"Outing" pseudonymous writers

Here's the thing for me: RH is a dangerous person. She is incredibly toxic, she's known for using the vulnerabilities of her targets against them, and she has never, ever, ever owned her shit. She's never once come forward and said "I did this", let alone apologized when she's gone too far. She flat out lied in her author persona in an effort to keep her RH persona quiet. Even now, she outed herself in a manner that allowed her to deny responsibility (As I understand it her friend and editor was the dude who made the post that set all this off, and he did it with her tact permission. If he did NOT have her permission, he's an utter shit-head for throwing her under the bus. And frankly, even if he did have her permission, I think he still threw her under the bus and she needs to drop that friendship post haste because it ain't healthy)

Since it was her camp that did the outing, the only remaining question is, is it right to spread word that Author X is actually Person Y. Given RH's history, I do not find it wrong to warn people about a dangerous person. The only people I've heard of who have gotten away from her unscathed are either people who agree with her, or people she's latched on to for reasons of her own. Everyone else gets hurt. If I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that somebody is going to hurt a friend of mine I am damn sure going to give them a heads up.

And all that said? In retrospect I think that the dude who outed her is absolutely in the wrong. There are ways to handle admitting an unsavory past, and "Hey, the girl who's been so nice to you? She's also the one who has harassed you and people like you for the past fifteen years, deal with it" is NOT the way to do it. Regardless of any other consideration, he threw RH under the bus. EVEN IF HE HAD HER PERMISSION TO OUT HER (which I think he did) he threw her under the bus, and I hope she realizes it because that is NOT how a friend behaves. I really hope she knows this, and takes the steps needed to protect herself because somebody who does that shit will 100% guaranteed do it again.

Yes. I do think that SOME, not all, but SOME of this falls under 'You made your bed, now sleep in it" territory. But that doesn't begin to cover the abuse being slung her way. I sincerely hope that she's in a safe place, that she's got the margins to handle this shit, and that if she does need help, she has REAL friends she can contact for support.

There's an apology out on the Requires Hate blog. Or so says my Twitter feed. I didn't click on the link.

Yeah, I think it's sincere. I don't think it was posted on the 15th, as I checked the blog the day mine exploded (16th) and all I saw was her review on some Manga, but that's small potatoes.

Good on her. I don't think she needs to bail on her Requires Hate identity. It's the behavior, not the identity, that she needs to leave behind. But as long as she figures out how to stop hurting people--it might take a lot of re-thinking. Fixing how you think and act is very difficult--AND comes out on the other side of this in one piece, I'll be satisfied.

Christwriter - I think my comments earlier in the thread might come across as defending the Requires Hate blog. It wasn't intended that way, and I had no idea about her other online behaviour.

What she did to you, and to others, was sick. I'm sorry you had to go through that, and I'm very impressed you're handling it so well.

I really really really want to believe that is genuine. Both apologies are well written and not blaming anyone but herself.

But...

But I'm going to have reservations, for some time.

Once bitten, twice shy and all that. I'd be cautious still.

I think that may be inevitable tbh.

I keep thinking about how I'd feel if exactly the same thing had been done by a man. Ditto the Hale baloney in the Guardian. I think I'd be less forgiving. Which tells me I ought to be more unforgiving of this crap or more forgiving if a man does the same thing.

I am still very conflicted here

Fwiw the one good thing that came out of ROTHY's blod was Abercrombie's response (which just showed him to be the classy guy he is*)

RH did , in fact, a lot of harm, SFF is badly undiverse. BADLY. But when people become afraid to include POC because they'll get a reeming...
Now, yes, sometimes people need to be taken to account. But there are ways and means. Some ways are less likely to stop other authors including POCS than others. Some way will not chill the fuck out of the conversation.

In that way, I think RH did a LOT of harm. She made people not want to include POC in their novels, for fear. And that helps....who exactly?


*RH slammed him. Fanboys got up in arms. Abercrombie broke it down and said "yeah, it was bad writing, here is how I would do it differently next time", shutting fanboys up and simultaneously showing what a great guy he is -- one that is learning , sure



I've been thinking over the last few days (yup that's the burning smell)that we are ALL learning. Me, RH, you. None of us can EVER know, tryely what is in another person's head. None of us have the same experience, even if we grew up in neighbouring houses. I had a pretty liberla upbringing. My neighbour's daughter (my age) was reviled for not being a boy. On the other side. their father died when they were 12 and 8

Their experience is no mine, despite our proximity. And when we write, we cannot ever completely replicate someone's life or experience because they are not ours even if we experienced them together.

Heh, oh look, I went all deep there...But extrapolate that.Expand it to someone living a hundred, a thousand miles away...

MacAllister said:

It all looks a little too much like damage control by a fairly savvy marketer.

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See, that's the problem. The post on the Bees blog is skillfully written... and Bees is a writer.

And no offense, guys, but we writers are about as trustworthy as politicians.

According to Elizabeth Bear, an author in the SFF community, Winterfox has continued to harass and abuse other women of color in the community up through the present day.

There's no sign of repentance or changing her ways here. She just got caught and is trying to minimize the effects on her career.

You know what, I've made up my mind.

RH was a troll for at least four years. You know how they say "criticize the work, not the author"? RH would target people for weeks upon weeks, if not months. Her main tactic was to scream in people's faces until they shut up, and she saw no problem with this. Am I to really believe that has changed now, a few days after she's experienced backlash for it? And this:

Yes, I did so to extremes in the sense of being relentless and insulting (“you illiterate fuck!” yes, “eat shit and die because your taste is shit!” no), and for this I very, very much do apologize.

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You illiterate fuck? That's her example of her harassment? She talked about people being maimed in the mostly absolutely horrific ways, about people being tortured, made comments about how people should die--no, I can't recall her saying "you should go die" to people, but using semantics as a defense is utter horseshit.

I could talk about why I used the rhetoric I did or the source of my anger, but that’s a matter of excuses and justifications, and this is no place for that: an apology is not about the person who makes it.

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The problem with this being that she is talking about it--she's bringing it up, as if to say "look at how big I am, not justifying my behavior." It is nice that she put the justification post on her personal blog, and the other more simple apology on her Requires Hate blog. "Yay for low bars," as RH would say. It seems almost insulting she only had three people she wanted to apologize to specifically.

She excels at provoking people; her writing is nuanced. She has the ability to evoke emotion in a way that's rare even among the best writers. When I look at her apologies, that's what I see. A good writer. Yes, they do seem like very good apologies, and they're what a person might say if they were genuinely remorseful. But... writers, y'all. Can't trust any of them.

I dunno. I might go read more of the free bits of her fiction, though.

christwriter said:

Yes. I do think that SOME, not all, but SOME of this falls under 'You made your bed, now sleep in it" territory. But that doesn't begin to cover the abuse being slung her way. I sincerely hope that she's in a safe place, that she's got the margins to handle this shit, and that if she does need help, she has REAL friends she can contact for support.

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This is the part that bothers me. It does seem like the backlash is way over the top. Yes, she was meaner than shit. But meaner than shit is not the same as threatening people.

ViridianChick said:

See, that's the problem. The post on the Bees blog is skillfully written... and Bees is a writer.

And no offense, guys, but we writers are about as trustworthy as politicians.

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How many blogs and names does/did this woman have? Is Bees another name for this person? Is Winterfox?

And it sounds like one of her schticks was calling out white people for being racist, and men for being sexist/misogynistic. But she also hated women and writers of color and made specific threats against them? But wait, isn't she a woman of color? So is she against racism or isn't she? What is it that she is hating, exactly, in her blog? And what was the deal with harassing rape victims? Wouldn't she be against rape?

She did harass other WOC, but's my impression that was equally opportunity harassment. I read her blog and I never got the impression she targeted anyone for being POC.

The "raped by dogs" comment was made anonymously, but sounded sincere. Since then it has been repeated ad nauseam. This is the source.

Christwriter's account about being harassed can be found on her blog.

I honestly don't think it's any better that she targeted white men and women with the same vitrol she used against POC. Vitrol is vitrol and it's not any easier to bear just because one is white or male.

I've been following this debacle with fascination.

What scares me the most isn't the disgusting things RH did, (which is awful, but lord knows the internet is full of people like that) but the mounds of people that encouraged her. That kept her going for 15 years. No one thought to shut her down before or ban her for harassment? I thought websites had policies against that.

Even though she's apologized, imo, the only way for her to truly redeem herself is for her leave the internet entirely. She's caused too much damage, she needs to get away from it, if only to help herself. Especially if she wants to have a writing career.

I really wish healing for all her victims, what they went through is a nightmare.

ULTRAGOTHA said:

I honestly don't think it's any better that she targeted white men and women with the same vitrol she used against POC. Vitrol is vitrol and it's not any easier to bear just because one is white or male.

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The allegation that she always thought she was "punching up" at the time is interesting.

When you're not published yourself, it's easy to assume that every published writer occupies some rarefied space of monetary and critical success, not to mention self confidence. But I've met (and read blogs of) enough people who are published, including trade published with big 5 publishing houses, to know this isn't true. Most published writers are constantly checking their reviews and sales figures, and very, very few have careers that are completely safe.

Calling a bestselling writer out for sexism or racism in their books is one thing. I've read some of the criticisms about sexism in Abercrombie's First Law books, for instance, and I agree with them for the most part. He could have done better (and he even admits this now). I enjoyed them, but it was one thing that bugged me about them. I don't think he was coming from a place of malice, however, and launching a screed is likely to create acrimony, not put the person in a place where they might nod and say, "Okay, so I see your point."

The fact that he could do this is pretty unusual, actually.

But a vitriolic screed against a more typical first-time author, someone whose book may not even be in the midlist range and who is wondering if he/she will even be allowed to publish the next in their series? That's even more likely to engender self doubt, fear and anger, especially if said author really tried not to be sexist and racist because, hey, they're a woman or person of color (or a white guy who cares about these things too).

My take, though, is that she wasn't just attacking authors, but fans of said authors too. That's not punching up by any definition.

phantasy said:

I've been following this debacle with fascination.

What scares me the most isn't the disgusting things RH did, (which is awful, but lord knows the internet is full of people like that) but the mounds of people that encouraged her. That kept her going for 15 years. No one thought to shut her down before or ban her for harassment? I thought websites had policies against that.

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Sites differ. Some are pretty much anything goes, some are much stricter. I'm assuming she hung out on sites that weren't moderated, or which were very laissez-faire.

Her popularity? It's about as incomprehensible to me than why people like Rush Limbaugh or Laura Schlesinger are. I've seen one or two explanations people who don't seem all frothy and hatey give for liking these personalities and their shows.

1. She/he is mean, but darn it, she/he says it like it is!.
2. I don't agree with most of what she/he says, but it's entertaining to watch the fur fly.

Sad to see proof that someone who is arguably more progressive in their outlook can be mean and frothy too. Though she simply had a popular blog, not a nationally syndicated radio or TV show. For a long time I wondered, though, why nearly all the hate seemed to be on the right wing side of the aisle. Evidently not all of it is (though in terms of politics and national media in the US, and even in terms of web harassment, most still seems to be). Though she's not from the US, am I correct? So maybe her rage comes from living in a culture that is much more misogynistic and racist than our own, even.

I hate seeing any kernels of truth in her criticisms lost in hate and vitriol, though. People like her hurt the causes of feminism and social justice, in my opinion, but becoming caricatures that are easy to pigeonhole and dismiss. You're a feminist and you're angry about misogyny in novels? You must be like that crazy blogger/troll who insults everyone, even the people who are hurt by misogyny in their real lives.

Argh!

MacAllister said:

Yeah. That's the same place I am. Especially in light of the confirmed/unconfirmed history of what's actually been said and done.

The apologies coming only after days and days of internet shitstorm, massive group attempts to reframe RH as a victim of ... I'm still not sure who, and considering the mass-deletion sprees she's done to sanitize the history of her comments and posts and reviews, all taken into consideration with the list of talking points posted by RH supporters everywhere the matter comes up even tangentially? It all looks a little too much like damage control by a fairly savvy marketer.

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ACFantasy said:

According to Elizabeth Bear, an author in the SFF community, Winterfox has continued to harass and abuse other women of color in the community up through the present day.

There's no sign of repentance or changing her ways here. She just got caught and is trying to minimize the effects on her career.

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MacAllister said:

So there's this, tonight.

By way of disclosure, I've known Laura for nearly ten years. I like and respect and trust her, and she's one helluva good SF writer, besides.

I'd been thinking RH's ten-plus years of trolling and blowing up online communities was just going to sink beneath the waves without so much as a ripple. Now I'm less sure.

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I do not believe the sincerity of the apologies, because like Amergina I remember her Winterfox persona. I haven't links to back my claims, but I recall Googling that screen-name back in the day, and it exposed a lot of vindictive, spiteful and ugly behavior. While most people moved on, the above quotes and links show me she relished and cultivated the hatred. So I believe all those years of harassing and belittling others was and still is part of who she is, and the only thing she truly regrets is being held accountable.