Today I’d like to share with you two quotations. One is from Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader whose legacy we honor today. The other is from someone who considers himself the leader of a human rights movement that follows in the footsteps of King.
The first quote:
Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
The second:
[Name redacted], I hope you are looking forward to our date. I certainly am. … [I]t is clear that you have gone to great lengths to keep your image off the internet.
Nice try.
Is that a threat? No, it is a promise. Big difference.
As we have been saying here for years, the time for collegial, polite discussion and negotiation with these piles of refuse is over. …
We have people working on securing her image. Meantime, $100.00 to the first person who gets us a clear image of her which we can verify. Something large and clear enough to be used as a feature image is preferred.
As you have probably gathered, the first quote comes from Dr. King. It’s from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, in which he sets forth a powerful argument for the transformative power of nonviolence, which, as he notes, “nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”
The second quote comes from Paul Elam of A Voice for Men. I’ve taken the liberty of redacting the name of his target.
Yes, this self-described “humanitarian” is launching yet another campaign of doxxing and intimidation aimed at an ideological enemy who just happens to be female. And once again, as he so notoriously did several years ago, Elam is offering a bounty for the personal information of one of his targets – in this case a clear photograph of her face.
It’s a strategy that draws not on the tactics of Martin Luther King but on those of his enemies – in particular the Ku Klux Klan, which in the 1960s posted “wanted posters” featuring the faces of civil rights activists, including King himself. Some of those whose faces appeared on these “wanted posters,” most famously King himself, were later murdered.
In more recent years, anti-abortion activists have posted similar “wanted posters” featuring the pictures and addresses of doctors who perform abortions – some of whom were themselves later murdered.
Now AVFM has taken up this classic technique of intimidation.
Last year, AVFM activists – including the site’s “activism director” Attila Vinczer — posted hundreds of wanted-style posters of feminist philosophy professor Adele Mercier on and around the campus of Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario. The year before, a Men’s Rights group in Edmonton closely associated with A Voice for Men put up similar posters targeting Lise Gotell, the chair of women’s and gender studies at the University of Alberta.
We can only assume that Elam has a similar campaign in mind for his latest target.
So what are Elam’s charges against this new woman to hate?
According to him, the woman, a professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, accused AVFM activist Sage Gerard (aka Victor Zen) of “demonstrat[ing] a desire to kill women” in a complaint she filed with the KSU administration.
Elam has posted the complaint on his website. Her name appears nowhere in the complaint, nor does anything about Gerard wanting to kill women.
[ Clarification: Elam has now posted a separate campus police report about an incident in which Gerard came to the office of the Interdisciplinary Studies department requesting to see the professor; the police report contains her name as well as notes from the officer saying that “she has seen the cartoons, videos and blogs online and believes Gerard demonstrates having violent fantasies about hurting and murdering women.” ]
This anonymous complaint, along with another complaint about Gerard, were evidently triggered by a video Gerard posted last year of a late-night “sticker run” he made on the KSU campus.
The video, which Gerard filmed and narrated on the fly, is more than a little creepy. In it, Gerard describes his preparations for his “activism” as if he were launching some sort of covert operation; at one point he talks about hiding his stickers in the sleeves of his jacket. As he heads out the door to start his stickering, he announces “let’s go fuck with people.”
Gerard clearly sees what he’s doing as a deliberately provocative act. He talks about putting AVFM stickers in places “where they cannot be ignored” and about his desires to “push the boundaries” by plastering them in places they’re really not supposed to be put – most notably in a women’s bathroom where, thankfully, no women were present.
Weirdly, given that he later posted the video on his YouTube channel, Gerard also took steps in the video to conceal his identity and cover his tracks, wiping his fingerprints off of some of the stickers after pasting them in a bathroom. Later, apparently wanting to look as much like a serial killer as possible, he dons latex gloves.
At one point, Gerard jokes about how he’d like to paste one of the stickers over the mouth of a feminist to shut her up.
His behavior in the video and in his interactions with others on campus, as well as his affiliation with AVFM, clearly rattled some on the KSU campus. The anonymous complainant to the KSU administration suggested that Gerard’s actions were creating a “hostile work environment” for some faculty and staff and making students fear for their safety.
Elam has posted the actual complaints, which, in what seems to be a pretty clear violation of privacy, were sent to Gerard with the identity of one of the accusers laid bare. Here’s the anonymous complaint that Elam has attributed to his current target:
Among other similar offenses by the same individual, a KSU student (Sage Gerard) posed as a custodian and entered the women’s bathrooms on campus, placing stickers intended to intimidate women. … Gerard’s behavior indicates contemplation of violence against women (he posts art depicting guns pointed at women’s symbols, as well as other violently anti-feminist themes). His behavior has created a hostile work environment for multiple KSU employees who do not only fear intimidation and harassment, but actual physical violence against themselves and their families. KSU students have also expressed real fears for their own physical safety on campus . . . I do not feel safe on this campus. As an advocate of women, I feel strongly that I am at real risk of becoming the target of violent retaliatory actions perpetrated by Sage Gerard and the organization sponsoring him, A Voice For Men.
Emphasis mine.
The KSU administration investigated these complaints, and concluded that Gerard was not responsible for creating a hostile work environment, and that his speech was protected under the first amendment. The complaints were dismissed; no charges against Gerard were even filed.
He was asked to stay out of women’s bathrooms in the future. And the KSU counsel who prepared the report also had this suggestion:
We do recommend that Mr. Gerard continue to refrain from further contact with the persons who made the hotline reports (or those who Mr. Gerard believes may have made them), to avoid any real or perceived retaliation. In addition, we recommend that Mr. Gerard refrain from further contact with the members of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department to avoid escalating the situation to the point that it becomes a hostile environment in the legal sense.
That’s right. Gerard wasn’t charged with anything. He faced no sanctions. He was simply asked not to contact those on campus he was making uncomfortable.
But apparently this “no contact” request is so offensive to Gerard and his AVFM comrades that they have decided to launch the very retaliation campaign that the KSU complainants were afraid of. Thus, once again, proving their critics have been right to label them a hate group in the first place.
AVFM’s new target joins a long list of women (and a few men) who have been doxxed and/or harassed in retaliation for their “crimes” against Paul Elam’s delicate sensibilities.
Elam started off this parade of harassment shortly after this site started by attempting to get a woman fired from her job at a women’s shelter for a comment she made here in which she wondered aloud if Elam had a criminal record.
Since then, Elam and his AVFM cronies have:
Started Register-Her, a fake “Offenders Registry” designed to vilify and intimidate women. (The site is now in the hands of AVFM defector John Hembling.)
Gleefully participated in the unending harassment of a Canadian feminist that one AVFM author dubbed “little red frothing fornication mouth,” for her crime of … arguing with some AVFM activists at a demonstration once. Unflattering images of “Big Red” at that demonstration have since been plastered all over the internet; she even has a page devoted to her on KnowYourMeme.
Launched a years-long harassment campaign against feminist writer Jessica Valenti. Starting with a 2011 post in which Elam himself attacked her as a “stupid, hateful bitch,” the hate campaign has moved on to labeling her a “child abuser,” posting her personal photos on AVFM without permission, putting her on Register-Her.com, and libeling her by making up inflammatory quotations and attributing them to her. (AVFM’s “social media director” and serial quote-fabricator Janet Bloomfield was evidently permabanned from Twitter for her persistent harassment of Valenti.)
Supported GamerGate’s harassment of cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, with AVFM’s PR whiz Bloomfield doing her part by blatantly libeling her on Twitter.
Launched a campaign of vilification against a Chicago-area “mommy blogger” for writing that she felt uncomfortable with the idea of a male day care staffer taking young girls to the bathroom.
Along with an assortment of white supremacists and online assholes, joined in a hate campaign against a young woman wrongly accused of trashing applications from white guys as a staffer at a college admissions office. Elam declared the woman, by name, to be a “warped by ideology” with “deep seated prejudices that guided her unscrupulous actions.” The blog was a hoax, and the woman Elam so eagerly vilified had nothing to do with it.
Published an article falsely accusing a male feminist blogger of being a “confessed rapist,” because, as Elam puts it, “karma is a BITCH.” (AVFM’s defense? It was being “satirical.”)
Accused a former AVFM staffer, with no evidence, of absconding with money donated for a men’s shelter.
Attacked feminist and skeptic Rebecca Watson on numerous occasions, including a post from Elam in which he used the term “whore” several dozen times.
And of course AVFM has accused me of everything from starting Reddit’s terrible BeatingWomen subreddit to somehow faking my site’s traffic stats on Alexa. (AVFM has never even bothered to provide “evidence” for any of their various accusations against me, perhaps because none of them are even remotely true.) Elam has posted bizarre sexual fantasies involving me, called me a pervert, and publicly suggested that I kill myself. One of AVFMs most, er, enthusiastic activists once left me a creepy, threatening voicemail at 1:38 AM. And AVFM “activism director” Attila L. Vinczer has tried to dox me, with somewhat comic results.
This isn’t even close to an exhaustive list of AVFM’s assorted retaliatory campaigns against feminists and other critics.
AVFM has made it very clear to the world – through its actions and its rhetoric – that if someone starts putting up AVFM posters or stickers on your campus or in your neighborhood, you have every reason to worry.
AVFM is not a civil or human rights group by any stretch of the imagination. It is a hate group, plain and simple, less akin to Martin Luther King Jr. than it is to those who so stubbornly fought against him.
NOTE: Here is Sage Gerard’s (aka Victor Zen’s) video of his sticker “activism.” You can probably see why people found it a little unsettling.
daintydougal–I was about to quote and high five on your idea about anxiety effecting feelings around the idea of social hierarchy/squeeing when someone recognizes what you say. So, one, yes I agree high-interwebs-five and two, squee!
Also, adorbs kitty–reminds me of my kitty when he was actually a kitty and not the giant lump-o-fur grown-up catmonster that I now refer to as a kitty just because.
Maybe core beliefs was not the right word choice–maybe closer to “current understanding” or something? Again, I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of this, so I’m having difficulty putting words on it.
(Just to let people know, as far as I’m aware I’m the only one that suggested we keep this thread meta, and I’m not a mod… so yeah… make of that what you will)
@gillyrosebee:
Is there a particular comment that you’re addressing with this paragraph?
My habit of immediately trying to correct a previous post is probably annoying and unnecessary but here it is: I wasn’t conflating terfs and racists.
gillyrosebee I think I’m a fan of Bill Paxton more than anything else. He’s just so naff and in so many awesome* 90’s disaster films, which is my favourite genre even if it isn’t an actual genre.
*some people claim not to enjoy 90’s disaster films. These people are incorrect.
Well, evidence tends to demonstrate that racists left to their own toxic little pockets (spearhead, anyone?) will drive each other to greater and greater extremes. The flip side is that people often do come to recognize the basic humanity of people other than themselves when those people become less the abstract other and more the guy across the street who waves at you every morning and shovels your sidewalk when you are out of town.
It’s not possible for everyone, and some people aren’t going to be able to be in a space with people who disagree with them on some fundamental issues, but my (admittedly idealistic) hope is that by abiding with things that make us uncomfortable, we can get through some of it.
Okay, back to work (groan)…
I’ve got to run at the moment, but if it’s important I can go back and pull quotes. As I see it there is still some strong pushback against the idea that TERF can be used as a slur/silencing tactic as well as a descriptor. That’s what I am reacting to.
The way I see it, the transphobic stuff that has cropped up is much more akin to racist sentiments than it is to the ableism we’ve had to deal with. I mean, our “ableism” has been, for the most part, using particular words to describe people external to the commentariat. Harmful, yes, but not quite as direct and accusatory as the transphobia has been. The people who’ve popped up with worse beliefs have generally been ousted as trolls.
The religion stuff might be closer, but those conversations have been quashed (as far as I’ve seen) in a way that the trans issues conversations have not been.
In other words, this is a tougher problem. I’m not surprised that we haven’t been able to solve it the way we’ve solved other community disagreements. I think it’s going to take much more effort to do so.
@gillyrosebee:
Ok. I’d rather you didn’t here if only because it’s going back to the content of the thread of doom rather than a meta discussion… I was just wondering if it was a reaction to something I had said. Thanks for explaining your intent.
My understanding was that pushback to the idea that terf could be used as a silencing tactic was what kicked it all off in the first place. (Very strong possibility that I’m wrong though).
I also think (and this might sound absurd) but I think maybe some people, certainly not me, cough, don’t necessarily fully understand all the ways one can be transphobic. For example someone’s work that closely involves genetics can be transphobic purely because of their work? As if knowing what someones insides are made up of regardless of the acceptances of gender preference/gender reality of said person…Maybe this is getting into dangerous territory again.
I get this little thrill whenever I spot Bill Paxton in a role.
It took several viewings of Tombstone, over about twenty years, for me to recognize him as Virgil Earp.
Still didn’t recognize Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo until I looked on IMDB to confirm Paxton was in the cast.
That movie was a rare instance where a man got fridged. Also, it’s pretty terrible.
@daintydougal:
After a long build-up with people getting tired of Ally’s behavior, yeah. That’s my impression as well.
Here’s as much as I know. People who are transphobic often argue that trans folks are delusional because “everyone knows women are XX and men are XY,” and that your chromosomes determine your gender/sex/everything. And it happens a lot. Practically every conversation where someone isn’t convinced that trans-ness is a valid thing. It makes sense that the trans community would become really tired of hearing about it.
I guess some people, for good reason but maybe not justifiably, will even bristle at calling “XX” female and “XY” male even in a scientific context, because it’s used so often as an anti-trans argument (which can often try to appeal to the scientific labels). In the context it was brought up, where the discussion was already getting steeped in transphobia, that probably made things worse.
kirbywarp, I’ve loved your comments for year, but I’m not feeling good about conversation being policed by a man.
Regarding whether we would accept racist beliefs, I think part of the problem with that comparison is trans women, cis women, and trans men are more horizontal to one another when it comes to oppression and privilege. By that I mean trans women and cis women are oppressed for being women (last to be considered in all things, catcalls, etc.), cis women and trans men are oppressed for being biologically female (attacks on reproductive rights, not taught about our own anatomy in sex ed, etc.), and trans men and trans women are oppressed for being trans (excluded from spaces that align with their gender, kept from expressing themselves, etc.). And trans women get privilege for being biologically male (they learn about their anatomy in sex. ed, never have to worry about restrictions to reproductive rights, etc.), cis women get privilege for their gender being the one expected of their sex (can use a bathroom without harassment, are never told they aren’t women, etc.), and trans men get privilege for being men (first to be considered in all things, can walk down the street without harassment, etc.).
I don’t play Oppression Olympics, so I truly don’t believe that one of the three is more oppressed than the other. Now, I left out gender non-binary and intersex folk for the sake of simplicity, but they are oppressed and privileged in many of the same ways listed above. The only group that comes out on top (all else being equal along race, sexual orientation, etc.) is cis men. Biologically male men.
What I see happening is that some cis women are trying to silence and exclude trans women, and some trans women are trying to silence and exclude cis women. And I think that siding with one group over the other for dominance is not elevating the voices of the oppressed, but raising one up at the expense and oppression of the other. I know people don’t like to hear this, but supporting some trans women silencing and excluding cis women isn’t elevating trans people; it’s deferring to male privilege. Likewise, supporting some cis women silencing and excluding trans women isn’t elevating cis women, it’s deferring to cis privilege. And people tend to recognize the latter, but can’t recognize the former because we’re told “sex is a construct, female and woman are one and the same, trans women have no male privilege because they’ve always been female”. How the hell are we to have a conversation and truly move forward if one kind of oppression is erased and lumped in as an occasional symptom of another (female lumped in with woman) and one group is thought to be extra oppressed (trans women) and given special consideration over people who have oppression trans women don’t share (cis women and trans men)?
*First sentence should have said “years”, not “year”.
For what its worth I don’t read kirbywarp’s comments as policing. Also I think Alex is awesome and raises important points BUT ALSO I FEEL THAT BY SAYING THAT I AM ALIGNING MYSELF AND WILL BE PUNISHED. Cough. Um. Hm.
@Alex:
Thanks. I’m not very comfortable about it either, this is just me trying to prevent this particular thread from becoming another thread of doom. I realize that any role I take is colored by the fact that this has been an argument between women and I’m a dude stepping in. I can definitely back off if others feel the same way.
Just know that I’m side-eyeing you extremely hard for your “biologically male” and “deferring to male privilege” comments. Those are thread of doom content, if nothing else; maybe wait until David creates a thread for this conversation to bring it up.
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17cw8v6hy5twfjpg/original.jpg
Lets just all back up a little way and talk about the glory of Bill Baxton. Goodness me he’s plain.
BILL BAXTON. I ARE A GENIUS.
Not to start another thread of doom, but people seriously like Bill Paxton that much?
http://i.imgur.com/OLcTMFK.jpg
Bill Paxton was Sean Bean before it was cool. Well, probably about the same time as Sean Bean was Sean Bean, actually.
Seriously, I think the only role I’ve seen Paxton in where he doesn’t die is as Fred Haise in Apollo 13.
Aw crap, he plays Morgan Earp. I thought Morgan was the oldest. Oops.
Seconding.
I was just watching John Oliver talking about civil asset forfeiture last night, so when I see that kitty in the police cat all I can think is:
“Sir, do you have any large amount of catnip and/or feather toys within the vehicle?”
… “kitty in the police hat“
I HAD FORGOTTEN THAT BILL PAXTON WAS IN APOLLO 13. Sorry for shouting but my partner doesn’t like 90’s disaster films, he finds them ‘depressing’ pfft, so I miss out on the glory of constant repeated watchings and forget the wonders.
maistrechat, tread very, very carefully.
And that sounds an awful lot like policing.
I feel like we are getting close to unsafe territory here, in a big way.
Fair enough. I apologize for that comment, it was too close to thread of doom stuff. I meant it to be my own personal opinion and not policing, but I realize that it came off that way.
Sorry.