Recently Ali Aintrazi posted an apology of sorts. The TL:DR? At SCG Syracuse on August 13th, Ali Aintrazi walked up to me while I was playing EDH and asked if he could cop a feel. His post addresses his actions, how they were hurtful, and what Magic spaces should be. Personally, I’m a little unsatisfied with his post. It has a lot of “what” and very little “why.” So, I’m going to tell my story. I’m going to talk about what the take away should be. And I’m going to try to move past a fairly upsetting experience.

On August 12th, I decided it be a great idea to just go to a Magic event. The plan for the event was rather simple. Hang out with judge friends, play EDH, and do some content for Splyce.gg. Saturday was the actual day of the event and I figured I’d start it off by talking to players about potential interviews, pay attention to feature matches, and formulate my articles that way. In the mean time, I was focused on getting my EDH habit sated. After scrubbing out of two EDH pods, I decided that I was done paying money to play Magic. I looked for a group to sling some cards with and found a pretty chill group that were friends with a judge I had met the week prior.

It is then that things got interesting. While in the midst of a game, a male with curly-ish black hair, glasses, and sporting a TCG Player shirt walks up to me. I don’t think I particularly processed him but I heard what he said. “Hey, can I cop a feel.” He said this as he made hand gestures as if he was groping a pair of breasts. This person, as I would find out later, was Ali Aintrazi. Let’s pause for a second.

I don’t know Ali Aintrazi. I doubt he knows me. We’re not friends. We’re not acquaintances. Ali was not sitting next to us. He wasn’t part of a conversation that was being had. Ali walked over, didn’t introduce himself, and just asked “can I cop a feel.”

I’ll be honest. I don’t pass. I don’t have some delusion that I look like a normative cisgender female. I accept this. And as someone who also identifies as genderqueer it is not something I am terribly concerned with. I don’t think Ali came up to me because he thought I was a cisgender woman. He didn’t say it generally to the table; which had two other women at it. No, he said it to me. I’m going to spell this out plainly.

Ali Aintrazi did not come up to me because he thought he was making a lewd comment to large breasted woman. Ali Aintrazi came up to me because he thought I was a male wearing a a stuffed bra as a joke. A joke he was joining in on. Let’s go back to the story though.

I asked the players at the table to watch my stuff. I immediately got up and walked to the nearest judge. Unfortunately, because we were in the side events area, the judge didn’t really have the bandwidth. So, I walked up to Casey Brefka: the head judge of the SCG Syracuse Open. I explained to him what happened. He said he would take care of the situation. As a judge myself, I knew that this was a case of USC: Major. Of course, since I was not a judge on staff, I have no input in the investigation or the ruling or the penalty. At some point Patrick Vorbroker, SCG Organized Play Representative, became involved.

I remember being asked to walk over to where Casey, Patrick, and Ali was. Patrick introduced himself and told me that Ali would be receiving USC: Major and would be receiving a match loss. However, because Ali seemed remorseful and it was really just a joke gone wrong he would not be asked to leave the venue. I was a little baffled and I expressed my feeling. I could not understand how a player who walked up and asked to grope another player would be allowed to stay in the venue. I expressed that I believed that Ali targeted me because I was Trans, whether he thought so or not. That what Ali had done to me was an act of transphobia and I felt very uncomfortable being in the venue. Patrick assured me that Ali was not being transphobic. That it was an ill thought out joke; nothing more. Ali would not be asked to leave the venue.

At this moment, I realized I was going to have to put my foot down. I had no real personal stake in being at SCG Syracuse. But as a customer, I do have the ability to take my business elsewhere. “If he isn’t being removed from the venue, I guess I’m going to have to leave for the weekend. I’m not going to stay at a venue I feel unsafe in,” I said to Patrick. His response? “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

I was floored. I couldn’t believe what I was being told. Casey turned around and expressed his opinion. He agreed that Ali did deserve the USC:Major, that it didn’t need to be upgraded to a DQ, but that he didn’t agree that Ali shouldn’t be removed from the venue. Patrick told me he was going to discuss it with Kali Anderson. I was asked to wait by the stage. Casey, Kali, and Patrick were on the stage discussing the matter. What felt like an hour was actually probably no more than twenty minutes. Kali came off the stage to explain it was a difficult decision but in the end, Ali would be asked to leave the venue. He would be allowed to come back the next day. I decided not to push my luck and ask for him to be banned from the venue entirely.

Patrick and Casey went to tell Ali the news. When Casey returned, he told me that Ali wanted to express his apologies. I told Casey that it was easy to be sorry when you are receiving a Match Loss and being ejected from a venue. His opportunity to apologize had long since passed.

Some of you may think I was being overly harsh towards Ali. That I was not giving him a fair shot. Let me be clear. As the victim in the matter I don’t owe Ali anything. I don’t have to accept his apology. I do not have to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don’t have to be someone’s teachable moment.

That is something people seem to never appreciate. It comes from a place of privilege; this concept that instead of being offended I should look at where a person is coming from and help them learn from it. Let me say this: you don’t get to hurt someone then expect them to teach you why what you did was hurtful and wrong. That is not their responsibility. Nor is it really my responsibility to Ali. But that’s what ended up happening anyway. I guess privilege wins out.

Sometime on Sunday or Monday I shared this tweet with Ali. This lead to Ali DM’ing me on Twitter. Here is the conversation.