A Hopefully Final Note on the Trolling/Harassment/Sockpuppeting
As I understand it, Butterflywings has objected to the characterization of her as a troll, and has suggested that it’s impossible for a woman to say the things that Helen and I have said that she said on our blogs. She has also blamed us and accused us of bullying her because someone is allegedly commenting under her name and framing her. She has also demanded that I post the text of the comments because posting them would prove her innocence? That I’m lying? That what she put in my comments queue wasn’t really hate speech?
I just want everyone to know that I have a clear trail of trolling and sockpuppeting comments that go back 16 months on QT alone, that I can tie back to someone posting under the name Butterflywings to the Transphobic Tropes posts last September. Helen has similar logs pointing back to a history of trolling on Bird of Paradox, and the two of us have communicated extensively about the trolling on both QT and BoP over a period of months. Helen has also discussed Butterflywings’ history of trolling The F Word. I have also spoken with Genderbitch and Jill from Feministe (link, link) and have been able to link the trolling comments on QT and BoP to Butterflywings’ comment history elsewhere, including her recent protestations of innocence. Comments protesting her innocence have also been posted to Feministe, but not published, and again these are easily cross-referenced with the trolling comments. Also, while her comment was deleted from this Feministing discussion in May of 2009, you can determine the context from the responses (short version: She told a trans woman that it was misogynist to like her own breasts, and said that trans women don’t experience sexual harassment). She may believe I have no evidence, but the truth is that multiple people have evidence stretching back over the past 16 months.
If someone’s trying to frame Butterflywings as a transphobic troll, they’ve put a lot of time and energy into it, especially since Butterflywings didn’t notice until now?
She also insists that the trolling has nothing to do with feminism. But I didn’t make this about feminism, but rather the feminists who chose to troll. A notable amount of Butterflywings’ trolling itself draws upon radical feminist writings and theory. Butterflywings herself uses the language (actually, hate speech) adopted by the feminist blog “A Room of our Own” used to describe trans women. Feminism is very much at the center of this, specifically Butterflywings’ attempts to use feminist concepts to bully, harass, threaten, and abuse trans women.
Her blog is named “Feminist Response to Trans Activist Terrorism.” She’s trying to blame Helen and I for calling out the trolling. I have death threats on my blog, Helen has ominous threats to take down her post about the trolls or something bad will happen, and neither of us have gone looking for Butterflywings or anyone else, let alone posting comments anywhere she reads that say anything like what was left in our queues. At worst, I’ve mocked her attempts to troll QT.
Apparently, having abusive, threatening trolls attack you and being able to identify them by name is just like being a terrorist.
Also, I would appreciate it if no one trolled her back. I’m not posting this information to mobilize retribution, but to ensure that people know what she’s been up to. To know, more generally, what anti-trans radical feminist dogma is all about. And to know what to expect if she comes around to your blog.
If anyone has any questions, my e-mail address remains qt dot lisah at gmail dot com
[...] A Hopefully Final Note on the Trolling/Harassment/Sockpuppeting [...]
we’ll be right back after this break… « bird of paradox
23 Jul 10 at 10:48 pm
I hope that is the end of it.
You wouldn’t happen to have any idea what to do about someone who’s harrassing you on their own site?
Z
24 Jul 10 at 10:36 am
I, er, usually leave their own sites alone.
Lisa Harney
24 Jul 10 at 12:45 pm
It keeps showing up in my “incoming links” thing on wordpress otherwise I’d be happy to- I actually set it up so my computer refuses to acknowledge their site exists. I was guessing “ignore them and hope they get bored” was the best option, but hoped for something else.
Z
24 Jul 10 at 1:53 pm
If you want, you can e-mail me about it.
Lisa Harney
24 Jul 10 at 1:54 pm
That blog is the most implausible explanation of all time. She suggests both that:
1. she did not post and comment at trans blogs – there is another person posing as butterflywings who made the threats (either MRA or a trans woman)
2. that she did comment at trans blogs but that we edited her comments to make it look like she was trolling
Mostly settling on theory 1. Which is Extremely Plausible No Really, cos I mean sure there’s got to be some OTHER butterflywings who’s commented nastily on trans threads and nicely on those written by radfem cis women, using the same cluster of IP addresses at Questioning Transphobia, Bird of Paradox, Feministe, Genderbitch and The F Word (which is confirmed by the various owners of these blogs, and I’m sure we can approach Feministing if we’re desperately curious to see what she’s been up to there, too). And this is supposedly someone ELSE than the radfem known as butterflywings who has set up this blog who admits to not liking trans women very much at all.
And somehow we’re supposed to believe that there’s another person using the same name posting from the same IP address, or that there is a troll who for a year and a half they not only trolled trans blogs but cis-dominated spaces like Feministe, and either the troll was so bloody dedicated they also added nice comments on cis authored threads, and the “real” butterflywings never even noticed that this was going on at every major feminist blog around.
Or she was the one writing nice comments on cis authored posts at these blogs – but not the transphobic ones – and this came from the same IP address as her. And it never bothered her the slightest bit until you and Helen posted about it on blogs that she supposedly never reads.
Cos I mean, if you found out that someone had been harassing people for two years and sending death threats in your name, what you would do is not show solidarity with the people being threatened, not disassociate yourself from threats of violence, not set up a website called The Real Butterflywings or something and shower her anger at the fraud perpetuation this vicious trick. You certainly wouldn’t look at whoever has access to your computer and wonder what they’ve been doing in your name, or even change your name because who needs that hassle?
NO, obviously what a Totally Innocent person would do is set up a website called Trans Activist Terrorism to slag off said threatened people, written in the same barely literate syntax as the trolling. And then draw up an elaborate, contradictory explanation that blames the very people being threatened in her name.
Needless to say, this all makes TOTAL SENSE, especially given that theory 2 inadvertently confirms what theory 1 seeks to deny – that it was her who was posting at trans blogs. If she wasn’t posting at trans blogs, and it was someone else, how are we butchering her words again? Woops. Liars always tell too much.
Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.
Queen Emily
24 Jul 10 at 2:26 pm
I liked her claim that And yes, it seems like a male thing to do. Radical feminists are women. We are socialised not to do aggressive things such as trolling, especially making threats. I just don’t think that any woman would make threats of violence, implied or actual.
The above link has some potentially triggering details about how two cis women imprisoned a trans man in his own home, sold off his possessions, starved him over time, and beat him to death. Do not appeal to gender essentialist notions about how cis women are supposedly conditioned to be totally nonviolent.
Lisa Harney
24 Jul 10 at 2:58 pm
But there’s no cis women in prison for violent crimes anywhere, is there? Nowhere in the whole world.
THEY WAS ALL SET UP BY THE TRANS LOBBY!
Queen Emily
24 Jul 10 at 3:04 pm
That explains a lot.
Lisa Harney
24 Jul 10 at 4:18 pm
1. It was broken when you lent it to me
2. It was in perfect condition when I returned it!
3. And besides, I never borrowed your lousy lawnmower in the first place!
belledame222
24 Jul 10 at 11:04 pm
“[Women] are socialized not to do aggressive things like trolling….”
Oh, fer the love of Shulie. Women are, most definitely, socialized to do passive-aggressive things… like, gee, trolling.
::eyes roll right out of head::
Sunflower
SunflowerP
25 Jul 10 at 6:46 am
@belledame222
4. You are a terrorist for mentioning the existence of the lawnmower!
Queen Emily
25 Jul 10 at 11:26 am
Oh, but she says the terrorist thing was referring to someone else apparently and has nothing to do with me or you or Helen.
I like her ineffable logic when she links to a post at AROOO that is filled with anti-trans hate speech and then complains that trans women responded negatively to it. And then suggests that one of us posted those comments and she has the proof. Because they’re trans and we’re trans, and therefore we’re responsible?
And that it’s somehow evidence that I trolled AROOO? What kind of bargain basement “I’m rubber, you’re glue” pretense of a tu quoque fallacy is this?
Lisa Harney
25 Jul 10 at 11:55 am
We’re pretty much at schoolyard level logic here…
I know you are, but what am I?
Queen Emily
25 Jul 10 at 12:06 pm
When it comes down to it, we really have two choices:
* Someone, possibly an MRA, has spent close to a year and a half posting trolling and reasonable comments across the feminist blogosphere (including trans feminist blogs like QT) in order to implicate a low profile commenter with a private blog. This person has done so in such a way as to maintain a consistent commenting style and easily traceable history across at least a half-dozen blogs, but Butterflywings never noticed until just now.
* Butterflywings has been trolling trans women and sex workers for 16+ months, while also establishing non-trolling comment histories at those same blogs, providing sufficient information for most anyone she trolls to be able to backtrack through their logs and identify her without any difficulty.
I can’t really think of a third possibility here.
What does Occam’s Razor have to say about this?
Lisa Harney
25 Jul 10 at 12:12 pm