C.W: Sexual Assault, Ableism

Okay @sophiabotha74, I need to lay out some clear boundaries. You tagged me in a tweet about doing a collaboration, once, on the 22nd of February. At that time I’d just returned home to Delhi from Kolkata, having had to fly there in the midst of a

pandemic for a family emergency. On that trip I was also sexually assaulted by someone working in a large feminist organisation, so had been working on compiling a case against him since it turned out I wasn’t the only one. I remember seeing your post, thinking ‘I’ll have to go

back and check things later’, and then forgetting about it. Same for the plug.

I was exhausted, I was stressed, I was in pain.

You didn’t know any of this, and that is fine.

On top of that, I’ve had short-term memory issues my entire life, and 2019 only made things worse for

both short and long term memory. This is why I always remind people that my inbox is open if they’d like to discuss anything, since those messages are kept there for me to return to at a later date. It’s part of my accessibility needs online. I don’t have the ability to track

everything, and even when I genuinely mean to go back to something, I’m likely to forget.

What I don’t appreciate, however, is receiving passive aggressive posts, like the one you made on the 8th of April. For a start, I don’t appreciate being tagged into a post with Ozma, who

I blocked for inappropriate behaviour, including (yet not limited to) defending Xanderhal as he exploited my history as a survivor of domestic abuse.

On top of this, there’s a sense of entitlement behind “I'm finding it near impossible to organise collaborations with other trans

content creators on YouTube such as EssenceOfTweet... its as if I don't exist”, especially considering the fact that you tagged me once in a post mentioning a possible collaboration. It’s unreasonable to act like I should have a perfect memory of every encounter I’ve ever had

online the past three months.

Now I didn’t feel like responding at the time as I saw this whilst I was heading to sleep early due to having an appointment in the morning. So, like I do, I made a mental note to come back to this tomorrow, and went to sleep.

Then, as I was

working on the subtitles for this weekend’s video, my wife received a message from a mutual friend of yours, sharing your post (at your request, hence I’ve shared it here, blocking out your middle/last name since I don’t know if you’re public with that info.) Again, the same

passive aggressive undertone that suggests we’re out to ignore you, rather than the fact that you’ve failed to message any of the admins at EssenceOfThought once.

By the way, my name is Ethel. I’m a person, not a brand. I understand using the ‘EssenceOfTweet’ handle on Twitter,

but I don't get referring to me by the channel's name on FB, especially since I introduce myself as Ethel on every stream we do.

You never stop to consider alternative reasons behind a failure of collaboration, or my access needs. You think tagging once in some satellite tweet

is a guarantee that things will be taken further, and that just isn’t fair. Forget ‘putting a good word in’, your behaviour here (not to mention your associations) have actually soured my perception of you.

I'm a person, please treat me like one.