Esther Spurrill-Jones, this is such a lovely story. I did my damnedest to applaud for it this morning before I had access to my laptop. I tried applauding three time from my phone, but each time, while the applause seemed to register, it did not actually take.

I was able to clap for some stories, but not for yours.

I hope now that I’m clapping from my computer instead of from my phone, it might actually work.

I also hope that Medium, Medium Staff, and Your Friends @ Medium are aware of how pervasive and critical this problem is. Yesterday, in cases that I’m aware of, I was unable to clap for stories by alto, Sean Stephane Martin, and kurt gasbarra. Those are ONLY the cases I became accidentally aware of.

Medium is critically broken right now, and has been for a long time. Indira Reddy and Linda Caroll have also recently posted about this problem, and besides yourself, almost all my fellow writers involved in the LGBTQ Fiction Project are aware that applause on Medium is badly broken. Fred Shirley, Gwen Saoirse, Gloria Bates, neil chapman, Zayn Singh, BFoundAPen, Artemis Shishir, Ikedi Oghenetega, Terijo, and Eric Griggs have all been frustrated by this issue for a long time.

It’s time to fix this. It’s way past time.