I want to preface this by saying I am by no means trying to make excuses for this specific behavior that i'm citing below, nor am I trying to invalidate anyone's feelings about this.

A couple of days ago, I streamed a few games over on Twitch and although everything was going pretty well and we were all having a good time, there were a few instances where I messed up on the pronouns of two of my viewers. First, I woud like to apologize again. I really meant no ill will towards anyone and I did not mean to cause hurt and discomfort.

I feel like this is something i need to talk about because it has been eating away at my brain and I've felt guilt over the situation since it happened.

Most of you know that English is my second language. It's only very recently that I've been in the public eye and speaking almost entirely in English, so sometimes my brain goes blank and the words I'm trying to say won't come to me ; I end up having to think about what I'm trying to say in Portuguese and THEN go on to translate it in my head to English to say out loud. I don't know if every multilingual person is like that, but that's just how my brain works.

As most (if not all) latin based languages, Portuguese as a language is heavily gendered while English is a gender-neutral language. Almost all of our nouns change by gender; all adjectives, articles, and pronouns that agree with these nouns also adjust to comply with gender. I know you're probably asking yourself "Bloom, why are you saying all of this?"; While someone may sound fluent when speaking a language, that DOES NOT MEAN your thought process will occur in it. This hinders my thought process tremendously due to having to roughly translate things in my head from Portuguese to English.

This does NOT mean I am trying to use it as an excuse. Its an explanation as to why it happened. I promise you, when I became a VA I wanted to be sure that I took the time to care about how comfortable my listeners are with my content and that they don't feel excluded, I truly mean this from the bottom of my heart.

Getting rid of a 20 year old language habit is not easy and its not going to happen in a couple of days, so while I understand that I have caused upset to which I am truly sorry, I humbly ask people to please have patience with me. This will no longer be an issue the more I get used to neutral terms and using them correctly. Every time I make a mistake, I am going to continue to catch it and correct myself.

I know many male VA'S, especially white men, have treated so many people in this community as a joke or with malice and hate, but I really am not one of them.

Theres also something else I'd like to discuss because I see a lot of people being confused about my ethnicity and what some may think comes with that.

I am a Brazilian male with Italian heritage from half of my family. I was born and raised here and I have never left this country. Though this country does not have a fantastic record with how it treats minorites and people who don't fit social constructs, I've never agreed with that ideology. I want to make content and build a space for every listener to feel included and wanted. I appreciate every single one of the people who support me and enjoy what I do, I hope you'll see where I'm coming from and have a great rest of your day.

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- Bloom