerns. In October, they posted a statement to the game’s official channels, thanking players for being part of the community. They said, “Our mission, values, and commitment remain the same. The Sims will always be a space where you can express your authentic self.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In our last episode, we talked to Loel Phelps, the senior design director for The Sims 4. As the self-described “shepherd of ideas” for the game, Loel has guided over a decade of updates and expansions to make The Sims more inclusive. I asked him about the concerns over how new ownership could change the game, particularly for queer players who found refuge in The Sims. Here’s what he wants players to know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Loel Phelps: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I believe in this team. The sec- like I said, the second I joined, I felt a very welcoming presence. I felt like there was a diverse group of people who are passionate creators, who have very different lived experiences from one another, just like everybody who’s here to play the game. So, inclusivity is foundational. It’s the lifeblood of who we are and the product we build. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why would Saudi Arabia, a notoriously repressive country, want anything to do with a company behind the most explicitly queer game on the market? Well… The Sims is just a tiny piece of EA’s portfolio. I mean, EA Sports is its own division. It’s huge. Saudi Arabia has been a major investor in e-sports and video games. By investing in gaming, PIF is diversifying the Saudi economy beyond petroleum, while also buying global cultural relevance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As one business professor put it in an interview with the industry news site, Game Developer, “Gaming is the new oil.” The ripple effects go way beyond diversity and inclusion. It could fundamentally change the gaming industry as we know it. Okay, lock in. You’re about to get a lot of details. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the EA deal is the largest leveraged buyout in history. A leveraged buyout means that the buyer uses borrowed funds to acquire a company — almost like a mortgage. The buyer puts down the down payment and the bank finances the rest. Except, the buyer isn’t the one who has to pay it off. The company that was just bought does — using its own assets and revenues to pay off the debt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, $55 billion, right? The investment group that bought EA chipped in a collective $36 billion, but there’s almost $20 billion left. Where does that come from? Now we have a new player, JP Morgan Chase Bank, which financed the remaining $20 billion. Well, who’s going to pay back the bank? EA.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a massive deal that’s being financed by $20 billion in debt that EA is going to have to carry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, EA actually makes a ton of money. In the 2025 fiscal year, the company pulled in nearly $7.5 billion of revenue. But their profit — what’s left after paying business costs — was just over $1.1 billion. And as multiple financial experts and market analysts have warned us, EA is probably going to have to make some pretty significant changes to pay off $20 billion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, they’re gonna need to pay that off quickly because the investors wanna make money. And people are really concerned about things like layoffs of a lot of the people that work at EA — possibly replacing them with AI, which would just ruin the heart and soul of the game. And it’s really scary, I think, as a step for the gaming industry as a whole. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Days after it agreed to the deal, EA published an employee FAQ assuring workers that, quote, “There will be no changes to your job, team, or daily work as a result of this transaction.” This FAQ was actually made public in an SEC filing. Multiple experts have said that EA will likely double down on their existing revenue streams — sports franchises like Madden, cash cow mobile games that revolve around in-app purchases, and microtransactions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re already pricing a lot of people out. And if we have this new standard set — because now it’s the norm — I really am worried about it getting even worse and preventing people from being able to play these games. I worry about the kids of the future being able play things like this because the prices are just so extreme and it’s only going to get worse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Simmers have already complained of changes. In March, The Sims 4 unveiled the Marketplace, a virtual store of Sims custom content created by other players. It essentially gives players a way to sell customized in-game clothes and furniture directly to other players. However, creators only take home 30% of their sales. EA gets the remaining 70%, and when it first launched, players could only buy this stuff using a special currency called “Moola” — which they had to buy with real-world money. Simmers weren’t thrilled about the microtransactions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of @goofylilshady playing The Sims 4 from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, if you thought this game was expensive, now guess what? It just got a little bit more expensive! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then just this month, EA quietly launched its new Advertising department, which will focus on integrating brand partnerships with other ads directly into gameplay. Now, for The Sims, this could look like brand collabs that the game has already done, like giving players free Coach bags in-game, or free IKEA furniture that looks just like the real IKEA furniture. It could also look like an unskippable pop-up ad that interrupts the game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s not just about The Sims. Obviously my personal experience is with The Sims, because that’s my favorite game and this thing that I’ve been playing for so long, but it really does affect all games across the entire industry, even beyond just EA games. I think that a private equity buyout of this scale is completely unprecedented and will probably have ripple effects across the entire industry forever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of sets the model for future buyouts, future private buyouts. It sets the model for potential mass layoffs and these like really big AI concerns that we have over replacing developers. And I’m really concerned about that aggressive monetization because already, games are so expensive. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leaving the Creator Network alone wasn’t enough for Kayla. She wanted to do more. So, she joined The Players Alliance. And, what is that? Well, that brings us back to the protest — and to open a new tab: How are gamers fighting the EA buyout? You’ve actually gone further than just leaving the network and not promoting the new games — you joined The Players Alliance. What is that? What are they trying to achieve? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, The Players Alliance is a group of gamers that is working to help fight corporate greed, just in general, in the gaming industry — right now, a lot of talk about the EA buyout and ways that that impacts the gaming industry as a whole. So, that’s kind of a heavy focus of them at this current moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Players Alliance is trying to gain signatures for its petition to block the deal. They’ve collected over 72,000 signatures so far. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, my friend Zefrine and I, we had kind of been talking a little bit about wanting to do something and wanting to do more, and I had been thinking privately about ways that I could try and get involved and do more and not… I didn’t really know where to start. Because I — you know, I’m just one person, like, I don’t know how to do something like this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You heard Zefrine at the top of this episode — during the rally outside EA’s headquarters. She’s one of the lead organizers for The Players Alliance, which she describes as a gamers’ union. Her dad was a union guy too, so she grew up among organizers. When she heard about the buyout, she knew she had to get involved and that she could leverage her platform to get the word out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kayla and I are actually very close friends. And… It kind of gives me chills to talk about it, but we both had a dream the same night that we did a livestream together — like the same night. And then I just decided, I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to see, how stupid can we get? How silly, goofy can we get? Let’s shoot for the stars.” And then we… She said, “Are you kidding me? We have… Like, I had the same dream last night!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zefrine had been working with The Players Alliance, and she kind of had this idea to work with a Congress member, and like, reach out to them and ask them to maybe do a stream with us or like, to speak more openly about this. And fortunately, I have- my congressman, Maxwell Frost, had already signed an open letter in Congress about the deal and so we felt like that was actually a really, kind of kismet opportunity to try and reach out to his team. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maxwell Frost is the first Gen Z member of Congress. He’s known for being more… online than his colleagues. He’s more in the know. And it helps that he’s already a gamer himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think, what better of a person to reach an audience like that — like, he’s young, he’s in touch, he’s understanding of like, what’s going on with things, and his voice is so powerful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With The Players Alliance, they organized a live stream with the Congressman, back in April. Here’s the setup: Zefrine acted as a moderator, taking audience questions and passing them on to Kayla and Maxwell. Like, a guided fireside chat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Begin clip of Players Alliance livestream]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Maxwell Frost:\u003c/strong> Saudi Arabia is essentially trying to acquire every part of gaming you can think of. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s going to put us in a really tough position in terms of national security, in terms of censorship and what that government believes, and in terms of the workers who create the games as well. So, I really think the FTC needs to step in here. They can sue to stop the merger. The Department of Justice can also sue to stop the mergers as well. I think there’s so many reasons why they need to do it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I completely agree. And I hate to interrupt you, but how is your energy looking in the game, and maybe we should go to bed? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Maxwell Frost:\u003c/strong> \u003cem>[laughing]\u003c/em> My energy’s kinda low and it’s really dark. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[End clip]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this whole discussion happened while they played Stardew Valley. Zefrine said they picked this game for a reason. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stardew Valley — it’s an indie smash hit, and I think it’s just so comfy and cozy and approachable, and it’s made by one guy. And I think, it’s really important, especially among all this, to highlight the amazing things that can be done. You know, when you let your developers pour their hearts into something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We kind of wanted to make it really approachable for the viewer and like, make it something that was similar enough to my regular content that maybe it wouldn’t just be a click-off like, “Oh, who’s this random guy she’s talking to? I don’t need to watch this.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I was going to ask like about the livestream itself. It really cracked me up watching Maxwell Frost explain like, how the downfall of democracy with foreign involvement while also trying to break open a geode, because you guys are playing Stardew Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Clip of the Players Alliance livestream from YouTube]: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, can we open the geode? Yeah, okay. If you come back to like where the cabins are, you can follow me, I’ll show you where Clint is. Clint? Clint… Nice, dude, Clint is the guy that opens the geodes? Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Leading up to that and going into it, I was like, “I’m not equipped to be talking to a Congress member.” Like, I just play video games. But he is so nice, and he was so excited about the game as well. It’s really funny to watch the video back, and he’s like so locked in, like staring at his screen while he’s talking. It’s really fun. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But yeah, it was amazing that he offered to join us, and I felt like he had a lot of really great things to say about how it was working and what people can do to get involved. I think that it inspired a lot of people to sign the petition that we’ve been trying to share. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So let’s talk about the petition itself. What is the goal of it? What are you trying to bring awareness to? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the petition itself, is to the Secretary of the Treasury. And the ultimate goal is to hopefully have him stop the deal because he has the power to block it. But I think even beyond that, having a massive petition with so many signatures, really sends signs to EA and to the new buyers about how much the community opposes it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that because we have so many really valid concerns about national security and data security of Americans — this would be a foreign monarchy having almost complete control over a company that has hundreds of millions of people buying their games, it’s one of the biggest entertainment industries in America — and so the hope is that because of those concerns, we can get the government to help prevent the deal from going through. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kayla has hoped that lawmakers will at least be able to stall the deal. Nearly 50 members of Congress signed a letter to FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson — calling for a thorough review into the labor market consequences of the buyout. The House Judiciary Committee opened a probe into Jared Kushner’s quote, “foreign entanglements and staggering conflicts of interests,” AKA, his financial ties to Saudi Arabia. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there’s renewed scrutiny of the buyout now, thanks to his involvement. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The deal is expected to close by the end of this fiscal quarter — so, sometime this summer, if not by the end of the month. Regardless of whether the deal goes through, Sims creators who continue to promote the game have been bombarded with questions from followers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ahead of the Players Alliance collab with Congressman Frost, the Sims team reached out to members of the EA Creator Network over Discord. The messages were private, but screenshots quickly leaked online. They said the team was aware of the planned livestream and included guidance on how creators could answer their followers’ questions about the buyout. The message also said, quote, “There’s no expectation for you to engage with or respond to this conversation. You will always be free to express your honest opinions, but it’s also completely okay if you’d prefer to step back from the conversation entirely.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For months, Simmers like Kayla and Zefrine have been grappling with what it means to disentangle themselves from a game that’s meant so much to them. What does that even look like? Alright, we have time to open one last tab, right? The Sims creator dilemma. Many high-profile Sims creators left the EA Creator Network, but Zefrine decided to stay, even though she’s one of the lead organizers for the Players Alliance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zefrine: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I try to keep them relatively compartmentalized. Obviously, because I have like my contract and I respect that contract — it’s been like this huge goal for me to be in the Creator Network and be a part of that. And I think that in every company, no matter where you are, you still need good people that are willing to advocate for it from within. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some people choose to step away because they feel like their power is that way, but I’m not afraid to be noisy or outspoken about certain things. And um, I talk to my community, I see things online, and then I… advocate directly to the people who make the game, and I think that’s a really powerful thing. So that’s personally what I have chosen to do. And I’m still like continuing to play it because it can get quite complicated for like a lot of people, but it’s something I’ve enjoyed since I was eight years old. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it truly was like, it saved my life to be fully honest with you. Um, and… It allowed me to discover like, queer representation within myself and like those things like through storytelling or through building. It’s just such a powerful outlet. I’m using my voice and my platform that I’ve been gifted by this community essentially, to make sure that that integrity stays in place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While she stayed in the network, Zefrine has also been very involved in organizing protests and collecting signatures. And then there’s Kayla. She’s been criticized for continuing to make Sims content, even after she left the EA network. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that for anyone on YouTube, it’s kind of impossible to just like, quit cold turkey with your bread and butter. Like, I think that that’s really a turnoff to your entire audience and I don’t think that it’s practical. So, from day one, my goal was to start incorporating more other games onto my YouTube channel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She plays Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing and a new game called Paralives. It’s an indie game that’s very similar to The Sims. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s been scary, I think, because I was nervous, again, that people wouldn’t care… But it’s been fun for me to experiment a little bit — because I kind of have like a format. I sort of know what it takes to make a good Sims video, but I don’t really know what is takes to make a video about some of these other games. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when Kayla does return to The Sims, she follows some new rules she set for her channel. She hasn’t been reviewing or promoting any of the newer packs or game content. In fact, she hasn’t being buying them at all. She’s hesitant to even speak negatively about any of newer stuff because it’ll bring attention to a company that she refuses to financially support. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like, her current Sims content is a time capsule of Sims releases up until 2025. So much of Kayla’s identity is tied up in The Sims — like fundraising with her dad, working with Maxis, and meeting so many of her best friends through the game. I mean, this is someone who has like, 12,000 hours in the game — her last name is literally Sims. And she admitted that she does really miss it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love The Sims so much and like, seeing this new content come out and like for example, when the most recent expansion pack came out and I chose not to play it and not to review it — that’s the first time in like 15 years that I haven’t played new Sims content and that made me really sad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, I love the game. I want to continue to play the game, I want continue to support the game, I want The Sims to exist because I think it’s such an important pillar of the gaming community. There’s nothing else like it in the entire world, and it’s so special, and I wish so desperately that I could feel comfortable continuing to support it, but it just feels morally wrong at this point. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No matter what happens with EA, and the buyout, and the Saudi investment in the gaming industry, the Sims team has made a lot of assurances that the game won’t change. Well, the microtransactions have been amped up, but the game is still as queer and inclusive as it was last year, before EA shareholders approved the buyouts. Last episode, we talked to Jessica Croft, a senior designer for The Sims. When I asked her about the player concerns we laid out in this episode, here’s what she said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Croft: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re still the same team we’ve always been. We are the same folks that made the sexual orientation update, that made pronouns update, that fought for diversity and representation throughout our long history. Our values haven’t changed. Like, we still believe the exact same things we’ve always believed. And I could also say that — I could claim this till I’m blue in the face, and you might still not believe me — I would say don’t trust our words, trust our actions. Watch what we do next, watch the next few years of releases, and take from that the understanding that we haven’t changed, we still hold the same values. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, LGBTQ inclusion in games rarely feels revolutionary. It’s a given. Of course you can be a demon-blooded lesbian in Baldur’s Gate. It makes total sense that the main characters in Hades are canonically bisexual. Marry whoever you want in Stardew Valley. The Sims opened the door for these games to be… so gay. The buyout doesn’t change what The Sims has come to mean to so many queer people over the last 26 years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">From the very first accidental sapphic kiss at E3, this game has been a trailblazer for what it means to actually see yourself in a story. The future of EA may be uncertain, but the queer history of The Sims is undeniable. Will it stay this gay? I really hope so. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for this extra deep, deep dive on The Sims. Let me tell you — the tabs on this one almost got out of control. I cannot open another without crashing this episode. But if you’re hungry for more, stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay, happy pride. Let’s finally close all of these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. This episode was edited by Chris Hambrick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes producer, Maya Cueva, and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro V2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember I was trying to have my Sim adopt a baby, because I realized like, “Oh, you can adopt a baby. That’s cool. I want to try that.” And so, I clicked the button and then nothing happened. And I was like, “That’s weird. Let me do it again.” Nothing happened. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thought, “That’s weird. Let me do it again.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, I adopted like six babies by accident, and then, I didn’t know that you had to take care of them, which, in hindsight is like, “Well, of course you do.” But you know, I was a kid, so I wasn’t taking care of them — and they all got taken away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>[laughs]\u003c/em> Oh no. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kayla Sims: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, and I, yeah, I harbored a lot of guilt about that back then. Now I kind of think it’s funny, but I was like, “What is this game? This is a nightmare!” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with \u003cem>The Sims 4\u003c/em> senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3392561231\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Jessica Croft, senior designer and lead designer at EA on The Sims 4\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-kiss-that-changed-video-games\">The Kiss That Changed Video Games\u003c/a> — Simon Parkin, \u003cem>The New Yorker\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pcgamer.com/unearthed-the-sims-design-docs-show-the-debate-over-same-sex-relationships/\">Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships\u003c/a> — Steven Messner, \u003cem>PC Gamer\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-HWyh0Ybk\">Did The Sims make you gay? – a video essay.\u003c/a> — Alexander Avila, \u003cem>YouTube\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2020/08/27/the-sims-knew-i-was-queer-before-i-did/\">The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did \u003c/a>— Megan Elliot,\u003cem>BRICKS Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/feb/22/gay-weddings-for-russia-how-the-sims-became-a-battleground-for-the-lgbtq-community\">Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community \u003c/a>— Tom Regan, \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://frvr.com/blog/news/the-sims-designer-says-that-the-series-diversity-is-critical-especially-at-times-like-now/\">The Sims designer says that the series’ diversity is “critical, especially at times like now” as the games must recognise “the fundamental truths of our humanity” to stay successful \u003c/a>— Lewis White, \u003cem>FIVR\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Follow us on \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Instagram\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">TikTok\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cem>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Do you like these deep dives? Whether you call yourself a tabby or a tab head or part of the tab hive, if you’re a fan of Close All Tabs, it would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to us. Under our watch, every tab in the land will be closed. Eventually. I mean, I have like 15 open right now. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the other day, I got out of bed and I did my normal morning chores. Fed the chickens, watered my crops, and checked in on my sweet baby cow plant. He ate one of my friends last week, so I’m keeping him on a really strict feeding schedule so he doesn’t try it again. I kissed my wife goodbye before she left for her job as an undertaker, and then I started getting ready for my job as a Grim Reaper. I just got promoted to Soul Slayer, which is a pretty big deal. Lots of responsibility there. But, just as I was about to leave, the gnomes started spawning around my house again. They went around breaking all my stuff, and when I tried to stop them, they had the audacity to strike me with lightning. Just another typical day in The Sims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This franchise has been wildly popular since the first Sims game came out 26 years ago. It’s like a virtual dollhouse. You control these dolls, called Sims, and help them fulfill goals, manage their needs, and interact with their world. I love it. For the last 14 years, my sister and I have shared an account just to play this game. And together, We’ve logged more than 6,000 hours in The Sims 4 alone. I’m kind of scared to check where we clocked in on The Sims 3. The game is constantly evolving and adapting to whatever the current culture is. And in addition to some very silly gameplay, The Sims has become this oasis for diversity and representation. In queer spaces, Sims players, also known as Simmers, love to ask each other this question. Did The Sims make you gay? Why is that, you may ask?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Because it made a lot of people gay\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica Croft is a senior designer for The Sims 4. She’s had a hand in designing some of the features that make the game so unique, like the sexual orientation system. More on that later. The Sims is iconic because of its freedom. It lets players experience the game however they want. That freedom has given rise to a few distinct types of simmers. You might be a builder. Spending hours constructing and decorating complex architectural marvels. Maybe you’re a storyteller who plays the game like an eternal personal soap opera, or a completionist trying to get every possible achievement in the game. And at some point in their life, every Simmer has been a chaos agent, setting things on fire, ruining in-game relationships, even removing the ladder from their Sim’s pool so they get stuck and drown. You know. Playing God.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s, to me, a storytelling tool. So you’re playing this game about everyday life, and in that game, you’re gonna have stories emerge around the characters you play. But I think ultimately, to try and characterize The Sims as one thing, kind of does it an injustice because it’s so many things to so many people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There are so many ways to play this game, but for a lot of players, including myself, The Sims provided this safe little sandbox to figure out who they were.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think the fact that Sims is about crafting characters that might literally look, act, and have the same life you do has led a lot of folks to exploring who they are through The Sims. And I think it seems like a small thing, it’s just a game, like what’s the big deal? I figured out who I was through seeing myself in media because it let me know that who I am is okay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> A few years ago, Jessica led the Sims sexual orientation update. It was huge both for players and for the games industry overall. It allowed players to set specific parameters for who their Sims were attracted to and what kind of relationships they were interested in. But for years before this update ever rolled out, the game had already attracted a dedicated queer player base. In fact, same-sex relationships were possible from the very beginning when The Sims 1 launched in 2000. Jessica says this decision shifted the whole industry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Back then it was pretty rare to have same-sex relationships in the game. And you saw more and more and more coming at that moment until where you are now where it’s actually pretty unusual I would say for a game where you create a character and embody that character to not have the option to have a same-sex relationship.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And since those early days, The Sims has grown into the symbol of LGBTQ representation, getting more inclusive with every update. In other words, it’s gotten more gay. Today, The Sims is arguably the most explicitly queer mainstream game ever made. So how did we get here? We’re diving into a topic I love yapping about, The Sims. From the game’s origin story, to the character lore, to the technical snafus involved in coding sexuality, we’re opening a bunch of tabs on how this game became an oasis for LGBTQ representation, and why some players are worried that might change. So, a gay history of The Sims. Ready?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, let’s open our first tab. The Sims Gay Origin Story. The Sims is the brainchild of Will Wright, co-founder of the legendary game studio, Maxis, and creator of SimCity, SimEarth, and other beloved titles. This story starts in 1991, when Will and his family lost everything in the deadly Oakland Berkeley firestorm. In the aftermath, he and his wife began rebuilding, assessing what they needed and what it actually took to make a home. He had an idea for a life simulator, one that was totally open-ended. Where players start from scratch. Here he is speaking to KQED’s Snap Judgment for an upcoming episode that dives even deeper into this origin story.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will Wright: \u003c/strong>The goal is meant to be for the player to choose. So you can play The Sims and say, “Okay, I want my Sims to be super happy,” or “I want them to be top of their career,” or they have the biggest mansion with the most friends or the most babies, whatever. What I’d rather produce is present a series of possible goals. And I think that’s much more meaningful. And it makes it more about you. So, you know, you’re actually pursuing a goal that means something to you and you’re the one kind of measuring your progress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was a revolutionary idea in gaming at the time, but it had trouble gaining traction. The game had been stuck in development hell since the early 90s. The studio behind the game, Maxis, had been acquired by EA, Electronic Arts, while The Sims was still in development. And it was during this time that the first decisions around sexuality were being made. Will wanted to include same-sex relationships in the game because it was supposed to reflect real life. But it came on the heels of a major scandal in another Maxis game, the 1996 flight simulator, SimCopter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of SimCopter review from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>A bunch of dudes wearing Speedos that start kissing each other loudly. Not only that, but you can jump out and start making out with them yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This was a joke programmed into the game by one of the developers, which could be triggered when a player met certain criteria. That developer was later fired for including it. So when it came to The Sims a few years later, the team was understandably worried about backlash. And after a lot of back and forth,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The team had decided that they weren’t going to do same-sex relationships in the original Sims game.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica was a teenager at the time. She was not working on the game back then. But the lore of the game’s origin has been passed down through generations of developers. That’s because the queer legacy of The Sims, and everything it’s come to mean to LGBTQ players, started with a mistake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The dev who was coding the game was new to the team, and I guess he didn’t get the memo, or didn’t read the design doc, couldn’t be me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> That programmer was Patrick Barrett, and according to an interview he did with The New Yorker in 2014, he did read the design document. Just the wrong version. Here’s what happened. It was the late 90s. Soon after Patrick joined the team, the game’s lead programmer went on vacation. Someone handed Patrick the design documents that outlined how all social interactions between characters in the game should be coded. But… He was given a version of the document from before the team decided to exclude gay relationships. So, Patrick wrote up the code for Sim conversations, arguments, and romance. And in Patrick’s version, romances between Sims of the same gender were allowed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>No one mentioned it. E3 was coming up, the hottest, most prestigious games industry convention of its time. And this was supposed to be the Sims big debut. Patrick was asked to put together a gameplay demo, which highlighted these different scripted scenarios for The Sims. One of them was a wedding. There were so many Sims attending that Patrick didn’t have time to script all of their interactions. That meant some of the characters would act autonomously.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> They put everything together, shipped it off, and then at the trade show in front of a gigantic crowd and like one of the biggest trade shows for our industry, in front everybody, two female Sims kissed each other and everyone just went nuts. Like, it was one of those things where the cat was totally out of the bag. There was such buzz coming out of that moment that it had to be part of the game from that point on. And even though we got there by accident, I’m not picky. I’m glad it happened at all. And from that moment, The Sims kind of became the tip of the spear.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This blunder at a trade show 27 years ago set something in motion that is still reverberating today. But considering how foundational the story is to Sims lore, I wanted to verify it. Is there anything backing up this story? Consider this our first side quest, tracking down the receipts. This much I can say. There’s no footage of this legendary kiss happening. While working on this episode, I spent days scrubbing through archived forums, interviews with Will Wright, and B-roll from news broadcasts covering the Sims demo. There is a lot of coverage of E3 in 1999.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Lauren Fielder for GameSpot TV from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>Here we are! We’re on the floor of the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, with a special edition of GameSpot TV.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Some news reports have a sentence or two about The Sims, like a Washington Post write-up that called it, “a quiet little game,” and, “a surprise hit.” But there’s barely any coverage with details about The Sims demo. What I did manage to dig up is from a German DVD showcasing PC games that debuted at E3.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of DVD demo in German from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking German]\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The part mentioning the Sims is just 22 seconds long. The fabled kiss does not appear. So I scrubbed through, no joke, hours of show footage from that year’s convention. This is the pre-vlogging era. I’m talking shaky camcorder clips, unedited, capturing these little snippets of what gaming was like in 1999.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of E3 convention in 1999 from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>You can be a master if you try! Pokemon! The adventure begins with the TV show…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> These scenes were lost to time until someone found the tapes, digitized them, and then uploaded them to YouTube decades later. I found a brief flash of the Sims booth in one video, but the camera holder didn’t bother to focus on the screen. On the internet, there’s no mention of this groundbreaking lesbian kiss until 2014, when The New Yorker published the interview with Patrick Barrett. We tried reaching out to the programmer through multiple contact methods, but didn’t get a response. I even friended him on Facebook. But, crickets. Maybe one day, someone will uncover and digitize the grainy camcorder footage of the kiss that changed it all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What we do have is confirmation of an internal struggle at Maxis over whether to include same-sex relationships at all. In 2019, another programmer, Don Hopkins, released the design documents from 1998, months before that infamous E3 game demo. He criticized the prototype’s strictly enforced heterosexuality. In one version, trying to initiate a kiss with a Sim of the same gender would actually result in the Sim getting slapped. Here’s a note that Don left in the document.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Dramatic reading of Don’s comment by Chris Egusa]: \u003c/strong>We are going to be expected to do better than that after the SimCopter fiasco and the lip service that Maxis publicly gave in response about not being anti-gay. And anyone offended by that needs to grow up and get a life. And hopefully our game will help them in that quest.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims debuted at E3 months later. Gay romance and all. The full game was released the next year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> So it’s, it’s 2000, young Jessica is 16. Uh, and I’m reading my PC Mag, because we had physical media back then. And I see this article about this new game, The Sims, and it is not like anything else I’ve ever seen. It’s this quirky little game where instead of like, being a warrior, a wizard, or like flying spaceships, you’re just living a life. And to me I’m like, “How could that possibly be fun?” is my first thought. And then my second thought, “I’m kind of curious.” I want to see why people think this is fun. And I load up, I play it, and it just opened up this whole new space for me. And I’m like, “Huh, this is actually really interesting playing a game about just the everyday life of a character.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims was a hit. Critics praised it for the character customization, the totally unique gameplay, and the storytelling. For a lot of players, the best part was that they could be gay in the game.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think like, so often when you talk about representation, the first of something, the first time you see a same-sex couple in like a major production, the first time you see a trans character in a major like piece of media, that really signals to everyone else that like, “Hey, you know, we can explore these spaces and we can tell these authentic stories and represent folks that are not represented,” and largely, it’s gonna be fine.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There were limits. Like, straight Sims could get married, but gay Sims couldn’t. Okay. But, it was 26 years ago. And as cultural norms evolved, so did the game. But video games function based on defined rules. So, how do you fit something as nuanced as sexuality into lines of code? How does introducing human concepts of gender into a game alter non-human characters? And how did these updates affect the beloved Simmer tradition of woohoo-ing the Grim Reaper? (Woohoo-ing, by the way, is the Sims version of sex). We’re opening a tab on that in just a minute. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break: more on the gay history of The Sims. Welcome back. Let’s open another tab: a Gay History of the Sims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The game, like, it didn’t say queer or not queer. It was, I was interacting and I chose to kiss a man and the game would be like, “Okay.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Lowell Phelps is a senior game design director at EA, and he’s worked on The Sims for over 15 years. He calls himself “a shepherd of ideas,” for the game. He spends a lot of time researching human psychology and how it can be applied to game design. But for many years before that, he was a college student living in a dorm with five other guys when The Sims 1 came out. How his life turned out today didn’t even seem like a possibility back then.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I have a husband, I have child, like this is kind of my culture, even though I hadn’t really explored any of that growing up, but I could with The Sims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Sexuality didn’t necessarily exist in The Sims 1. None of the characters had any sexual preference. If they had a high enough relationship score with the player, it would unlock romantic interactions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Everybody was just default pansexual, right? And that was really fascinating to kind of see how the game chose not to make a choice for me, but waited for me to make that choice and drive the direction of these stories. Like being able to woohoo and kiss and just have dates with other characters in ways that maybe you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in public.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Same-sex couples couldn’t get married like straight Sims couples, but if they moved in together, the game treated them as if they were married anyway. The Sims 2 came out in 2004 and introduced gender preference to the game. It was a weighted system, hidden from players but shifted based on player choices. Think of a scale, tipping one way or the other depending on romantic interactions. So, if a female Sim flirted with a female character, they’d both develop a preference for women, and then autonomously flirt with other female Sims. And then those Sims would autonomously flirt with other female Sims, shifting their preferences. In other words, in The Sims 2, being gay was contagious. And although none of the pre-made characters were explicitly LGBTQ, there were a few that were coded to be queer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I found Sims 2 versions where we’d told stories about queer couples, um, and it was in the text and maybe how we set some of the parameters. I didn’t realize that until I started digging into the actual history. Um, and I kind of learned that the team has started, not started, but has always included the things that allow gender expression to happen in whatever way we felt comfortable, the person setting it up felt comfortable. So you’ll see it in descriptions, you’ll it in stories of the characters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The game also allowed Sims to formally propose to each other and plan weddings, regardless of gender. Players would have to buy a special in-game wedding object: a floral arch. When they clicked on it, if they were in a straight relationship, a bubble would pop up that said, “Get married,” triggering a cutscene where the two Sims would exchange rings and cry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Sims 2 wedding in Simlish from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking Simlish]\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was basically the same thing for same-sex couples — but their bubble would say, “Join Union.” Today, that does seem pretty discriminatory. But back then, most states didn’t even offer domestic partnerships or civil unions for same-sex couples. The fact that you could have an in-game gay wedding at all was a pretty big deal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Gay marriage was not a acceptable thing at the time, it was not legally approved. And just being able to have those joined unions, being able actually to have a situation where I can take the stories I’m playing out and have a lesbian couple and a gay couple and have the feeling that they are a family, they’re a collective.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, I’m not gonna lie, as a kid, I used to stay up late on YouTube watching videos of gay weddings in The Sims 2 on the family computer. The scenes were always set to very on-the-nose music, like Katy Perry’s, “I Kissed a Girl,” or the theme song from The L Word. But as a queer preteen, the videos were eye-opening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> And The Sims, because of that first kiss, right? From the moment that happened, it felt like both the players and the creators, like the teams that are working on this product, felt a little bit of freedom to do what we needed to do to just express as many versions of life as we could.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> When The Sims 3 came out in 2009, the United States was at a real inflection point for marriage equality. Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that established marriage as a fundamental right for same-sex couples, was still years away. So you could get gay married in The Sims 3, but none of the game’s pre-made characters were officially gay. Pre-made Sims are fully fleshed out characters with backstories and relationships and skills and homes — already established by developers. But, just because characters weren’t explicitly gay doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. The game included several characters that were heavily implied to be LGBTQ. Like, a household of two women were labeled “roommates,” but they sleep in two beds pushed together in their pre-made house. Or, two guys labeled “best friends” who lived with their adopted daughter who has both of their last names.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We create characters that live in the world and have stories that they should be pre-built with. And those stories start by applying their preferences, their traits, their aspirations and their wants. And those tools give us a lot of control to say, “What is this initial starting story that the player might be jumping into if they play with a household that already exists?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The year before The Sims 3 release, Prop 8 passed in California, banning same-sex marriage. A federal court later struck it down, and in June 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown ordered county clerks to resume issuing marriage licenses for gay couples. Which is where we get this meme of then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Kamala Harris from X]: \u003c/strong>You must start marriages immediately. You must start the marriages immediately.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Later that year, The Sims 3 released an expansion pack called Roaring Heights, and with it, the first explicitly LGBTQ characters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So the Roaring Heights couple, the Dylan and Audrey, was really the first time I think we’d actually put a lesbian couple in a world as an actual family with the correct settings that said, “Hey, we are married, we’re a couple.” And that felt pretty transformative. So, right around the time that Prop 8 got overturned is kind of when we started introducing that as an actual element in the game, so players could experience it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> At that point, the next game in the series, The Sims 4, was already in the works. It was released in 2014, and this was the version that really transformed what it means to be represented in games, beyond who can woohoo and marry. In The Sims 4, the team tackled a new frontier: gender. Time for a new tab. Can a cat be non-binary? Two years after The Sims 4 release, the game underwent a major character customization overhaul. So, when you start a new game, you have the option to play as a pre-made household, or customize one yourself. That part is called Create-A-Sim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We started with male/female as the default for base game and we realized that just wasn’t good enough, right? We wanted to be able to allow, again, better representation, more nuance into the choice. So we quickly realized that thinking about maybe masculine or feminine expression is how we wanna actually tackle this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims 4 offers a series of gender-related choices for players to choose from. They can choose whether their Sim has a masculine frame or a feminine frame. And from there, choose whether they prefer masculine clothing or feminine clothing. It actually went further than just appearance. The game is rated T for Teen. Sims never get naked, unless you’re playing with a spicy mod. Wicked Whims players, you know who you are. But for the official game… That limitation, not showing body parts, got the development team to think about gender and expression beyond what’s assigned at birth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Different clothing preferences, regardless of what my physical appearance actually is. Being able to set whether I can get pregnant or not, or I stand up at the toilet instead of sitting down. It’s not about labeling. It’s about thinking about what is the behavior that’s happening and letting players choose what portion of that behavior is important to them. That’s why peeing standing up or using the toilet standing up is the approach instead of saying, “I have a specific body part,” right? That’s less important. It’s about the behavior.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This new framing of gender led to the first canonically trans character, the spellcaster Morgyn Ember, who can’t get pregnant, can’t other Sims pregnant, has a masculine frame, and wears feminine clothing. Some players tried to romance Morgyn and were confused about their gender. In 2022, Morgyn’s pronouns were updated to they/them. It was part of a bigger game update that allowed players to set unique pronouns for their Sims. Updating a game like this, which has versions in many different languages, was actually pretty complicated. Only English versions of the game have customizable pronouns, which has been disappointing to some players. Here’s Jessica Croft again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The pronouns update was something that I think was very important to our community, especially obviously non-binary folks within our community. The difficulty there is just simply, language itself is not fully aligned on how to handle things like pronouns. They are heavily gendered and in a way where if you don’t study those things at all you might not realize it’s not just about translating a pronoun, it things like adjectives, articles, even past tense verbs are gendered in these places. And then further, some languages do have gender-neutral words, but they are restricted for objects. So, there’s a certain thing where it’s like, if we use that kind of language, does it cause additional problems?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s a cliché saying, but perfect is the enemy of good. We wanted to get something out there that did a lot of good work, that represented a lot folks and made people feel seen, um, as soon as we could. And I think it’s one of those things where if you wait until you get the perfect version of something, where you solve all the problems, where we figure out how to do pronouns in every language, you might never release that thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has been out for 12 years now, and in that time, there have been dozens of additional packs — extra contents that includes new worlds, new features, and new pre-made characters. Every time it gets updated, it affects years of pre-existing game content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The Sims is a little bit weird. We have robots and we have skeletons and we have lots of other things that maybe you can ask yourself, “Do they have gender? Should they have gender?” Cats and dogs, when we did the non-binary update… You can make a cat and a dog non-binary, that’s okay. So really it comes down to character by character and thinking about is it important for this character to have an identity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think at one point we had non-binary horses in the horse pack, which, I’m sure those players were like, “Well, you should have just kept that,” and like, maybe, but it was definitely unintentional. When you work with a game like The Sims that’s just layers and layers of systems sitting on top of each other, you get these knock-on effects of some choices you make that are occasionally hilarious.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> After the pronoun update, the Sims 4 unveiled its crown jewel for character customization: a giant overhaul of in-game sexual orientation. Jessica was actually leading the design for an expansion pack all about high school. The development team had been working on fine-tuning Sim sexuality, and Jessica pitched releasing that update with a high school expansion. Why there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> It’s a pack about high school that… It’s about being a teenager, it’s about figuring out who you are. That’s where, in real life a lot of folks do figure out who they are and start exploring questions of their sexuality. So it felt like the right place to do it and the team just rallied around that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, like with a gender update, this wasn’t a simple matter of slapping on some labels and letting players pick one. It had to be functional in gameplay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The space is so nuanced, the definitions folks have for certain words can differ, in ways where painting with a broad brush on what these labels mean can become incredibly divisive. That was one of the things that we discovered really quickly, working with GLAAD and It Gets Better, that fact. So eventually, we got to a spot where we didn’t use labels. It’s just strictly defining the characteristics of who you’re attracted to and the types of things that you’re into, to craft what is effectively a sexual orientation without the label.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So instead of picking from a menu of words like: “lesbian,” “gay,” “bi,” “asexual,” players just pick the genders they’re attracted to and whether they’re interested in romantic relationships and woohoo-ing. They also don’t have to make a decision. There’s an option for exploring. Jessica said this was also important to include because figuring it out is also a part of real life sexuality. However, players cannot opt out of this aspect of the game entirely. There’s no way to default set all Sims to be straight. When the update first came out, Jessica wrote this in a blog post.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think something along the lines of, “While we generally give players the option to toggle off certain gameplay elements, LGBTQIA+ identities are a fact of life, and not just a toggle you can switch on and off.” I stand by that statement. I frankly don’t care if you don’t like certain people. You can’t just turn them off, right? In real life or in a game. And I think it’s important to stand on business there. We want to commit to our vision for diversity and representation within The Sims, and that’s not a thing you get to just turn off.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims has come so far since the accidental sapphic kiss 27 years ago. It’s way more inclusive, but far from perfect. Despite the expanded framing of gender, the whole system still operates within a binary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> When The Sims was originally engineered, in its very core, like, structural bones, there’s a gender binary. And that next step is like, how do we break this game out of this gender binary? It’s a tricky thing. It would require like this foundational rework of like, so many systems. If at some point we’re able to do an update to, to fully break the game out this gender binary like, foundation it has, that would be so meaningful. It would open up a lot of gameplay, too. Again, it’s immensely tricky. It’s like, a thing that would require really re-engineering a good chunk of the foundation of the game to make happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There have been some workarounds though. Loel talked about this recent feature that he really loves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So, one of my favorite things that we have added were binders and chest, uh… top surgery scars. Um, and those… Sorry, I get a little emotional talking about it. So my husband is trans. Being able to create his character before that transition after he came out, and have a screenshot of our family, my husband, my daughter, and me just in a space was really impactful. So while it didn’t physically bind the chest, just being able to put on a binder is a step in that transition of his story was really impactful. There’s so many different ways in which people live and have transitions. If I can give one little thing to any player that lets them tell those stories, it’s really important. And those little updates just make such an impact on being able to both represent yourself and feel like yourself in this digital world.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve been playing The Sims for over half my life, and created so many different lives within the game. I still think about one of my first playthroughs. It was The Sims 3. I moved my Sim to a tropical island, fell in love with a mermaid, and we settled down on a houseboat together. At 13, being openly gay seemed just as fantastical as proposing to a mermaid. The whimsical queer life I built in that save file unfortunately came to an end —when my kitchen caught fire, with my Sims still in it, and instead of helping, my mermaid wife got stuck on a random floor tile and died of dehydration. The whole house boat went down. It was devastating. So, I started another save, and then another, and then probably a couple hundred more. And today, being openly gay isn’t that absurd at all. There’s a reason queer people make up such a large portion of The Sims player base. We reached out to Simmers to hear what this game has meant to them over the years. Here’s what they had to say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Will be the first Simmer to hold my hands up and say I was a bit too interested in making my Sims kiss Sims of the same sex. And I think that for a lot of queer people, they will also be able to trace their own gameplay in The Sims back and have a lot of things suddenly make sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Owen McHall: \u003c/strong>The Sims was the first game I ever played where I could make the player character trans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stephen Works (SpringSims): \u003c/strong>It felt more like home… It felt like my safe space where I could be who I want, how I want without any fear of judgment. As a queer Black male, I was able to recreate myself authentically from my skin tone to my hair type, to the clothing options. There were so many stories that I have told and created and shaped that I knew it was like, “This is where I wanna be for the rest of my life.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mivyard:\u003c/strong> For me, as a queer kid growing up in a Christian school, I definitely felt like I had to be quiet about who I was and I didn’t see a lot of role models at school. And so, having The Sims as a tool for exploration and expression really helped me find a sense of belonging and it helped me feel confident, and proud of who I was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tonya (Gryphi): \u003c/strong>If I could have two girls kiss and fall in love in this game, then maybe it was okay in real life as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Being able to fall in with whoever you wanted might have been an oversight of the developers, it might have an accident that they forgot to write in the code. It’s ended up that in a time where it wasn’t really okay to be anything outside of the norm, The Sims has been a beacon of inclusivity, and that’s just grown over the years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has come to mean so much to so many queer players. It’s made such huge strides for LGBTQ inclusion — meaningful representation, without feeling like some kind of corporate pandering. But today, a lot of those players are really, deeply concerned about the future of The Sims. Late last year, Electronic Arts confirmed that the entire brand and its catalog, including The Sims, had been sold to private investors, a cohort that includes Jared Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>It’s also a $55 billion deal, which is completely unprecedented. I mean, it’s hard to even, like, fathom the scale of that, but that actually is more than the entire music industry combined.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Kayla Sims, better known online as LilSimsie, is one of the the creators speaking out about this deal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>And there’s a lot of concerns about censorship within The Sims, I think also, because of those new owners that do not have a great track record with human rights. They actually have a direct track record of criminalizing LGBTQ+ expression. And so a lot queer players of The Sims are really, really worried about those new owners for that reason, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So, we’re extending our deep dive. We have a few more tabs on what this deal really entails, how players are responding, and what The Sims team says about the future of the game. I’m gonna leave these tabs open for now. Come back next week for the second half of the story. And, if you’re dying for more before then, stick around after the credits for some bonus content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva with production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, and did the dramatic reading for this episode.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro V2 switches.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special thanks to the Simmers who contributed voice notes for this episode: Plumbella, Owen McHall, SpringSims, Mivyard, and Griphy. And thank you to John Fecile, senior producer for KQED’s Snap Judgment, for the tape of his interview with Will Wright. Thanks for listening!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I remember when the update for, I think it was maybe High School Years, when the sexuality update first came out, people were upset that the Grim Reaper was now asexual. They just really wanted to bang the Grim Reaper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I mean, in Life and Death, we went back and made Grim woohoo-able again. Players have a fascination with our special characters… And at some point, the ownership of the thing becomes the person’s and not the dev team’s. Yeah, so yeah, Grim is an interesting case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with \u003cem>The Sims 4\u003c/em> senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with \u003cem>The Sims 4\u003c/em> senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed.\u003c/p>\n"
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"The Kiss That Changed Video Games — Simon Parkin, The New Yorker",
"Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships — Steven Messner, PC Gamer",
"Did The Sims make you gay? – a video essay. — Alexander Avila, YouTube ",
"The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did — Megan Elliot,BRICKS Magazine",
"Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community — Tom Regan, The Guardian",
"The Sims designer says that the series’ diversity is “critical, especially at times like now” as the games must recognise “the fundamental truths of our humanity” to stay successful — Lewis White, FIVR"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-kiss-that-changed-video-games\">The Kiss That Changed Video Games\u003c/a> — Simon Parkin, \u003cem>The New Yorker\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n",
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"\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-kiss-that-changed-video-games\">The Kiss That Changed Video Games\u003c/a> — Simon Parkin, \u003cem>The New Yorker\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pcgamer.com/unearthed-the-sims-design-docs-show-the-debate-over-same-sex-relationships/\">Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships\u003c/a> — Steven Messner, \u003cem>PC Gamer\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n",
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"\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pcgamer.com/unearthed-the-sims-design-docs-show-the-debate-over-same-sex-relationships/\">Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships\u003c/a> — Steven Messner, \u003cem>PC Gamer\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-HWyh0Ybk\">Did The Sims make you gay? – a video essay.\u003c/a> — Alexander Avila, \u003cem>YouTube\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n",
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"\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-HWyh0Ybk\">Did The Sims make you gay? – a video essay.\u003c/a> — Alexander Avila, \u003cem>YouTube\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2020/08/27/the-sims-knew-i-was-queer-before-i-did/\">The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did \u003c/a>— Megan Elliot,\u003cem>BRICKS Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n",
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"\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2020/08/27/the-sims-knew-i-was-queer-before-i-did/\">The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did \u003c/a>— Megan Elliot,\u003cem>BRICKS Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/feb/22/gay-weddings-for-russia-how-the-sims-became-a-battleground-for-the-lgbtq-community\">Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community \u003c/a>— Tom Regan, \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n",
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"\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/feb/22/gay-weddings-for-russia-how-the-sims-became-a-battleground-for-the-lgbtq-community\">Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community \u003c/a>— Tom Regan, \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://frvr.com/blog/news/the-sims-designer-says-that-the-series-diversity-is-critical-especially-at-times-like-now/\">The Sims designer says that the series’ diversity is “critical, especially at times like now” as the games must recognise “the fundamental truths of our humanity” to stay successful \u003c/a>— Lewis White, \u003cem>FIVR\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Do you like these deep dives? Whether you call yourself a tabby or a tab head or part of the tab hive, if you’re a fan of Close All Tabs, it would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to us. Under our watch, every tab in the land will be closed. Eventually. I mean, I have like 15 open right now. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Do you like these deep dives? Whether you call yourself a tabby or a tab head or part of the tab hive, if you’re a fan of Close All Tabs, it would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to us. Under our watch, every tab in the land will be closed. Eventually. I mean, I have like 15 open right now. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So the other day, I got out of bed and I did my normal morning chores. Fed the chickens, watered my crops, and checked in on my sweet baby cow plant. He ate one of my friends last week, so I’m keeping him on a really strict feeding schedule so he doesn’t try it again. I kissed my wife goodbye before she left for her job as an undertaker, and then I started getting ready for my job as a Grim Reaper. I just got promoted to Soul Slayer, which is a pretty big deal. Lots of responsibility there. But, just as I was about to leave, the gnomes started spawning around my house again. They went around breaking all my stuff, and when I tried to stop them, they had the audacity to strike me with lightning. Just another typical day in The Sims.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So the other day, I got out of bed and I did my normal morning chores. Fed the chickens, watered my crops, and checked in on my sweet baby cow plant. He ate one of my friends last week, so I’m keeping him on a really strict feeding schedule so he doesn’t try it again. I kissed my wife goodbye before she left for her job as an undertaker, and then I started getting ready for my job as a Grim Reaper. I just got promoted to Soul Slayer, which is a pretty big deal. Lots of responsibility there. But, just as I was about to leave, the gnomes started spawning around my house again. They went around breaking all my stuff, and when I tried to stop them, they had the audacity to strike me with lightning. Just another typical day in The Sims.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This franchise has been wildly popular since the first Sims game came out 26 years ago. It’s like a virtual dollhouse. You control these dolls, called Sims, and help them fulfill goals, manage their needs, and interact with their world. I love it. For the last 14 years, my sister and I have shared an account just to play this game. And together, We’ve logged more than 6,000 hours in The Sims 4 alone. I’m kind of scared to check where we clocked in on The Sims 3. The game is constantly evolving and adapting to whatever the current culture is. And in addition to some very silly gameplay, The Sims has become this oasis for diversity and representation. In queer spaces, Sims players, also known as Simmers, love to ask each other this question. Did The Sims make you gay? Why is that, you may ask?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This franchise has been wildly popular since the first Sims game came out 26 years ago. It’s like a virtual dollhouse. You control these dolls, called Sims, and help them fulfill goals, manage their needs, and interact with their world. I love it. For the last 14 years, my sister and I have shared an account just to play this game. And together, We’ve logged more than 6,000 hours in The Sims 4 alone. I’m kind of scared to check where we clocked in on The Sims 3. The game is constantly evolving and adapting to whatever the current culture is. And in addition to some very silly gameplay, The Sims has become this oasis for diversity and representation. In queer spaces, Sims players, also known as Simmers, love to ask each other this question. Did The Sims make you gay? Why is that, you may ask?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Because it made a lot of people gay\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Because it made a lot of people gay\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica Croft is a senior designer for The Sims 4. She’s had a hand in designing some of the features that make the game so unique, like the sexual orientation system. More on that later. The Sims is iconic because of its freedom. It lets players experience the game however they want. That freedom has given rise to a few distinct types of simmers. You might be a builder. Spending hours constructing and decorating complex architectural marvels. Maybe you’re a storyteller who plays the game like an eternal personal soap opera, or a completionist trying to get every possible achievement in the game. And at some point in their life, every Simmer has been a chaos agent, setting things on fire, ruining in-game relationships, even removing the ladder from their Sim’s pool so they get stuck and drown. You know. Playing God.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica Croft is a senior designer for The Sims 4. She’s had a hand in designing some of the features that make the game so unique, like the sexual orientation system. More on that later. The Sims is iconic because of its freedom. It lets players experience the game however they want. That freedom has given rise to a few distinct types of simmers. You might be a builder. Spending hours constructing and decorating complex architectural marvels. Maybe you’re a storyteller who plays the game like an eternal personal soap opera, or a completionist trying to get every possible achievement in the game. And at some point in their life, every Simmer has been a chaos agent, setting things on fire, ruining in-game relationships, even removing the ladder from their Sim’s pool so they get stuck and drown. You know. Playing God.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s, to me, a storytelling tool. So you’re playing this game about everyday life, and in that game, you’re gonna have stories emerge around the characters you play. But I think ultimately, to try and characterize The Sims as one thing, kind of does it an injustice because it’s so many things to so many people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s, to me, a storytelling tool. So you’re playing this game about everyday life, and in that game, you’re gonna have stories emerge around the characters you play. But I think ultimately, to try and characterize The Sims as one thing, kind of does it an injustice because it’s so many things to so many people.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There are so many ways to play this game, but for a lot of players, including myself, The Sims provided this safe little sandbox to figure out who they were.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There are so many ways to play this game, but for a lot of players, including myself, The Sims provided this safe little sandbox to figure out who they were.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think the fact that Sims is about crafting characters that might literally look, act, and have the same life you do has led a lot of folks to exploring who they are through The Sims. And I think it seems like a small thing, it’s just a game, like what’s the big deal? I figured out who I was through seeing myself in media because it let me know that who I am is okay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think the fact that Sims is about crafting characters that might literally look, act, and have the same life you do has led a lot of folks to exploring who they are through The Sims. And I think it seems like a small thing, it’s just a game, like what’s the big deal? I figured out who I was through seeing myself in media because it let me know that who I am is okay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> A few years ago, Jessica led the Sims sexual orientation update. It was huge both for players and for the games industry overall. It allowed players to set specific parameters for who their Sims were attracted to and what kind of relationships they were interested in. But for years before this update ever rolled out, the game had already attracted a dedicated queer player base. In fact, same-sex relationships were possible from the very beginning when The Sims 1 launched in 2000. Jessica says this decision shifted the whole industry.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> A few years ago, Jessica led the Sims sexual orientation update. It was huge both for players and for the games industry overall. It allowed players to set specific parameters for who their Sims were attracted to and what kind of relationships they were interested in. But for years before this update ever rolled out, the game had already attracted a dedicated queer player base. In fact, same-sex relationships were possible from the very beginning when The Sims 1 launched in 2000. Jessica says this decision shifted the whole industry.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Back then it was pretty rare to have same-sex relationships in the game. And you saw more and more and more coming at that moment until where you are now where it’s actually pretty unusual I would say for a game where you create a character and embody that character to not have the option to have a same-sex relationship.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Back then it was pretty rare to have same-sex relationships in the game. And you saw more and more and more coming at that moment until where you are now where it’s actually pretty unusual I would say for a game where you create a character and embody that character to not have the option to have a same-sex relationship.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And since those early days, The Sims has grown into the symbol of LGBTQ representation, getting more inclusive with every update. In other words, it’s gotten more gay. Today, The Sims is arguably the most explicitly queer mainstream game ever made. So how did we get here? We’re diving into a topic I love yapping about, The Sims. From the game’s origin story, to the character lore, to the technical snafus involved in coding sexuality, we’re opening a bunch of tabs on how this game became an oasis for LGBTQ representation, and why some players are worried that might change. So, a gay history of The Sims. Ready?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And since those early days, The Sims has grown into the symbol of LGBTQ representation, getting more inclusive with every update. In other words, it’s gotten more gay. Today, The Sims is arguably the most explicitly queer mainstream game ever made. So how did we get here? We’re diving into a topic I love yapping about, The Sims. From the game’s origin story, to the character lore, to the technical snafus involved in coding sexuality, we’re opening a bunch of tabs on how this game became an oasis for LGBTQ representation, and why some players are worried that might change. So, a gay history of The Sims. Ready?\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Okay, let’s open our first tab. The Sims Gay Origin Story. The Sims is the brainchild of Will Wright, co-founder of the legendary game studio, Maxis, and creator of SimCity, SimEarth, and other beloved titles. This story starts in 1991, when Will and his family lost everything in the deadly Oakland Berkeley firestorm. In the aftermath, he and his wife began rebuilding, assessing what they needed and what it actually took to make a home. He had an idea for a life simulator, one that was totally open-ended. Where players start from scratch. Here he is speaking to KQED’s Snap Judgment for an upcoming episode that dives even deeper into this origin story.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Okay, let’s open our first tab. The Sims Gay Origin Story. The Sims is the brainchild of Will Wright, co-founder of the legendary game studio, Maxis, and creator of SimCity, SimEarth, and other beloved titles. This story starts in 1991, when Will and his family lost everything in the deadly Oakland Berkeley firestorm. In the aftermath, he and his wife began rebuilding, assessing what they needed and what it actually took to make a home. He had an idea for a life simulator, one that was totally open-ended. Where players start from scratch. Here he is speaking to KQED’s Snap Judgment for an upcoming episode that dives even deeper into this origin story.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will Wright: \u003c/strong>The goal is meant to be for the player to choose. So you can play The Sims and say, “Okay, I want my Sims to be super happy,” or “I want them to be top of their career,” or they have the biggest mansion with the most friends or the most babies, whatever. What I’d rather produce is present a series of possible goals. And I think that’s much more meaningful. And it makes it more about you. So, you know, you’re actually pursuing a goal that means something to you and you’re the one kind of measuring your progress.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will Wright: \u003c/strong>The goal is meant to be for the player to choose. So you can play The Sims and say, “Okay, I want my Sims to be super happy,” or “I want them to be top of their career,” or they have the biggest mansion with the most friends or the most babies, whatever. What I’d rather produce is present a series of possible goals. And I think that’s much more meaningful. And it makes it more about you. So, you know, you’re actually pursuing a goal that means something to you and you’re the one kind of measuring your progress.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was a revolutionary idea in gaming at the time, but it had trouble gaining traction. The game had been stuck in development hell since the early 90s. The studio behind the game, Maxis, had been acquired by EA, Electronic Arts, while The Sims was still in development. And it was during this time that the first decisions around sexuality were being made. Will wanted to include same-sex relationships in the game because it was supposed to reflect real life. But it came on the heels of a major scandal in another Maxis game, the 1996 flight simulator, SimCopter.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was a revolutionary idea in gaming at the time, but it had trouble gaining traction. The game had been stuck in development hell since the early 90s. The studio behind the game, Maxis, had been acquired by EA, Electronic Arts, while The Sims was still in development. And it was during this time that the first decisions around sexuality were being made. Will wanted to include same-sex relationships in the game because it was supposed to reflect real life. But it came on the heels of a major scandal in another Maxis game, the 1996 flight simulator, SimCopter.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of SimCopter review from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>A bunch of dudes wearing Speedos that start kissing each other loudly. Not only that, but you can jump out and start making out with them yourself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of SimCopter review from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>A bunch of dudes wearing Speedos that start kissing each other loudly. Not only that, but you can jump out and start making out with them yourself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This was a joke programmed into the game by one of the developers, which could be triggered when a player met certain criteria. That developer was later fired for including it. So when it came to The Sims a few years later, the team was understandably worried about backlash. And after a lot of back and forth,\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This was a joke programmed into the game by one of the developers, which could be triggered when a player met certain criteria. That developer was later fired for including it. So when it came to The Sims a few years later, the team was understandably worried about backlash. And after a lot of back and forth,\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The team had decided that they weren’t going to do same-sex relationships in the original Sims game.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The team had decided that they weren’t going to do same-sex relationships in the original Sims game.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica was a teenager at the time. She was not working on the game back then. But the lore of the game’s origin has been passed down through generations of developers. That’s because the queer legacy of The Sims, and everything it’s come to mean to LGBTQ players, started with a mistake.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica was a teenager at the time. She was not working on the game back then. But the lore of the game’s origin has been passed down through generations of developers. That’s because the queer legacy of The Sims, and everything it’s come to mean to LGBTQ players, started with a mistake.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The dev who was coding the game was new to the team, and I guess he didn’t get the memo, or didn’t read the design doc, couldn’t be me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The dev who was coding the game was new to the team, and I guess he didn’t get the memo, or didn’t read the design doc, couldn’t be me.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> That programmer was Patrick Barrett, and according to an interview he did with The New Yorker in 2014, he did read the design document. Just the wrong version. Here’s what happened. It was the late 90s. Soon after Patrick joined the team, the game’s lead programmer went on vacation. Someone handed Patrick the design documents that outlined how all social interactions between characters in the game should be coded. But… He was given a version of the document from before the team decided to exclude gay relationships. So, Patrick wrote up the code for Sim conversations, arguments, and romance. And in Patrick’s version, romances between Sims of the same gender were allowed.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> That programmer was Patrick Barrett, and according to an interview he did with The New Yorker in 2014, he did read the design document. Just the wrong version. Here’s what happened. It was the late 90s. Soon after Patrick joined the team, the game’s lead programmer went on vacation. Someone handed Patrick the design documents that outlined how all social interactions between characters in the game should be coded. But… He was given a version of the document from before the team decided to exclude gay relationships. So, Patrick wrote up the code for Sim conversations, arguments, and romance. And in Patrick’s version, romances between Sims of the same gender were allowed.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>No one mentioned it. E3 was coming up, the hottest, most prestigious games industry convention of its time. And this was supposed to be the Sims big debut. Patrick was asked to put together a gameplay demo, which highlighted these different scripted scenarios for The Sims. One of them was a wedding. There were so many Sims attending that Patrick didn’t have time to script all of their interactions. That meant some of the characters would act autonomously.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>No one mentioned it. E3 was coming up, the hottest, most prestigious games industry convention of its time. And this was supposed to be the Sims big debut. Patrick was asked to put together a gameplay demo, which highlighted these different scripted scenarios for The Sims. One of them was a wedding. There were so many Sims attending that Patrick didn’t have time to script all of their interactions. That meant some of the characters would act autonomously.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> They put everything together, shipped it off, and then at the trade show in front of a gigantic crowd and like one of the biggest trade shows for our industry, in front everybody, two female Sims kissed each other and everyone just went nuts. Like, it was one of those things where the cat was totally out of the bag. There was such buzz coming out of that moment that it had to be part of the game from that point on. And even though we got there by accident, I’m not picky. I’m glad it happened at all. And from that moment, The Sims kind of became the tip of the spear.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> They put everything together, shipped it off, and then at the trade show in front of a gigantic crowd and like one of the biggest trade shows for our industry, in front everybody, two female Sims kissed each other and everyone just went nuts. Like, it was one of those things where the cat was totally out of the bag. There was such buzz coming out of that moment that it had to be part of the game from that point on. And even though we got there by accident, I’m not picky. I’m glad it happened at all. And from that moment, The Sims kind of became the tip of the spear.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This blunder at a trade show 27 years ago set something in motion that is still reverberating today. But considering how foundational the story is to Sims lore, I wanted to verify it. Is there anything backing up this story? Consider this our first side quest, tracking down the receipts. This much I can say. There’s no footage of this legendary kiss happening. While working on this episode, I spent days scrubbing through archived forums, interviews with Will Wright, and B-roll from news broadcasts covering the Sims demo. There is a lot of coverage of E3 in 1999.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This blunder at a trade show 27 years ago set something in motion that is still reverberating today. But considering how foundational the story is to Sims lore, I wanted to verify it. Is there anything backing up this story? Consider this our first side quest, tracking down the receipts. This much I can say. There’s no footage of this legendary kiss happening. While working on this episode, I spent days scrubbing through archived forums, interviews with Will Wright, and B-roll from news broadcasts covering the Sims demo. There is a lot of coverage of E3 in 1999.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Lauren Fielder for GameSpot TV from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>Here we are! We’re on the floor of the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, with a special edition of GameSpot TV.\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Lauren Fielder for GameSpot TV from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>Here we are! We’re on the floor of the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, with a special edition of GameSpot TV.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Some news reports have a sentence or two about The Sims, like a Washington Post write-up that called it, “a quiet little game,” and, “a surprise hit.” But there’s barely any coverage with details about The Sims demo. What I did manage to dig up is from a German DVD showcasing PC games that debuted at E3.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Some news reports have a sentence or two about The Sims, like a Washington Post write-up that called it, “a quiet little game,” and, “a surprise hit.” But there’s barely any coverage with details about The Sims demo. What I did manage to dig up is from a German DVD showcasing PC games that debuted at E3.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of DVD demo in German from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking German]\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of DVD demo in German from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking German]\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The part mentioning the Sims is just 22 seconds long. The fabled kiss does not appear. So I scrubbed through, no joke, hours of show footage from that year’s convention. This is the pre-vlogging era. I’m talking shaky camcorder clips, unedited, capturing these little snippets of what gaming was like in 1999.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The part mentioning the Sims is just 22 seconds long. The fabled kiss does not appear. So I scrubbed through, no joke, hours of show footage from that year’s convention. This is the pre-vlogging era. I’m talking shaky camcorder clips, unedited, capturing these little snippets of what gaming was like in 1999.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of E3 convention in 1999 from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>You can be a master if you try! Pokemon! The adventure begins with the TV show…\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of E3 convention in 1999 from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>You can be a master if you try! Pokemon! The adventure begins with the TV show…\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> These scenes were lost to time until someone found the tapes, digitized them, and then uploaded them to YouTube decades later. I found a brief flash of the Sims booth in one video, but the camera holder didn’t bother to focus on the screen. On the internet, there’s no mention of this groundbreaking lesbian kiss until 2014, when The New Yorker published the interview with Patrick Barrett. We tried reaching out to the programmer through multiple contact methods, but didn’t get a response. I even friended him on Facebook. But, crickets. Maybe one day, someone will uncover and digitize the grainy camcorder footage of the kiss that changed it all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> These scenes were lost to time until someone found the tapes, digitized them, and then uploaded them to YouTube decades later. I found a brief flash of the Sims booth in one video, but the camera holder didn’t bother to focus on the screen. On the internet, there’s no mention of this groundbreaking lesbian kiss until 2014, when The New Yorker published the interview with Patrick Barrett. We tried reaching out to the programmer through multiple contact methods, but didn’t get a response. I even friended him on Facebook. But, crickets. Maybe one day, someone will uncover and digitize the grainy camcorder footage of the kiss that changed it all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What we do have is confirmation of an internal struggle at Maxis over whether to include same-sex relationships at all. In 2019, another programmer, Don Hopkins, released the design documents from 1998, months before that infamous E3 game demo. He criticized the prototype’s strictly enforced heterosexuality. In one version, trying to initiate a kiss with a Sim of the same gender would actually result in the Sim getting slapped. Here’s a note that Don left in the document.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What we do have is confirmation of an internal struggle at Maxis over whether to include same-sex relationships at all. In 2019, another programmer, Don Hopkins, released the design documents from 1998, months before that infamous E3 game demo. He criticized the prototype’s strictly enforced heterosexuality. In one version, trying to initiate a kiss with a Sim of the same gender would actually result in the Sim getting slapped. Here’s a note that Don left in the document.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Dramatic reading of Don’s comment by Chris Egusa]: \u003c/strong>We are going to be expected to do better than that after the SimCopter fiasco and the lip service that Maxis publicly gave in response about not being anti-gay. And anyone offended by that needs to grow up and get a life. And hopefully our game will help them in that quest.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Dramatic reading of Don’s comment by Chris Egusa]: \u003c/strong>We are going to be expected to do better than that after the SimCopter fiasco and the lip service that Maxis publicly gave in response about not being anti-gay. And anyone offended by that needs to grow up and get a life. And hopefully our game will help them in that quest.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims debuted at E3 months later. Gay romance and all. The full game was released the next year.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims debuted at E3 months later. Gay romance and all. The full game was released the next year.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> So it’s, it’s 2000, young Jessica is 16. Uh, and I’m reading my PC Mag, because we had physical media back then. And I see this article about this new game, The Sims, and it is not like anything else I’ve ever seen. It’s this quirky little game where instead of like, being a warrior, a wizard, or like flying spaceships, you’re just living a life. And to me I’m like, “How could that possibly be fun?” is my first thought. And then my second thought, “I’m kind of curious.” I want to see why people think this is fun. And I load up, I play it, and it just opened up this whole new space for me. And I’m like, “Huh, this is actually really interesting playing a game about just the everyday life of a character.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> So it’s, it’s 2000, young Jessica is 16. Uh, and I’m reading my PC Mag, because we had physical media back then. And I see this article about this new game, The Sims, and it is not like anything else I’ve ever seen. It’s this quirky little game where instead of like, being a warrior, a wizard, or like flying spaceships, you’re just living a life. And to me I’m like, “How could that possibly be fun?” is my first thought. And then my second thought, “I’m kind of curious.” I want to see why people think this is fun. And I load up, I play it, and it just opened up this whole new space for me. And I’m like, “Huh, this is actually really interesting playing a game about just the everyday life of a character.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims was a hit. Critics praised it for the character customization, the totally unique gameplay, and the storytelling. For a lot of players, the best part was that they could be gay in the game.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims was a hit. Critics praised it for the character customization, the totally unique gameplay, and the storytelling. For a lot of players, the best part was that they could be gay in the game.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think like, so often when you talk about representation, the first of something, the first time you see a same-sex couple in like a major production, the first time you see a trans character in a major like piece of media, that really signals to everyone else that like, “Hey, you know, we can explore these spaces and we can tell these authentic stories and represent folks that are not represented,” and largely, it’s gonna be fine.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think like, so often when you talk about representation, the first of something, the first time you see a same-sex couple in like a major production, the first time you see a trans character in a major like piece of media, that really signals to everyone else that like, “Hey, you know, we can explore these spaces and we can tell these authentic stories and represent folks that are not represented,” and largely, it’s gonna be fine.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There were limits. Like, straight Sims could get married, but gay Sims couldn’t. Okay. But, it was 26 years ago. And as cultural norms evolved, so did the game. But video games function based on defined rules. So, how do you fit something as nuanced as sexuality into lines of code? How does introducing human concepts of gender into a game alter non-human characters? And how did these updates affect the beloved Simmer tradition of woohoo-ing the Grim Reaper? (Woohoo-ing, by the way, is the Sims version of sex). We’re opening a tab on that in just a minute. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break: more on the gay history of The Sims. Welcome back. Let’s open another tab: a Gay History of the Sims.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There were limits. Like, straight Sims could get married, but gay Sims couldn’t. Okay. But, it was 26 years ago. And as cultural norms evolved, so did the game. But video games function based on defined rules. So, how do you fit something as nuanced as sexuality into lines of code? How does introducing human concepts of gender into a game alter non-human characters? And how did these updates affect the beloved Simmer tradition of woohoo-ing the Grim Reaper? (Woohoo-ing, by the way, is the Sims version of sex). We’re opening a tab on that in just a minute. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break: more on the gay history of The Sims. Welcome back. Let’s open another tab: a Gay History of the Sims.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The game, like, it didn’t say queer or not queer. It was, I was interacting and I chose to kiss a man and the game would be like, “Okay.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The game, like, it didn’t say queer or not queer. It was, I was interacting and I chose to kiss a man and the game would be like, “Okay.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Lowell Phelps is a senior game design director at EA, and he’s worked on The Sims for over 15 years. He calls himself “a shepherd of ideas,” for the game. He spends a lot of time researching human psychology and how it can be applied to game design. But for many years before that, he was a college student living in a dorm with five other guys when The Sims 1 came out. How his life turned out today didn’t even seem like a possibility back then.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Lowell Phelps is a senior game design director at EA, and he’s worked on The Sims for over 15 years. He calls himself “a shepherd of ideas,” for the game. He spends a lot of time researching human psychology and how it can be applied to game design. But for many years before that, he was a college student living in a dorm with five other guys when The Sims 1 came out. How his life turned out today didn’t even seem like a possibility back then.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I have a husband, I have child, like this is kind of my culture, even though I hadn’t really explored any of that growing up, but I could with The Sims.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I have a husband, I have child, like this is kind of my culture, even though I hadn’t really explored any of that growing up, but I could with The Sims.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Sexuality didn’t necessarily exist in The Sims 1. None of the characters had any sexual preference. If they had a high enough relationship score with the player, it would unlock romantic interactions.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Sexuality didn’t necessarily exist in The Sims 1. None of the characters had any sexual preference. If they had a high enough relationship score with the player, it would unlock romantic interactions.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Everybody was just default pansexual, right? And that was really fascinating to kind of see how the game chose not to make a choice for me, but waited for me to make that choice and drive the direction of these stories. Like being able to woohoo and kiss and just have dates with other characters in ways that maybe you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in public.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Everybody was just default pansexual, right? And that was really fascinating to kind of see how the game chose not to make a choice for me, but waited for me to make that choice and drive the direction of these stories. Like being able to woohoo and kiss and just have dates with other characters in ways that maybe you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in public.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Same-sex couples couldn’t get married like straight Sims couples, but if they moved in together, the game treated them as if they were married anyway. The Sims 2 came out in 2004 and introduced gender preference to the game. It was a weighted system, hidden from players but shifted based on player choices. Think of a scale, tipping one way or the other depending on romantic interactions. So, if a female Sim flirted with a female character, they’d both develop a preference for women, and then autonomously flirt with other female Sims. And then those Sims would autonomously flirt with other female Sims, shifting their preferences. In other words, in The Sims 2, being gay was contagious. And although none of the pre-made characters were explicitly LGBTQ, there were a few that were coded to be queer.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Same-sex couples couldn’t get married like straight Sims couples, but if they moved in together, the game treated them as if they were married anyway. The Sims 2 came out in 2004 and introduced gender preference to the game. It was a weighted system, hidden from players but shifted based on player choices. Think of a scale, tipping one way or the other depending on romantic interactions. So, if a female Sim flirted with a female character, they’d both develop a preference for women, and then autonomously flirt with other female Sims. And then those Sims would autonomously flirt with other female Sims, shifting their preferences. In other words, in The Sims 2, being gay was contagious. And although none of the pre-made characters were explicitly LGBTQ, there were a few that were coded to be queer.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I found Sims 2 versions where we’d told stories about queer couples, um, and it was in the text and maybe how we set some of the parameters. I didn’t realize that until I started digging into the actual history. Um, and I kind of learned that the team has started, not started, but has always included the things that allow gender expression to happen in whatever way we felt comfortable, the person setting it up felt comfortable. So you’ll see it in descriptions, you’ll it in stories of the characters.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I found Sims 2 versions where we’d told stories about queer couples, um, and it was in the text and maybe how we set some of the parameters. I didn’t realize that until I started digging into the actual history. Um, and I kind of learned that the team has started, not started, but has always included the things that allow gender expression to happen in whatever way we felt comfortable, the person setting it up felt comfortable. So you’ll see it in descriptions, you’ll it in stories of the characters.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The game also allowed Sims to formally propose to each other and plan weddings, regardless of gender. Players would have to buy a special in-game wedding object: a floral arch. When they clicked on it, if they were in a straight relationship, a bubble would pop up that said, “Get married,” triggering a cutscene where the two Sims would exchange rings and cry.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The game also allowed Sims to formally propose to each other and plan weddings, regardless of gender. Players would have to buy a special in-game wedding object: a floral arch. When they clicked on it, if they were in a straight relationship, a bubble would pop up that said, “Get married,” triggering a cutscene where the two Sims would exchange rings and cry.\u003c/p>\n"
],
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Sims 2 wedding in Simlish from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking Simlish]\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Sims 2 wedding in Simlish from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking Simlish]\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was basically the same thing for same-sex couples — but their bubble would say, “Join Union.” Today, that does seem pretty discriminatory. But back then, most states didn’t even offer domestic partnerships or civil unions for same-sex couples. The fact that you could have an in-game gay wedding at all was a pretty big deal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was basically the same thing for same-sex couples — but their bubble would say, “Join Union.” Today, that does seem pretty discriminatory. But back then, most states didn’t even offer domestic partnerships or civil unions for same-sex couples. The fact that you could have an in-game gay wedding at all was a pretty big deal.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Gay marriage was not a acceptable thing at the time, it was not legally approved. And just being able to have those joined unions, being able actually to have a situation where I can take the stories I’m playing out and have a lesbian couple and a gay couple and have the feeling that they are a family, they’re a collective.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Gay marriage was not a acceptable thing at the time, it was not legally approved. And just being able to have those joined unions, being able actually to have a situation where I can take the stories I’m playing out and have a lesbian couple and a gay couple and have the feeling that they are a family, they’re a collective.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, I’m not gonna lie, as a kid, I used to stay up late on YouTube watching videos of gay weddings in The Sims 2 on the family computer. The scenes were always set to very on-the-nose music, like Katy Perry’s, “I Kissed a Girl,” or the theme song from The L Word. But as a queer preteen, the videos were eye-opening.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, I’m not gonna lie, as a kid, I used to stay up late on YouTube watching videos of gay weddings in The Sims 2 on the family computer. The scenes were always set to very on-the-nose music, like Katy Perry’s, “I Kissed a Girl,” or the theme song from The L Word. But as a queer preteen, the videos were eye-opening.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> And The Sims, because of that first kiss, right? From the moment that happened, it felt like both the players and the creators, like the teams that are working on this product, felt a little bit of freedom to do what we needed to do to just express as many versions of life as we could.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> And The Sims, because of that first kiss, right? From the moment that happened, it felt like both the players and the creators, like the teams that are working on this product, felt a little bit of freedom to do what we needed to do to just express as many versions of life as we could.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> When The Sims 3 came out in 2009, the United States was at a real inflection point for marriage equality. Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that established marriage as a fundamental right for same-sex couples, was still years away. So you could get gay married in The Sims 3, but none of the game’s pre-made characters were officially gay. Pre-made Sims are fully fleshed out characters with backstories and relationships and skills and homes — already established by developers. But, just because characters weren’t explicitly gay doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. The game included several characters that were heavily implied to be LGBTQ. Like, a household of two women were labeled “roommates,” but they sleep in two beds pushed together in their pre-made house. Or, two guys labeled “best friends” who lived with their adopted daughter who has both of their last names.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> When The Sims 3 came out in 2009, the United States was at a real inflection point for marriage equality. Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that established marriage as a fundamental right for same-sex couples, was still years away. So you could get gay married in The Sims 3, but none of the game’s pre-made characters were officially gay. Pre-made Sims are fully fleshed out characters with backstories and relationships and skills and homes — already established by developers. But, just because characters weren’t explicitly gay doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. The game included several characters that were heavily implied to be LGBTQ. Like, a household of two women were labeled “roommates,” but they sleep in two beds pushed together in their pre-made house. Or, two guys labeled “best friends” who lived with their adopted daughter who has both of their last names.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We create characters that live in the world and have stories that they should be pre-built with. And those stories start by applying their preferences, their traits, their aspirations and their wants. And those tools give us a lot of control to say, “What is this initial starting story that the player might be jumping into if they play with a household that already exists?”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We create characters that live in the world and have stories that they should be pre-built with. And those stories start by applying their preferences, their traits, their aspirations and their wants. And those tools give us a lot of control to say, “What is this initial starting story that the player might be jumping into if they play with a household that already exists?”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The year before The Sims 3 release, Prop 8 passed in California, banning same-sex marriage. A federal court later struck it down, and in June 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown ordered county clerks to resume issuing marriage licenses for gay couples. Which is where we get this meme of then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The year before The Sims 3 release, Prop 8 passed in California, banning same-sex marriage. A federal court later struck it down, and in June 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown ordered county clerks to resume issuing marriage licenses for gay couples. Which is where we get this meme of then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Kamala Harris from X]: \u003c/strong>You must start marriages immediately. You must start the marriages immediately.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Kamala Harris from X]: \u003c/strong>You must start marriages immediately. You must start the marriages immediately.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Later that year, The Sims 3 released an expansion pack called Roaring Heights, and with it, the first explicitly LGBTQ characters.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Later that year, The Sims 3 released an expansion pack called Roaring Heights, and with it, the first explicitly LGBTQ characters.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So the Roaring Heights couple, the Dylan and Audrey, was really the first time I think we’d actually put a lesbian couple in a world as an actual family with the correct settings that said, “Hey, we are married, we’re a couple.” And that felt pretty transformative. So, right around the time that Prop 8 got overturned is kind of when we started introducing that as an actual element in the game, so players could experience it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So the Roaring Heights couple, the Dylan and Audrey, was really the first time I think we’d actually put a lesbian couple in a world as an actual family with the correct settings that said, “Hey, we are married, we’re a couple.” And that felt pretty transformative. So, right around the time that Prop 8 got overturned is kind of when we started introducing that as an actual element in the game, so players could experience it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> At that point, the next game in the series, The Sims 4, was already in the works. It was released in 2014, and this was the version that really transformed what it means to be represented in games, beyond who can woohoo and marry. In The Sims 4, the team tackled a new frontier: gender. Time for a new tab. Can a cat be non-binary? Two years after The Sims 4 release, the game underwent a major character customization overhaul. So, when you start a new game, you have the option to play as a pre-made household, or customize one yourself. That part is called Create-A-Sim.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> At that point, the next game in the series, The Sims 4, was already in the works. It was released in 2014, and this was the version that really transformed what it means to be represented in games, beyond who can woohoo and marry. In The Sims 4, the team tackled a new frontier: gender. Time for a new tab. Can a cat be non-binary? Two years after The Sims 4 release, the game underwent a major character customization overhaul. So, when you start a new game, you have the option to play as a pre-made household, or customize one yourself. That part is called Create-A-Sim.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We started with male/female as the default for base game and we realized that just wasn’t good enough, right? We wanted to be able to allow, again, better representation, more nuance into the choice. So we quickly realized that thinking about maybe masculine or feminine expression is how we wanna actually tackle this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We started with male/female as the default for base game and we realized that just wasn’t good enough, right? We wanted to be able to allow, again, better representation, more nuance into the choice. So we quickly realized that thinking about maybe masculine or feminine expression is how we wanna actually tackle this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims 4 offers a series of gender-related choices for players to choose from. They can choose whether their Sim has a masculine frame or a feminine frame. And from there, choose whether they prefer masculine clothing or feminine clothing. It actually went further than just appearance. The game is rated T for Teen. Sims never get naked, unless you’re playing with a spicy mod. Wicked Whims players, you know who you are. But for the official game… That limitation, not showing body parts, got the development team to think about gender and expression beyond what’s assigned at birth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims 4 offers a series of gender-related choices for players to choose from. They can choose whether their Sim has a masculine frame or a feminine frame. And from there, choose whether they prefer masculine clothing or feminine clothing. It actually went further than just appearance. The game is rated T for Teen. Sims never get naked, unless you’re playing with a spicy mod. Wicked Whims players, you know who you are. But for the official game… That limitation, not showing body parts, got the development team to think about gender and expression beyond what’s assigned at birth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Different clothing preferences, regardless of what my physical appearance actually is. Being able to set whether I can get pregnant or not, or I stand up at the toilet instead of sitting down. It’s not about labeling. It’s about thinking about what is the behavior that’s happening and letting players choose what portion of that behavior is important to them. That’s why peeing standing up or using the toilet standing up is the approach instead of saying, “I have a specific body part,” right? That’s less important. It’s about the behavior.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Different clothing preferences, regardless of what my physical appearance actually is. Being able to set whether I can get pregnant or not, or I stand up at the toilet instead of sitting down. It’s not about labeling. It’s about thinking about what is the behavior that’s happening and letting players choose what portion of that behavior is important to them. That’s why peeing standing up or using the toilet standing up is the approach instead of saying, “I have a specific body part,” right? That’s less important. It’s about the behavior.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This new framing of gender led to the first canonically trans character, the spellcaster Morgyn Ember, who can’t get pregnant, can’t other Sims pregnant, has a masculine frame, and wears feminine clothing. Some players tried to romance Morgyn and were confused about their gender. In 2022, Morgyn’s pronouns were updated to they/them. It was part of a bigger game update that allowed players to set unique pronouns for their Sims. Updating a game like this, which has versions in many different languages, was actually pretty complicated. Only English versions of the game have customizable pronouns, which has been disappointing to some players. Here’s Jessica Croft again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This new framing of gender led to the first canonically trans character, the spellcaster Morgyn Ember, who can’t get pregnant, can’t other Sims pregnant, has a masculine frame, and wears feminine clothing. Some players tried to romance Morgyn and were confused about their gender. In 2022, Morgyn’s pronouns were updated to they/them. It was part of a bigger game update that allowed players to set unique pronouns for their Sims. Updating a game like this, which has versions in many different languages, was actually pretty complicated. Only English versions of the game have customizable pronouns, which has been disappointing to some players. Here’s Jessica Croft again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The pronouns update was something that I think was very important to our community, especially obviously non-binary folks within our community. The difficulty there is just simply, language itself is not fully aligned on how to handle things like pronouns. They are heavily gendered and in a way where if you don’t study those things at all you might not realize it’s not just about translating a pronoun, it things like adjectives, articles, even past tense verbs are gendered in these places. And then further, some languages do have gender-neutral words, but they are restricted for objects. So, there’s a certain thing where it’s like, if we use that kind of language, does it cause additional problems?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The pronouns update was something that I think was very important to our community, especially obviously non-binary folks within our community. The difficulty there is just simply, language itself is not fully aligned on how to handle things like pronouns. They are heavily gendered and in a way where if you don’t study those things at all you might not realize it’s not just about translating a pronoun, it things like adjectives, articles, even past tense verbs are gendered in these places. And then further, some languages do have gender-neutral words, but they are restricted for objects. So, there’s a certain thing where it’s like, if we use that kind of language, does it cause additional problems?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s a cliché saying, but perfect is the enemy of good. We wanted to get something out there that did a lot of good work, that represented a lot folks and made people feel seen, um, as soon as we could. And I think it’s one of those things where if you wait until you get the perfect version of something, where you solve all the problems, where we figure out how to do pronouns in every language, you might never release that thing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it’s a cliché saying, but perfect is the enemy of good. We wanted to get something out there that did a lot of good work, that represented a lot folks and made people feel seen, um, as soon as we could. And I think it’s one of those things where if you wait until you get the perfect version of something, where you solve all the problems, where we figure out how to do pronouns in every language, you might never release that thing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has been out for 12 years now, and in that time, there have been dozens of additional packs — extra contents that includes new worlds, new features, and new pre-made characters. Every time it gets updated, it affects years of pre-existing game content.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has been out for 12 years now, and in that time, there have been dozens of additional packs — extra contents that includes new worlds, new features, and new pre-made characters. Every time it gets updated, it affects years of pre-existing game content.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The Sims is a little bit weird. We have robots and we have skeletons and we have lots of other things that maybe you can ask yourself, “Do they have gender? Should they have gender?” Cats and dogs, when we did the non-binary update… You can make a cat and a dog non-binary, that’s okay. So really it comes down to character by character and thinking about is it important for this character to have an identity?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The Sims is a little bit weird. We have robots and we have skeletons and we have lots of other things that maybe you can ask yourself, “Do they have gender? Should they have gender?” Cats and dogs, when we did the non-binary update… You can make a cat and a dog non-binary, that’s okay. So really it comes down to character by character and thinking about is it important for this character to have an identity?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think at one point we had non-binary horses in the horse pack, which, I’m sure those players were like, “Well, you should have just kept that,” and like, maybe, but it was definitely unintentional. When you work with a game like The Sims that’s just layers and layers of systems sitting on top of each other, you get these knock-on effects of some choices you make that are occasionally hilarious.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think at one point we had non-binary horses in the horse pack, which, I’m sure those players were like, “Well, you should have just kept that,” and like, maybe, but it was definitely unintentional. When you work with a game like The Sims that’s just layers and layers of systems sitting on top of each other, you get these knock-on effects of some choices you make that are occasionally hilarious.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> After the pronoun update, the Sims 4 unveiled its crown jewel for character customization: a giant overhaul of in-game sexual orientation. Jessica was actually leading the design for an expansion pack all about high school. The development team had been working on fine-tuning Sim sexuality, and Jessica pitched releasing that update with a high school expansion. Why there?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> After the pronoun update, the Sims 4 unveiled its crown jewel for character customization: a giant overhaul of in-game sexual orientation. Jessica was actually leading the design for an expansion pack all about high school. The development team had been working on fine-tuning Sim sexuality, and Jessica pitched releasing that update with a high school expansion. Why there?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> It’s a pack about high school that… It’s about being a teenager, it’s about figuring out who you are. That’s where, in real life a lot of folks do figure out who they are and start exploring questions of their sexuality. So it felt like the right place to do it and the team just rallied around that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> It’s a pack about high school that… It’s about being a teenager, it’s about figuring out who you are. That’s where, in real life a lot of folks do figure out who they are and start exploring questions of their sexuality. So it felt like the right place to do it and the team just rallied around that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, like with a gender update, this wasn’t a simple matter of slapping on some labels and letting players pick one. It had to be functional in gameplay.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, like with a gender update, this wasn’t a simple matter of slapping on some labels and letting players pick one. It had to be functional in gameplay.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The space is so nuanced, the definitions folks have for certain words can differ, in ways where painting with a broad brush on what these labels mean can become incredibly divisive. That was one of the things that we discovered really quickly, working with GLAAD and It Gets Better, that fact. So eventually, we got to a spot where we didn’t use labels. It’s just strictly defining the characteristics of who you’re attracted to and the types of things that you’re into, to craft what is effectively a sexual orientation without the label.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The space is so nuanced, the definitions folks have for certain words can differ, in ways where painting with a broad brush on what these labels mean can become incredibly divisive. That was one of the things that we discovered really quickly, working with GLAAD and It Gets Better, that fact. So eventually, we got to a spot where we didn’t use labels. It’s just strictly defining the characteristics of who you’re attracted to and the types of things that you’re into, to craft what is effectively a sexual orientation without the label.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So instead of picking from a menu of words like: “lesbian,” “gay,” “bi,” “asexual,” players just pick the genders they’re attracted to and whether they’re interested in romantic relationships and woohoo-ing. They also don’t have to make a decision. There’s an option for exploring. Jessica said this was also important to include because figuring it out is also a part of real life sexuality. However, players cannot opt out of this aspect of the game entirely. There’s no way to default set all Sims to be straight. When the update first came out, Jessica wrote this in a blog post.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So instead of picking from a menu of words like: “lesbian,” “gay,” “bi,” “asexual,” players just pick the genders they’re attracted to and whether they’re interested in romantic relationships and woohoo-ing. They also don’t have to make a decision. There’s an option for exploring. Jessica said this was also important to include because figuring it out is also a part of real life sexuality. However, players cannot opt out of this aspect of the game entirely. There’s no way to default set all Sims to be straight. When the update first came out, Jessica wrote this in a blog post.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think something along the lines of, “While we generally give players the option to toggle off certain gameplay elements, LGBTQIA+ identities are a fact of life, and not just a toggle you can switch on and off.” I stand by that statement. I frankly don’t care if you don’t like certain people. You can’t just turn them off, right? In real life or in a game. And I think it’s important to stand on business there. We want to commit to our vision for diversity and representation within The Sims, and that’s not a thing you get to just turn off.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think something along the lines of, “While we generally give players the option to toggle off certain gameplay elements, LGBTQIA+ identities are a fact of life, and not just a toggle you can switch on and off.” I stand by that statement. I frankly don’t care if you don’t like certain people. You can’t just turn them off, right? In real life or in a game. And I think it’s important to stand on business there. We want to commit to our vision for diversity and representation within The Sims, and that’s not a thing you get to just turn off.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims has come so far since the accidental sapphic kiss 27 years ago. It’s way more inclusive, but far from perfect. Despite the expanded framing of gender, the whole system still operates within a binary.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims has come so far since the accidental sapphic kiss 27 years ago. It’s way more inclusive, but far from perfect. Despite the expanded framing of gender, the whole system still operates within a binary.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> When The Sims was originally engineered, in its very core, like, structural bones, there’s a gender binary. And that next step is like, how do we break this game out of this gender binary? It’s a tricky thing. It would require like this foundational rework of like, so many systems. If at some point we’re able to do an update to, to fully break the game out this gender binary like, foundation it has, that would be so meaningful. It would open up a lot of gameplay, too. Again, it’s immensely tricky. It’s like, a thing that would require really re-engineering a good chunk of the foundation of the game to make happen.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> When The Sims was originally engineered, in its very core, like, structural bones, there’s a gender binary. And that next step is like, how do we break this game out of this gender binary? It’s a tricky thing. It would require like this foundational rework of like, so many systems. If at some point we’re able to do an update to, to fully break the game out this gender binary like, foundation it has, that would be so meaningful. It would open up a lot of gameplay, too. Again, it’s immensely tricky. It’s like, a thing that would require really re-engineering a good chunk of the foundation of the game to make happen.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There have been some workarounds though. Loel talked about this recent feature that he really loves.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There have been some workarounds though. Loel talked about this recent feature that he really loves.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So, one of my favorite things that we have added were binders and chest, uh… top surgery scars. Um, and those… Sorry, I get a little emotional talking about it. So my husband is trans. Being able to create his character before that transition after he came out, and have a screenshot of our family, my husband, my daughter, and me just in a space was really impactful. So while it didn’t physically bind the chest, just being able to put on a binder is a step in that transition of his story was really impactful. There’s so many different ways in which people live and have transitions. If I can give one little thing to any player that lets them tell those stories, it’s really important. And those little updates just make such an impact on being able to both represent yourself and feel like yourself in this digital world.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So, one of my favorite things that we have added were binders and chest, uh… top surgery scars. Um, and those… Sorry, I get a little emotional talking about it. So my husband is trans. Being able to create his character before that transition after he came out, and have a screenshot of our family, my husband, my daughter, and me just in a space was really impactful. So while it didn’t physically bind the chest, just being able to put on a binder is a step in that transition of his story was really impactful. There’s so many different ways in which people live and have transitions. If I can give one little thing to any player that lets them tell those stories, it’s really important. And those little updates just make such an impact on being able to both represent yourself and feel like yourself in this digital world.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve been playing The Sims for over half my life, and created so many different lives within the game. I still think about one of my first playthroughs. It was The Sims 3. I moved my Sim to a tropical island, fell in love with a mermaid, and we settled down on a houseboat together. At 13, being openly gay seemed just as fantastical as proposing to a mermaid. The whimsical queer life I built in that save file unfortunately came to an end —when my kitchen caught fire, with my Sims still in it, and instead of helping, my mermaid wife got stuck on a random floor tile and died of dehydration. The whole house boat went down. It was devastating. So, I started another save, and then another, and then probably a couple hundred more. And today, being openly gay isn’t that absurd at all. There’s a reason queer people make up such a large portion of The Sims player base. We reached out to Simmers to hear what this game has meant to them over the years. Here’s what they had to say.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve been playing The Sims for over half my life, and created so many different lives within the game. I still think about one of my first playthroughs. It was The Sims 3. I moved my Sim to a tropical island, fell in love with a mermaid, and we settled down on a houseboat together. At 13, being openly gay seemed just as fantastical as proposing to a mermaid. The whimsical queer life I built in that save file unfortunately came to an end —when my kitchen caught fire, with my Sims still in it, and instead of helping, my mermaid wife got stuck on a random floor tile and died of dehydration. The whole house boat went down. It was devastating. So, I started another save, and then another, and then probably a couple hundred more. And today, being openly gay isn’t that absurd at all. There’s a reason queer people make up such a large portion of The Sims player base. We reached out to Simmers to hear what this game has meant to them over the years. Here’s what they had to say.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Will be the first Simmer to hold my hands up and say I was a bit too interested in making my Sims kiss Sims of the same sex. And I think that for a lot of queer people, they will also be able to trace their own gameplay in The Sims back and have a lot of things suddenly make sense.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Will be the first Simmer to hold my hands up and say I was a bit too interested in making my Sims kiss Sims of the same sex. And I think that for a lot of queer people, they will also be able to trace their own gameplay in The Sims back and have a lot of things suddenly make sense.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Owen McHall: \u003c/strong>The Sims was the first game I ever played where I could make the player character trans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Owen McHall: \u003c/strong>The Sims was the first game I ever played where I could make the player character trans.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stephen Works (SpringSims): \u003c/strong>It felt more like home… It felt like my safe space where I could be who I want, how I want without any fear of judgment. As a queer Black male, I was able to recreate myself authentically from my skin tone to my hair type, to the clothing options. There were so many stories that I have told and created and shaped that I knew it was like, “This is where I wanna be for the rest of my life.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stephen Works (SpringSims): \u003c/strong>It felt more like home… It felt like my safe space where I could be who I want, how I want without any fear of judgment. As a queer Black male, I was able to recreate myself authentically from my skin tone to my hair type, to the clothing options. There were so many stories that I have told and created and shaped that I knew it was like, “This is where I wanna be for the rest of my life.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mivyard:\u003c/strong> For me, as a queer kid growing up in a Christian school, I definitely felt like I had to be quiet about who I was and I didn’t see a lot of role models at school. And so, having The Sims as a tool for exploration and expression really helped me find a sense of belonging and it helped me feel confident, and proud of who I was.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mivyard:\u003c/strong> For me, as a queer kid growing up in a Christian school, I definitely felt like I had to be quiet about who I was and I didn’t see a lot of role models at school. And so, having The Sims as a tool for exploration and expression really helped me find a sense of belonging and it helped me feel confident, and proud of who I was.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tonya (Gryphi): \u003c/strong>If I could have two girls kiss and fall in love in this game, then maybe it was okay in real life as well.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tonya (Gryphi): \u003c/strong>If I could have two girls kiss and fall in love in this game, then maybe it was okay in real life as well.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Being able to fall in with whoever you wanted might have been an oversight of the developers, it might have an accident that they forgot to write in the code. It’s ended up that in a time where it wasn’t really okay to be anything outside of the norm, The Sims has been a beacon of inclusivity, and that’s just grown over the years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Being able to fall in with whoever you wanted might have been an oversight of the developers, it might have an accident that they forgot to write in the code. It’s ended up that in a time where it wasn’t really okay to be anything outside of the norm, The Sims has been a beacon of inclusivity, and that’s just grown over the years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has come to mean so much to so many queer players. It’s made such huge strides for LGBTQ inclusion — meaningful representation, without feeling like some kind of corporate pandering. But today, a lot of those players are really, deeply concerned about the future of The Sims. Late last year, Electronic Arts confirmed that the entire brand and its catalog, including The Sims, had been sold to private investors, a cohort that includes Jared Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has come to mean so much to so many queer players. It’s made such huge strides for LGBTQ inclusion — meaningful representation, without feeling like some kind of corporate pandering. But today, a lot of those players are really, deeply concerned about the future of The Sims. Late last year, Electronic Arts confirmed that the entire brand and its catalog, including The Sims, had been sold to private investors, a cohort that includes Jared Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>It’s also a $55 billion deal, which is completely unprecedented. I mean, it’s hard to even, like, fathom the scale of that, but that actually is more than the entire music industry combined.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>It’s also a $55 billion deal, which is completely unprecedented. I mean, it’s hard to even, like, fathom the scale of that, but that actually is more than the entire music industry combined.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Kayla Sims, better known online as LilSimsie, is one of the the creators speaking out about this deal.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>And there’s a lot of concerns about censorship within The Sims, I think also, because of those new owners that do not have a great track record with human rights. They actually have a direct track record of criminalizing LGBTQ+ expression. And so a lot queer players of The Sims are really, really worried about those new owners for that reason, too.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>And there’s a lot of concerns about censorship within The Sims, I think also, because of those new owners that do not have a great track record with human rights. They actually have a direct track record of criminalizing LGBTQ+ expression. And so a lot queer players of The Sims are really, really worried about those new owners for that reason, too.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So, we’re extending our deep dive. We have a few more tabs on what this deal really entails, how players are responding, and what The Sims team says about the future of the game. I’m gonna leave these tabs open for now. Come back next week for the second half of the story. And, if you’re dying for more before then, stick around after the credits for some bonus content.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So, we’re extending our deep dive. We have a few more tabs on what this deal really entails, how players are responding, and what The Sims team says about the future of the game. I’m gonna leave these tabs open for now. Come back next week for the second half of the story. And, if you’re dying for more before then, stick around after the credits for some bonus content.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva with production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, and did the dramatic reading for this episode.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva with production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, and did the dramatic reading for this episode.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro V2 switches.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Special thanks to the Simmers who contributed voice notes for this episode: Plumbella, Owen McHall, SpringSims, Mivyard, and Griphy. And thank you to John Fecile, senior producer for KQED’s Snap Judgment, for the tape of his interview with Will Wright. Thanks for listening!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Special thanks to the Simmers who contributed voice notes for this episode: Plumbella, Owen McHall, SpringSims, Mivyard, and Griphy. And thank you to John Fecile, senior producer for KQED’s Snap Judgment, for the tape of his interview with Will Wright. Thanks for listening!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I remember when the update for, I think it was maybe High School Years, when the sexuality update first came out, people were upset that the Grim Reaper was now asexual. They just really wanted to bang the Grim Reaper.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I mean, in Life and Death, we went back and made Grim woohoo-able again. Players have a fascination with our special characters… And at some point, the ownership of the thing becomes the person’s and not the dev team’s. Yeah, so yeah, Grim is an interesting case.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I mean, in Life and Death, we went back and made Grim woohoo-able again. Players have a fascination with our special characters… And at some point, the ownership of the thing becomes the person’s and not the dev team’s. Yeah, so yeah, Grim is an interesting case.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with \u003cem>The Sims 4\u003c/em> senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em> long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-megaphone wp-block-embed-megaphone\">\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3392561231\n\u003c/div>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>Jessica Croft, senior designer and lead designer at EA on The Sims 4\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-kiss-that-changed-video-games\">The Kiss That Changed Video Games\u003c/a> — Simon Parkin, \u003cem>The New Yorker\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pcgamer.com/unearthed-the-sims-design-docs-show-the-debate-over-same-sex-relationships/\">Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships\u003c/a> — Steven Messner, \u003cem>PC Gamer\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-HWyh0Ybk\">Did The Sims make you gay? – a video essay.\u003c/a> — Alexander Avila, \u003cem>YouTube\u003c/em> \u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2020/08/27/the-sims-knew-i-was-queer-before-i-did/\">The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did \u003c/a>— Megan Elliot,\u003cem>BRICKS Magazine\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/feb/22/gay-weddings-for-russia-how-the-sims-became-a-battleground-for-the-lgbtq-community\">Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community \u003c/a>— Tom Regan, \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\n\n\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://frvr.com/blog/news/the-sims-designer-says-that-the-series-diversity-is-critical-especially-at-times-like-now/\">The Sims designer says that the series’ diversity is “critical, especially at times like now” as the games must recognise “the fundamental truths of our humanity” to stay successful \u003c/a>— Lewis White, \u003cem>FIVR\u003c/em>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Follow us on \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Instagram\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\">TikTok\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cem>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Do you like these deep dives? Whether you call yourself a tabby or a tab head or part of the tab hive, if you’re a fan of Close All Tabs, it would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to us. Under our watch, every tab in the land will be closed. Eventually. I mean, I have like 15 open right now. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So the other day, I got out of bed and I did my normal morning chores. Fed the chickens, watered my crops, and checked in on my sweet baby cow plant. He ate one of my friends last week, so I’m keeping him on a really strict feeding schedule so he doesn’t try it again. I kissed my wife goodbye before she left for her job as an undertaker, and then I started getting ready for my job as a Grim Reaper. I just got promoted to Soul Slayer, which is a pretty big deal. Lots of responsibility there. But, just as I was about to leave, the gnomes started spawning around my house again. They went around breaking all my stuff, and when I tried to stop them, they had the audacity to strike me with lightning. Just another typical day in The Sims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This franchise has been wildly popular since the first Sims game came out 26 years ago. It’s like a virtual dollhouse. You control these dolls, called Sims, and help them fulfill goals, manage their needs, and interact with their world. I love it. For the last 14 years, my sister and I have shared an account just to play this game. And together, We’ve logged more than 6,000 hours in The Sims 4 alone. I’m kind of scared to check where we clocked in on The Sims 3. The game is constantly evolving and adapting to whatever the current culture is. And in addition to some very silly gameplay, The Sims has become this oasis for diversity and representation. In queer spaces, Sims players, also known as Simmers, love to ask each other this question. Did The Sims make you gay? Why is that, you may ask?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Because it made a lot of people gay\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica Croft is a senior designer for The Sims 4. She’s had a hand in designing some of the features that make the game so unique, like the sexual orientation system. More on that later. The Sims is iconic because of its freedom. It lets players experience the game however they want. That freedom has given rise to a few distinct types of simmers. You might be a builder. Spending hours constructing and decorating complex architectural marvels. Maybe you’re a storyteller who plays the game like an eternal personal soap opera, or a completionist trying to get every possible achievement in the game. And at some point in their life, every Simmer has been a chaos agent, setting things on fire, ruining in-game relationships, even removing the ladder from their Sim’s pool so they get stuck and drown. You know. Playing God.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I would say it’s, to me, a storytelling tool. So you’re playing this game about everyday life, and in that game, you’re gonna have stories emerge around the characters you play. But I think ultimately, to try and characterize The Sims as one thing, kind of does it an injustice because it’s so many things to so many people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There are so many ways to play this game, but for a lot of players, including myself, The Sims provided this safe little sandbox to figure out who they were.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think the fact that Sims is about crafting characters that might literally look, act, and have the same life you do has led a lot of folks to exploring who they are through The Sims. And I think it seems like a small thing, it’s just a game, like what’s the big deal? I figured out who I was through seeing myself in media because it let me know that who I am is okay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> A few years ago, Jessica led the Sims sexual orientation update. It was huge both for players and for the games industry overall. It allowed players to set specific parameters for who their Sims were attracted to and what kind of relationships they were interested in. But for years before this update ever rolled out, the game had already attracted a dedicated queer player base. In fact, same-sex relationships were possible from the very beginning when The Sims 1 launched in 2000. Jessica says this decision shifted the whole industry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> Back then it was pretty rare to have same-sex relationships in the game. And you saw more and more and more coming at that moment until where you are now where it’s actually pretty unusual I would say for a game where you create a character and embody that character to not have the option to have a same-sex relationship.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And since those early days, The Sims has grown into the symbol of LGBTQ representation, getting more inclusive with every update. In other words, it’s gotten more gay. Today, The Sims is arguably the most explicitly queer mainstream game ever made. So how did we get here? We’re diving into a topic I love yapping about, The Sims. From the game’s origin story, to the character lore, to the technical snafus involved in coding sexuality, we’re opening a bunch of tabs on how this game became an oasis for LGBTQ representation, and why some players are worried that might change. So, a gay history of The Sims. Ready?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Okay, let’s open our first tab. The Sims Gay Origin Story. The Sims is the brainchild of Will Wright, co-founder of the legendary game studio, Maxis, and creator of SimCity, SimEarth, and other beloved titles. This story starts in 1991, when Will and his family lost everything in the deadly Oakland Berkeley firestorm. In the aftermath, he and his wife began rebuilding, assessing what they needed and what it actually took to make a home. He had an idea for a life simulator, one that was totally open-ended. Where players start from scratch. Here he is speaking to KQED’s Snap Judgment for an upcoming episode that dives even deeper into this origin story.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Will Wright: \u003c/strong>The goal is meant to be for the player to choose. So you can play The Sims and say, “Okay, I want my Sims to be super happy,” or “I want them to be top of their career,” or they have the biggest mansion with the most friends or the most babies, whatever. What I’d rather produce is present a series of possible goals. And I think that’s much more meaningful. And it makes it more about you. So, you know, you’re actually pursuing a goal that means something to you and you’re the one kind of measuring your progress.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was a revolutionary idea in gaming at the time, but it had trouble gaining traction. The game had been stuck in development hell since the early 90s. The studio behind the game, Maxis, had been acquired by EA, Electronic Arts, while The Sims was still in development. And it was during this time that the first decisions around sexuality were being made. Will wanted to include same-sex relationships in the game because it was supposed to reflect real life. But it came on the heels of a major scandal in another Maxis game, the 1996 flight simulator, SimCopter.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of SimCopter review from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>A bunch of dudes wearing Speedos that start kissing each other loudly. Not only that, but you can jump out and start making out with them yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This was a joke programmed into the game by one of the developers, which could be triggered when a player met certain criteria. That developer was later fired for including it. So when it came to The Sims a few years later, the team was understandably worried about backlash. And after a lot of back and forth,\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The team had decided that they weren’t going to do same-sex relationships in the original Sims game.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Jessica was a teenager at the time. She was not working on the game back then. But the lore of the game’s origin has been passed down through generations of developers. That’s because the queer legacy of The Sims, and everything it’s come to mean to LGBTQ players, started with a mistake.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The dev who was coding the game was new to the team, and I guess he didn’t get the memo, or didn’t read the design doc, couldn’t be me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> That programmer was Patrick Barrett, and according to an interview he did with The New Yorker in 2014, he did read the design document. Just the wrong version. Here’s what happened. It was the late 90s. Soon after Patrick joined the team, the game’s lead programmer went on vacation. Someone handed Patrick the design documents that outlined how all social interactions between characters in the game should be coded. But… He was given a version of the document from before the team decided to exclude gay relationships. So, Patrick wrote up the code for Sim conversations, arguments, and romance. And in Patrick’s version, romances between Sims of the same gender were allowed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>No one mentioned it. E3 was coming up, the hottest, most prestigious games industry convention of its time. And this was supposed to be the Sims big debut. Patrick was asked to put together a gameplay demo, which highlighted these different scripted scenarios for The Sims. One of them was a wedding. There were so many Sims attending that Patrick didn’t have time to script all of their interactions. That meant some of the characters would act autonomously.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> They put everything together, shipped it off, and then at the trade show in front of a gigantic crowd and like one of the biggest trade shows for our industry, in front everybody, two female Sims kissed each other and everyone just went nuts. Like, it was one of those things where the cat was totally out of the bag. There was such buzz coming out of that moment that it had to be part of the game from that point on. And even though we got there by accident, I’m not picky. I’m glad it happened at all. And from that moment, The Sims kind of became the tip of the spear.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This blunder at a trade show 27 years ago set something in motion that is still reverberating today. But considering how foundational the story is to Sims lore, I wanted to verify it. Is there anything backing up this story? Consider this our first side quest, tracking down the receipts. This much I can say. There’s no footage of this legendary kiss happening. While working on this episode, I spent days scrubbing through archived forums, interviews with Will Wright, and B-roll from news broadcasts covering the Sims demo. There is a lot of coverage of E3 in 1999.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Lauren Fielder for GameSpot TV from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>Here we are! We’re on the floor of the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California, with a special edition of GameSpot TV.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Some news reports have a sentence or two about The Sims, like a Washington Post write-up that called it, “a quiet little game,” and, “a surprise hit.” But there’s barely any coverage with details about The Sims demo. What I did manage to dig up is from a German DVD showcasing PC games that debuted at E3.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of DVD demo in German from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking German]\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The part mentioning the Sims is just 22 seconds long. The fabled kiss does not appear. So I scrubbed through, no joke, hours of show footage from that year’s convention. This is the pre-vlogging era. I’m talking shaky camcorder clips, unedited, capturing these little snippets of what gaming was like in 1999.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of E3 convention in 1999 from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>You can be a master if you try! Pokemon! The adventure begins with the TV show…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> These scenes were lost to time until someone found the tapes, digitized them, and then uploaded them to YouTube decades later. I found a brief flash of the Sims booth in one video, but the camera holder didn’t bother to focus on the screen. On the internet, there’s no mention of this groundbreaking lesbian kiss until 2014, when The New Yorker published the interview with Patrick Barrett. We tried reaching out to the programmer through multiple contact methods, but didn’t get a response. I even friended him on Facebook. But, crickets. Maybe one day, someone will uncover and digitize the grainy camcorder footage of the kiss that changed it all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What we do have is confirmation of an internal struggle at Maxis over whether to include same-sex relationships at all. In 2019, another programmer, Don Hopkins, released the design documents from 1998, months before that infamous E3 game demo. He criticized the prototype’s strictly enforced heterosexuality. In one version, trying to initiate a kiss with a Sim of the same gender would actually result in the Sim getting slapped. Here’s a note that Don left in the document.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Dramatic reading of Don’s comment by Chris Egusa]: \u003c/strong>We are going to be expected to do better than that after the SimCopter fiasco and the lip service that Maxis publicly gave in response about not being anti-gay. And anyone offended by that needs to grow up and get a life. And hopefully our game will help them in that quest.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims debuted at E3 months later. Gay romance and all. The full game was released the next year.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> So it’s, it’s 2000, young Jessica is 16. Uh, and I’m reading my PC Mag, because we had physical media back then. And I see this article about this new game, The Sims, and it is not like anything else I’ve ever seen. It’s this quirky little game where instead of like, being a warrior, a wizard, or like flying spaceships, you’re just living a life. And to me I’m like, “How could that possibly be fun?” is my first thought. And then my second thought, “I’m kind of curious.” I want to see why people think this is fun. And I load up, I play it, and it just opened up this whole new space for me. And I’m like, “Huh, this is actually really interesting playing a game about just the everyday life of a character.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims was a hit. Critics praised it for the character customization, the totally unique gameplay, and the storytelling. For a lot of players, the best part was that they could be gay in the game.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think like, so often when you talk about representation, the first of something, the first time you see a same-sex couple in like a major production, the first time you see a trans character in a major like piece of media, that really signals to everyone else that like, “Hey, you know, we can explore these spaces and we can tell these authentic stories and represent folks that are not represented,” and largely, it’s gonna be fine.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There were limits. Like, straight Sims could get married, but gay Sims couldn’t. Okay. But, it was 26 years ago. And as cultural norms evolved, so did the game. But video games function based on defined rules. So, how do you fit something as nuanced as sexuality into lines of code? How does introducing human concepts of gender into a game alter non-human characters? And how did these updates affect the beloved Simmer tradition of woohoo-ing the Grim Reaper? (Woohoo-ing, by the way, is the Sims version of sex). We’re opening a tab on that in just a minute. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate dot kqed dot org slash podcast. Okay, after the break: more on the gay history of The Sims. Welcome back. Let’s open another tab: a Gay History of the Sims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The game, like, it didn’t say queer or not queer. It was, I was interacting and I chose to kiss a man and the game would be like, “Okay.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Lowell Phelps is a senior game design director at EA, and he’s worked on The Sims for over 15 years. He calls himself “a shepherd of ideas,” for the game. He spends a lot of time researching human psychology and how it can be applied to game design. But for many years before that, he was a college student living in a dorm with five other guys when The Sims 1 came out. How his life turned out today didn’t even seem like a possibility back then.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I have a husband, I have child, like this is kind of my culture, even though I hadn’t really explored any of that growing up, but I could with The Sims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Sexuality didn’t necessarily exist in The Sims 1. None of the characters had any sexual preference. If they had a high enough relationship score with the player, it would unlock romantic interactions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Everybody was just default pansexual, right? And that was really fascinating to kind of see how the game chose not to make a choice for me, but waited for me to make that choice and drive the direction of these stories. Like being able to woohoo and kiss and just have dates with other characters in ways that maybe you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing in public.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Same-sex couples couldn’t get married like straight Sims couples, but if they moved in together, the game treated them as if they were married anyway. The Sims 2 came out in 2004 and introduced gender preference to the game. It was a weighted system, hidden from players but shifted based on player choices. Think of a scale, tipping one way or the other depending on romantic interactions. So, if a female Sim flirted with a female character, they’d both develop a preference for women, and then autonomously flirt with other female Sims. And then those Sims would autonomously flirt with other female Sims, shifting their preferences. In other words, in The Sims 2, being gay was contagious. And although none of the pre-made characters were explicitly LGBTQ, there were a few that were coded to be queer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> I found Sims 2 versions where we’d told stories about queer couples, um, and it was in the text and maybe how we set some of the parameters. I didn’t realize that until I started digging into the actual history. Um, and I kind of learned that the team has started, not started, but has always included the things that allow gender expression to happen in whatever way we felt comfortable, the person setting it up felt comfortable. So you’ll see it in descriptions, you’ll it in stories of the characters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The game also allowed Sims to formally propose to each other and plan weddings, regardless of gender. Players would have to buy a special in-game wedding object: a floral arch. When they clicked on it, if they were in a straight relationship, a bubble would pop up that said, “Get married,” triggering a cutscene where the two Sims would exchange rings and cry.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Sims 2 wedding in Simlish from YouTube]: \u003c/strong>[Speaking Simlish]\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> It was basically the same thing for same-sex couples — but their bubble would say, “Join Union.” Today, that does seem pretty discriminatory. But back then, most states didn’t even offer domestic partnerships or civil unions for same-sex couples. The fact that you could have an in-game gay wedding at all was a pretty big deal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Gay marriage was not a acceptable thing at the time, it was not legally approved. And just being able to have those joined unions, being able actually to have a situation where I can take the stories I’m playing out and have a lesbian couple and a gay couple and have the feeling that they are a family, they’re a collective.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, I’m not gonna lie, as a kid, I used to stay up late on YouTube watching videos of gay weddings in The Sims 2 on the family computer. The scenes were always set to very on-the-nose music, like Katy Perry’s, “I Kissed a Girl,” or the theme song from The L Word. But as a queer preteen, the videos were eye-opening.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> And The Sims, because of that first kiss, right? From the moment that happened, it felt like both the players and the creators, like the teams that are working on this product, felt a little bit of freedom to do what we needed to do to just express as many versions of life as we could.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> When The Sims 3 came out in 2009, the United States was at a real inflection point for marriage equality. Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that established marriage as a fundamental right for same-sex couples, was still years away. So you could get gay married in The Sims 3, but none of the game’s pre-made characters were officially gay. Pre-made Sims are fully fleshed out characters with backstories and relationships and skills and homes — already established by developers. But, just because characters weren’t explicitly gay doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist. The game included several characters that were heavily implied to be LGBTQ. Like, a household of two women were labeled “roommates,” but they sleep in two beds pushed together in their pre-made house. Or, two guys labeled “best friends” who lived with their adopted daughter who has both of their last names.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We create characters that live in the world and have stories that they should be pre-built with. And those stories start by applying their preferences, their traits, their aspirations and their wants. And those tools give us a lot of control to say, “What is this initial starting story that the player might be jumping into if they play with a household that already exists?”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The year before The Sims 3 release, Prop 8 passed in California, banning same-sex marriage. A federal court later struck it down, and in June 2013, California Governor Jerry Brown ordered county clerks to resume issuing marriage licenses for gay couples. Which is where we get this meme of then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Clip of Kamala Harris from X]: \u003c/strong>You must start marriages immediately. You must start the marriages immediately.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Later that year, The Sims 3 released an expansion pack called Roaring Heights, and with it, the first explicitly LGBTQ characters.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So the Roaring Heights couple, the Dylan and Audrey, was really the first time I think we’d actually put a lesbian couple in a world as an actual family with the correct settings that said, “Hey, we are married, we’re a couple.” And that felt pretty transformative. So, right around the time that Prop 8 got overturned is kind of when we started introducing that as an actual element in the game, so players could experience it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> At that point, the next game in the series, The Sims 4, was already in the works. It was released in 2014, and this was the version that really transformed what it means to be represented in games, beyond who can woohoo and marry. In The Sims 4, the team tackled a new frontier: gender. Time for a new tab. Can a cat be non-binary? Two years after The Sims 4 release, the game underwent a major character customization overhaul. So, when you start a new game, you have the option to play as a pre-made household, or customize one yourself. That part is called Create-A-Sim.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> We started with male/female as the default for base game and we realized that just wasn’t good enough, right? We wanted to be able to allow, again, better representation, more nuance into the choice. So we quickly realized that thinking about maybe masculine or feminine expression is how we wanna actually tackle this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims 4 offers a series of gender-related choices for players to choose from. They can choose whether their Sim has a masculine frame or a feminine frame. And from there, choose whether they prefer masculine clothing or feminine clothing. It actually went further than just appearance. The game is rated T for Teen. Sims never get naked, unless you’re playing with a spicy mod. Wicked Whims players, you know who you are. But for the official game… That limitation, not showing body parts, got the development team to think about gender and expression beyond what’s assigned at birth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Different clothing preferences, regardless of what my physical appearance actually is. Being able to set whether I can get pregnant or not, or I stand up at the toilet instead of sitting down. It’s not about labeling. It’s about thinking about what is the behavior that’s happening and letting players choose what portion of that behavior is important to them. That’s why peeing standing up or using the toilet standing up is the approach instead of saying, “I have a specific body part,” right? That’s less important. It’s about the behavior.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This new framing of gender led to the first canonically trans character, the spellcaster Morgyn Ember, who can’t get pregnant, can’t other Sims pregnant, has a masculine frame, and wears feminine clothing. Some players tried to romance Morgyn and were confused about their gender. In 2022, Morgyn’s pronouns were updated to they/them. It was part of a bigger game update that allowed players to set unique pronouns for their Sims. Updating a game like this, which has versions in many different languages, was actually pretty complicated. Only English versions of the game have customizable pronouns, which has been disappointing to some players. Here’s Jessica Croft again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The pronouns update was something that I think was very important to our community, especially obviously non-binary folks within our community. The difficulty there is just simply, language itself is not fully aligned on how to handle things like pronouns. They are heavily gendered and in a way where if you don’t study those things at all you might not realize it’s not just about translating a pronoun, it things like adjectives, articles, even past tense verbs are gendered in these places. And then further, some languages do have gender-neutral words, but they are restricted for objects. So, there’s a certain thing where it’s like, if we use that kind of language, does it cause additional problems?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s a cliché saying, but perfect is the enemy of good. We wanted to get something out there that did a lot of good work, that represented a lot folks and made people feel seen, um, as soon as we could. And I think it’s one of those things where if you wait until you get the perfect version of something, where you solve all the problems, where we figure out how to do pronouns in every language, you might never release that thing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has been out for 12 years now, and in that time, there have been dozens of additional packs — extra contents that includes new worlds, new features, and new pre-made characters. Every time it gets updated, it affects years of pre-existing game content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> The Sims is a little bit weird. We have robots and we have skeletons and we have lots of other things that maybe you can ask yourself, “Do they have gender? Should they have gender?” Cats and dogs, when we did the non-binary update… You can make a cat and a dog non-binary, that’s okay. So really it comes down to character by character and thinking about is it important for this character to have an identity?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think at one point we had non-binary horses in the horse pack, which, I’m sure those players were like, “Well, you should have just kept that,” and like, maybe, but it was definitely unintentional. When you work with a game like The Sims that’s just layers and layers of systems sitting on top of each other, you get these knock-on effects of some choices you make that are occasionally hilarious.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> After the pronoun update, the Sims 4 unveiled its crown jewel for character customization: a giant overhaul of in-game sexual orientation. Jessica was actually leading the design for an expansion pack all about high school. The development team had been working on fine-tuning Sim sexuality, and Jessica pitched releasing that update with a high school expansion. Why there?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> It’s a pack about high school that… It’s about being a teenager, it’s about figuring out who you are. That’s where, in real life a lot of folks do figure out who they are and start exploring questions of their sexuality. So it felt like the right place to do it and the team just rallied around that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> And, like with a gender update, this wasn’t a simple matter of slapping on some labels and letting players pick one. It had to be functional in gameplay.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> The space is so nuanced, the definitions folks have for certain words can differ, in ways where painting with a broad brush on what these labels mean can become incredibly divisive. That was one of the things that we discovered really quickly, working with GLAAD and It Gets Better, that fact. So eventually, we got to a spot where we didn’t use labels. It’s just strictly defining the characteristics of who you’re attracted to and the types of things that you’re into, to craft what is effectively a sexual orientation without the label.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So instead of picking from a menu of words like: “lesbian,” “gay,” “bi,” “asexual,” players just pick the genders they’re attracted to and whether they’re interested in romantic relationships and woohoo-ing. They also don’t have to make a decision. There’s an option for exploring. Jessica said this was also important to include because figuring it out is also a part of real life sexuality. However, players cannot opt out of this aspect of the game entirely. There’s no way to default set all Sims to be straight. When the update first came out, Jessica wrote this in a blog post.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> I think something along the lines of, “While we generally give players the option to toggle off certain gameplay elements, LGBTQIA+ identities are a fact of life, and not just a toggle you can switch on and off.” I stand by that statement. I frankly don’t care if you don’t like certain people. You can’t just turn them off, right? In real life or in a game. And I think it’s important to stand on business there. We want to commit to our vision for diversity and representation within The Sims, and that’s not a thing you get to just turn off.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> The Sims has come so far since the accidental sapphic kiss 27 years ago. It’s way more inclusive, but far from perfect. Despite the expanded framing of gender, the whole system still operates within a binary.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Croft:\u003c/strong> When The Sims was originally engineered, in its very core, like, structural bones, there’s a gender binary. And that next step is like, how do we break this game out of this gender binary? It’s a tricky thing. It would require like this foundational rework of like, so many systems. If at some point we’re able to do an update to, to fully break the game out this gender binary like, foundation it has, that would be so meaningful. It would open up a lot of gameplay, too. Again, it’s immensely tricky. It’s like, a thing that would require really re-engineering a good chunk of the foundation of the game to make happen.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> There have been some workarounds though. Loel talked about this recent feature that he really loves.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> So, one of my favorite things that we have added were binders and chest, uh… top surgery scars. Um, and those… Sorry, I get a little emotional talking about it. So my husband is trans. Being able to create his character before that transition after he came out, and have a screenshot of our family, my husband, my daughter, and me just in a space was really impactful. So while it didn’t physically bind the chest, just being able to put on a binder is a step in that transition of his story was really impactful. There’s so many different ways in which people live and have transitions. If I can give one little thing to any player that lets them tell those stories, it’s really important. And those little updates just make such an impact on being able to both represent yourself and feel like yourself in this digital world.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve been playing The Sims for over half my life, and created so many different lives within the game. I still think about one of my first playthroughs. It was The Sims 3. I moved my Sim to a tropical island, fell in love with a mermaid, and we settled down on a houseboat together. At 13, being openly gay seemed just as fantastical as proposing to a mermaid. The whimsical queer life I built in that save file unfortunately came to an end —when my kitchen caught fire, with my Sims still in it, and instead of helping, my mermaid wife got stuck on a random floor tile and died of dehydration. The whole house boat went down. It was devastating. So, I started another save, and then another, and then probably a couple hundred more. And today, being openly gay isn’t that absurd at all. There’s a reason queer people make up such a large portion of The Sims player base. We reached out to Simmers to hear what this game has meant to them over the years. Here’s what they had to say.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Will be the first Simmer to hold my hands up and say I was a bit too interested in making my Sims kiss Sims of the same sex. And I think that for a lot of queer people, they will also be able to trace their own gameplay in The Sims back and have a lot of things suddenly make sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Owen McHall: \u003c/strong>The Sims was the first game I ever played where I could make the player character trans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Stephen Works (SpringSims): \u003c/strong>It felt more like home… It felt like my safe space where I could be who I want, how I want without any fear of judgment. As a queer Black male, I was able to recreate myself authentically from my skin tone to my hair type, to the clothing options. There were so many stories that I have told and created and shaped that I knew it was like, “This is where I wanna be for the rest of my life.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Mivyard:\u003c/strong> For me, as a queer kid growing up in a Christian school, I definitely felt like I had to be quiet about who I was and I didn’t see a lot of role models at school. And so, having The Sims as a tool for exploration and expression really helped me find a sense of belonging and it helped me feel confident, and proud of who I was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tonya (Gryphi): \u003c/strong>If I could have two girls kiss and fall in love in this game, then maybe it was okay in real life as well.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plumbella: \u003c/strong>Being able to fall in with whoever you wanted might have been an oversight of the developers, it might have an accident that they forgot to write in the code. It’s ended up that in a time where it wasn’t really okay to be anything outside of the norm, The Sims has been a beacon of inclusivity, and that’s just grown over the years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> This game has come to mean so much to so many queer players. It’s made such huge strides for LGBTQ inclusion — meaningful representation, without feeling like some kind of corporate pandering. But today, a lot of those players are really, deeply concerned about the future of The Sims. Late last year, Electronic Arts confirmed that the entire brand and its catalog, including The Sims, had been sold to private investors, a cohort that includes Jared Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>It’s also a $55 billion deal, which is completely unprecedented. I mean, it’s hard to even, like, fathom the scale of that, but that actually is more than the entire music industry combined.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> Kayla Sims, better known online as LilSimsie, is one of the the creators speaking out about this deal.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Kayla Sims (LilSimsie): \u003c/strong>And there’s a lot of concerns about censorship within The Sims, I think also, because of those new owners that do not have a great track record with human rights. They actually have a direct track record of criminalizing LGBTQ+ expression. And so a lot queer players of The Sims are really, really worried about those new owners for that reason, too.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> So, we’re extending our deep dive. We have a few more tabs on what this deal really entails, how players are responding, and what The Sims team says about the future of the game. I’m gonna leave these tabs open for now. Come back next week for the second half of the story. And, if you’re dying for more before then, stick around after the credits for some bonus content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva with production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, and did the dramatic reading for this episode.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro V2 switches.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Special thanks to the Simmers who contributed voice notes for this episode: Plumbella, Owen McHall, SpringSims, Mivyard, and Griphy. And thank you to John Fecile, senior producer for KQED’s Snap Judgment, for the tape of his interview with Will Wright. Thanks for listening!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I remember when the update for, I think it was maybe High School Years, when the sexuality update first came out, people were upset that the Grim Reaper was now asexual. They just really wanted to bang the Grim Reaper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Loel Phelps:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I mean, in Life and Death, we went back and made Grim woohoo-able again. Players have a fascination with our special characters… And at some point, the ownership of the thing becomes the person’s and not the dev team’s. Yeah, so yeah, Grim is an interesting case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>Celebrations for Pride Month are happening all June long. And if you’re even a little bit outdoorsy, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043590/pride-2025-outdoor-meetups-lgbtq-hiking-bay-area#FindcommunitythroughBranchingOutAdventures\">there’s no shortage of groups \u003c/a>leading hikes, birding adventures and even surfing celebrations around the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The outdoors, it belongs to everybody,” said Ryan McCauley, spokesperson for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, which hosts yearly Pride events with community groups like Branching Out Adventures to “make sure we have equitable access to our preserves,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, the district is hosting its \u003ca href=\"https://volunteer.openspace.org/need/detail/?need_id=1260152\">own habitat restoration volunteer event\u003c/a> on June 26 at the Sierra Azul Preserve’s Cathedral Oaks, which was \u003ca href=\"https://www.numulosgatos.org/uncovering-untold-stories-feedback/the-boys\">home to a South Bay couple\u003c/a>, Frank Ingerson and George Dennison, who created a haven there for the queer community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were both big artists and invited artists from across the country to their home,” McCauley said. “So the specific space has a lot of history as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if you don’t typically consider yourself the outdoorsy type, summer is nonetheless a great time to get outside in the Bay Area, McCauley said — when the birds and other wildlife are particularly active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#MoreoutdoorsPrideeventsintheBayAreathisJune\">More outdoors Pride events in the Bay Area this June\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>One group taking full advantage of the summer weather’s possibilities for creating community is \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/\">Trailhead Gays. \u003c/a>Founded by Gio Orantes, the group is a gathering space for gay men interested in exploring the outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orantes’s collective organizes free events all year round, including hikes, camping, backpacking and other trips, but for Pride month this year, they’re hosting \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/experiences/3979f231-e9ba-44ed-8d12-ee483b9e8f38\">a hike around Angel Island\u003c/a> on June 21 and \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/experiences/7f3fad5c-f33d-40e2-b76f-64e7a30ffd29\">a daytime campout in Dolores Park\u003c/a> on June 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12087487\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12087487\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Trailhead Gays gather under redwoods for their monthly outdoors-oriented adventures. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Gio Orantes)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Orantes, who is originally from Guatemala, said he came out as gay 17 years ago, just three days after moving to San Francisco: “It’s a beautiful city, and with the sense of community, it just felt like the right moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After becoming more interested in the outdoors as an alternative to the party scene, Orantes took up sports, joining local leagues and organizing hikes with friends every month. At first, it started with just a few friends, but more and more kept joining. “And suddenly it was like, 50 people hiking,” Orantes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the participants don’t have cars, so everyone started carpooling — which sealed the deal on building community, he said.[aside postID=news_12043590 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/SEASACHI-SWITCH-QUEERSURF-JUNE-7-2025-_23-scaled-e1749590375194.jpg']“Sometimes you are driving for an hour or two hours with people you have never met,” he said. “So it helps us to start creating those friendships and start getting people to connect and get a lot more social and make new friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, word about Trailhead Gays has spread throughout the San Francisco LGBTQ+ community, especially among those new to the city. Online interest through Instagram has also resulted in the group’s more unique events, like their upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/experiences/840e3042-0deb-4926-a8d7-5827fcffdb18\">New Year’s camping trip to Death Valley\u003c/a>, attracting people from across the country. Now, he’s hoping to expand the website to serve as a community portal, powered entirely by donations, and even introduce a housing page for those seeking rentals, World Cup watch parties and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “San Francisco is so gay in a sense,” Orantes said, there is still “a lot of isolation between gay men.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said organizing Trailhead Gays felt more urgent than ever last year, when a friend died by suicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kind of events the group organizes offer “a moment under the sun with people like them,” Orantes said. “A lot of people come for different reasons, and they keep coming, at the core, I think, because they want to be with their community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12087492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12087492\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Trailhead Gays gather for their monthly outdoors-oriented adventures. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Gio Orantes)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Orantes himself has only grown more and more proud of his identity, with the green stripe on the Pride flag, \u003ca href=\"https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-pride-flags\">which represents nature\u003c/a>, serving as his inspiration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[I went] from feeling ‘unnatural’ being gay to now fully embracing myself as a gay man, and understanding that it’s part of nature as well,” he said. “Nature itself just gave me a new outlook on life and a place where I feel like I belong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing he would probably still be in the closet if he were in Guatemala, “it also feels good to give back to San Francisco,” Orantes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyone interested in joining Trailhead Gays can \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/members\">register online for free.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"MoreoutdoorsPrideeventsintheBayAreathisJune\">\u003c/a>More outdoor Bay Area Pride events this month\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://events.humanitix.com/en-plein-air-queer-art-class-at-antonelli-pond\">\u003cstrong>Queer Art Workshop\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>June 13 @ 9:30 a.m., hosted by Branching Out Adventures\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Visit Antonelli Pond in Santa Cruz for a workshop on queer art and capturing landscape with artist Taylor Seamount. All skill levels welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://scvbirdalliance.org/event-calendar/field-trip-birding-with-pride-at-ulistac-santa-clara\">\u003cstrong>Birding with Pride\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>June 20 @ 8 a.m., hosted by the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A leisurely 2-mile visit to Ulistac Natural Area showcases the diversity and resilience of nature in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sfhiking.com/event-6682718\">\u003cstrong>Queer History Walking Tour\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>June 20 @ 9:45 a.m., hosted by San Francisco Hiking Club\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 5.5-mile hike starting from the Ferry Building brings hikers back in time for a guided walking tour of San Francisco’s queer history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Celebrations for Pride Month are happening all June long. And if you’re even a little bit outdoorsy, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12043590/pride-2025-outdoor-meetups-lgbtq-hiking-bay-area#FindcommunitythroughBranchingOutAdventures\">there’s no shortage of groups \u003c/a>leading hikes, birding adventures and even surfing celebrations around the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The outdoors, it belongs to everybody,” said Ryan McCauley, spokesperson for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, which hosts yearly Pride events with community groups like Branching Out Adventures to “make sure we have equitable access to our preserves,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, the district is hosting its \u003ca href=\"https://volunteer.openspace.org/need/detail/?need_id=1260152\">own habitat restoration volunteer event\u003c/a> on June 26 at the Sierra Azul Preserve’s Cathedral Oaks, which was \u003ca href=\"https://www.numulosgatos.org/uncovering-untold-stories-feedback/the-boys\">home to a South Bay couple\u003c/a>, Frank Ingerson and George Dennison, who created a haven there for the queer community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were both big artists and invited artists from across the country to their home,” McCauley said. “So the specific space has a lot of history as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if you don’t typically consider yourself the outdoorsy type, summer is nonetheless a great time to get outside in the Bay Area, McCauley said — when the birds and other wildlife are particularly active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to: \u003ca href=\"#MoreoutdoorsPrideeventsintheBayAreathisJune\">More outdoors Pride events in the Bay Area this June\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>One group taking full advantage of the summer weather’s possibilities for creating community is \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/\">Trailhead Gays. \u003c/a>Founded by Gio Orantes, the group is a gathering space for gay men interested in exploring the outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Orantes’s collective organizes free events all year round, including hikes, camping, backpacking and other trips, but for Pride month this year, they’re hosting \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/experiences/3979f231-e9ba-44ed-8d12-ee483b9e8f38\">a hike around Angel Island\u003c/a> on June 21 and \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/experiences/7f3fad5c-f33d-40e2-b76f-64e7a30ffd29\">a daytime campout in Dolores Park\u003c/a> on June 28.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12087487\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12087487\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-1-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Trailhead Gays gather under redwoods for their monthly outdoors-oriented adventures. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Gio Orantes)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Orantes, who is originally from Guatemala, said he came out as gay 17 years ago, just three days after moving to San Francisco: “It’s a beautiful city, and with the sense of community, it just felt like the right moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After becoming more interested in the outdoors as an alternative to the party scene, Orantes took up sports, joining local leagues and organizing hikes with friends every month. At first, it started with just a few friends, but more and more kept joining. “And suddenly it was like, 50 people hiking,” Orantes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the participants don’t have cars, so everyone started carpooling — which sealed the deal on building community, he said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Sometimes you are driving for an hour or two hours with people you have never met,” he said. “So it helps us to start creating those friendships and start getting people to connect and get a lot more social and make new friends.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, word about Trailhead Gays has spread throughout the San Francisco LGBTQ+ community, especially among those new to the city. Online interest through Instagram has also resulted in the group’s more unique events, like their upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/experiences/840e3042-0deb-4926-a8d7-5827fcffdb18\">New Year’s camping trip to Death Valley\u003c/a>, attracting people from across the country. Now, he’s hoping to expand the website to serve as a community portal, powered entirely by donations, and even introduce a housing page for those seeking rentals, World Cup watch parties and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “San Francisco is so gay in a sense,” Orantes said, there is still “a lot of isolation between gay men.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said organizing Trailhead Gays felt more urgent than ever last year, when a friend died by suicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kind of events the group organizes offer “a moment under the sun with people like them,” Orantes said. “A lot of people come for different reasons, and they keep coming, at the core, I think, because they want to be with their community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12087492\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12087492\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/Trailhead-Gays-3-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of Trailhead Gays gather for their monthly outdoors-oriented adventures. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Gio Orantes)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Orantes himself has only grown more and more proud of his identity, with the green stripe on the Pride flag, \u003ca href=\"https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-pride-flags\">which represents nature\u003c/a>, serving as his inspiration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[I went] from feeling ‘unnatural’ being gay to now fully embracing myself as a gay man, and understanding that it’s part of nature as well,” he said. “Nature itself just gave me a new outlook on life and a place where I feel like I belong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing he would probably still be in the closet if he were in Guatemala, “it also feels good to give back to San Francisco,” Orantes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anyone interested in joining Trailhead Gays can \u003ca href=\"https://trailheadgays.com/members\">register online for free.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca id=\"MoreoutdoorsPrideeventsintheBayAreathisJune\">\u003c/a>More outdoor Bay Area Pride events this month\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://events.humanitix.com/en-plein-air-queer-art-class-at-antonelli-pond\">\u003cstrong>Queer Art Workshop\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>June 13 @ 9:30 a.m., hosted by Branching Out Adventures\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Visit Antonelli Pond in Santa Cruz for a workshop on queer art and capturing landscape with artist Taylor Seamount. All skill levels welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://scvbirdalliance.org/event-calendar/field-trip-birding-with-pride-at-ulistac-santa-clara\">\u003cstrong>Birding with Pride\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>June 20 @ 8 a.m., hosted by the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A leisurely 2-mile visit to Ulistac Natural Area showcases the diversity and resilience of nature in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sfhiking.com/event-6682718\">\u003cstrong>Queer History Walking Tour\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>June 20 @ 9:45 a.m., hosted by San Francisco Hiking Club\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A 5.5-mile hike starting from the Ferry Building brings hikers back in time for a guided walking tour of San Francisco’s queer history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "55th-annual-sf-pride-parade-focuses-on-queer-joy-as-resistance",
"title": "55th Annual SF Pride Parade Focuses on Queer Joy as Resistance",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco’s Pride Festival culminated in its annual parade on a cloudless Sunday morning, bringing big crowds and a sea of rainbows into the heart of the city for a celebration centered around joy and resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046503\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046503\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL.jpg\" alt='People march in the street holding a multicolored sign that reads \"SF LGBT CENTER.\"' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the San Francisco LGBT Center march in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The parade stretched down Market Street, from Embarcadero to Civic Center. [aside postID=news_12044243 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/017_KQED_SFPrideParade_06262022-1020x680.jpg']Organizers say the event brings in nearly a million people every year, making it one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The theme of this year’s festival – which spans the whole weekend – is “Queer Joy is Resistance,” which resonated with many in attendance, who said it not only tapped into Pride’s roots in the Stonewall riots in 1969 but also the continued attacks on the LGBTQ community from President Trump and his followers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people wearing colorful outfits embrace on the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kitty hugs a friend before walking with Openhouse, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ seniors, in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It is so important to be visible, to be out, to be loud, to push back [and] to not let what’s happening in Washington get you down,” said Lara Starr, a member of Free Mom Hugs, a nationwide organization that focuses on celebrating the LGBTQ community. “It is exhausting, but we got to keep turning out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046499\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046499\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing multicolored indigenous clothing dances in the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A member of BAAITS ((Bay Area American Indian Two‑Spirits), a group supporting Two-Spirit Indigenous people, walks in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046498\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing beads a white t-shirt and holding a rainbow flag and bubble gun walks in the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Marin LGBTQ+ Center march in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jessy Ruiz, one of the Community Grand Marshals selected by the SF Pride Board of Directors, said he wanted to come out to support the Latinx community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046504\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046504\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a pink top and a holding a white fan above their head in the street among several people.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Pride Parade participants wave to the crowd. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It is very important [for] everyone to support each other,” said Ruiz. “I tell everyone, ‘Don’t be scared in these hard times’ and [to] come and enjoy Pride.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046509\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046509\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Several people wearing colorful clothing stand next to each other behind a barricade.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crowd watches the San Francisco Pride Parade on June 29, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Our administration is not recognizing us equally like the rest of the population,” said Jesse Crosslin, a 63-year-old San Francisco resident who has attended Pride with his friends for decades. “We celebrate through love and unity and just show a positive resistance through peace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046505\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046505\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Several people behind barricades hold rainbow flags as a man wearing a white dress shirt points at them.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie marches in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Also in attendance on Sunday was San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who marched in the parade and spoke to attendees at the Civic Center afterward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We stand side to side with our LGBTQ+ community,” he said. “This is the city that knows how to take care of every single person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046495\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046495\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people ride on a motorcycle together with a rainbow flag behind them.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Dykes on Bikes contingent lead the San Francisco Pride Parade through downtown San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pride festivities kicked off Saturday, where Michelle Gutierrez from Sunnyvale was at the Free Mom Hugs booth “sharing the love with not just sons and daughters, but grandsons, brothers, and sisters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046501\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046501\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing blue paint and a colorful costume on the street surrounded by people.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Openhouse contingent, a nonprofit serving LGBTQ+ seniors, walk in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We feel that love overcomes hate, leading into this year’s theme regarding resistance,” Gutierrez said. “Love ultimately has more power, and it’s a form of peaceful protest, if you will, because we can fight back without using bullets and weapons. We can fight back with the love we have to give.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046502\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046502\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people wearing blue costumes walk on the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Openhouse contingent, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ seniors, walk in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=arts_13978009 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/GettyImages-1501334621.jpg'] Jeff Cotter, founder and president of \u003ca href=\"https://www.rainbowfund.org/\">Rainbow World Fund\u003c/a>, had their bus parked outside Civic Center plaza Saturday. The organization is celebrating 25 years of educating and developing philanthropy within the LGBTQ community for humanitarian aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important that we don’t let people take our joy away,” Cotter said. “Having joy is one of the most important things we can do and showing up for Pride is one of the most important ways that we can practice our civil disobedience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046511\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046511\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing an elaborate dress walks in the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Siam Phusri, a Thai drag performer, marches in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>elita layà with \u003ca href=\"https://www.stopcopcitybayarea.com/\">Stop Cop City Bay Area\u003c/a>, which opposes the $47 million regional police training facility being built in San Pablo, said joy as resistance recognizes that pride is “rooted in disrupting hyper surveillance and disrupting police surveillance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046500\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046500\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people hug amongst a large crowd on the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A member of BAAITS (Bay Area American Indian Two‑Spirits), a group supporting Two-Spirit Indigenous people, hugs a person in the crowd during the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing our neighbors be kidnapped. We’re seeing that folks are losing faith in the system, and so I see joy and restoring and reminding ourselves of the faith that we should have in one another,” they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046506\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046506\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a pink shirt holds a rainbow flag.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A participant waves a rainbow flag. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Friday, thousands of people participated in the annual Trans March according to organizers, taking over Dolores Park along Market Street to Turk and Taylor in the Tenderloin where an anti-police brutality riot led by transgender people took place in 1966 at Compton’s Cafeteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046508\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046508\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Several people in a red car wave to people standing behind barricades.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Matt Haney waves to the crowd. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And Saturday saw the return of the city’s Dyke March, which hasn’t taken place in an official capacity since before the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Brian Krans, Billy Cruz, Spencer Whitney and Dana Cronin contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Big crowds lined Market Street Sunday morning for the annual San Francisco Pride parade, which organizers say is one of the largest in the world.",
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"title": "55th Annual SF Pride Parade Focuses on Queer Joy as Resistance | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco’s Pride Festival culminated in its annual parade on a cloudless Sunday morning, bringing big crowds and a sea of rainbows into the heart of the city for a celebration centered around joy and resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046503\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046503\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL.jpg\" alt='People march in the street holding a multicolored sign that reads \"SF LGBT CENTER.\"' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-19-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the San Francisco LGBT Center march in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The parade stretched down Market Street, from Embarcadero to Civic Center. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Organizers say the event brings in nearly a million people every year, making it one of the largest Pride celebrations in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The theme of this year’s festival – which spans the whole weekend – is “Queer Joy is Resistance,” which resonated with many in attendance, who said it not only tapped into Pride’s roots in the Stonewall riots in 1969 but also the continued attacks on the LGBTQ community from President Trump and his followers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people wearing colorful outfits embrace on the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-01-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kitty hugs a friend before walking with Openhouse, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ seniors, in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It is so important to be visible, to be out, to be loud, to push back [and] to not let what’s happening in Washington get you down,” said Lara Starr, a member of Free Mom Hugs, a nationwide organization that focuses on celebrating the LGBTQ community. “It is exhausting, but we got to keep turning out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046499\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046499\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing multicolored indigenous clothing dances in the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-09-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A member of BAAITS ((Bay Area American Indian Two‑Spirits), a group supporting Two-Spirit Indigenous people, walks in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046498\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing beads a white t-shirt and holding a rainbow flag and bubble gun walks in the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-07-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Marin LGBTQ+ Center march in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Jessy Ruiz, one of the Community Grand Marshals selected by the SF Pride Board of Directors, said he wanted to come out to support the Latinx community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046504\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046504\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a pink top and a holding a white fan above their head in the street among several people.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-23-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Pride Parade participants wave to the crowd. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It is very important [for] everyone to support each other,” said Ruiz. “I tell everyone, ‘Don’t be scared in these hard times’ and [to] come and enjoy Pride.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046509\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046509\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Several people wearing colorful clothing stand next to each other behind a barricade.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-21-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A crowd watches the San Francisco Pride Parade on June 29, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Our administration is not recognizing us equally like the rest of the population,” said Jesse Crosslin, a 63-year-old San Francisco resident who has attended Pride with his friends for decades. “We celebrate through love and unity and just show a positive resistance through peace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046505\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046505\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Several people behind barricades hold rainbow flags as a man wearing a white dress shirt points at them.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-24-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie marches in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Also in attendance on Sunday was San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who marched in the parade and spoke to attendees at the Civic Center afterward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We stand side to side with our LGBTQ+ community,” he said. “This is the city that knows how to take care of every single person.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046495\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046495\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people ride on a motorcycle together with a rainbow flag behind them.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-02-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Dykes on Bikes contingent lead the San Francisco Pride Parade through downtown San Francisco. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Pride festivities kicked off Saturday, where Michelle Gutierrez from Sunnyvale was at the Free Mom Hugs booth “sharing the love with not just sons and daughters, but grandsons, brothers, and sisters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046501\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046501\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing blue paint and a colorful costume on the street surrounded by people.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-13-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Openhouse contingent, a nonprofit serving LGBTQ+ seniors, walk in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We feel that love overcomes hate, leading into this year’s theme regarding resistance,” Gutierrez said. “Love ultimately has more power, and it’s a form of peaceful protest, if you will, because we can fight back without using bullets and weapons. We can fight back with the love we have to give.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046502\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046502\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people wearing blue costumes walk on the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-15-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Openhouse contingent, a nonprofit supporting LGBTQ+ seniors, walk in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Jeff Cotter, founder and president of \u003ca href=\"https://www.rainbowfund.org/\">Rainbow World Fund\u003c/a>, had their bus parked outside Civic Center plaza Saturday. The organization is celebrating 25 years of educating and developing philanthropy within the LGBTQ community for humanitarian aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important that we don’t let people take our joy away,” Cotter said. “Having joy is one of the most important things we can do and showing up for Pride is one of the most important ways that we can practice our civil disobedience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046511\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046511\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing an elaborate dress walks in the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-22-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Siam Phusri, a Thai drag performer, marches in the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>elita layà with \u003ca href=\"https://www.stopcopcitybayarea.com/\">Stop Cop City Bay Area\u003c/a>, which opposes the $47 million regional police training facility being built in San Pablo, said joy as resistance recognizes that pride is “rooted in disrupting hyper surveillance and disrupting police surveillance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046500\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046500\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Two people hug amongst a large crowd on the street.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-11-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A member of BAAITS (Bay Area American Indian Two‑Spirits), a group supporting Two-Spirit Indigenous people, hugs a person in the crowd during the San Francisco Pride Parade. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing our neighbors be kidnapped. We’re seeing that folks are losing faith in the system, and so I see joy and restoring and reminding ourselves of the faith that we should have in one another,” they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046506\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046506\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL.jpg\" alt=\"A person wearing a pink shirt holds a rainbow flag.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-26-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A participant waves a rainbow flag. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Friday, thousands of people participated in the annual Trans March according to organizers, taking over Dolores Park along Market Street to Turk and Taylor in the Tenderloin where an anti-police brutality riot led by transgender people took place in 1966 at Compton’s Cafeteria.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046508\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046508\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL.jpg\" alt=\"Several people in a red car wave to people standing behind barricades.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250629-SFPrideParade-31-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Matt Haney waves to the crowd. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And Saturday saw the return of the city’s Dyke March, which hasn’t taken place in an official capacity since before the COVID-19 pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Brian Krans, Billy Cruz, Spencer Whitney and Dana Cronin contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "take-yourself-on-a-self-guided-tour-of-chinatowns-queer-past-and-present",
"title": "Take Yourself on a Self-Guided Tour of Chinatown’s Queer Past and Present",
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"headTitle": "Take Yourself on a Self-Guided Tour of Chinatown’s Queer Past and Present | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated July 2\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046464/55th-annual-sf-pride-parade-focuses-on-queer-joy-as-resistance\">San Francisco’s iconic Pride celebrations\u003c/a> saw community groups and artists organize rallies, concerts and film festivals that explored the spectrum of experiences across the LGBTQ+ community in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s something you can do in San Francisco any day of the year: a self-guided tour of Chinatown’s historical queer landmarks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heading out on this independent walking guide is also a particularly good option for anyone who missed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13976447/chinatown-pride-san-francisco-lgbtq-chinese-culture-center\">second annual Chinatown Pride\u003c/a> back in May, organized by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccsf.us/\">Chinese Cultural Center\u003c/a> and contemporary arts organization \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/\">Edge on the Square\u003c/a>. As part of the celebration, drag queens with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ricerockettes/?hl=en\">Rice Rockettes\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gapa.org/\">GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance\u003c/a> led a procession of hundreds of residents throughout the neighborhood on a six-stop tour of places connected to Chinatown’s LGBTQ+ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chinatown holds so many untold queer stories,” said YY Zhu, director of galleries and programs at CCC, whose team spent months researching and talking to elders in the community to identify the places in the neighborhood where LGBTQ+ individuals lived, connected and organized. “This is really our invitation to people to come to Chinatown and interact with this history,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, for those who want to recreate this tour for themselves, we chatted to Chinatown Pride’s organizers to learn how folks can follow the procession’s footsteps. Each stop is only one or two blocks from the starting point, so if you are walking, the whole tour should take less than an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041664\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041664\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peipei Ma’Bilz performs outside of the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco during the 2025 Chinatown Pride celebration on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We might not recognize this landscape as queer — but now we do,” said Erika Pallasigue, art and public programs manager at Edge on the Square. “You don’t have to be queer, you don’t have to be Asian, you don’t need to be any of those identities — but think about which parts of \u003cem>you \u003c/em>are coming up as you’re in these spaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading to learn the location of each stop and what motivated organizers to include it in the tour — and use our Google Map below to guide your journey:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m52!1m12!1m3!1d3152.777105925208!2d-122.40876392411549!3d37.79526307198029!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!4m37!3e2!4m5!1s0x8085808b44883cad%3A0xd750b48a84be159b!2s800%20Grant%20Ave%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.7943718!2d-122.4062012!4m5!1s0x808580f4b208980f%3A0x79f4a6ea2653f493!2s916%20Grant%20Ave%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.795432!2d-122.4063589!4m5!1s0x8085808b4d0a5ab7%3A0x66e0e066e2685cbc!2s743%20Washington%20Street%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA!3m2!1d37.7950577!2d-122.4062732!4m5!1s0x808580f35bc71103%3A0x5c021c2e2c24075a!2s41%20Ross%20Alley%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.795611099999995!2d-122.40751829999999!4m5!1s0x808580f4d3d446af%3A0x3331b3be07e21a26!2s848%20Kearny%20Street%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA!3m2!1d37.7960717!2d-122.4049677!4m5!1s0x8085808b37612399%3A0xf31611c8c7750f1!2s745%20Kearny%20St%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.7948832!2d-122.4054149!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1750884488990!5m2!1sen!2sus\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1000\" style=\"border:0;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #1: Edge on the Square, 800 Grant Ave.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A few feet away from Portsmouth Square, Edge on the Square is an art exhibition and performance space that first opened in 2021 — on the same corner once occupied by retail store Asian Image and the iconic Shing Chong market \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/CqlwOixLIge/\">before that\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Edge on the Square is currently hosting the exhibit “All Eyes on Us: Invention & Ingenuity During Artistic Diasporas,” which features artists representing a wide range of mediums. This includes \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/yumei-hou\">Hou Yumei\u003c/a>’s art of paper cutting, installations by \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/sun-park\">Sun Park\u003c/a>, illustrations by Chinatown’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/leland-wong\">Leland Wong\u003c/a> and drawings by \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/jeanette-lazam\">Jeanette Lazam\u003c/a> — who you’ll see again later on in your tour, thanks to her role as \u003ca href=\"https://www.historypin.org/en/manilatown-heritage-foundation-s-collection/manilatown-manang-jeanette-gandiongco-lazam-2/geo/37.796126,-122.404933,17/bounds/37.793722,-122.4071,37.798529,-122.402766/paging/1/project/about\">an openly queer tenant organizer\u003c/a> in the struggle to \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/reel/DAt5-VRqL3z/?locale=uken1&hl=en\">save the neighborhood’s International Hotel\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exhibit, curated by Candace Huey, frames these artists as “hidden dragons,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/all-eyes-on-us\">producing their work\u003c/a> while adapting to the challenges of “immigration, assimilation and survival.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While social circumstances may have limited the visibility of some of these artists, Edge on the Square’s Pallasigue encourages visitors to also think about how staying under the radar can serve as a form of protection. “Marginalized communities — not just queer communities — have to negotiate what it means to be out or visible,” she said. “They may choose \u003cem>not \u003c/em>to be out or visible as a form of safety, protection and resilience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041654\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041654\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kotobuki Taiko performs during the inaugural Chinatown Pride procession through San Francisco’s Chinatown on Saturday, May 24, 2025. The event, co-presented by the Chinese Culture Center and Edge on the Square, featured a walking tour highlighting historic queer landmarks and honored the neighborhood’s LGBTQIA+ history dating back to the 1930s. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Stop #2: Bars and shops along Grant Avenue\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>From Edge on the Square, head north on Grant Avenue. Along these next few blocks, you’ll see staple Chinatown bars Li Po Cocktail Lounge on your right and Buddha Lounge on your left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These spots are remnants of the time when Chinatown was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13904467/chinatown-nightclubs-showgirl-magic-museum\">a big nightlife destination\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the 1930s to 1960s, clubs like Forbidden City and Chinese Sky Room threw glamorous shows featuring big bands and showgirl troupes — drawing in major celebrities like Frank Sinatra and \u003ca href=\"https://sfmuseum.org/hist10/forbidcity.html\">then-actor President Ronald Reagan\u003c/a>.[aside postID=news_12044243 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/017_KQED_SFPrideParade_06262022-1020x680.jpg']“But the queer history here is that there were several underground bars that served as gathering spaces for the community,” Pallasigue said. People who frequented these establishments often had to live a double life, she said, transforming into a version of themselves devoid of queerness during the daytime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Based on our research, it’s during the 1940s and ’50s that the queer nightlife in Chinatown was thriving,” Zhu said. “Chinatown was the go-to space where you could have a relatively safe environment to hang out and be yourself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like CCC continue working on recovering the history of these underground bars. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Chinatown’s nightlife boom and the Asian and Asian American performers behind it, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.theclarionsf.org/showgirl-magic-museum\">Showgirl Magic Museum\u003c/a> at 2 Waverly Place, a block away from the Grant and Sacramento street intersection.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #3: East West Bank, formerly the site of Telephone Exchange, 743 Washington St.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041659\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041659\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lotus speaks outside of East West Bank on Washington St, the 3rd stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route through San Francisco’s Chinatown on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>From Buddha Lounge, cross Washington Street. On your left side, you’ll see a three-tiered pagoda painted in red and green. Now a branch office of East West Bank, this building served \u003ca href=\"https://hoodline.com/2016/04/plugged-in-the-fascinating-history-of-the-chinese-telephone-exchange/\">as the home of the Chinatown Telephone Exchange\u003c/a> from the end of the 19th century till 1949. Before cell phones or even landline telephones with dials, you would have to first call your local telephone exchange and ask the operator — \u003cem>an actual human\u003c/em> — to connect you to the person you were trying to reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Chinatown Telephone Exchange, a team of dozens of women connected the neighborhood’s thousands of residents to the outside world. As part of their jobs, these female operators were required to wear traditional qipao dresses every day and be fluent in multiple languages, Zhu said.[aside postID=arts_13977169 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/glbths_1997_13_Box4_DE_PatronsAtComptons-cropped.png']During the Chinatown Pride procession, an elderly woman approached Zhu to share that she herself had worked at a telephone exchange in the city similar to the one located on Washington Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At work, “she saw women flirting with each other,” Zhu said. “While they connected the outside world to Chinatown, there was this concealed intimacy. She was sure that there were other queer women operators besides her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Exchange’s architecture is also a symbol of Chinatown’s ability to transform in order to survive, Pallasigue said. The 1906 earthquake destroyed most of Chinatown and local officials saw that as an opportunity to remove the Chinese community from this part of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Chinese and Chinese American business groups instead proposed that in order to boost tourism, the neighborhood \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/kqed/chinatown/resourceguide/story.html\">be protected and rebuilt\u003c/a> as an exaggerated version of what Westerners at the time imagined China to be like. Up went the paper lanterns, neon lights and pagodas — including those at the Chinatown Telephone Exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is built into Chinatown’s DNA,” Pallasigue said: “Being creative with the use of space as a form of resilience in order to preserve the culture and community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #4: 41ross, 41 Ross Alley\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041660\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kalypso (right) walks to Ross Alley, the 4th stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route through San Francisco’s Chinatown on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>From the old Telephone Exchange building, walk up the hill on Washington Street and turn right at Ross Alley. On the left side, you’ll find 41ross, a gallery space managed by CCC that has hosted the work of dozens of LGBTQ+ artists over its 11 years in operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal for this space is really to support artists and provide a platform for them — not only to showcase their work, but to also sell it,” she said, adding that 41ross includes a design store where visitors can find works by Jeanette Lazam, Hou Yumei, Leland Wong and other artists \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/all-eyes-on-us\">currently featured at Edge on the Square\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, 41ross collaborated with queer artist-activist Xiangqi Chen \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccsf.us/post/out-%E5%87%BA-museum-a-chinese-queer-museum-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E9%85%B7%E5%85%92%E5%8D%9A%E7%89%A9%E9%A4%A8\">to host “OUT/出 MUSEUM,”\u003c/a> a museum prototype focused on Chinese queer art. Visitors can ask the 41ross staff to learn more about ongoing work to find a permanent home for Chen’s collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #5: International Hotel Senior Housing, 848 Kearny St.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Stepping out of 41ross, take a left and then a right on Jackson Street. Walk downhill on Jackson until you reach the intersection with Kearny Street, where you’ll see a tall apartment building behind a Muni bus stop. This is International Hotel Senior Housing, an affordable housing complex that opened in 2005 for lower-income seniors — and it stands on the site of the former \u003ca href=\"https://www.ihotel-sf.org/\">International Hotel\u003c/a> (or I-Hotel), where \u003ca href=\"https://www.ihotel-sf.org/history/\">one of the most extensive struggles\u003c/a> between tenants and developers in the city’s history went down.[aside postID=science_1997508 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/06/250603-QUEERKAYAK-20-BL-KQED.jpg']Since the 1920s, the I-Hotel housed hundreds of elderly and impoverished Filipino and Chinese men who shared cramped living quarters known as single room occupancies, or SROs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the property owners decided in 1968 that they wanted to turn the hotel into a parking lot and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13964200/violeta-marasigan-bullet-filipina-activist-ihotel-manilatown-san-francisco-marcos\">started handing out eviction notices to residents\u003c/a>, students, activists and other community members quickly rallied in support of the hotel’s tenants, sparking \u003ca href=\"https://www.ihotel-sf.org/timeline/\">a nine-year battle\u003c/a> to prevent evictions. And although the owners ultimately succeeded in removing all residents in 1977, the struggle for the I-Hotel formed a generation of activists in Chinatown, Pallasigue said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The struggle for the I-Hotel was about displacement, gentrification and the question: who belongs here?,” she said — adding that even within this movement, “there weren’t many queer leaders at the forefront because they tended to be pushed out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the younger I-Hotel tenants at the time of the 1977 evictions was Jeanette Lazam — one of the artists currently featured at Edge on the Square. During the struggle to save the I-Hotel, she \u003ca href=\"https://convergencemag.com/articles/coming-home-jeanette-lazam-returns-to-the-i-hotel/\">pushed for Asian American activists from different generations to work together\u003c/a>, all the while \u003ca href=\"https://vdoc.pub/documents/san-franciscos-international-hotel-mobilizing-the-filipino-american-community-in-the-anti-eviction-movement-asian-american-history-cultu-k9benlnleos0\">defying homophobia and sexism\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when a group of nonprofits succeeded in transforming the former I-Hotel site into affordable housing, Lazam was one of the few surviving former tenants who returned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #6: Crossing Portsmouth Square pedestrian bridge, 745 Kearny St.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041663\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041663\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alfred Twu and others gather on Portsmouth Square Pedestrian Bridge, the 6th stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To wrap up your tour, head south to Portsmouth Square and step on the pedestrian bridge over Kearny Street. During the procession, Pallasigue and Zhu recalled that drag queens led the crowd across the bridge to the sound of taiko drums, with Pride flags flying high in the air. “This is the immortal runway,” Zhu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ending the procession at the bridge was intentional, Zhu said — because this landmark will soon disappear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of a city-led improvement project, the bridge is \u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1911\">scheduled to be demolished later this year\u003c/a>. But “even if the bridge goes away, even if these landmarks, one day, are physically gone, we still have the fact that we’ve brought all of these different people together — and they’re now telling these stories,” Pallasigue said. “We’ve woven ourselves into it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041662\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041662\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peipei Ma’Bilz (center left) walks across Portsmouth Square Pedestrian Bridge, the 6th stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Nastia Voynovskaya and Rae Alexandra and NPR’s Chloe Veltman.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "For Chinatown Pride 2025, community groups visited the neighborhood’s queer landmarks. You can now follow their steps.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated July 2\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12046464/55th-annual-sf-pride-parade-focuses-on-queer-joy-as-resistance\">San Francisco’s iconic Pride celebrations\u003c/a> saw community groups and artists organize rallies, concerts and film festivals that explored the spectrum of experiences across the LGBTQ+ community in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s something you can do in San Francisco any day of the year: a self-guided tour of Chinatown’s historical queer landmarks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Heading out on this independent walking guide is also a particularly good option for anyone who missed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13976447/chinatown-pride-san-francisco-lgbtq-chinese-culture-center\">second annual Chinatown Pride\u003c/a> back in May, organized by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccsf.us/\">Chinese Cultural Center\u003c/a> and contemporary arts organization \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/\">Edge on the Square\u003c/a>. As part of the celebration, drag queens with the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/ricerockettes/?hl=en\">Rice Rockettes\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.gapa.org/\">GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance\u003c/a> led a procession of hundreds of residents throughout the neighborhood on a six-stop tour of places connected to Chinatown’s LGBTQ+ community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Chinatown holds so many untold queer stories,” said YY Zhu, director of galleries and programs at CCC, whose team spent months researching and talking to elders in the community to identify the places in the neighborhood where LGBTQ+ individuals lived, connected and organized. “This is really our invitation to people to come to Chinatown and interact with this history,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, for those who want to recreate this tour for themselves, we chatted to Chinatown Pride’s organizers to learn how folks can follow the procession’s footsteps. Each stop is only one or two blocks from the starting point, so if you are walking, the whole tour should take less than an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041664\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041664\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG060_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peipei Ma’Bilz performs outside of the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco during the 2025 Chinatown Pride celebration on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We might not recognize this landscape as queer — but now we do,” said Erika Pallasigue, art and public programs manager at Edge on the Square. “You don’t have to be queer, you don’t have to be Asian, you don’t need to be any of those identities — but think about which parts of \u003cem>you \u003c/em>are coming up as you’re in these spaces.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Keep reading to learn the location of each stop and what motivated organizers to include it in the tour — and use our Google Map below to guide your journey:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m52!1m12!1m3!1d3152.777105925208!2d-122.40876392411549!3d37.79526307198029!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!4m37!3e2!4m5!1s0x8085808b44883cad%3A0xd750b48a84be159b!2s800%20Grant%20Ave%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.7943718!2d-122.4062012!4m5!1s0x808580f4b208980f%3A0x79f4a6ea2653f493!2s916%20Grant%20Ave%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.795432!2d-122.4063589!4m5!1s0x8085808b4d0a5ab7%3A0x66e0e066e2685cbc!2s743%20Washington%20Street%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA!3m2!1d37.7950577!2d-122.4062732!4m5!1s0x808580f35bc71103%3A0x5c021c2e2c24075a!2s41%20Ross%20Alley%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.795611099999995!2d-122.40751829999999!4m5!1s0x808580f4d3d446af%3A0x3331b3be07e21a26!2s848%20Kearny%20Street%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA!3m2!1d37.7960717!2d-122.4049677!4m5!1s0x8085808b37612399%3A0xf31611c8c7750f1!2s745%20Kearny%20St%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%20CA%2094108!3m2!1d37.7948832!2d-122.4054149!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1750884488990!5m2!1sen!2sus\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1000\" style=\"border:0;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #1: Edge on the Square, 800 Grant Ave.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A few feet away from Portsmouth Square, Edge on the Square is an art exhibition and performance space that first opened in 2021 — on the same corner once occupied by retail store Asian Image and the iconic Shing Chong market \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/CqlwOixLIge/\">before that\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Edge on the Square is currently hosting the exhibit “All Eyes on Us: Invention & Ingenuity During Artistic Diasporas,” which features artists representing a wide range of mediums. This includes \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/yumei-hou\">Hou Yumei\u003c/a>’s art of paper cutting, installations by \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/sun-park\">Sun Park\u003c/a>, illustrations by Chinatown’s own \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/leland-wong\">Leland Wong\u003c/a> and drawings by \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/jeanette-lazam\">Jeanette Lazam\u003c/a> — who you’ll see again later on in your tour, thanks to her role as \u003ca href=\"https://www.historypin.org/en/manilatown-heritage-foundation-s-collection/manilatown-manang-jeanette-gandiongco-lazam-2/geo/37.796126,-122.404933,17/bounds/37.793722,-122.4071,37.798529,-122.402766/paging/1/project/about\">an openly queer tenant organizer\u003c/a> in the struggle to \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/kqed/reel/DAt5-VRqL3z/?locale=uken1&hl=en\">save the neighborhood’s International Hotel\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exhibit, curated by Candace Huey, frames these artists as “hidden dragons,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/all-eyes-on-us\">producing their work\u003c/a> while adapting to the challenges of “immigration, assimilation and survival.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While social circumstances may have limited the visibility of some of these artists, Edge on the Square’s Pallasigue encourages visitors to also think about how staying under the radar can serve as a form of protection. “Marginalized communities — not just queer communities — have to negotiate what it means to be out or visible,” she said. “They may choose \u003cem>not \u003c/em>to be out or visible as a form of safety, protection and resilience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041654\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041654\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG025_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kotobuki Taiko performs during the inaugural Chinatown Pride procession through San Francisco’s Chinatown on Saturday, May 24, 2025. The event, co-presented by the Chinese Culture Center and Edge on the Square, featured a walking tour highlighting historic queer landmarks and honored the neighborhood’s LGBTQIA+ history dating back to the 1930s. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Stop #2: Bars and shops along Grant Avenue\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>From Edge on the Square, head north on Grant Avenue. Along these next few blocks, you’ll see staple Chinatown bars Li Po Cocktail Lounge on your right and Buddha Lounge on your left.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These spots are remnants of the time when Chinatown was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13904467/chinatown-nightclubs-showgirl-magic-museum\">a big nightlife destination\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the 1930s to 1960s, clubs like Forbidden City and Chinese Sky Room threw glamorous shows featuring big bands and showgirl troupes — drawing in major celebrities like Frank Sinatra and \u003ca href=\"https://sfmuseum.org/hist10/forbidcity.html\">then-actor President Ronald Reagan\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“But the queer history here is that there were several underground bars that served as gathering spaces for the community,” Pallasigue said. People who frequented these establishments often had to live a double life, she said, transforming into a version of themselves devoid of queerness during the daytime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Based on our research, it’s during the 1940s and ’50s that the queer nightlife in Chinatown was thriving,” Zhu said. “Chinatown was the go-to space where you could have a relatively safe environment to hang out and be yourself.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like CCC continue working on recovering the history of these underground bars. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Chinatown’s nightlife boom and the Asian and Asian American performers behind it, visit the \u003ca href=\"https://www.theclarionsf.org/showgirl-magic-museum\">Showgirl Magic Museum\u003c/a> at 2 Waverly Place, a block away from the Grant and Sacramento street intersection.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #3: East West Bank, formerly the site of Telephone Exchange, 743 Washington St.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041659\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041659\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG039_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lotus speaks outside of East West Bank on Washington St, the 3rd stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route through San Francisco’s Chinatown on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>From Buddha Lounge, cross Washington Street. On your left side, you’ll see a three-tiered pagoda painted in red and green. Now a branch office of East West Bank, this building served \u003ca href=\"https://hoodline.com/2016/04/plugged-in-the-fascinating-history-of-the-chinese-telephone-exchange/\">as the home of the Chinatown Telephone Exchange\u003c/a> from the end of the 19th century till 1949. Before cell phones or even landline telephones with dials, you would have to first call your local telephone exchange and ask the operator — \u003cem>an actual human\u003c/em> — to connect you to the person you were trying to reach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Chinatown Telephone Exchange, a team of dozens of women connected the neighborhood’s thousands of residents to the outside world. As part of their jobs, these female operators were required to wear traditional qipao dresses every day and be fluent in multiple languages, Zhu said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>During the Chinatown Pride procession, an elderly woman approached Zhu to share that she herself had worked at a telephone exchange in the city similar to the one located on Washington Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At work, “she saw women flirting with each other,” Zhu said. “While they connected the outside world to Chinatown, there was this concealed intimacy. She was sure that there were other queer women operators besides her.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Exchange’s architecture is also a symbol of Chinatown’s ability to transform in order to survive, Pallasigue said. The 1906 earthquake destroyed most of Chinatown and local officials saw that as an opportunity to remove the Chinese community from this part of the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Chinese and Chinese American business groups instead proposed that in order to boost tourism, the neighborhood \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/kqed/chinatown/resourceguide/story.html\">be protected and rebuilt\u003c/a> as an exaggerated version of what Westerners at the time imagined China to be like. Up went the paper lanterns, neon lights and pagodas — including those at the Chinatown Telephone Exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is built into Chinatown’s DNA,” Pallasigue said: “Being creative with the use of space as a form of resilience in order to preserve the culture and community.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #4: 41ross, 41 Ross Alley\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041660\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG042_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kalypso (right) walks to Ross Alley, the 4th stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route through San Francisco’s Chinatown on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>From the old Telephone Exchange building, walk up the hill on Washington Street and turn right at Ross Alley. On the left side, you’ll find 41ross, a gallery space managed by CCC that has hosted the work of dozens of LGBTQ+ artists over its 11 years in operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal for this space is really to support artists and provide a platform for them — not only to showcase their work, but to also sell it,” she said, adding that 41ross includes a design store where visitors can find works by Jeanette Lazam, Hou Yumei, Leland Wong and other artists \u003ca href=\"https://www.edgeonthesquare.org/all-eyes-on-us\">currently featured at Edge on the Square\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, 41ross collaborated with queer artist-activist Xiangqi Chen \u003ca href=\"https://www.cccsf.us/post/out-%E5%87%BA-museum-a-chinese-queer-museum-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E9%85%B7%E5%85%92%E5%8D%9A%E7%89%A9%E9%A4%A8\">to host “OUT/出 MUSEUM,”\u003c/a> a museum prototype focused on Chinese queer art. Visitors can ask the 41ross staff to learn more about ongoing work to find a permanent home for Chen’s collection.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #5: International Hotel Senior Housing, 848 Kearny St.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Stepping out of 41ross, take a left and then a right on Jackson Street. Walk downhill on Jackson until you reach the intersection with Kearny Street, where you’ll see a tall apartment building behind a Muni bus stop. This is International Hotel Senior Housing, an affordable housing complex that opened in 2005 for lower-income seniors — and it stands on the site of the former \u003ca href=\"https://www.ihotel-sf.org/\">International Hotel\u003c/a> (or I-Hotel), where \u003ca href=\"https://www.ihotel-sf.org/history/\">one of the most extensive struggles\u003c/a> between tenants and developers in the city’s history went down.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Since the 1920s, the I-Hotel housed hundreds of elderly and impoverished Filipino and Chinese men who shared cramped living quarters known as single room occupancies, or SROs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the property owners decided in 1968 that they wanted to turn the hotel into a parking lot and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13964200/violeta-marasigan-bullet-filipina-activist-ihotel-manilatown-san-francisco-marcos\">started handing out eviction notices to residents\u003c/a>, students, activists and other community members quickly rallied in support of the hotel’s tenants, sparking \u003ca href=\"https://www.ihotel-sf.org/timeline/\">a nine-year battle\u003c/a> to prevent evictions. And although the owners ultimately succeeded in removing all residents in 1977, the struggle for the I-Hotel formed a generation of activists in Chinatown, Pallasigue said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The struggle for the I-Hotel was about displacement, gentrification and the question: who belongs here?,” she said — adding that even within this movement, “there weren’t many queer leaders at the forefront because they tended to be pushed out.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the younger I-Hotel tenants at the time of the 1977 evictions was Jeanette Lazam — one of the artists currently featured at Edge on the Square. During the struggle to save the I-Hotel, she \u003ca href=\"https://convergencemag.com/articles/coming-home-jeanette-lazam-returns-to-the-i-hotel/\">pushed for Asian American activists from different generations to work together\u003c/a>, all the while \u003ca href=\"https://vdoc.pub/documents/san-franciscos-international-hotel-mobilizing-the-filipino-american-community-in-the-anti-eviction-movement-asian-american-history-cultu-k9benlnleos0\">defying homophobia and sexism\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when a group of nonprofits succeeded in transforming the former I-Hotel site into affordable housing, Lazam was one of the few surviving former tenants who returned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stop #6: Crossing Portsmouth Square pedestrian bridge, 745 Kearny St.\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041663\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041663\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG054_QED_DUPE1-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alfred Twu and others gather on Portsmouth Square Pedestrian Bridge, the 6th stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To wrap up your tour, head south to Portsmouth Square and step on the pedestrian bridge over Kearny Street. During the procession, Pallasigue and Zhu recalled that drag queens led the crowd across the bridge to the sound of taiko drums, with Pride flags flying high in the air. “This is the immortal runway,” Zhu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ending the procession at the bridge was intentional, Zhu said — because this landmark will soon disappear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of a city-led improvement project, the bridge is \u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1911\">scheduled to be demolished later this year\u003c/a>. But “even if the bridge goes away, even if these landmarks, one day, are physically gone, we still have the fact that we’ve brought all of these different people together — and they’re now telling these stories,” Pallasigue said. “We’ve woven ourselves into it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12041662\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12041662\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/05242025_CHINATOWNPRIDEWALKINGTOUR_EG052_QED-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peipei Ma’Bilz (center left) walks across Portsmouth Square Pedestrian Bridge, the 6th stop on the Chinatown Pride procession route on Saturday, May 24, 2025. \u003ccite>(Estefany Gonzalez for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from KQED’s Nastia Voynovskaya and Rae Alexandra and NPR’s Chloe Veltman.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gwenn Craig moved to San Francisco in 1975, as a young woman eager to explore her lesbian identity. She got involved in politics and was a close collaborator of Harvey Milk. In this episode, she talks about her political organizing, what pride has meant to her over the years, and what she hopes for its future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4188153423\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode first aired on June 28, 2023.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For many queer people, the Bay Area is seen as a place of safety and community. This Pride month, we hear the story of one queer person’s journey to the Bay, in their own words.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"card card--enclosed grey\">\n\u003cp id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2647739090&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. For a long time, Quin Petty thought of the Bay area as this mythical place. The only real representation they’d actually seen of San Francisco specifically was in the TV show Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was obsessed with Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It was so unattainable. Almost. It just felt like, I don’t know, like. Like I said, like a fairyland where I wasn’t allowed to be. And if I could only make it there that, like, I don’t know, everything would be perfect, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Beyond Charmed, there was just one thing they knew about the Bay. It was where they could find other queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And that I was someone who identified that way. And I didn’t know much about community before that. So, like, the concept of community was so foreign to me that I was like, I just know that this is where my people are, and I need to be there as much as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This month, San Francisco joined Sacramento and West Hollywood in becoming a sanctuary city for transgender people. But even before San Francisco was officially a sanctuary city, it has always been a beacon for queer folks like Quin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My connection to the Bay area is very much a part of my connection with like myself and like my body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This Pride Month, we’re sharing this story of one trans person’s journey to the bay in their own words. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My name is Quin Petty. I was raised in what is sometimes colloquially known as the Bible Belt of Southern California. Very Mormon forward town, in a place called Marietta, California. My mom is Mexican and my dad is half Japanese and half white. Growing up, I always knew that I was different and I always kind of felt. Closer to femininity than I did to boy things, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I feel like it’s a very typical queer experience to like, know yourself, telling yourself without actually telling on yourself for a while until you reach pre-K kindergarten. But I think more than anything, my attraction to boys was definitely more so. The thing that led me to realizing I was different, especially because I knew that boys liked girls and like I wanted boys to like me. I do very specifically remember when I was younger constantly asking like, why was I born a boy? Like, why can’t I be a girl? It just wasn’t clicking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I didn’t understand why that option wasn’t available to me. So yeah, I came out around sophomore year of high school. It was the first day of P.E., and I had it with one of my best friends, and there was like some new girl was like, approaching me and like, we were talking and blah, blah, blah. I specifically remember her, like asking. She was like, are you okay? I just remember my best friend fully ready to defend me. She took in the breath to say no. And I was like, yeah. I just remember the look of shock on her face like, bitch, I’ve been lying for you this whole time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Everyone was already blaming me for thinking that I was gay and I was like, well, if I am gay, then they have to find something else to bully me for. Like, they can’t just keep going with us forever. If there ever was a perfect time to come out, I think I got a good time. I got a good time slot. 2008 was around the time, like Lady Gaga was coming out. Katy Perry was out here kissing girls. There was just so much culturally going on. Prop A was a big issue. Don’t ask, Don’t Tell was still being talked about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There were things happening not only within culture, but within government and within everybody’s TVs at home. It wasn’t necessarily this bad thing anymore. And if anything, I think I saw that and I realized that like, hey, here’s this thing that I’ve had in me for forever, and people are finally starting to appreciate it, kind of see it as this thing that makes you special and makes you different. And it’s crazy too, because throughout high school, I was still kind of getting bullied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Like people are still talking behind my back, but I didn’t care. Another big thing that was happening around this time was like social media. I mean, yeah, I’d had a Myspace for a minute. I think I just made my Facebook. I actually happened to stumble upon this boy’s profile who, like, looked really cool. His all his photos were amazing and like, I believe he had a Lady Gaga song on his profile. And we just started talking like every single day. And they were working towards going to the Academy of Art in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>So yeah, that’s how I met my best friend Alejo. There was an opportunity that came up where I was able to, like, go visit Alejo, and I think my parents were down for it. But something happened and I ended up getting grounded. And they’re like, you’re not going to San Francisco anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was like, I know you guys didn’t cancel the stick. I had access to their email. And so I went through their email and I found the ticket, printed it out. And like I specifically remember in the dead of night, slowly opening the front door, and my mom comes out and like her little nightgown and basically catches me running away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I just remember her repeating in her little sleepy haze, she was like, you’re going to come back for me? And I was like, yeah, there’s a return flight. Like, I’m not going to just stay there. I spent a good like my first two weeks in San Francisco. Alejo was this, like, broke art school student living in what used to be a utility closet in this, like, poorly kept apartment complex right off of Octavian. They had one single loft bed, but I was having the time of my life. I didn’t care. We had a hot plate, we had ramen, we had hot dogs and a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I stole a couple meals from that Safeway right there off of Market Street. Went to Dolores for the first time. It felt like one of those things where it’s like, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a place I was meant to be, but here I am. Me as a gay person from this horrible little town. Like, I wasn’t meant to make it out, but I did. I ended up moving up to the Bay about two years, 2 or 3 years after I first visited the morning of like, I think it was like four in the morning. I decided to start this voyage, with my parents permission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>This time I ended up moving in with Alejo again for about like four months or so. We were living in Concord. And I was working at Club Monaco at the Westfield in San Francisco. And, yeah. After like 4 or 6 months, maybe I was able to save up enough money to get an apartment. Well, a room in San Francisco for $400. And that was it. That’s all I needed. I lived in what I like to refer to as the outer, outer, outer mission. It’s past Excelsior, but like literally one block away from Daily City. I guess you could call it a duplex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>You could also call it a Chinese family living in their basement and letting four crust punks and me live above them. When I moved up here for the first time, and especially when I moved to San Francisco, it felt like everything about my like, being just felt like it was at a time when I made it, you know, I was just like, yes, I was just a sales associate, but I don’t know, I felt like I was on Gossip Girl. So when I first came out, I was very much a gay boy. I mean, I looked the part. I was very Twinkie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>In those days, I would say that I was I was happy enough at the time. I started to have more of a concrete idea of like. Where I was headed gender wise. If you ask any trans person who has taken time to transition and has like had multiple coming out, I think we all have this little conversation with ourself, this little mini check in where we’re like, girl, are you are you trans lady? Like, are you sure? And then there’s always that talk back where you’re like, no, there’s no way. Why would you want to make your life harder?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I ended up moving back home for about a year, actually. So like living back home, especially living in a place where you sort of have to rehash a lot of your trauma, a lot of it gets brought back up again. And I think in having that stuff being brought back up, I realized that I couldn’t necessarily have these important conversations with myself and go through these healing processes in the same place that I had endured so much trauma as well. So when I finally ended up moving back to the Bay area, I decided to go into food service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There was a coworker there. Shout out to Justine! We love Justine. She asked the most simple question. This was the first time we were meeting and she was like, oh, what are your pronouns, by the way, that it was the first time anyone had ever asked me that question. And I paused for like a good 15 seconds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I literally remember responding with like, I’ll get back to you. Months after that, like whole situation where Justine had asked me that question. I don’t know if I ever gave them an answer, but I was still very much in flux with that question when the pandemic started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Because my job was affected by the pandemic. I was getting checks at that time. So I literally it was just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, well, if all of your things are taken care of, like what? What are you what do you what do you have to to to give to society? I was able to, like, really get into makeup during the pandemic. My friends definitely were the most affirming. I found a really good base up here, obviously, and I had a very good community of online friends also that were super supportive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I debuted my new name on Facebook for like All To See, which I don’t know, I sort of assumed was a very like definitive way to do that. I’ve had the conversation with like a couple family members, a few like really accepting and open aunts. I haven’t really yeah, I haven’t really had that conversation with my family, if I’m being honest. They still either just refer to me as Mehul or by my dad name, which we’re working on it. Me and my parents sort of had this like this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>We didn’t talk for like a good, I want to say to 2 or 3 years. Basically around the time of the George Floyd protests. I was talking on the phone with my mom. We were sort of talking about it, and she sort of said something along the lines of like, well, you know, if like, those people just followed the way of Jehovah. And I was like, mom, it led me to this question that I asked her where I was, like, as it stands, like I’m the way that I am when you die and when I die and like, you’re in Paradise, like, and I’m not there, like, are you going to be okay with that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>She paused a little, but she was also like, well, I mean, yeah, I’m going to miss you. But. And like, that was kind of all it took. I just remember clicking the phone off. I didn’t talk to her for like 2 or 3 years after that. Currently I identify as. Ultimately non-binary, ultimately, ultimately trans like. I really prefer using that umbrella. Mostly to give myself room to grow. I suppose I do often think that like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I know this is there’s a lot of discourse about this, within the community of like the validity of taking on certain monikers and like. Like it’s okay, but like, I don’t, I don’t know, I just I still think that there are. Other trans women who have gone through so much more than I have to be able, would like to be able to to take on that title. Feels like I am. I’m taking on so much more than just that. I’ve pretty much fully socially transitioned like my parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>No, they don’t necessarily talk about it, but they know. I’ve also sort of been a part of this school of thought that’s like your transness is also not invalid. If you don’t decide to medically transition like, I’m I’m of two minds of it because like, I would love to have facial feminization surgery, but like it also doesn’t define my transness. Am I interested in medical transition? The short answer is yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It’s just one of those things that like, I guess, much like San Francisco was when I first moved here. And when I first thought about coming up here, it was it’s like that exists in such an abstract, like ideal version of what I want that like, it feels so unattainable, but who knows? I think a lot of me being up here, especially during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Especially during a time where we as a community really had to band together, not just as queer people, but as like people that are for the rights of all individuals and like being up here for like the George Floyd protests and like the Black Lives Matter movement, like, I don’t think I could have been anywhere else and felt more affirmed in my humanity in general, not just my transness. It’s really hard to imagine living anywhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Quin Petty in conversation with our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. This episode was pitched and cut by Ellie Prickett-Morgan. It was also produced by Adhiti Bandlamudi, who scored this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Additional production support from Me. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong> I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. For a long time, Quin Petty thought of the Bay area as this mythical place. The only real representation they’d actually seen of San Francisco specifically was in the TV show Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was obsessed with Charmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It was so unattainable. Almost. It just felt like, I don’t know, like. Like I said, like a fairyland where I wasn’t allowed to be. And if I could only make it there that, like, I don’t know, everything would be perfect, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Beyond Charmed, there was just one thing they knew about the Bay. It was where they could find other queer people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And that I was someone who identified that way. And I didn’t know much about community before that. So, like, the concept of community was so foreign to me that I was like, I just know that this is where my people are, and I need to be there as much as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This month, San Francisco joined Sacramento and West Hollywood in becoming a sanctuary city for transgender people. But even before San Francisco was officially a sanctuary city, it has always been a beacon for queer folks like Quin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My connection to the Bay area is very much a part of my connection with like myself and like my body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>This Pride Month, we’re sharing this story of one trans person’s journey to the bay in their own words. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>My name is Quin Petty. I was raised in what is sometimes colloquially known as the Bible Belt of Southern California. Very Mormon forward town, in a place called Marietta, California. My mom is Mexican and my dad is half Japanese and half white. Growing up, I always knew that I was different and I always kind of felt. Closer to femininity than I did to boy things, I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I feel like it’s a very typical queer experience to like, know yourself, telling yourself without actually telling on yourself for a while until you reach pre-K kindergarten. But I think more than anything, my attraction to boys was definitely more so. The thing that led me to realizing I was different, especially because I knew that boys liked girls and like I wanted boys to like me. I do very specifically remember when I was younger constantly asking like, why was I born a boy? Like, why can’t I be a girl? It just wasn’t clicking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I didn’t understand why that option wasn’t available to me. So yeah, I came out around sophomore year of high school. It was the first day of P.E., and I had it with one of my best friends, and there was like some new girl was like, approaching me and like, we were talking and blah, blah, blah. I specifically remember her, like asking. She was like, are you okay? I just remember my best friend fully ready to defend me. She took in the breath to say no. And I was like, yeah. I just remember the look of shock on her face like, bitch, I’ve been lying for you this whole time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Everyone was already blaming me for thinking that I was gay and I was like, well, if I am gay, then they have to find something else to bully me for. Like, they can’t just keep going with us forever. If there ever was a perfect time to come out, I think I got a good time. I got a good time slot. 2008 was around the time, like Lady Gaga was coming out. Katy Perry was out here kissing girls. There was just so much culturally going on. Prop A was a big issue. Don’t ask, Don’t Tell was still being talked about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There were things happening not only within culture, but within government and within everybody’s TVs at home. It wasn’t necessarily this bad thing anymore. And if anything, I think I saw that and I realized that like, hey, here’s this thing that I’ve had in me for forever, and people are finally starting to appreciate it, kind of see it as this thing that makes you special and makes you different. And it’s crazy too, because throughout high school, I was still kind of getting bullied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Like people are still talking behind my back, but I didn’t care. Another big thing that was happening around this time was like social media. I mean, yeah, I’d had a Myspace for a minute. I think I just made my Facebook. I actually happened to stumble upon this boy’s profile who, like, looked really cool. His all his photos were amazing and like, I believe he had a Lady Gaga song on his profile. And we just started talking like every single day. And they were working towards going to the Academy of Art in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>So yeah, that’s how I met my best friend Alejo. There was an opportunity that came up where I was able to, like, go visit Alejo, and I think my parents were down for it. But something happened and I ended up getting grounded. And they’re like, you’re not going to San Francisco anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I was like, I know you guys didn’t cancel the stick. I had access to their email. And so I went through their email and I found the ticket, printed it out. And like I specifically remember in the dead of night, slowly opening the front door, and my mom comes out and like her little nightgown and basically catches me running away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I just remember her repeating in her little sleepy haze, she was like, you’re going to come back for me? And I was like, yeah, there’s a return flight. Like, I’m not going to just stay there. I spent a good like my first two weeks in San Francisco. Alejo was this, like, broke art school student living in what used to be a utility closet in this, like, poorly kept apartment complex right off of Octavian. They had one single loft bed, but I was having the time of my life. I didn’t care. We had a hot plate, we had ramen, we had hot dogs and a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I stole a couple meals from that Safeway right there off of Market Street. Went to Dolores for the first time. It felt like one of those things where it’s like, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a place I was meant to be, but here I am. Me as a gay person from this horrible little town. Like, I wasn’t meant to make it out, but I did. I ended up moving up to the Bay about two years, 2 or 3 years after I first visited the morning of like, I think it was like four in the morning. I decided to start this voyage, with my parents permission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>This time I ended up moving in with Alejo again for about like four months or so. We were living in Concord. And I was working at Club Monaco at the Westfield in San Francisco. And, yeah. After like 4 or 6 months, maybe I was able to save up enough money to get an apartment. Well, a room in San Francisco for $400. And that was it. That’s all I needed. I lived in what I like to refer to as the outer, outer, outer mission. It’s past Excelsior, but like literally one block away from Daily City. I guess you could call it a duplex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>You could also call it a Chinese family living in their basement and letting four crust punks and me live above them. When I moved up here for the first time, and especially when I moved to San Francisco, it felt like everything about my like, being just felt like it was at a time when I made it, you know, I was just like, yes, I was just a sales associate, but I don’t know, I felt like I was on Gossip Girl. So when I first came out, I was very much a gay boy. I mean, I looked the part. I was very Twinkie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>In those days, I would say that I was I was happy enough at the time. I started to have more of a concrete idea of like. Where I was headed gender wise. If you ask any trans person who has taken time to transition and has like had multiple coming out, I think we all have this little conversation with ourself, this little mini check in where we’re like, girl, are you are you trans lady? Like, are you sure? And then there’s always that talk back where you’re like, no, there’s no way. Why would you want to make your life harder?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I ended up moving back home for about a year, actually. So like living back home, especially living in a place where you sort of have to rehash a lot of your trauma, a lot of it gets brought back up again. And I think in having that stuff being brought back up, I realized that I couldn’t necessarily have these important conversations with myself and go through these healing processes in the same place that I had endured so much trauma as well. So when I finally ended up moving back to the Bay area, I decided to go into food service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>There was a coworker there. Shout out to Justine! We love Justine. She asked the most simple question. This was the first time we were meeting and she was like, oh, what are your pronouns, by the way, that it was the first time anyone had ever asked me that question. And I paused for like a good 15 seconds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I literally remember responding with like, I’ll get back to you. Months after that, like whole situation where Justine had asked me that question. I don’t know if I ever gave them an answer, but I was still very much in flux with that question when the pandemic started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Because my job was affected by the pandemic. I was getting checks at that time. So I literally it was just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, well, if all of your things are taken care of, like what? What are you what do you what do you have to to to give to society? I was able to, like, really get into makeup during the pandemic. My friends definitely were the most affirming. I found a really good base up here, obviously, and I had a very good community of online friends also that were super supportive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>I debuted my new name on Facebook for like All To See, which I don’t know, I sort of assumed was a very like definitive way to do that. I’ve had the conversation with like a couple family members, a few like really accepting and open aunts. I haven’t really yeah, I haven’t really had that conversation with my family, if I’m being honest. They still either just refer to me as Mehul or by my dad name, which we’re working on it. Me and my parents sort of had this like this break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>We didn’t talk for like a good, I want to say to 2 or 3 years. Basically around the time of the George Floyd protests. I was talking on the phone with my mom. We were sort of talking about it, and she sort of said something along the lines of like, well, you know, if like, those people just followed the way of Jehovah. And I was like, mom, it led me to this question that I asked her where I was, like, as it stands, like I’m the way that I am when you die and when I die and like, you’re in Paradise, like, and I’m not there, like, are you going to be okay with that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>She paused a little, but she was also like, well, I mean, yeah, I’m going to miss you. But. And like, that was kind of all it took. I just remember clicking the phone off. I didn’t talk to her for like 2 or 3 years after that. Currently I identify as. Ultimately non-binary, ultimately, ultimately trans like. I really prefer using that umbrella. Mostly to give myself room to grow. I suppose I do often think that like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>And I know this is there’s a lot of discourse about this, within the community of like the validity of taking on certain monikers and like. Like it’s okay, but like, I don’t, I don’t know, I just I still think that there are. Other trans women who have gone through so much more than I have to be able, would like to be able to to take on that title. Feels like I am. I’m taking on so much more than just that. I’ve pretty much fully socially transitioned like my parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>No, they don’t necessarily talk about it, but they know. I’ve also sort of been a part of this school of thought that’s like your transness is also not invalid. If you don’t decide to medically transition like, I’m I’m of two minds of it because like, I would love to have facial feminization surgery, but like it also doesn’t define my transness. Am I interested in medical transition? The short answer is yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>It’s just one of those things that like, I guess, much like San Francisco was when I first moved here. And when I first thought about coming up here, it was it’s like that exists in such an abstract, like ideal version of what I want that like, it feels so unattainable, but who knows? I think a lot of me being up here, especially during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Quin Petty: \u003c/strong>Especially during a time where we as a community really had to band together, not just as queer people, but as like people that are for the rights of all individuals and like being up here for like the George Floyd protests and like the Black Lives Matter movement, like, I don’t think I could have been anywhere else and felt more affirmed in my humanity in general, not just my transness. It’s really hard to imagine living anywhere else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>That was Quin Petty in conversation with our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. This episode was pitched and cut by Ellie Prickett-Morgan. It was also produced by Adhiti Bandlamudi, who scored this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/strong>Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Additional production support from Me. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"radiolab": {
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
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},
"science-friday": {
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"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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