Chanty Binx speaks up after 3 years of harassment, capped by bizarre privacy breach

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A little over three years ago, a Canadian feminist with bright red hair confronted some Men’s Rights Activists outside of an event at the University of Toronto.

The woman, known as Chanty Binx, was trying to argue a point; they kept interrupting her; she raised her voice, told them to shut up, dropped the f-bomb. She was, as she admits, a bit rude to them — more than a bit, really. But being rude is not illegal, nor even uncommon, when people who disagree fundamentally encounter one another in person at a demonstration. Much worse things have happened at demonstrations.

The one thing different about this confrontation? It was caught on video, and uploaded to YouTube, at which point a vast army of the world’s worst people decided to do their best to make her life a living hell. Footage of her at the event was posted and reposted and spliced into countless antifeminist videos on YouTube; it’s been watched literally millions of views.

Binx was besieged with insults, misogynistic slurs, and grotesquely violent threats; her image was appropriated for who knows how many creepy memes. She was doxxed. “Artists” drew pictures of her engaging in sex acts. Think of any way a woman can be harassed and bullied online, and chances are it was done to her.

Binx has laid low for three years, hoping that this onslaught would pass. And, she says, the direct harassment had died down somewhat in recent months.

Now one of her haters has put her back in the spotlight again, and in a supremely creepy manner. Not long ago, you see, Binx stopped by a government-run liquor store in the Toronto area to pick up a bottle of wine. A seemingly friendly employee offered her help.

In fact, he claimed later, he had recognized her from the internet, and was hoping to hear her speak to make sure she really was who he thought she was.

After she left, he somehow accessed the store’s surveillance footage, took a screenshot of her visit to the store, and put it up on Facebook (without the blurs you see below):

No, liquor store creep, it hasn’t been two years. It’s been three. THREE YEARS of hateful, disgusting, privacy-invading harassment. Because THREE YEARS AGO a woman yelled at a couple of MRAs, and they filmed her doing it.

This time Binx has decided not to lay low. She spoke with CityNews about the latest twist in the internet war on her. The report is chilling, and well worth watching.

Feminist says LCBO privacy breach fuelled flood of online hate https://t.co/rrh0hvgfPx pic.twitter.com/W5I7nibXre

— CityNews Toronto (@CityNewsTO) June 30, 2016

“[I feel like] I’m being watched constantly,” she told CityNews. “No matter what I do, I’m under a monitor.”

Now that the CityNews segment has run, the hate campaign against her has predictably ramped up again. On YouTube, a video about the CityNews segment from “Rekt Feminist Videos” has racked up 47,000 views, and generated 1900 comments, since it was posted earlier today. Here are a few of those comments:

Several commenters “jokingly” discussed staking out the store she was filmed in.

I spent only a few minutes reading the comments; I’m sure there are many more along these lines in the 1900 posted so far.

The discussion took a similar turn on LiveLeak:

A Voice for Men, meanwhile, complained that CityNews had quoted threatening posts on its website in order to construct “yet another threat narrative” aimed at … MRAs. The comments to the AVFM post did not exactly reinforce the site’s claim that MRAs are the real victims here:

Naturally, Binx’s haters are mocking her for allegedly bringing this latest wave of harassment on herself by, well, speaking up about the vile harassment she was still getting, three years on, before she spoke up for herself.

This, from the CityNews segment, is some of what she was getting BEFORE she spoke up for herself. CONTENT WARNING: Rape, violent threats.

.

Apparently, as the haters see it, she has only two choices:

She can remain silent about the ongoing harassment, and pretty much everything else in the world, for the rest of her life.

Or she can risk getting “deservedly” beaten or raped or killed. For the “crime” of yelling at some MRAs once, three years ago.

But they’ve been threatening to do that anyway, without her saying a word to them for three years. Being silent hasn’t protected her from harassment or threats or someone literally posting surveillance footage of her that lets the world know where she lives. 

I’m glad she’s speaking up and reclaiming her voice. She deserves all the support in the world for it.

If anyone here has good ideas on how to show this support, post them below. If anyone wants to explain how Binx really does deserve harassment, go to hell.

NOTE: I’ve been in contact with Binx and she is ok with me identifying her by that name; it’s all over the internet already.