dm-lorati:

girlgamemaster: failforwardrpg: Note: The people named in this article have a history of harassing their critics. As such I have chosen to keep my sources and any traceable information they have given me anonymous to protect them. Three weeks ago the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons came out. D&D is the iconic tabletop role playing game, so a new edition is a big deal. It’s one of the few times that the small, insular pen and paper community gets noticed by the rest of the world. Many game websites have talked about it, notably Polygon’s piece on gender inclusive language. Yet at the same time as D&D tries to appeal to those outside the gender binary, it has been driving them away by employing two of the most toxic personalities in tabletop gaming. Read More This is absolutely disgusting and may cause me to move to Pathfinder instead of buying 5th edition D&D stuff. My own personal opinions on the subject mirror that of Neil Gaiman’s. Specifically: If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place. I love the work of many creators who self-avowedly believe or believed things that I consider to be “fairly wretched”, not to mention wrong-headed, lunatic, irresponsible or simply wrong. Worse yet: there are artists, actors, songwriters, authors, whose work I love, like or admire and who, biographers or historians tell us, actually did things that were utterly reprehensible. And worse even than that, there are all those things by Anonymous, who could have been or thought or done, well, anything, and we’ll never know… This is even my opinion on the topic when the person will be making royalties off the product I’m purchasing (like in the Orson Scott Card example that Neil was replying to), but that’s not actually the case here. They were hired on as consultants; they would have been given a specific pay, did their job, and went on their way. Their success does not depend on the success of D&D Next. This opinion is also, of course, presuming the post is correct. This is the first I’ve heard of either of these people, and I refuse on principle to make a judgement on someone that I’ve never met’s character from one person’s blog - no matter how well researched it may seem to be. In the interest of fairness, I did go looking for dissenting opinions, and I found a few examples of them: This post by “Seebs” regarding the original post itself. (This post in turn links to several more examples of dissension)

This post by Mandy Morbid (from D&D with Pornstars) defending Zak I don’t have time to do any more research on them, and I still haven’t come to any conclusions. I would implore my followers to do their own research (well above and beyond what little I’ve done) before coming to a conclusion either way.

As you and others are asking for further proof of what the article claims, some due to skepticism for various reasons, others because they are fans of the individuals accused, I am providing several examples of harassment on the part of Zak S, as well as explanations as to why neither of the sources linked in your post are valid evidence.

First, the posts you linked. While it was the second one linked, I am going to start with Mandy’s post. See, D&D With Pornstars is Zak’s website. Mandy is (or was) Zak’s girlfriend. Besides her bias here, it is highly unlikely that Zak would allow criticism of himself onto his own site. Edit: While Mandy is Zak’s girlfriend, I made a mistake referring to her post as being on Zak’s site. The link mentioned his site, and that was still in my mind when I wrote this.

Besides that, however, this post was actually already covered. It is the one referenced in the article, where a trans person is outed (the one subsequently reposted by Fred Hicks). Mandy posted the individual’s old name, new name, and even their online handles; it was as thorough an outing as could be done short of including an address as well. While some of the information was later edited out after numerous people called her out, Mandy publicly and knowingly outed a trans individual who had already been harassed and stalked by Zak and his fans.

Meanwhile, Seeb’s posts. I’m kind of amazed anyone is taking them seriously; those posts are ridiculously hyperbolic and, rather than addressing what the article is saying, quibble with how it is said. It is nothing but tone and bad faith arguments, with “evidence” being links to Zak and Pundit, rather than any outside sources. They are rambling, borderline-incoherent, and blatantly biased, only citing the people being accused of transphobia and other actions, as if they would up and say “oh yes I am transphobic”. It is hard to find a more biased source if you tried.

And then there’s Seebs defending Mandy’s above post, arguing that it is okay to out trans people under certain circumstances. That is not me twisting their argument; according to Seebs, it is alright to out a trans person under the right circumstances. This argument is especially disingenuous because, as stated in the Fail Forward article, this person left the RPG industry due to all the harassment, and yet Seebs is saying that people may need to know their new name and link it to their old one so that they can look up their old work if they like the new work. You know, the new work that isn’t coming, because they were harassed out of the industry. And then, to add insult to injury, they drop this line at the end: “In which case, great, I’m hurting the careers of all the trans folks I’m carefully not outing.“ This is literally, explicitly saying that not outing trans people hurts them, which is simply disgusting.

So, the people testifying that Zak is not transphobic are his (former?) girlfriend who outed a trans person, and a blatant Zak fan who defends outing trans people. These are clearly not the people one should be consulting on such issues, at least in my opinion.

Now, for my proof that Zak is in fact as the article says he is, engaging in both harassment and transphobic behavior, among other things. I have several examples here; while they are far from the only ones, I feel that they sufficiently illustrate my point. Two of these examples were found by someone else, while the third I ended up personally involved in as it was targeted at people I consider to be friends.

First, we have Zak responding to Tom Hatfield, author of the Fail Forward article. Tom is talking about the post Mandy wrote above; Zak, seeing this, comes in and claims that the individual in question is not actually trans. Not only is this disgusting and reprehensible in and of itself, he goes on to speak of “actual LGBT people”. Apparently, Zak believes that it is he who decides who is actually LGBT, rather than, you know, the LGBT people in question.

Second, we have a testimony here from a person who was harassed and stalked by Zak and his followers. Not only does she attest to being harassed herself, she also talks of harassment others received, including cyberstalking, and refers to Zak’s “enemies list”, which we will get to shortly. Zak has also used an apology of hers as a defense against criticism, despite it having little to do with what he is actually being accused of. He is using her as a shield and a weapon against those who attempt to criticize him, which is a disgusting act of bigotry and not an indicator of a person who truly cares about making the hobby more inclusive.

The third thing requires a bit of explanation. Months ago, James Desborough, an RPG designer with a history of threatening and harassing people who disagree with him, was accused of making rape threats against female RPG fans. This resulted in, among other things, fellow RPG designer Ben Lehman to make a post about this on his Google+ page. A third person, John Stavropoulos, decided to investigate these claims; however, rather than do things like consult people involved in this (including, say, those claiming to have received these threats), John limited his investigation solely to things like Desborough’s posts on his own website. Eventually, he concluded that he could find no proof of these threats, and made reference to “potentially false allegations “ in his chastisement of those who claimed to be threatened. However, at the least, he also admitted that his not finding proof did not necessarily mean there wasn’t any, and he refused to name names so as to not cause more harassment or create a “witch hunt”.

This is where Zak comes in. Reading John’s report, he saw fit to make his own post, demanding that everyone who +1’d the post (the G+ equivalent of liking it) remove their +1, calling them liars and saying they owe the RPG community an apology. He also listed their names, saying if they wanted their names removed, they had to remove their +1’s from the post. The text of this post is copied here, minus the names; while I have a copy of the original post, for obvious reasons I do not see fit to share the real names of people who have already been receiving harassment to the Internet at large.

Zak proceeded to share this post with two groups:

1.Some of the people on the list. Note the “some”; despite the demands he was making and that he was sharing their names, he did not see fit to inform all of the people he was making said demands of.

2. His fans.

As one would expect, the people listed there began receiving threats. Phone calls, emails, rape threats, death threats. The works. Many of these people (at the time almost eighty, though the number fluctuated as some people un-+1’d the post and others flocked to +1 it in solidarity after the harassment began) had no idea why they were being harassed, as, again, Zak did not even bother to inform all of them before he sent their names to his followers. Eventually, Lehman edited his post, removing his letter and begging the people to stop the harassment. It did not stop, however; even though the thing they were angry about was gone, the harassment continued, as Zak kept his post with their names on it up.

There are multiple sources corroborating this incident; while the original post was hidden from the public and may have been deleted, there exist this and other copies of it. Besides those, Zeea’s post above references Zak’s “enemies list “ and the risk of having her name publicly shared, and likewise Tracy Hurley has a couple posts where both she and other people mention harassment over +1ing a post, with one person (a Zak and Pundit defender at that) even referring to “the James Des list”. (Said posts are also relevant to this article as they concern the other individual involved, the RPG Pundit, and harassment on his part that was acknowledged by Mike Mearls and called “disgusting and infuriating”.) Likewise, this article on misogyny in geek circles also talks about Zak, including a screenshot of this same list, and is a good read besides as it goes into misogyny and other such things on Zak’s part that aren’t covered here.

(Bonus, also courtesy of Tracy Hurley: Zak using the phrase “fantastically marginalized” as a positive thing.)

So, in summary. The two people linked as evidence against Zak’s transphobic actions have themselves exhibited transphobic behavior. Zak has publicly denied the transness of an individual, harassed people, and called for others to harass people in what he himself referred to as a “witch hunt”. Among other things; these are just some examples of his behavior.

Does this qualify as enough research for you?

Edit: Further evidence, both Zak S and The RPG Pundit are now trying to have Tracy Hurley blacklisted from the RPG industry for speaking against them, after they engaged and started attacking her first. (Warning, content linked is full of misogynistic slurs aimed at Hurley.)