1/ What is cancel culture? A few months ago I was a postdoc at Penn State with an soon-expiring contract, job hunting for tenure track professorships.

I posted the following tweet citing the well-known "social contagion" hypothesis forwarded by Dr Lisa Littman's work on ROGD.

2/ Some people thought this was cancel-worthy & attempted to spread word of my "vile transphobia" to my colleagues, even tagging diversity organizations in my field.

"Colin is on the job market. I hope the EEB community is paying attention."

The goal was to limit my employment.

3/ Then some activist posted a "job" on the largest job board in my field, visited by hundreds if not thousands of biologists a day during hiring season, that read:

"Colin Wright is a Transphobe who supports Race Science."

People also told me they contacted hiring committees.

4/ Then, of course, came the absurd gaslighting.

"Heavens no! We aren't trying to prevent anyone from getting a job! We certainly don't want anyone blacklisted! Besides, a graduate student like Kevin Bird doesn't even have that kind of power!"

Yeah, right.

5/ Students at Penn State told diversity committees my essays and tweets made them feel unsafe on campus.

Department chairs at other universities told me they liked my work, but that HR wouldn't approve hiring me due to my public views. Hiring me would be "too risky" they said.

6/ Don't let anyone tell you cancel culture isn't real. It is, and it's ferocious.

All these leftists saying that cancel culture isn't real, or that it only targets the powerful, are gaslighting you just like they did to me when they said they weren't trying to blacklist me.

7/ I ended up deleting the original tweet shortly after they attempted to cancel me, since people were spreading lies about what "social contagion" meant & what it was referring to.

I was concerned it may have been vague enough for people to poison the well regarding my motives.

8/ Looking back, I regret deleting the tweet out of fear that my intent would be intentionally twisted by the mob.

I think it's time to fix that. https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1281797209030135808?s=20

9/ I should quickly mention that Penn State was not the problem. They never sanctioned me for my essays or tweets. They never caved in to student complaints.

The problem was how students & others outside the university conspired to trash my reputation to limit my job prospects.