#this is my whole response after the whole etika thing

[clownkiwi]

ok so idk if this really needs to be said but. please treat everyone with basic human decency and respect. its the easiest thing to do. even if you’re just “memeing”, what you’re doing will actually do more harm for them in the future. so, from now on, reach out, talk to them, respect and love them

[chelledoggo]

Coming Clean

The past few days for me have been...eventful, to say the least.

But it's a new day, I've cooled down from the panic, and am ready to make my final, no-BS statement on this whole controversy. I feel like it needs to be done, and a few tweets on the subject isn't enough.

CW: Transphobia, Ableism, Suicide, Anxiety, Panic attacks, Depression, Rape and Murder mentions

On Sunday, July 12, 2020, I made a meme and posted it to Twitter. Essentially, the meme was comparing issues of mainstream trans and nonbinary people (being killed, being raped, being made fun of, being denied health care under Trump, etc...) to the online xenogender community, a community which I had not previously properly educated myself on.

Xenogenders, as I understand now, are gender identities that are used by some people, typically neurodivergent people, because they feel that these terms describe their gender identity better than the predetermined labels that are more commonly used. (cis, trans, nonbinary, agender, genderqueer, etc.) These identities are often based on unconventional factors, such as aesthetics, creatures, mythical beings, natural phenomena, and so on, and often use pronouns specially coined to compliment them.

In the meme, I depicted a very unflattering stereotype of xenogender youth, and used some tasteless terminology to describe how they present their developed gender identity to the world.

I won't bullshit you anymore. Here is the meme. (CW for Transphobia and Ableism; Rape and Murder mentions)

I posted it to Twitter, closed out, and took a nap. I didn't expect much to come out of it except for a few likes and retweets. I was obviously very wrong.

When I woke up and pulled up Twitter again, I was greeted to my notifications being flooded with replies upset by what I'd posted. Many of them were calling me out for ableism and transphobia. Some of them were just flinging insults and mocking me for my age/appearance/etc. Some of them were just fancams.

I'd finally seen the true impact of my actions.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a fear of angering others or becoming hateful and ignorant. I would never want to intentionally hurt innocent people, especially those of marginalized groups such as the trans and nonbinary communities. And as someone who is neurodivergent herself, I certainly wouldn't want to be willfully ableist. I've faced ableism in one form or another for my entire life.

People could also tell you that for pretty much my entire life, I've suffered with mental illnesses. I've been professionally diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder, PTSD, and bipolar disorder. As such, I'm prone to panic attacks, outbursts, and suicidal ideation when under extreme distress.

As soon as I saw all the anger and hurt I'd caused, I started spiraling into a severe panic attack. I didn't realize how much this meant to a lot of people. A lot of young, neurodivergent people.

I felt like the scum of the earth. I fucked up, just like I've fucked up and made people hate me so many times before in the past. This is my life. Acting without thinking, and then unintentionally hurting people.

I immediately deleted the tweet and made an admittedly hasty apology.

When I'm in this state, however, I don't think clearly. My immediate reaction was that I was just too much of a fuck-up to go on living. I made a tweet saying I wanted to kill myself without any thought as to how that might be interpreted as guilt-tripping after I fucked up instead of taking responsibility.

Again, I was called out on it. So I deleted my suicidal tweets, too.

I then started posting tweet after tweet after tweet claiming that I was sorry and wanted to “be better.” But this barrage of tweets, as sincere as I thought they were at the time, came off as shallow damage control.

Once again, I was called out on this.

The next day, I tried once again to make a no-bullshit apology. I stated in plain english that I was indeed transphobic, ableist, and 100% in the wrong to make that meme, and that, while I still didn't fully understand xenogender identities, I would be respectful of them from now on.

There were plenty of people who were glad I apologized and learned from my mistakes, and I honestly felt a lot better for it.

I was hoping this would just be a fresh start, and things could slowly go back to normal for me and my friends.

However, there were also people angry at me for “bending the knee,” as they put it. I hid their replies to my apology because some of them (not all of them) were friends of mine, and I didn't want them getting attacked.

Some of my friends took this as “throwing them under the bus,” and were angry at me for it. A few of them decided they didn't want to be my friends anymore.

My friends, whether I agree with them on everything or not, mean a lot to me. They are really the only emotional support I have. I suffer from abandonment issues and my mental illness symptoms spike whenever I lose people I consider close friends.

So I lashed out at them for not respecting my decisions. I felt like they didn't really care about my mental health or my emotional wellbeing. I was hurt. Hurt just like I hurt everyone with the meme that started this whole nightmare.

I then, once again, started posting suicidal tweets. I talked about wanting to “chug a bottle of pills” and “go out like etika.” I actually attempted to strangle myself with a bathrobe belt. But, of course, I'm an all-talk-no-action coward when it comes to suicide.

After this, something just kind of fizzled out inside of me. I came to the conclusion that as much as I wanted to just make everyone happy, I couldn't. I couldn't make everyone believe that I was sorry, and I couldn't make everyone stop seeing me as just someone who wanted to “bend the knee” to avoid backlash.

So I was done. I gave up. I didn't care anymore. I was numb.

I made one last series of tweets stating just that, announced I was taking a break from twitter to heal, privated my account, and left. (I also made a tweet asking for people to report the person who screenshotted my meme and got people on me, but then I got called out for targeting a minor, and deleted this tweet as well.)

That brings us to right now.

I decided that I needed to really sit down, gather up all my thoughts, and recount the entire series of events. I just want everything that happened, including my words and actions, to be understood.

I'm not a bad person. I'm not an ableist or a transphobe. But I am a human. A human who makes mistakes. And when I make mistakes, I want to learn and do right by the people I've hurt.

I'm also a person with an extremely fragile mental and emotional state. A person who doesn't think clearly under pressure. A person who's had to put up with a lifetime of feeling like a failure who should honestly just cease to exist.

The bottom line here is this: I've gone through the suffering that I needed to go through. I realized the consequences of my ignorance. I've tried and am still trying my best to do right by everyone. I need to get this thing off my chest, confess to my sins, and finally let this whole thing go. So I can heal. So that everyone I hurt and everyone who got caught up in this can heal.

I would be lying if I said I completely understood xenogenders at this point. I probably never will. But I don't need to understand. I just need to be respectful. Because at the end of the day, no one's hurting anyone by identifying with a xenogender identity. They're just people trying to find themselves, just like I am. Who the hell am I to put them down? I'm neurodivergent. I've been young. I should know better.

I sincerely apologize to the xenogender community, to the LGBT+ community, to my friends, and to everyone that got caught up in this.

I love you all.

TL;DR: Made a shitty meme. Didn't do my research on xenogenders. Was ableist/transphobic. Had a severe mental health breakdown. Alienated everyone. Am genuinely sorry.

NOTE: At the time of posting this, my Twitter is still on private, and I’m afraid to unprivate it just yet. I would appreciate it if my friends could share this so it can get out there.