REPOST: hbgary wanted to suppress stuxnet research

This is a repost for historical purposes as the original site is gone.
Cheryl D Peace was at the time an employee at the NSA.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120227170532/http://crowdleaks.org/hbgary-wanted-to-suppress-stuxnet-research/
It is no secret that in recent days, Anonymous Operatives have released a cache of HBGary Federal internal emails to the public. Crowdleaks has discovered that within these communications, Aaron Barr received a copy of Stuxnet (a computer worm that targets the types of industrial control systems (ICS) that are commonly used in infrastructure supporting facilities) from McAfee on July 28, 2010.
HBGary wanted to suppress Stuxnet research

In an effort to confirm this was in fact Stuxnet, Crowdleaks has decompiled some of the source code, which can be found here.

Throughout the following emails it is revealed that HBGary Federal may have been planning to use Stuxnet for their own purposes.

Throughout the following emails it is revealed that HBGary Federal may have been planning to useStuxnet for their own purposes.

In a message sent to all email account holders at HBGary.com, Charles Copeland (Lead Support Engineer at HBGary, Inc.) writes:
from: Charles Copeland
to: all@hbgary.com
date: Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 9:54 PM
subject: Stuxnet Worm Mailing List
Filter messages from this mailing list. mailed-byhbgary.com
hide details 9/25/10
Computerworld – Officials in Iran have confirmed that the Stuxnet worm infected at least
30,000 Windows PCs in the country, multiple Iranian news services reported on Saturday.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9188018/Iran_confirms_massive_Stuxnet_infection_of_industrial_systems
I’ve already got a email asking about stuxnet, this came out late Friday. Does anyone have a dropper I have been unable to find it.
In another email sent directly to Aaron Barr, David D. Merritt writes:
from: David D. Merritt
to: Aaron Barr
date: Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 9:35 PM
subject: Re: Hunter Killer Insanity 285mailed-bygmail.com
hide details 10/3/10
contacts over at TSA say that everybody has a copy…combine that with US CERTs vulnerability status and their own systems not meeting the spec….
i’m seeing TSA becoming a malware testbed…
Aaron Barr responds:
On Oct 3, 2010, at 10:13 PM, Aaron Barr wrote:
> Dave,
>
> We haven’t but I would be interested to talk to you some about the tie. I do have a decent amount of information on Stuxnet and would be interested to hear about the tie. Some of what I know about Stuxnet might be of interest. I think it would be best to discuss in a more closed space though.
>
> In doing a little research:
> http://diocyde.wordpress.com/2010/03/12/ringy-ringy-beacon-callbacks-why-dont-you-just-tell-them-their-pwned/
>
> While this guy can be a bit of a crackpot at times his post has more validity than fiction. Greg and I have brainstormed a bit in the past on how to conduct such an attack that would be very difficult to detect. Autonomous, single purpose malware with no C&C. As we have said the battle is on the edges either source of destination, everything else is or will become somewhat irrelevant or diminished in value.
>
> Aaron Barr
> CEO
> HBGary Federal, LLC
> 719.510.8478
In another message sent to all email account holders at HBGary.com by
Greg Hoglund,
 it’s made clear that HBGary wanted to hide their work onStuxnet.
from: Greg Hoglund
to: all@hbgary.com
date: Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 10:26 PM
subject: stuxnet mailing list
Filter messages from this mailing listmailed-byhbgary.com
hide details 9/26/10
All,
HBGary has no official position on Stuxnet. Please do not comment to the press on Stuxnet. We know nothing about Stuxnet.
-Greg Hoglund
CEO, HBGary, Inc.
In the most chilling strand of emails, we find that whatever HBGary was working on, it was in conjunction with the NSA.
Aaron Barr writes:
Hi Cheryl,
719.510.8478
Aaron
Sent from my iPad
Aaron Barr writes:
> From: Aaron Barr
> To: Peace, Cheryl D
> Sent: Mon Aug 09 13:54:23 2010
> Subject: Re: Number
>
> Hi Cheryl,
>
> It does. I haven’t met him personally. Our sister company does work
> in a few different pockets on the bldg. And i am on the extended NANA
> team. I recently joined to stand up HBGary federal, a related but
> separate company. We manage all the work that requires clearances.
> We exchange some technologies, but we have some separate developments
> as well. Mostly around threat intelligence and CNO/social media.
>
> I think there are some enabling tech to your mission but really need
> that qualified.
>
> Interested to run some of the stuxnet stuff by u as well.
>
> Aaron
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
Cheryl Peace writes:
On Aug 9, 2010, at 9:27 AM, “Peace, Cheryl D” wrote:
>
>> Aaron
>> Did a little checking and we already do busy with you guys. Does the name
>> Tony Seager ring a bell?
Aaron Barr writes:
>> —–Original Message—–
>> From: Aaron Barr [mailto:aaron@hbgary.com]
>> Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 10:56 AM
>> To: Peace, Cheryl D
>> Subject: Re: Number
>>
>> OK. If interested do you have some time to get together when you get back?
>> either next Friday or early the following week?
>> Aaron
Cheryl Peace writes:
>> On Aug 6, 2010, at 10:44 AM, Peace, Cheryl D wrote:
>>
>>> I am in Europe till mid next week
Aaron Barr writes:
>>> —–Original Message—–
>>> From: Aaron Barr [mailto:aaron@hbgary.com]
>>> Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 10:57 PM
>>> To: Peace, Cheryl D
>>> Subject: Re: Number
>>>
>>> Hi Cheryl,
>>>
>>> Can I schedule an appointment with you to come by and chat for a few
>>> minutes?
>>>
>>> Aaron
Cheryl Peace writes:
>>> On Jul 30, 2010, at 10:41 PM, Peace, Cheryl D wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am at Rao at the bar if you want to come by for a few. Meeting friends
>>> for a cocktail in a few
>>>> ————————–
>>>> Sent using BlackBerry
Arron Barr writes:
>>>> —– Original Message —–
>>>> From: Aaron Barr
>>>> To: Peace, Cheryl D
>>>> Sent: Fri Jul 30 20:02:44 2010
>>>> Subject: Number
>>>>
>>>> Cheryl,
>>>>
>>>> Sorry to bother you but do you have a minute to talk. I don’t have
>>>> your number handy. It will only take moment, but I have some
>>>> information for you.
>>>>
>>>> Aaron Barr
>>>> CEO
>>>> HBGary Federal
>>>> 7195108478
In a related internal email sent to Rich Cummings (CTO of HBGary, Inc.)Greg Hoglund writes:
from: Greg Hoglund
to: Rich Cummings
date: Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 9:30 PM
subject: Govt dropper in this word DOC, zipped up for youmailed-byhbgary.com
hide details 11/16/09
Phil, Rich,
I got this word doc linked off a dangler site for Al Qaeda peeps. I think it has a US govvy payload buried inside. Would be neat to REcon it and see what it’s about. DONT open it unless in a VM obviously. password is meatflower. Remove the .txt extension too. DONT let it FONE HOME unless you want black suits landing on your front acre. :-)
-Greg

 

Crowdleaks.org had a software engineer (whose name has been withheld) look at the Stuxnet binaries inside of a debugger and offer some insight on the worm. She informed us that most of the worms’ sources were using code similar to what is already publically available. She noted that the only remarkable thing about it was the 4 windows 0 days and the stolen certificates.
She says:
“A hacker did not write this, it appears to be something that would be produced by a team using a process, all of the components were created using code similar to what is already publically available. That is to say it’s ‘unremarkable’. This was created by a software development team and while the coders were professional level I am really not impressed with the end product, it looks like a picture a child painted with finger paints.”
When asked what type of organization likely wrote it, she stated:

“Probably a corporation by request of a government, it was clearly tested and put together by pro’s. It really looks like outsourced work.”  – See more at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ld1YZvZkTFUJ:thehackernews.com/2011/02/exposed-hbgary-wanted-to-suppress.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us#sthash.39BcBvxo.dpuf

4chan plans genocide against transgender women

 

4chans sub board known as /pol/ (a well known ultra right reactionary sub board) has publicly and outright stated plans to drive transgender people (particularly trans women) to suicide and stated we should be “rounded up and slaughtered like cattle”.

They have also made indications they aim to align with trans exclusionary radical feminists.

I call upon all of you to send emails to 4chans owner and operator Christopher Poole (aka moot) to shut down the sub board /pol/ and deny this hate group a platform.

Email template for those who need one.

mailto:moot@4chan.org

Dear Mr. Poole.

We as members of the transgender community implore you to shut down the 4chan board known as /pol/

As enclosed in this screen shot http://i.imgur.com/k91LSJI.jpg you can see they are using your platform to plan genocide against transgender people, who already have a very high rate of suicide attempts. They plan to incite vulnerable transgender people to end their lives, and have outright stated and end goal to see us “rounded up and slaughtered like cattle”. They are using your platform to organize lethal attacks against our vulnerable community.

In light of the incident of David Kalac we take these threats very seriously.

We know you don’t wish the extermination of transgender people and ask you to demonstrate this by denying this hate group a platform.

Signed [your name]

I implore each and every one of you to send an email, share this post, write your own articles and contact your allies to aid in this. I don’t care what kind of differences we have with each other, this is a threat to all of our lives and we must be united in fighting it. Set aside your differences for now, I will do the same.

Make no mistake this will cause backlash, even of the board shuts down, they will likely migrate somewhere else to organize, this is a war. This will be a long fight and they will not give up easily. But the alternative is allowing them to end our lives and the lives of our trans siblings.

This is only the start, we must set aside our arguments for our common survival. They have declared war on each and every single one of us.

Together we can survive.

Together we can thrive.

Together we can stop them.

When the hate becomes personal: my experience with TERF harassment. Removed article from transadvocate rehosted

Julian Vigo  had her lawyers threaten transadvocate.com’s webhost to have this article removed.

I am republishing it with permission to prevent erasing of history.

 

When the hate becomes personal: my experience with TERF harassment

By Dana Taylor

 

Social Context

Studies show that the trans population lives under extreme psychological pressures unseen in even active military personnel. Fifty-five percent of trans people were found to live with social anxiety. Within the general American population, similar types of anxiety are experienced by only 6.8% of the population while these levels of anxiety were found to exist at a rate of 8.2% among military personal.


Transgender and gender variant persons are frequently harassed and discriminated against when seeking housing or applying to jobs or schools, are often victims of violent hate crimes, and face challenges in marriage, adoption and parenting rights.

Discrimination and lack of equal civil rights is damaging to the mental health of transgender and gender variant individuals. For example, gender-based discrimination and victimization were found to be independently associated with attempted suicide in a population of transgender individuals, 32% of whom had histories of trying to kill themselves, and in the largest survey to date of gender variant and transgender people 41% reported attempting suicide.

The APA joins other organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, in endorsing strong policy statements deploring the discrimination experienced by gender variant and transgender individuals and calling for laws to protect their civil rights.

The American Psychological Association, 2012

The National Institute of Health defines Social Anxiety Disorder as being characterized by a, “… persistent, intense, and chronic fear of being watched and judged by others and feeling embarrassed or humiliated by their actions. This fear may be so severe that it interferes with work, school, and other activities and may negatively affect the person’s ability to form relationships.”

“… ethnic minority MtF transgender persons who experience negative interactions with health providers and face discrimination in the health care system feel strong barriers to utilizing health care services, and consequently exacerbate health disparities. Transphobia experience, depression, and economic pressure would also contribute to the barriers to utilizing services experienced by MtF transgender persons of color. This vicious cycle must be eliminated by developing health intervention programs specific to MtF transgender persons.” – Nemoto, Operario and Keatley, 2005

[hr]

TERFs and the Social Context: The History

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism (TERF) is a branch of “feminism” that acts to destroy the patriarchy by destroying the reality of trans women. The TERF movement attempted to do exactly this advocating for a national program of forced repetitive therapy, legislating trans people out of existence and successfully having access to trans medical and psychological care effectively banned in the United States.[1, 2] The historical TERF movement was as unrelenting as it was cruel. Whether by intention or design, TERFs have been exceedingly skilled in leveraging the above social context.

After the members of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) and the Queens Liberation Front (QLF) started the Stonewall Riot and funded the post-stonewall legal fight, TERFs began a campaign to politicize the fact that trans people could use the correct restrooms at New York City Hall[3]. Unsurprisingly, trans people were  stripped from the equality protections their money and attorneys had been fighting for since Stonewall. During the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day post-parade rally, trans people were excluded from participation due to TERF objections. Over TERF objections, a member of the STAR took to the stage and implored the gathered to think of themselves as one community and that we should actually care for our homeless, abused and wrongfully jailed. A TERF took the stage immediately afterward to assert that transwomen were men and should know their place. The STAR member went home and in despair, attempted suicide. The name of that STAR member was Sylvia Revara.

Cathy Brennan is seen by many as a particularly hateful public face of the modern TERF movement. She’s attempted to intervene in the medical care of trans people and has a history of ‘harassing’ the families of trans people, outing a trans kid to their school, working with an ex-gay group in targeting another trans kid and outing trans people to their employers.

More about TERFs can be found here [Strong Trigger Warning].

[hr]

My Experience


On October 1, 2013 my university employer asked me, “Remember when you warned me that Cathy Brennan may contact your employer due to a magazine article I was interviewed in? Well, she just contacted us.” Fortunately, I had warned him about Brennan just the week before that this might happen because I was interviewed by Bitch Magazine and thought that she might retaliate by attempting to silence me or get me fired.

I logged into my campus work computer from home and opened the email Brennan sent. I received a direct copy of it as I am on the abuse/security alias due to working in the Office of Information Security. I am sure Brennan didn’t realize that. I read the email and began shaking. It was full of libelous remarks about me. It hadn’t even sunk in yet that my coworkers also received this as well as our campus police department and the registrar’s office (really? the registrar?).

Disclaimer, there is no need to redact her contact information as she posts this all over the Internet.


I was in shock after reading this. The more this soaked in the more of a panicky feeling I got. I told my boss I couldn’t come to work that day. Among other libelous claims, included was an outrageous lie that I had harassed her about rape.

I went to work the next day and when I walked into my suite it hit me that my coworkers saw these lies and I wondered if they believed in them. I suddenly had a full-blown panic attack. I wondered if I was about to lose a long-term job that I absolutely adored. I wondered if my employer might buy into this monster narrative[4, 5, 6] our culture so enjoys. I felt violated; I can’t express to you the level of gut-wrenching anxiety her lies inspired. The panic seemed to go on and on without end. Wave after wave of anxiety crashed through me. It was as if she had reached out and desecrated what had once been a source of safety and pride.

And that was only the beginning of a coordinated attempt to engineer the ruination of both my reputation and my carrier. In the middle of an extended panic attack, none other than Janice Raymond – the very TERF that engineered the death of trans healthcare in America – contacted my employer, supporting Brennan’s narrative. On top of that, another of Brennan’s supporters – an infamous internet troll – contacted my employer as well. At this point, the panic was omnipresent, eclipsing all else. I could no longer function and was forced to take medical leave.  Later in October I was diagnosed with acute Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Their coordinated attack changed everything. The trauma they inflicted isn’t visible. They didn’t break my legs, they merely broke my spirit. Unlike a simple broken bone, the type of violence they inflicted is especially cruel because PTSD forces me to relive the trauma they caused over and over again.

I am trying my best to learn how to cope with this debilitating condition and am currently on medical leave from work. I never know when an episode is going to hit me. Sometimes there are identifiable triggers and sometimes it just happens out of the blue. In each case I feel good one minute then just seconds later the PTSD is so horrific that it  is unbearable. I’m trying to learn how to manage it, especially when the PTSD is particularly bad. I found that reaching out can sometimes help. Also, if it gets to be unbearable, I attempt to seek help.

In February I checked myself into the emergency room because the trauma was totally overwhelming. In the moment, I saw no relief in sight and at the time, death almost seemed preferable to the hell I was experiencing. I tweeted about what was going on and I also reached out to a few folks on FaceBook to let them know what was going on.

When next I visited my doctor, he attempted to hold under observation for a few days because he said he had been informed that I was planning a suicide attempt.  I asked if the person who contacted him was Cathy Brennan. He said it was. On top of everything Brennan, had almost managed to have me held against my will for days in a psych ward because I was suffering with PTSD her behavior caused.

Worse, an anonymous tipster contacted my job’s security team, the campus police. The campus police then took the issue to my boss’s boss. The information supplied to campus police was similar to the tip supplied to my doctor and it is my belief that the anonymous tipster was none other than Cathy Brennan. If that is true, Brennan has managed to involve my co-workers, my boss, my boss’s boss, my employer’s security team, the university registrar’s office and my doctor in her harassment of me. It should be noted that prior to all of this I had asked her to leave me alone and to cease any and all contact with me.

Facing the hate

Recently, TERFs have been gloating over my PTSD:

Gallus Mag of Gender Trender (TW for extreme Transmisogyny) 

This is an image capture of a comment made by @gallusmag that shows those who favored her tweet. Note that Julian“Human Rights Consultant” Vigo, writer for the Huffington Post and author of a transmisogynistic article on Counter Punch liked the tweet.

While I don’t recall ever claiming that I was planning on killing myself, according to Julian Vigo I had taken to twitter to dramatize the various ways I was going to off myself because I was playing some sort of abusive political game.


Then, of course, TERFs began the mocking and gaslighting dog-pile:







 

Writing this article has been a somewhat triggering ordeal for me but it had to be done. I was told that my treatment for PTSD will be Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which means being exposed to what caused my trauma over and over again. For me, this article was therapeutic in that I’m not only recounting what happened, I’m also reaching out to those who may have suffered some similar abuse from the TERF movement.

I can see now that asking Cathy Brennan to just leave me alone doesn’t work. With the support of my friends and therapist, I am pursing legal means to ensure that she leaves me alone. At times I’m overcome with the shear hate that the TERF movement embraces. More often than not, these moments are followed by crippling PTSD.  

However, I know that I’m not the only person who’s faced this level of enmity. If you’ve suffered because of similar attacks, I’d love to hear from you. I want you to know that you’re not alone and I also want you to know that it’s possible to fight back in a way that will stop the abuse. In the coming months, I will post updates on the progress I’ve had and share any successes I have in stopping the abuse.

_________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Stryker, Susan Transgender History. Seal Press, 2008
[2] Raymond, Janice G., The Transsexual Empire. Reprinted 1993: The Women’s Press, 1978
[3] Cohen, Stephan The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: ‘An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail’. Routledge, 2007
[4] See #17 of the You Might be a TERF if… list.
[5] See pages 12 – 17 of the Trans Media Watch’s initial submission to the Leveson Inquiry for an overview of the monstering of trans people.
[6} See also the following commentary: Scary Trans Monsters, LGBT WeeklyMy Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage by Susan Stryker and Trans Activism Of The Monstrous, PHB.

 

HuffPo contributor, attempts to hide her TERF activities and then tried to erase this from the internet.

http://www.cristanwilliams.com/b/2014/04/10/julian-vigo-huffpo-contributor-attempts-to-hide-her-terf-activities/

The original article was hosted there until Julian Vigo had it removed by contacting Cristan’s host.

So im republishing it here with permission so she cannot erase it from the internet.

 

    

 

Back on March 11, Dana Taylor published her account anti-trans TERF harassment on the TransAdvocate. She noted that Julian Vigo participated in some of the harassment:

Gallus Mag of Gender Trender (TW for extreme Transmisogyny) 

This is an image capture of a comment made by @gallusmag that shows those who favored her tweet. Note that Julian“Human Rights Consultant” Vigo, writer for the Huffington Post and author of a transmisogynistic article on Counter Punch liked the tweet.

While I don’t recall ever claiming that I was planning on killing myself, according to Julian Vigo I had taken to twitter to dramatize the various ways I was going to off myself because I was playing some sort of abusive political game.


Then, of course, TERFs began the mocking and gaslighting dog-pile…

Using a sock account which claims to be a hacker…


… Vigo used the account to both defend herself and troll Dana:


 
 

Note that Vigo’s sock account admits to knowing what happens on Vigo’s personal twitter account. Apparently Vigo didn’t think that her sock account trolling activities would be tracked back to her:


 
 

After my reply, Vigo stopped posting. Today, I received the following from Disqus:


Let’s be clear about a few things. One of only two possibilities are true:

1.) I created everything in PhotoShop (as Vigo’s sock account claims) and there is no personal info because it’s all fake.

2.) It’s not Photoshop’d and this info is real, hence reporting it to Disqus.

Which is it, Vigo?

So, apparently someone (yes, I’m looking at you, Vigo) went to Disqus to complain about me publishing “personal information” in the comment wherein I provided proof that Vigo was trolling Dana.

I welcome Disqus looking at Vigo’s trolling.


Disqus TOS

In fact, I invite HuffPo and any other organization she writes for to inspect Vigo’s behavior around trans people:

 

Advice to young trans women.

Having been out as a trans woman for some time I would like to impart a degree of advice to you younger trans women finding your paths in the world today.

First of all I would like to commend you for going through what is obviously a difficult path of transition at such a young age, for many of us this was not an option and even today transition at a young age often comes at a heavy price.

I would give you the following advice.

1. Never allow cis people to silence you about your oppression. Cis men and women benefit from the oppression of trans women and transfeminine people. Pushing back against this is critical. Oppression must always be resisted and your survival is always an act of resistance. You dont have to go to protests or be part of activists groups, you just have to be yourself in public to challenge transmisogyny.

2. Your very exsitence is a challenge to the system that oppresses everyone, your survival and your thriving is a direct assault on the structures of oppression itself.

3. Trans men also benefit from the oppression of trans women and transfeminine people, they will attempt to derail discussions of transmisogyny by cloaking them in de-gendering terms such as “transphobia” “cissexism” and things like this. Make no mistake, the majority of anti trans hate is targeted to trans women, and especially trans women of color. Do not let *anyone* decenter the opppression of trans women and transfeminine people.

4. Anyone who is not oppressed by transmisogyny benefits from it. Do not trust anyone who gains by your loss, they will rarely act in your interests.

5.Non binary AMAB ( assigned male at birth) trans people also are targeted by transmisogyny you have more in common with them than you think, non binary AFAB (assigned female at birth) people are not.

6. Just about everyone has some kind of institutional power over you, however this does not mean you should give up. As i said before, survival *is* resistance.

7. Aid your fellow trans feminine person. Live by the motto an injury to one is an injury to all. My generation failed to do this at large. Learn from our mistakes. Solidarity is powerful.

8. Learn transgender history, learn about the awesome radical trans women of color who kickstarted the LGBT rights movement and how they were erased from history and why. The information is out there.

9. The police are not your friends. Repeat after me. The police are not your friends. A lot of violence against trans women and transfeminine people are either done by law enforcment or condoned by it.

10. If you feel someone is toxic to have in your life, cut them out of it. It doesnt matter who they are, dont tolerate abuse.

11. Its trans woman, not transwoman, not trans*woman. These things matter and are litmus tests for peoples understanding of trans issues.

12. Some people will abuse you simply because they can. Its senseless but its real.

13. Tumblr is not the final authority on social justice.

14. Dont trust cis feminism, they worked very hard to take away legal rights from you, and work to do so to this day. Even the ones who claim to be on your side likely are not.

15. Never do work for anyone who has institutional power over you for free. It doesnt matter what kind.

16. If you can find a trans woman of trans feminine person to hire for a service, hire them over anyone else first. If you can buy from a trans woman of trans feminine person buy from them first. Keep your money within our community as much as possible.

17. Offer discounts to trans women and trans feminine people.

18. Bad allies are worse than no allies. Dont let anyone tell you differently.

19. Learn the power of collective barganing.

20. A college education is nice to have, but it wont end your oppression. Trans women have more degrees per capita than cis people and yet we have the highest rates of unemployment.

21. Learn what respectability politics are and why its bad and wont work.

22. No marginalized group in the history of activism ever has gained their liberation by asking their oppressor nicely to stop oppressing them. Give them a reason to think twice about harming you. Give them consequences. Fight back.

23. Take care of yourself, this is probably the most important advice i can give you. Do whatever it takes to survive, but no more. Dont lose your moral center.

24. The majority of the social constructs in the world are oppressive in some way, seek to dismantle them and replace the functions they provide in non oppressive ways, you benefit from this.

In conclusion im going to quote a line from one of my favorite video games.

Make life take the lemons back.

Ryan Broems Goes on transmisogynistic live tweet rant while on a date with a trans woman

I have crossposted it to transadvocate here go there for updates :D

 

So a so called comedian by the name of Ryan Broems went on a date with a unnamed transgender woman, and this was apparently something he thought worthy to live tweet to his audience. While live tweeting a date in itself is a bit odd under any circumstances live tweeing a date with a trans woman using the hashtag “#trannygate” was just revolting.

 

As you can see his vile tweets completely misgendered her, treated her like an object of ridicule and utterly dehumanized her, by making common activities during a date seem like a freak show.

I dont even know if she was aware that he was tweeting this, if she was not then we also have a privacy violation going on here. And thats just fucking creepy.

 

Ryan Broems, you owe her an apology, and you owe the transgender community an apology.

Not a fake ass half apology, a real one.

A genuine understanding that you realize you have done wrong, and a demonstration of learning from this. If you want to have any hope that your career will move forward you will do this.

Update. Ryan Broems states that this was a failed comedy bit. This however does not change the problematic nature of the tweets. Making a marginalized community the butt of such jokes is very harmful.

A guest post written about Justine by another comrade who was in the group.

The following is written by the comrade who was in the hospital. It is unedited in any way and the pastebin Can be found here where they wrote it on http://pastebin.com/jyeYpjg3

 

 

 

To start, I’m going to have to out myself. Otherwise, much of the story of my experiences with the person and group in question will not make much sense. I sacrifice some of my anonymity so that others will not suffer at the hands of these abusive capitalists who try so hard to convince you that they are anarchists. You see, the central figure of this group, one Justine Turney, known in some circles as “jart”, uses the red and black colors as a brand, and the tools of authoritarians to brutally and ham-fistedly suppress any whose eyes open to this fact. So, allow me to introduce myself briefly.

I suffer from tetragametic chimerism, imagine me as being a very well lined up conjoined twin. Two or more separate fertilizations grow in the same lump of cells, resulting in a kind of blend of the various results of those fertilizations through the resulting body. In my case in particular three fertilizations combined to form one body. My chromosome configurations are XX, XX, and XY. This has resulted in some interesting physical results, which are beyond the scope of my story with the capitalist authoritarians in disguise. The more applicable and relevant result is the fact the human body is an expanding fractal, physical variations between any two people being determined by a combination of variations in this fractal, and environmental factors, which different people respond differently to. With three separate populations, one of which does not expand along the same fractal type as the other two, things don’t line up perfectly. Multicolored irises are one result, but each ring, despite being in the same “weave”, is a different width and displays in layers. My arteries and veins have formed strangely, but function mostly. Primary and secondary sexual characteristics are in collision with each other, though again, the details of this I keep to myself. The relevant part is that with strangely aligned parts, and different populations responding to environmental factors differently, sometimes things go very wrong very quickly. The human heart, similar to a car’s engine must be timed right to beat properly. When it doesn’t beat properly, it starts complaining, sending signals to the brain stem that something is wrong, which manifests consciously as malaise, your body’s equivalent to the check engine light, itself a nonspecific “something’s wrong” indicator. This can become a feedback loop, where such signals further disrupt beat, and further disrupted beating results in more signals. It is sometimes the case where I have to get hooked up on tubes and machines to keep alive until everything settles back down.

I have leaned anarcho-syndicalist since midway through highschool, Communist through middle school, the realization of how silly the idea of a transitional State is, due to a State’s inherent self-interest in preservation. I had been excited for Occupy Wall Street, seeing an opportunity to bring the Arab Spring revolts home, and begin the process of destruction of the State, paving the way for the destruction of classed society. Horrified by the NYPD’s brutal repression of peaceful demonstrators, I came on September 27th and marched with, lending one more body to a larger crowd, hoping numbers would help avert NYPD aggression and State force. I was thrown to the ground at 12th and University, my phone stolen by a police officer, and thrown into a van for several hours. We were left in the sun, without water, hands ziptied behind our backs, hands blue, then a dark purple for hours. We had been charged with no crime, were denied any contact with the outside. Justine and friends had actually written about us, in an article about the van left in front of 1 Police Plaza for unhealthy amounts of time. We attempted to call 911 to report the medical issues, the blood and pepper spray washing over our faces, the dehydration, and were hung up on, later reprimanded by a cop. Far from discouraging me from participating further, this event as far as I was concerned solidified my beliefs. For a bit of background, I come from an upper middle class family, and had little contact with working class people directly. There had been some doubt in my mind, was I just a rebellious teenager who had simply never grown out of such silly beliefs? Getting locked and left to potentially die in the back of an NYPD van having been charged with no crime with media I had collected of police beatings stolen from me solidified this.

Do not believe I intend the above to brag. You see, I understand fully that many people on the Internet will discard firsthand accounts of events which show one person or group, or another in a negative light in their entirety as being without context or missing pieces of the story. The above is included simply to lay all the cards I can without outing others or “snitching” on anyone publicly down on the table. I began writing, and eventually gained a spot on the occupywallst.org writing team through my fury at the State. Details will be sparse on the next parts, simply for the safety and security of uninvolved third parties.

We met in an IRC chat room, where process was theoretically engaged in, and decisions made regarding our path. Three people in particular, Justine (as jart), Sadie (as an unknown person never actually in chat who only really spoke with Justine), and ThePinkMask would rarely, if ever speak in chat, despite being major editors. They would simply post whatever they liked, but generally left the rest of us alone. It wasn’t a huge deal until suddenly an article I had written was simply being deleted repeatedly. We had reached consensus in chat to publish it, and had raised the issue several times over several days. I messaged a warning to the account (later revealed to be Sadie’s) that kept deleting the article that they were acting against consensus and that I would bring revocation of their ability to delete articles up for consensus if they persisted. This person responded that there was no consensus, and that consensus had been reached for deletion. Upon argument and investigation, during which my account on the website was disabled several times simply for questioning what was going on, it was later revealed that Justine had the mistaken idea that she had dictatorial power, but out of the goodness of her heart allowed consensus process to take place, but only in her physical personal apartment, a place where personal friends of hers had access to, and others had no idea even the geographic location of, with no concern given for global editors or affinity group members who either couldn’t, or wouldn’t physically travels to someone else’s apartment and reveal their face or identity in the context of a global team of editors. Except Sadie. Sadie gets a special exemption. Apparently Justine had decided to bring down the harmer physically in her apartment, and when challenged on this, deleted my account. Other editors rose to my defense, and with a problem against her power brewing within the affinity group, Justine agreed to concessions, where we attempted to use a mailing list for consensus.

Unsurprisingly, this later went out the window. Justine later revealed a plan of hers to divert donated funds, which had been donated to the occupation, once the occupation ended to herself and the editors. I approached the mailing list for consensus to cover the May Day activities, and obtained it overwhelmingly. I had run out of personal funds to travel to and from Manhattan, and had gotten consensus for funding simply and only for a train ticket to and from Manhattan. Shortly after this, I became hospitalized, went through several events of cardiac arrest, and was generally on life support for some time. Prior to May Day, I came out, much of my body generally useless. I was in a power chair, commonly comparable to that of Steven Hawking. I did have accommodations so that I would be able to type. I requested my train ticket, but it never came, nor was any acknowledgement made that it would ever come. The night before May Day, I received a message from Justine that I would not be making any edits to the website whatsoever, much less doing the live updates as the affinity group had consensed upon earlier. I requested information on the process that had revoked the previous process, and received a repeat of the initial message, paraphrased from the original. I of course raised an angry stink about this in the mailing list, and was banned from the mailing list by Justine without any process. I, unable to go, watched streams and attempted to simply proceed in alignment with process, and my article was deleted, and my account’s ability to edit articles revoked. I challenged them to prove that there was any legitimacy to these actions in the IRC chat rooms. There was no response other than verbal abuse. I was unbanned from the mailing list after May Day was over, and simultaneously myself and any others who dared question the legitimacy of these actions were accused variously of being spies, idiots, feds, cops, and just about anything else. I was banned from this space, and the “affinity group” was chopped down to personal friends of Justine, anyone else’s input deemed irrelevant. This would turn into a pattern, where Justine and friends penetrate a space, use their positions in other spaces to obtain positions in a new space, and then once capable, ban everyone else to concentrate power and seize the space.

A good friend of mine, Laurelai had this happen to her as well. This happened on Reddit, where ThePinkMask spearheaded an attempt to found a unilateral ability of admins to simply ban for unexplained and unquestionable reasons. I was called in to tell my story to this Reddit community, which resulted in a great deal of abuse pointed in my direction, being outed against my will, and again, snitchjacketed to discredit my story. This began a long string of being randomly and illegitimately banned from this space while consensus was laughed at by the various people involved. ThePinkMask had threatened to ban anyone who undid her actions, but I was successfully able to use this claim to demonstrate TPM’s failure to align with Anarchism to others, making actually following through with this politically impossible without the space being defended by another admin.

Later, bored with process and Anarchism, the Affinity Group, which it calls itself as if this is its personal brand name seized control of this Reddit space, removing all other admins and mods and declaring an opaque oligarchy of themselves to exercise control over the space, with input only accepted as “concerns and suggestions” via an email address, which more than likely might as well be a garbage pail. I successfully sparked a revolt against this, resulting in an avalanche of support which successfully drove the conspirators out of the space.

Some months after this, occupywallst.org began selling products and sending out bizarre fundraising emails whose purpose were to line Justine’s own pockets. This strange and very capitalist approach which does nothing to make any actual difference was covered in other places. It, run by Justine personally, began circulating blast emails that donating to her personal pocket was somehow “the best way to support the struggle of the 99%”.

More recently, having found the other people on the team of an Occupy-related Twitter account inconvenient, she once again seized a space that belonged to a movement, not to her personally.

Justine is not an anarchist. Justine is not an anti-capitalist. Justine is not anti-authoritarian. Justine does not support the liberation of marginalized voices. Justine is the exact opposite of all of these, and as can be seen from her pattern, her goal is to seize Anarchism as a movement and all its faces and spaces, exploiting them all for her personal personal profit. She seeks to sell Anarchism(c) to us, abusively discrediting all who oppose her or even question her actions. If you allow her any physical power in your spaces, she will abuse it, armtwist others, and use her power in other spaces to seize yours. If you oppose her on Twitter, you will find yourself banned on IRC and on Reddit and mailing lists. The sum of all of this is a slowly spreading State of Justine’s personal dictatorship within Anarchism. I will be fedjacketed, reading this story she will know exactly who I am. I will be dox’d, I will receive threatening text messages from anonymous numbers again. My personal FB will be released to the public, I will be discredited. To smash the State, we must first smash the State within our own movement before it’s too late. Refuse the coup.

A note to trans allies.

If you see trans women arguing or debating about something, hell anything. This is the time for you to stay out of it.

When you pick a side, any side, even if you are “100% sure” you are right, you are leveraging your cis privilege in favor of that person. It does not matter who is right, you do not have the right to wield that kind of power in our community.

Basically sit back and let us argue it out. The fight is within and its up to us to resolve it. Dont get involved.

Trans women come from many different backgrounds and have many many different life experiences so its going to be fairly common we arent going to agree on all things, and hell some of us just might hate one another. Thats going to happen too.

And thats ok. It just means we are all different. And thats ok.

There are trans women who write who i dont like, there are ones that i do.

My opinion or anyone elses shouldn’t inspire you to attack another trans woman or police her actions. Thats not your job. We will handle our own.

Does this mean you cant ever criticize a trans woman? No, it means within debates or fights clearly within the community, your presence is not needed. And if its outside of the community debating you should take care your criticisms are not being guided by your privilege.

Some trans women out there like to weaponize their allies to attack other trans women. The rest of us need to take a stand against this and tell allies that getting involved like that is wrong.  And allies if you see cis people trying to get in the middle of a fight, collect up your people and tell them to knock that shit off.