Save Batwoman's Six Month Anniversary

It’s been six months since we started the Save Batwoman Campaign. Six months of fighting, yes, but also six months of celebration.

I’m not going to pretend losing our show wasn’t hard. Describing it that way is an understatement that doesn’t even need to be stated at all - it’s a given. But while we’ve ached, we have also sung, and danced, and cheered, and won in so many ways. We have raised our voices and been heard more than once. We have come together and communed - laughing, hugging, bonding. With this loss we have also gained SO much.

Our reality is that we had our show taken from us, but we did not lose each other with it. We did not lose the relationship we formed with the creators of that show, either. And through it all, we did not lose our hope or fighting spirit.

Beautifully, we’ve found more of us in these six months, too. Our community is still growing! New people discover and fall in love with Batwoman every day. They join the conversation and claim this fandom as their own.

I won’t pretend that every day has been easy. Sometimes, we want to sit in our anger, frustration, and disappointment. And still, each time those feelings occur, we turn them into something wonderful together. Our friends comfort us. We make art. We trend. We sell out meet and greets and conventions. We win awards for our cast.

Our Batwoman wore her suit again this month. To me, this means two things:

1. The people who have creative influence are listening to us - they know how important Batwoman (and all the show represents) is to us.

2. They are in our corner, and doing what they can for us. We are not alone in this fight.

Even more, we were made aware that our continued discussion about why saving our show matters is reaching the ears it needs to, thanks to James Gunn’s tweet. I’ve said this before, and I’ll continue to say it. Every show that has been saved had unrelenting fans fighting for it. Literally, what made the difference is that fans did not give up. And if we’ve seen anything in these last six months, it’s our potential. Our smaller community has accomplished some incredible feats because we know our power and we show up to use it.

I’m sure it’s no surprise that the committee has been asked how much longer we’re going to do this. And, of course we have heard that with all of the regressive changes happening at the different broadcast and streaming networks, and the reorganizations and the mass cancellations of queer leaning content specifically, that this will be a fruitless cause. That for any number of reasons, this is pretty close to impossible.

Here’s the thing, though. That’s just noise, and it’s doing its job, trying to distract and deter us from our mission. That will inevitably happen with any cause that is asking for change. Fixing something that is broken; correcting something that is wrong; asking people to do the right thing - that is going to be met with resistance. We wouldn’t have a battle to fight, otherwise. And when deciding whether or not to pick a battle, the only thing that actually matters is if it’s important enough for you to choose to fight. It’s not about how realistic the battle is, or how long the war will be. It’s as simple as asking if the cause is worthy enough for you to give of yourself to participate in it.

And, I’ll level with you: I am human. I won’t deny that I have tough days, and I have had my own moments of questioning… You know what, though? Every single time (I kid you not) that I’ve started to slip into that place, I have received some blindingly bright moment of encouragement that reminds me that just because it’s hard or it’s taking a long time, that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do, and that it won’t ultimately be worth it. We are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing; it matters, and this journey - slow and or challenging - is still an important one that we cannot turn back from now. The fact that we have experienced one example after another of fan power and influence is more than enough to fuel me forward, and I hope that’s true for you too.

So on this day of giving thanks, I encourage you to reflect on all we have to look back on and feel proud about and grateful for. I call on you to look forward with optimism and imagine what else is possible - because who could have guessed that anything that has occurred over these last six months would have. I ask you to reach out and hold onto each other, because it’s truly this community that has brought us this far. We really are in this together, and it’s going to take every single one of us to get us through to the finish line.

I want to say thank you to all of you, not just for being here every day for all of these months: for making us trend, for celebrating birthdays, donating to fundraisers, showing up to conventions, winning polls, and the whole lot of it. Thank you for your trust and your endless support. Thank you to every person who has done a tour on the committee. Thank you to those who are as committed to this fight as I am. On the days when life is really making it difficult to figure out how to do this, you’re all still there, showing up, and that is often the only push needed to find a way forward.

I have to say a special thank you to Javicia, Meagan, Kelly, and Daphne. Let’s be honest: they lost their show too, and so did every other person involved in creating Batwoman. The human thing to do when you lose something so important, unexpectedly, is to figure out how to move forward - onward and upward. Fighting for this show, in many ways, is living in the past. And, while reminiscing about the good times they had on this show would be natural, giving their time and energy to support our cause is definitely above and beyond. For me, I think it demonstrates how mutually important this relationship we’ve all formed is to them. So, I thank each of them for riding this wave with us, and showing up in every way that they can and continue to do.

Love you, Batfam. Thank you for being here. Thank your loved ones for me, for sharing you with this cause. Let’s see what else we can accomplish together while fighting for our show.