Thread by @SecretGamerGrrl

This is a situation that's really been weighing on me and I legitimately don't know what to do, so, put yourself in my shoes here a moment?

There's a person you kinda know. Seems cool. You have pretty similar goals. You promote each other. You've met a couple times face to face.

One day as part of a weird chain of circumstances, this person mixes up who they're talking to, and thinking they're talking to some rando, misgenders you, says a rumor a weird new hate group on the block is trying to spread that you're some kind of terrorist pedophile ringleader

is plausible and adds a bit about "having heard a lot of other things about them." You are, incidentally, a trans woman in this scenario, and this person knows damn well what your pronouns are.

So first obviously, you are going to remove this person from the "trustworthy friend"

box. Because hey, friends don't misgender or lend credence to utterly horrific rumors about friends, but past that what do you actually do?

Because hey, at this point, in addition to learning the ugly truth about someone you previously thought pretty damn highly of, you now know

that this person, who is a bit of a public figure, is one of those people who treats the proper use of trans women's pronouns like a conditional reward, AND is one of those people who is willing to play alone with the #1 tactic bigots use to oppress trans people by portraying us

as duplicitous untrustworthy dangerous sexual deviants, based on nothing but the say-so of random scumbags shouting ridiculous nonsense. And you know a truckload of other trans people who still hold this person in very high regard.

But then on the other hand, this IS someone who

when not saying the most horrific things about you behind your back, does good work for progressive causes, and at least publicly says and does things that support trans people broadly. And you don't have any evidence that this is a pattern of behavior. Maybe it's just a one-off

fluke and she just really trusts one of the dozens of other high profile celebrated progressive activists who regularly spread rumors that you personally are some kind of terrorist pedophile ringleader, because that sure as hell been a thing some untouchable bad actors have been

doing to completely destroy your life for years, and it sure seems to be commonly accepted wisdom in those circles at this point.

Plus let's be honest you are in an INCREDIBLY vulnerable position. You're unemployed and dealing with stalkers and this person is a media darling and

has a lot of powerful connections and is, frankly, much better liked than you by the handful of people still willing to be caught speaking to you.

So, other than a couple close people you share the details with hoping one of them will have some alternate interpretation on this

horrible revelation, you just sit on that. For... let's see now, about 10 and a half months and counting. Just kinda hoping that this person will maybe realize that hey, that was a really fucked up thing to say, and saying it to an actual stranger as intended would be much worse

than having said it to you, and maybe finally unblock you to send a real big apology your way. Which, of course, doesn't happen.

What DOES happen is this person just keeps being a rising star in the progressive activism scene, and you keep seeing promotions for fundraisers and

interviews, being posted by other trans women, who you are acutely aware now are incredibly vulnerable to being stabbed in the back by this person, and may already be having horrific things said about them behind their backs as we speak, even.

And you also see some of this from

that small number of people you turned to for some input, who agreed that it did seem as bad as it looked to you, and what the hell do you even do with THAT? Like did they forget who it was or decide to make it clear they're siding against you if things go down over this or what?

So now you're still pretty committed to this plan to not speak out publicly, because hey, all the reasons not to at the time are just more pronounced now, there's a real big spotlight on this person and all the damage to all the people that'd come from saying something will be

magnified. PLUS now you'd be that scumbag pulling out some year old crap to hurt someone having a good day, and who the hell knows what other horrible things this person has been saying about you knowing that you know some already pretty horrible crap is in the whisper network to

preemptively discredit you if you ever do decide to say something?

But hey, here's that name continuing to get shoved in your face and praised, every damn day, and here you are losing trust in the people doing that shoving. And now here's your PTSD flaring up about past times

when huge numbers of people you trusted started stabbing you in the back over lies a powerful person started telling about you which you know damn well they knew weren't true, but apparently you're just that expendable.

And then that leads down a whole train of thought you don't

want to publicly disclose you're going down as part of this thought exercise you're laying out in just asking what the hell it is you're supposed to do in this position?

Also your cat's really damn sick and that's not exactly helping anything.