James Worrad (aka J.L. Worrad): The Man Who Joined Forces with a White Supremacist
One of the more active contributors to the six-month-and-counting campaign of abuse targeting me is James Worrad (sometimes bylined as J. L. Worrad), a British blogger based in Leicester. Like most of my attackers, he claims to be anti-abuse and was very active in November 2014 in ‘informing’ people that I’m a dangerous sociopath. He has extensively speculated on my mental health and pushed the narrative that I’m mentally unstable, a popular misogynistic tactic and an obviously ableist one.
What he neglects to mention is that he spent two years harassing and trying to get a notorious bigot to attack me. A notorious bigot who has frightened many women of color through threats of violence, or directing his followers to deluge them with the same.
James Worrad started blogging about me in August 2012. He initiated contact; I had not blogged, tweeted, or otherwise discussed him in any way before he’d started tweeting me— the aggression from his part was essentially unprovoked and came out of nowhere.
I blocked him on Twitter. This didn’t stop him from trying over and over to contact me or get my attention (attempts to contact a person when that person has expressly or implicitly indicated they don’t want contact with you is, in fact, the textbook definition of harassment. In the real world, it’d result in a restraining order).
Since he couldn’t reach me by Twitter anymore, in Jan 2013 he left this incredibly alarming comment in my moderation queue.
When I didn’t let that comment through, he took it back to his blog: yes, his modus operandi is to try to sic Vox Day on a WOC he hates — both on his blog and on twitter. Who’s Vox Day? He’s a white supremacist, misogynist, and recently GG supporter. That’s right: James Worrad’s idea of dealing with an uppity WOC he has decided is awful is to try and sic a violent white supremacist and misogynist on her. This isn’t anywhere close to anti-abuse or anti-harassment: it’s an act of inciting both.
Come July 2014, Worrad tried again in an open letter to draw VD’s attention to me. Then there was this little video, of course. So he was fixated on trying to sic VD on me from August 2012 to July 2014. That’s nearly two years straight. This was all before the world became convinced that I’m some harassment monster, so at that point Worrad had even less of a justification than he does now. All he saw was an opportunity for an entertaining spectacle, ignoring that he was literally trying to get a woman of color potentially attacked, stalked, or killed.
In late 2014, Worrad followed me on Twitter once rumors of my identity started circulating. I soft-blocked him to prevent him from following me. He simply refollowed me again; this happened several times.
Harassment? You tell me. Creepy and obsessive? Absolutely. Will I ever want to be in the same room with him? Never. In fact, I have spoken to a number of women friends who have also mentioned they find him deeply creepy and wouldn’t want to cross paths with him at conventions. I agree.
So if you see Worrad popping up in your comments or mentions claiming I’m the evil stalker and harasser while he’s just trying to keep my horribleness in check, you might want a little context. To the best of my knowledge, Worrad has never acknowledged he was in the wrong to spend two years fixated on me and trying to do me very direct, very real harm.
I have received no apologies.
UPDATE: Worrad has responded and maintains that he was being ‘satirical’ (what does trying to get a white supremacist with a large following to attack a woman of color satirize? Satirical in the same sense that Jace Connor was satirical, perhaps). He then repeats a mischaracterization of my conflict with an author some years back as a matter of me singling her out and targeting her due to her past experiences — a characterization that she has publicly contradicted. He also refers to her in a dehumanizing manner, despite her request — publicly made, multiple times — that she does not want to be referred to in this way. To the best of my knowledge, he never obtained her consent in 2014 when he contributed to publicizing this author’s conflict with me and characterizing it in a counter-factual way. He also has not, again to the best of my knowledge, reached out to her since or obtained her consent to (once more) use his distortion of her story to slander me.
I find this troubling because it suggests to me that James Worrad has no real regard for her agency or personhood and sees her as a public item, a piece of ammunition to be used in his campaign to contribute to my abuse. But regardless of Worrad’s claims, his defense of himself (that I’m terrible and therefore bring it on myself) rests singularly on victim-blaming and denies that he has done anything wrong: he’s following a DARVO routine to the letter. He doesn’t seem to understand that ‘siccing a white supremacist on a woman of color’ is a bad thing to do, regardless of whoever she is or whatever she has done.
To pre-empt the thought, there’s no room for him to claim that I was ‘harassing’ or ‘targeting’ him, since as I said, prior to August 2012 I had no knowledge of his existence and certainly had not spoken of or criticized him in any way. This is absolutely the first time I’ve ever spoken up about his nonstop, unprovoked harassment and abuse. I reiterate that my contact with Worrad in 2012–2014 was initiated by him — and it was, as I made very clear by blocking him, unwanted every time. Worrad doesn’t care if a woman wants him to leave her alone; he will circumvent any means she has of removing him from her online interactions. In short, his continued behavior cements my belief that he has no respect for women’s boundaries.
UPDATE (again!): Worrad continues to show up to comment on any blog post that mentions me. At this point, I really wish Internet restraining orders were a thing.
