I wrote this back when she first got “red pilled” and sent it to her (around June 2017). I never heard a response back, and even when she sat there asking for people to come forward regarding trans issues or dogpiling by anti-feminists, I got ignored. Apparently I wasn’t popular enough to be worth her time. This was originally sent to @Gogreen18.
Hey Laci,
I’ve been trying my best to take everything going on in stride, but every time I’ve tried to address something, or speak up about something to you, it either gets swamped by people who wind up shouting me down, or it gets passed up for something else.
I know you are busy, and I know that you get hundreds upon hundreds of tweets and emails and messages, but I wanted to reach out.
I became a feminist at the age of 12 after researching for a speech on the topic of rape. I have spent most of my life fighting for equality, reproductive rights, survivor’s rights, and ensuring that people in need get the help they need. I have volunteered for numerous organizations such as Planned Parenthood and various LGBTQIA+ student organizations. In high school I volunteered to help teach about HIV and AIDS, and worked with several groups to get a portion of the AIDS quilt brought to my town. Activism has been a huge part of my life, and so I wanted to write this to you.
I started YouTube thinking I could jump on the religion bandwagon. I made videos talking about religion, history and whatnot, you know, the “boring” stuff that most other people glossed over in their videos. But something was always missing. I didn’t want to do response videos, because I preferred to have an actual dialogue with people instead of just talking at them.
When I found your channel, I must have binge watched every episode you had at the time, and I loved how you were able to make education fun regarding sex+, gender, and all the rest. Your video on 50 Shades of Grey was one I would send to people instead of typing up walls upon walls of text, because you did such a good job in conveying the message I was wanting to send. I’m a former Dom, so let’s just say that I saw just how that series kind of did visible damage to the kink and BDSM scene.
When I came out as trans, I used your videos to help explain what I was dealing with to friends, and I cited your videos in videos of my own. I saw you as an inspiration to begin speaking up about social issues, and I wanted to help change the world, just as what I felt you were doing with your channel. You were educating people, and I wanted to do that too. I wanted to help people learn about and get active when it came to social issues.
On January 5, 2016 I made a video titled, “Holding out an Olive Branch”. I wanted to reach across the aisle and work on building bridges with all social movements. I saw that there were so many issues out there that were getting pushed to the side because they were being blamed on feminism. I saw how men’s issues were thrown about by anti-feminists, but nothing was ever really done. I figured that if I could reach out, and we could come together to talk about the issue itself without blaming one -ism or the other, we could make progress.
While my video got some decent reception, and I did make some connections, there were also a LOT of misses. A lot of people thought I could become their token feminist, someone they could trot out and go, “They agree with me!”
To keep the people who were suddenly showering me with praise and affection liking me, I did and said some truly mind boggling things. I used slurs, I made fun of friends because it got me praise, I did things that just…wow. I am not proud of a lot of what I did. It took several of my friends not giving up on me to realize that the affection and praise I was getting was fake. Sure, the anti-feminists REALLY liked it when I said things they agreed with, and I got a lot of praise and affection for it. But when I disagreed, I found myself being shunned until I “shaped up” again.
I am concerned this is going to happen to you as well. So many of the people now praising you and showering you with kind words did the same to me when I “red pilled” in their eyes. I feel like I am sitting on the outside watching what happened to me happening to you, and it does concern me. I know that you’re an adult and that you are a smart person, but I wanted to voice my concerns on that.
I’m only a tiny channel, but I’ve been on the receiving end of a LOT of hate for speaking up about trans issues, and for speaking up about social issues in general. I’ve seen what the anti-feminst YouTube crowd does to people like me and other tiny channels. We have to fight extra hard not to be shouted down, and from my perspective, it feels like now we’re having to fight even harder because anti-feminists are now using you as their new found weapon.
I’ve had comments like, “Why can’t you be more like Laci? She is open to dialogue!” on my series “Perspectives that I do with a former MRA and non-feminist. We’ve had PUAs, MRAs, (former) MGTOWs, and all sorts of people join us in conversation. We’ve put aside our differences to look at the issues, and yet apparently since we’re not like you, we’re doing it wrong.
This isn’t against you at all, I just wanted to let you know what some of the anti-feminists are now doing with you and your name.
When I did a video earlier this year asking for large channels to help out in calling out abuse, cyberbullying, and harassment/dogpiling on YouTube, I found myself the target of the very thing I was asking people to speak up about. And it was because one of the large channels (Bearing) decided to take offense to my video and my message, made a video about me, took me WAY out of context, and then sat back as his fans swarmed my channel. I’m still doing damage control from that event, and he said that if he “only had names” he could call people out. I have provided him with screen captures, names, comments, tweets, you name it…nothing.
His buddy, Jeff Holiday, told me that he and Bearing like to influence people to go and make comments on other people’s channels “for the lulz”. He’s stated that it’s all funny ha ha, but when you’re on the receiving end of an endless stream of hatred, it’s definitely not funny.
I’ve worked with people who wound up deleting their channels because of these actions, and these are the people now going around claiming to be friends with you. I’m not telling you who you can and cannot be friends with, I’m just saying that these are my experiences dealing with them.
My other concern is that it feels (please note, this is my perception of the event and how I feel about it, not what I am saying you are doing) like a lot of us who have looked up to you and who have drawn inspiration from you are being tossed aside for newer and “better” fans. It feels like those of us in the LGBTQIA+ community are being tossed under the bus in the name of “discussion”. I sent several tweets on this a couple of weeks ago (it was a tweet thread but it probably got eaten up in the rest of the tweets from others).
And seeing your tweets now about “SJWs” and seeing friends of mine being referred to as crazy and worse by either yourself or your fans, really hurts. I’ve spent most of my life fighting for social justice and equality, and have proudly worn the label of feminist and SJW (back before it became a slur). I have fought hard to show that SJWs are good and decent people fighting for social justice, and not some straw creature from tumblr who will come in the night and destroy men. I’ve fought hard for men’s issues, and after coming out, began fighting extra hard to ensure that trans men are included in debates about reproductive healthcare.
But seeing you say that the defining thing about people like me is our abusive tendencies, hurts…like a lot. While I have met some less than nice feminists out there (mostly anti-sex work and anti-trans types), I have rarely if ever seen the claims that have been getting made. Perhaps it’s just that I’m a tiny channel, or perhaps it’s that I am not famous, but mostly what I get is either constructive criticism, or I get called out when I fuck up. The ones who have abused me though…are people like Bearing, Jeff Holiday, Undoomed, and the like.
Your latest video left me feeling kind of worthless, to be honest. I already have to fight daily just to be recognized as a person deserving of rights, and deal with daily messages of people misgendering me (on purpose), calling me all sorts of things, fat shaming me, and other…less than nice things. Seeing how people were responding to your video about genders…I found myself sitting there after watching it and reading the comments (I know, don’t read the comments) just feeling hollow. I felt let down, I felt ashamed, and I felt worthless.
Hopefully you won’t just round file my letter, and I hope you find success in your endeavors. I just wanted to speak up and say that there are a lot of us out there (even if we are tiny channels, groups, and individuals) who have been working really hard to bridge the divide and have open discussions, and personally, I’m feeling really let down right now by someone I looked up to and felt inspired by.
Michea
Illuminatus Design 