Thread by @SecretGamerGrrl

I don't know if anyone was actually following me for this, but it's been a while since I've talked at all about the whole mess we'll call "the Wi Spa thing" and people who HAVE been talking it for the past... entire time it's been a thing have been continuing to do so via asses.

So here's a vague overview where I'm going to be intentionally fuzzy about a lot of details because from where I sit, that's the only remotely ethical way to bring people up to speed on this.

So on July 3rd, a raving far right weirdo walked into a spa in LA and recorded a video

wherein she screamed a whole bunch of completely unhinged gibberish which, if I properly recall, mainly consisted of a bunch of ranting about people burning in hell, a man exposing his genitalia to little girls in a hottub and/or changing room, and a lot of thrusting her camera

in the direction of where these things were apparently happening in order to record... a complete absence of anything remotely resembling any of what she described. Additionally police showed up, interviewed people, and nobody on the scene saw anything related to any of this.

The video however VERY quickly found its way into transphobic circles online, mainly based in the UK (as they tend to be) and the legend was quickly amended that this was a trans woman, not a man as was clearly stated in the video, although to my knowledge the recorder of said

video, which again, did not contain anyone at all, did not at any point actually amend that description. It was just sort of taken as read that if people are shouting about "a man" in a video linked all over mumsnet, you're supposed to decode that into "a trans woman" on your own

It was at around this point in the narrative incidentally where the staff of the spa noted that A- it's not a walk-in sort of place, everyone present within is there by appointment, B- they have multiple regular clients who are trans and this is not a problem, and C- none were

actually present when this random woman shouting gibberish was filming random walls and people who were just checking in or out that had nothing to do with what she was saying.

Most reasonable people looking at the facts of this came pretty swiftly to the conclusion that the

video, in addition to being a hoax, was a premeditated stunt specifically designed to stir up anger towards a queer-inclusive place of business.

Meanwhile, quite a large number of completely unreasonable nazis immediately descended on the location of said business to generally

riot, threaten the lives of queer people, stab multiple people, and once again demonstrate to all of us exactly where the police stand when nazis gather in public to do violence like that.

Meanwhile, the more prose-happy sorts of fascist, both via social media and the odd news

article/editorial set about doing their very best to get propaganda out there with three basic goals in mind:
1- Convince people that the raving weirdo's video that clearly shows nothing but a desk and confused people shows a nude trans woman in a hot tub with a bunch of children

2- Convince people that any of several dozen individual trans women a given bigot wanted the armed nazi mob at the spa to try to hunt down and murder is the plainly non-existent woman in question.

3- Convince people that a trans woman visiting a trans-inclusive spa where clients

regularly undress would somehow constitute some manner of crime rather than being a perfectly ordinary day of business for that establishment.

Random side note, but it should be obvious that everyone participating in this knows full well how full of it they are as even without

personally watching the video, which last I checked is still freely available, it should be common sense that if this woman had actually burst into a room full of undressed children as is the claim, filming them without consent, and uploading it to the internet, she would have

been arrested on the spot, and that video would not be available anywhere, much less on the fascist hangouts which claim to be parenting forums.

That was basically where this all sat up until September 2nd when a newspaper with a questionable reputation allowed one Andy Ngo to

write something in relation to this. For, again, very serious ethical reasons, I am not going to link to that, or mention who published it, but I will link this article with a brief explanation of who Andy Ngo is. rollingstone.com/culture/cultur… Short version, he's a dangerous fascist,

who's pretty pro getting-people-killed-by-other-fascists, and pretty anti being-at-all-credible-in-discussion-of-literally-anything, so, not someone anyone should be giving column issues to about this, or anything else.

His article, which I'm scanning through now, doesn't add

any actual new information, but does have a giant pile of random hideous accusations half-truths and dead-naming of some totally random trans woman with the vague implication that she is, again, this woman who kinda provably never actually existed.

And other news sites have been

"updating their coverage" with this "new information." Particularly ones that are constantly looking for new angles for writing transphobic hit pieces.

Meanwhile, actual journalists who recognize the name and understand that Andy Ngo is not a reliable source of information have

been actually looking into his claims about this random woman and hey, she HAS been charged with "indecent exposure..." 20 years ago. As a reduction of charges from prostitution. Basically made from Walking While Trans arrests.

So... yeah, it appears we just have a far-right

scumbag here picking a random trans woman out of a hat to invasively stalk and misrepresent the hell out who there seems to be no actual reasonable reason to suspect has any connection to this incident we have already been given fairly conclusive proof is completely fictitious.

There might be something I'm missing here, but as NO ONE reporting on this has said anything about the initial investigation into the apparently non-existent "Wi Spa incident" being reopened in light of new anything, there is no valid claim anyone can make that they're looking

into anything relating to this random woman in connection with that, and witch hunts are not a cool thing to get involved in, so I'm not looking in any further.

But somehow, there's more! As you may recall, around the 9th or so the Guardian (via their U.S. based offices) briefly

published an interview with Judith Butler (which was fortunately archived- web.archive.org/web/2021090713…), then very quickly excised 3 paragraphs wherein she had some very important things to say about fascism. Then pulled the entire interview. Then deleted the entire landing page for

a whole series of trans positive articles the interview was supposed to spearhead over the month (the rest of which have been quietly killed, last I heard with no kill fees for their authors).

When questioned on this by literally everyone paying attention because seriously WTF

rather than what I have to assume is the actual answer (transphobic fascists run the Guardian in the UK and this is really well-documented and the source of tons of scandals), they tried to pin it on "new developments with the Wi Spa story" which really doesn't have a damn thing

to do with Judith Butler, the interview, or, again, reality, because there haven't been any and the story is and was "some right-wing crank staged a bit to give nazis an excuse to pull some crap."

So now you're up to speed. And again, I'd link more sources, but I'd be putting a

random innocent person at exposure to more harm if I linked... BASICALLY ANYTHING on this, because people don't know not to use Andy Ngo as a source.

One minor point that was misreported on apparently last I was looking in though:

https://twitter.com/lisaquestions/status/1437667621579620354