Sally uses they/them pronouns!
And yes, this is exactly it, you’re understand correctly. I will be expounding a bit more & clarifying about Sally and I’s past as in plays into this, but for many reasons, going deeply into that doesn’t make sense.
It is a long and old story. Telling it to build context is difficult given that, which has been part of the reason I remained quiet, but I felt that wasn’t fair to me and I was doing that only to the benefit of a bunch of people who have treated me like shit, so I tried as best as I could to trudge through the particulars and condense the story without writing a 20 minute piece no one would read.
The point is, Sally has struggled letting go as the abusive party even as I, for the past five years, have just tried to move beyond how they have treated me and behaved. & since they continue the abusive behavior towards me and others (I have connected and talked to many people since 2012 who had the same social climbing/abusive interactions with Sally, INCLUDING the co-founders and organizers of GRFFF and Bandit Zine) and clearly haven’t changed toxic behavior nor will they leave me alone (some of my screenshots are from 2015 and 2016!), and how that compacted or was aggravated by their position with GRFFF, I wanted to name it.
Most of my close friends (many who I met through Sally or knew me back when we were close) have either no idea what went down or even who Sally is, that is how silent I stayed on the whole issue. They’re messaging me as well going “I had no idea!” That said, I reject the victim-blaming and policing that demands victims “not be bitter” or “dwell” on the past-giving myself this space to understand, name and process is exactly what has helped me understand the full breadth of how toxic the dynamic was and how I planned to grow from it, to grow from the immature and toxic behavior I learned while being friends with someone like that in a formative and transitional period of my life. But again, having long noticed a fucked up pattern and the failure to address it over years on the part of GRFFF, I wanted to speak out on that repetition of past behaviors now by giving a little context and hoping to be otherwise trusted as an organizer, activist, writer and survivor, which has proven to be difficult for lots of white folks reading my piece. There’s been people mocking it or dismissing my experiences being WOC being mistreated =\= A real “issue” with GRFFF. There’s a lot going wrong with white, specifically women’s, reaction to my words. It’s all been super racist and revictimizing in a lot of ways and I won’t internalize that ugliness that they want so much for me to burden.
The racism/lack of diversity of the actual GRFFF and its volunteers will be the main focus of my follow up, because I know that is a piece that matters a lot and many are interested in.
