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This is probably too "boo outgroup", but given the direct relation I felt it was probably worth sharing.
Our once and former (?) moderator TracingWoodgrains has been called out as "a sociopathic troll" who exists to create anti-transgender drama. This is according to transgendermap.com, a pro-trans website which has built a list of communities toxic to the transgender movement.
The focus on Trace comes from their look at Blocked and Reported, and includes a list of ideologically affiliated subreddits, including:
It seems that the move came at the right time, since if we weren't particularly noticeable before, we likely are now.
Ugh, this is one of the things that most alienates me from many transgender activist communities. It's pure BPD black-and-white thinking. Anyone who isn't a perfect ally is a sworn enemy. This also contributes to the movement eating its own (e.g. the truscum controversy).
Every now and again, someone in the gaming space goes complete insane. Maybe it's a "company" like Digital Homicide. And often times the gaming press lambasts their outlandish and deranged behavior, as is deserved. Especially once the lawsuits start getting flung around, and the unhinged threats begin.
But every so often, the press covers these events with sympathy. And proclaims that the person going off the rails, suing everyone, and telling people they will come to their house and murder them, actually needs sympathy. They never say so in the article, but 100% of the time this happens, that person is trans.
Nearly 100% of my exposure to trans individuals, is having direct or proximate exposure to people who are obviously mentally ill. I get the TRA talking point is that being trans is hard. And also that academic studies show no higher rates of mental illness in trans individuals than non. Because all the best talking points go "Feel sorry for me and also that's a lie." But from the outside looking in, I just see one more obvious mental illness, often on top of a stack of other mental illnesses.
It's entirely possible I'm wrong, and being trans truly was the root cause of all those people's mental illnesses. But my gut says SRS is going down in history a lot like lobotomies and shock therapy. A procedure that may have some limited utility in very extreme cases, that somehow against all science and reason became the first line of treatment for an overly broad range of mental problems.
I think there's a lot of selection bias on both sides of this matter: if you aren't in Blue Tribe communities you're mostly going to see the highest-heat-over-light nutpicking show up, and conversely I don't think the Fez guy transitioned.
I won't pretend the Quilt Minecraft discord isn't full of drama, but it's no worse than Fabric or Forge. You don't have to be a little nuts for dedicated games development, but it helps, and once you've got a box full of off-kilter people, some of them are going to end up being unproductively nutty.
I feel like even trans people and activists today probably fucking hated Phil Fish back then too. He's just a hard guy to like.
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