For the upcoming new year, I want to reflect on my goals and what I would like to change. I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want my public presence to be like and how I want to focus on that more. Especially trying to blend in-person things with my online presence. Here are my thoughts so far:
We live in an era where it's easier than ever to spread our message, but with this comes its drawbacks; it's also a time where it's easier than ever for our enemies to intimidate us. Instead of spitting in our faces, they have the luxury of cursing us out over the internet. Instead of stalking us and threatening the places we live, they dox us and tell the whole world who we really are. And instead of throwing hands in-person, all they have to do is tell us that they would if they could, and that's enough to put us into hiding.
What is the fediverse? Most people would say that it's just social media, a place where people can run microblogging instances that all federate with each other, and where people can post cat videos, selfies, and "the weekend." But to radqueers, paraphiles, and MAPs, it's community.
Obviously I've posted about this a lot on the fediverse recently. I'm not trying to rub salt in the wound, but I wanted to make a post about it on my main blog in order to compile all of my arguments and to hopefully make a statement that the radqueer community at large can understand and agree with. What am I talking about? The Streisand Effect and how it relates to the way antis target our communities.
It's not usual for me to post more than once a month, but someone on my org's Tumblr sent an anonymous ask wanting to know what it was like being doxxed and how it's affected my life, and it didn't seem appropriate to post there so I figured I'd post it here, since it seemed interesting to write about and it could provide a utility to those in the same situation.
I was born and raised in the glorious pacific northwest. I never had any nationalistic feelings towards it, that felt silly, but I would be lying if I didn't say that the deciduous woods weren't beautiful. The trees that line the highways. The deer and coyotes that poked their heads into the cities now and then. The vast pacific ocean, and the Puget sound that I had visited countless times to go walk the beach.
Last week we held my organization, Beyond the Plus', first monthly socials, and there was a lot to unpack. In a good way!
I knew the day would come where I'd be blacklisted from an event, I just didn't know it'd be so soon.
This is gonna be a bit of a preaching to the choir, depending on who ends up reading this. I always see the way people talk about us and wanna stand up for this community, but I don't want to bring the negative attention towards me. Violet thought making a blog post about it would be a good best of both worlds.
I suppose I really don't have a right to complain about when social media platforms ban me. It's not like it's a human right to make posts on the internet, and there are people out there who have less and don't complain, but I still have the right to be upset about discrimination like this.