so, with cr apparently coming back, i see no reason not to say this now. it's not like the people who believe i'm full of shit can believe me any LESS.
for four months last year, i worked as a sensitivity consultant for critical role.
for four months last year, i worked as a sensitivity consultant for critical role.
i and a small team of collaborators approached them in may 2019, informing them that their treatment of marginalized identities in their work was unacceptable and calling for a commitment to doing better that matched their company's stated goals. at first, they were receptive.
while our outreach was purely from a logical standpoint about inappropriate behavior in front of an audience of 30,000, CR expressed concern specifically with how their own mistakes had led to abuse of real people in their fanbase, something mentioned offhand.
as a central victim of this from homophobes and transphobes - incidents i had recorded in an abuse report of 45 pages - i stepped forward as the representative for my whole team, and spoke here. here's a selection of what i said in one of those original emails. 
if you read all of that, you see that i offer my insight on how they could go forward. i say that i would be more than happy to compare notes.
was this a mistake? yes. but i was so desperate. and the message was true; i had so much hope that they would do the right thing.
was this a mistake? yes. but i was so desperate. and the message was true; i had so much hope that they would do the right thing.
i thought, if someone could just get through to them, they would fix this. this is what they promise marginalized fans over and over again. i didn't blame them for anything, much less ignorance.
of course they took me up on that offer. i viewed this as a success.
of course they took me up on that offer. i viewed this as a success.
i thought, this was the opening that we needed. i felt so grateful to my team, and to my contacts at CR. i felt heard. bolstered by their respect, my tiny team worked hard creating a plan to start off changes properly. always deferring, always patient, thankful to be trusted.
i won't bother sharing the bulk of that email - some of it i've talked about on twitter since, some of it simply isn't relevant anymore. but it was real labor, actionable steps that anyone could take to fix basic problems, no matter their workload or safety concerns.
now, keep in mind: i was coming at this work from the perspective of a central victim of mass abuse. critters had started abusing me in december the year before i approached them. and this was prior to my going public about those abuses, which i did in july of 2019.
when i came forward (), i had already been working for CR for months. remember that. every call for CR to respond somehow to my story was something i already knew, and i knew that they knew.
but i trusted them. here's a conversation from just before i went public with that thread - i fully believed they were in my corner, and that if things went south, they would protect me over the bigots in their fanbase.
i gambled on that because, back to my work with them, we had been having conversations on discord as well as video calls to discuss bigger long-term changes to how the company functioned. i was working daily on compiling resources and helping them through the process.
the show, dating back to AWNP's original podcast form where it originated, has always suffered a history of off-color humor and content that has had marginalized folks giving one another raised eyebrows for years. i took this on as a project: where could the company go from here?
when you have made those mistakes and entrenched yourself in a culture that does and condones things you may not agree with, how do you safely get out? and how do you shield marginalized people as you go? this was the central theme of my conversations with this contact.
i sympathized with their stories of being a small company struggling to run. i sympathized with how many eyes were on them. i believed that with the breadth of new knowledge and directions from a team of consultants, everyone on every side could stop hurting.
i was so stupid.
i was so stupid.
i and my team spent months working on this. the homophobia, the racism, all of it. it was our job as consultants to redirect the product that is critical role into doing what it claims it wants to do, and we were DAMN proud of our work.
after four months, on one of our video calls (i remember specifically having brought up issues that month such as whitewashed art of reani in the reel, and the "bi-presidency" bit they'd done and how weird it felt to queer folks who had been abused), i stood up for myself.
my team's original outreach and the following emails were things i viewed as good faith exchange. but the work i'd been doing for months afterward was difficult and sensitive. the people i worked with deserved to be compensated for their help.
after MANY long conversations with close friends, i finally accepted that to continue to do this work without pay would not be self-respecting. we had passed that point. it was clear that they needed someone to do what i and my team were doing, and we were already doing it.
i told my contact, who at this point i considered a friend, this exactly. i expressed that this was obviously work that needed to be done, and that despite the fraught circumstances of our meeting, i was available to hop on board officially to do these deep dives.
they agreed. and then i was ghosted.
all of our work was still in their hands, and now we had even less insight as to how they might use it, if they used it at all.
all of our work was still in their hands, and now we had even less insight as to how they might use it, if they used it at all.
after that? well, if you follow me, you've seen most of this on twitter. i haven't been shy about making my distrust of the company's intentions known, and they continue to fumble basic things and let me and other critics take the fall.
this is what i can say. there are things i can't say. even now, i won't reveal the identities of my contacts because i guess some part of me still wants to believe in... something. my job is harm reduction. i don't want to see more harm done to anyone - i just want it to stop.
discretion is a central tenet of what i do as a sensitivity consultant. to do this job is a compassionate thing - it is acknowledgement that people make mistakes, and don't know everything, but that they can still do good. coming forward with any part of this doesn't feel good.
i kept quiet about this work for over a year, in a show of good faith. even after that faith left me, i still didn't speak. i waited. i watched. i didn't care about being paid fairly, i cared that something was being done about their rampant issues.
and if anything, they've gotten worse. i am at the end of my rope. maybe this will be seen as a betrayal of that discretion and good faith and i will never get to do my job again. maybe i will lose more friends. i don't know. but i don't care. i'm done.
i made this thread because i want it to be known publicly once and for all that "they need to hire a sensitivity consultant" is no longer acceptable as a response to their constant fuckups. don't let these things slide by anymore.
