Max said:

I've been thinking all day about Justin's questions on the forum:

"We do not have a firm, tactful, properly-phrased, and convincing public stance on transgender. Our assertion that our views are in line with a radical feminist perspective is clearly not substantial enough in and of itself. We need to have a more concise and direct acknowledgement on how to handle this issue."

________________________________

Derrick responded:

Dear All,

I have no ego investment in the following. I liked what I said to Julia or whatever his name was who wanted to join DGR: You are not a woman. You are a man who believes he is a woman.

Thank you,

Derrick

_______________________

Lierre said:

Trouble is, "transphobic" is going to keep winning because that's men insisting they are hurt, which means the whole is howling in pain.

Women say "misogyny" and no one gives a shit.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but that's the problem in a nutshell.

Lierre

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Derrick:

Dear All,

And I think this is a fight we'll win.

I got a few notes today asking me if I'm transphobic, and posting links to this nonsense. I responded to four of them. One of them was an anarchist, so he'll be a prick no matter what happens. One I didn't get a read on, but is probably an anarchist. And two were just regular people. I sent them a version of this note:

The anarchists are liars. It's what anarchists do.

Here is what happened: Some females were tabling at an anarchist event, and a mob of male "transgender" anarchists came up and started yelling at them and cursing them, and then defaced their materials and wrote on one of the women. NONE of the bystanding anarchists did a fucking thing to intervene. Afterwards, the anarchist organizers promised they would write up something condemning the attack, and would run it by the women before they did. Of course the anarchists lied, like they always do. An anarchist male wrote up something completely defending the attack on the women, and apologizing to the transgender anarchists for allowing DGR to be there in the first place. Women responded en masse to this posting, pointing out how terrible it was (and in no way threatening anyone), and the anarchists then deleted all comments and said that they were closing comments because "of the violent transphobia." I'm sorry, men attacked women. So then the anarchists came out in force, and have been spouting obscenities at women, calling me a salmon fucker momma's boy, and then threatening to line up every person in DGR and cut off our heads.

And now I'm getting all sorts of notes like yours, asking me to explain how away my alleged transphobia.

The whole thing makes me completely disgusted.

Men attacked women in an attempt to silence them. That's the bottom line. And that's how anarchism works. And then anarchists claim that the real victims of the assault were the perpetrators. This is completely standard operating procedure in anarchism.

***

And here's the point. Both wrote notes saying how very sorry they were, and expressing solidarity. One of them offered her home as a safe house if we need it, and the other said he's a long time environmental activist who has been preaching DGR for a long time, and would like to join.

I think if we get the video out, showing what really happened, and lay out a precise and not rhetorical version of what happened, lots of people will be swayed by the truth on this one. We should get it out as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Derrick

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Dear All,

And now Peter Bauer, Urban Scout, is reposting this bullshit. I sent him essentially the same note I included below. If he doesn't retract it, I'll block him, which is really all I can do, and of course I'll never speak to him again.

Fuckers.

Derrick

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Derrick:

Dear All,

I agree. This note should have been out days ago. It needs to be out. I don't care who writes it.

Here is what I've been sending to people, and so far it has changed the perspective of all of them but the anarchist and urban scout. THAT is why something needs to be out. We have truth on our side: why the hell are we not using it?

Here's what I wrote:

Here is what happened: Some females were tabling at an anarchist event, and a mob of male transgender anarchists came up and started yelling at them and cursing them, and then defaced their materials and wrote on one of the women. NONE of the bystanding anarchists did a fucking thing to intervene. Of course they didn't. Anarchists almost never defend women from the attacks of men. I am finishing writing a book right now about the misogyny that IS anarchism and "queer theory." Afterwards, the anarchist organizers promised they would write up something condemning the attack, and would run it by the women before they did. Of course the anarchists lied, like they always do. An anarchist male wrote up something completely defending the attack on the women, and apologizing to the transgender anarchists for allowing DGR to be there in the first place. Women responded en masse to this posting, pointing out how terrible it was (and in no way threatening anyone), and the anarchists then deleted all comments and said that they were closing comments because "of the violent transphobia." I'm sorry, men attacked women. And this is what anarchists do when men attack women. Every time. So then the anarchists came out in force, and have been spouting obscenities at women, calling me a salmon fucker momma's boy, and then threatening to line up every person in DGR and cut off our heads.

The anarchists threaten to kill me, and to kill lots of women, and now I'm getting all sorts of notes like yours, asking me to explain how away my alleged transphobia.

The whole thing makes me completely disgusted.

Men attacked women in an attempt to silence them. That's the bottom line. And that's how anarchism works. And then anarchists claim that the real victims of the assault were the perpetrators. This is completely standard operating procedure in anarchism.

Can someone please within the next five minutes volunteer explicitly to edit this into what we want. And send out the edits to all of us within 20 minutes.

We need to move on this.

Derrick

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Derrick:

Dear All,

Yes. So here is the plan. Lierre is walking over here. If you, Lexi, have something in our hands by the time she gets here in five minutes, we'll include it. If not, we won't. Then we will combine what I have already written with what Lierre has already written, with what Lexi has or hasn't sent, and we'll hammer it out in ten minutes. Then we'll release it.

I don't know how to do the video. But the video is going up within an hour of us finishing and releasing our statement.

We--the board--are taking over, because so far the way this has been handled is a classic example of how battles are lost. We have had every advantage against a completely incompetent opponent, and we are still somehow managing to lose. When I engage in a conflict, I aim to win it. And as of this moment DGR is fighting to win this conflict.

When I have sent out emails to individuals telling them what happened, with the exception of anarchists all have immediately come to our side. Our lack of response is unacceptable. This is not how you handle a campaign

Derrick

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Derrick:

Hey All,

We are in the process of asking Lexi to take this down. This is a horrible statement. Line by line it blames the victim. It is completely unacceptable for DGR to put out a statement that blames the victims of aggression

A few examples:

> One of the women reached out to hold the material down, and was

> consequently marked with permanent ink on her hands and forearms.

This blames Lexi for what happened.

>The room became silent, and tense but no one intervened. One of the

>women was visibly triggered.

This blames Lexi for her response.

>He was met with chanting and backlash,

backlash means he did something to cause them to do it.

> accusations and twisting of his words, to which he did not compose

> himself well.

"Did not compose himself well." In other words, it's his fault.

It goes on and on.

It is not acceptable to blame the victim.

This should have been run by us. We could have fixed this.

This was done incredibly poorly.

We will be releasing a statement shortly.

We're going to encourage all people involved to release their own personal statements, and they can say whatever they want (we'd prefer they didn't blame victims), but DGR can't blame the victims.