Hot Allostatic Load

  • For years, queer/trans/feminist scenes have been processing an influx of trans fems, often disabled, from traumatic backgrounds
  • These scenes have been exploiting these traumatized trans fems, and using them as a source of cheap labor
  • If the trans fem in question complains, she is cut off from social support, and is labeled “problematic”, ruining her reputation
  • This cycle of exploitation occurs because trans fems are uniquely vulnerable to abuse
    • Many of them are encountering trans concepts for the first time, and have no idea what is and isn’t normal
    • Many of them have nowhere else to go besides these communities
    • Few care what happens to trans fems
  • This cycle relies on amnesia
    • Many of the new entrants to these spaces don’t know or understand the space’s history
    • Spaces self-select for people who will prioritize the space over reporting or calling out abuse that people suffer in that space
    • This drains empathetic people from the space, and all who remain are those who identify solely with the agendas and survival of the space
  • Allied Media Conference 2013
    • People from Porpentine’s community saw her asking about community resources in Oakland
    • Interpreted that as an intent to move away from current (abusive) community
    • This prompted the community to bombard her with abusive messages on Twitter and socially isolate her
    • In an atypical move, the conference noticed this and offered to have her back next year to host a workshop – most spaces are not this accommodating
  • Abusive spaces seed rumors ahead of time, creating a “brittle structure” around trans people that may be shattered at any time to create social isolation

Attack

  • Porpentine was nominated to receive an award at the Indicade festival
  • A cis person nominated for that award would have been able to just receive the award
  • However, when the award was presented to a trans person, the community united against her
    • Spread rumors that she was sending harassing messages
    • Rumors were spread without warning, and without any attempt at reconciliation
    • Allies were unwilling to defend Porpentine, because they were afraid of becoming targets themselves
  • Social media and health
    • For a disabled trans person barred from many physical spaces, social media is an important outlet
    • However, social media has its own set of problems
      • Pressure not to post about certain things that were important to her but were deemed problematic by the community
      • Pressure to voice public support for things that she didn’t care about or actively disliked
      • Accusations of hidden messages or dogwhistles in otherwise innocent content
    • The feminist practice of declaring privilege and marginalization became a way to collect information about her for use later

Mobbing

  • Call-out culture as ritual disposability
    • Feminist/queer spaces are more willing to criticize individuals than systems
    • Want the right to use systems for their own ends
    • When Porpentine curated games, she was pressured not to cover a game made by a trans woman
    • She covered the game anyway, and made herself a target
    • What can we learn from this?
      • Lofty, high-minded processes are cover for petty squabbles
      • People have to be made disposable on a regular basis in order to maintain the ritual purity of the space
      • People who deserve the effects of call-out culture can shrug off the effects, while those who are weak are affected by the normalization of violence that call-out culture creates
      • Punishment is not something that happens to bad people, punishment is something that happens to people who cannot stop it from happening
  • Mobbing
    • Common tool of exclusion
    • Emotional abuse practiced by a group of peers over a period of time
      • Gaslighting
      • Rumor-mongering
      • Ostracism
    • Rarely talked about because it’s difficult to pin the blame on a single person
    • Why is mobbing so damaging
      • Damages a victim’s relationship to society – can’t explain away the actions of a mob as the behavior of a single aberrant individual
      • Ostracism causes insidious damage - victim isn’t visibly targeted or damaged in anyway, but rather is starved of resources and attention until they go away
      • Occurs in a place where the victim often is forced to attend, either by need or obligation
        • Schools
        • Workplaces
        • Circles of friends
    • The damage caused by mobbing is often exacerbated by the fact that the people being mobbed are true believers of the ideology of the space
    • People who participate in mobs invest in a narrative of their victims being monsters in order to protect their own self-conception
  • Mobbing as witch hunts
    • Witch hunts were responses to capital accumulation
      • The purpose of a witch hunt was to keep (fem, non-white) labor in line
      • The effect of a witch hunt is to devalue the labor of marginalized people and destroy their bonds with one another
    • Mobbing goes all the way down
      • Victims of mobs are perfectly capable of participating in mobs
      • Mobbing creates a hierarchy of labor and competition
  • Sexual menace
    • Accusations of sexual menace are a key weapon used against marginalized people in feminist spaces
    • These accusations create a mechanism for dominant people to keep marginalized people under control

Damage

  • PTSD as disposability alchemy
    • Allostatic load on a person is the damage they suffer due to repeated exposures to chronic stress
    • Constant exposure to negative feedback gave Porpentine PTSD, which, combined with the effects of gender transition, caused ongoing physical health issues in addition to mental health problems
    • People with PTSD need more than jobs, they need social reintegration

Communication

  • Inability to share stigma
    • The presence of others who went through the same process of ostracization, but were eventually reintegrated, is a source of worry, not comfort
    • Why were those people worth saving?
  • Inadmissible narratives of abuse #1
    • The most skilled abusers know that exile is best accomplished with silence
    • Use backchannels and whisper networks to turn the community against the victim
    • Weaponize the tools that the community uses to protect itself
    • Make it so that it’s hard for the victim to even get a straight answer about what’s going on
  • Inadmissible narratives of abuse #2
    • When verbal abuse does occur, it’s often cloaked in the language of feminism
    • It’s easy to refute misogynistic language hurled against women
    • It’s far more difficult to refute feminist-coded insults hurled against trans women
    • Even attempting to refute the accusations implies that there is something to refute
  • Trash art
    • Laziness is a symptom, not a cause
    • Can be a symptom of:
      • Avoidance of one’s own body
      • Avoidance of triggers
      • Avoidance of the future or thoughts of the future

Social Dynamics

  • Community is disposability
    • Everything in this world has a community, no matter how varied or fragmented the reality
    • These idealized communities require disposability to maintain their purity
    • This disposability takes the form of radical hate – hate that has a moral dimension
  • Curating queerness
    • An entire industry of curation has sprung up to police who can and cannot express themselves as a trans person
    • Industry defines what is and is not a “valid” trans narrative
    • Stories that reflect poorly on queer and alt culture are buried in favor of stories that tout a utopianism that many aspire to but few live
  • Complaint and purity
    • Popular feminism requires one to engage in a constant cycle of complaint
    • Those with external sources of resources and energy can keep up this cycle
    • However, those who are most vulnerable are filtered out, because they cannot keep up with the latest outrage
    • Repressive forces don’t stop people from expressing themselves, but rather force people to express themselves, even when doing so would cause them harm

Conclusion

  • Ending
    • Nothing is too bad, too ridiculous, too bizarre when it comes to making marginalized people disappear
    • Ideology is a sick fetish
  • Resisting disposability
    • Let marginalized people be flawed
    • Resist “criminal justice” thinking
      • Trial by mob favors predators
      • Justice is not hundreds of people ganging up on a lone individual
    • Pay attention when people disappear from communities
    • Even if the victim doesn’t want to fight, show them private support
      • Just knowing that there are others out there with dissenting opinions can make a huge difference
    • Be extremely critical about what people say about trans people
      • The rumor mill that marginalizes trans people does not require disinterested third parties to believe the rumors
      • It only requires that they take the “safe” choice
    • Ask yourself if the same thing would be happening if the person were white/cis/able-bodied
    • Marginalized spaces can’t form a healthy community solely by rejecting the mainstream – having a common enemy isn’t the same thing as loving each other
    • Don’t be part of spaces that place an ideal or “community leader” above people