“Cyberpunk 2077 Fails Its Queer Players” by Matteo Lupetti, Gayming

Cyberpunk RED / R. Talsorian Games

Earlier this year, in February, I was interviewed by writer and reporter Matteo Lupetti of Gayming magazine for an article he was writing about Cyberpunk 2077, queer games, genre, and posthumanism. We had a great conversation about a number of topics, particularly about the ways video games are constrained in the ways they can be queer. It took a little while, but Lupetti’s article is finally out: https://gaymingmag.com/2021/12/cyberpunk-2077-queerness-representation-queer/

Here’s a bit where I am quoted:

Furthermore, unlike what techno-frat boys state, physical and real-world barriers are not actually dismantled in these cyber-utopias: cyberspace (the digital world of the internet, as seen as a world apart from ours) can ensure a level playing field, but you still have to own expensive devices and to have the necessary technological and linguistic skills in order to reach it. “In John Perry Barlow’s manifesto A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace cyberspace is for everyone, you can be everyone and do everything you want” Professor Edmond Y. Chang, author of Technoqueer: Re/Con/Figuring Posthuman Narratives, tells us during a video call. “But of course that’s not true. We think of cyberspace technology as a bottom-up technology, but in reality, it’s also very top-down: you take down the server and cyberspace disappears.”

I am honored to be included, and I hope the article is well-received and shared. I hope to be called upon again to offer my rambling expertise.

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