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I Have Nothing to Say About Abigail Thorn
I wish her well, but we’re not friends
A few months back, I wrote an article about the creator of the YouTube channel Philosophy Tube, then presenting as a cis man, being cancelled on Twitter for making a joke that some perceived as transmisogynistic. Now, as apparently everyone in this quadrant of the galaxy knows, she has come out as a trans woman named Abigail Thorn.
She looks beautiful, and I am delighted to see her looking happy. Obviously.
Not a day after her coming out video was posted to her channel, I received polite and carefully crafted comments about how I probably ought to update the article, seeing as the subject no longer used he/him pronouns or her deadname. In my excitement, I added this ‘editor’s note’ to the top of the story:
Yes, I wrote this before Abigail came out as trans and yes, I know that this story just got a whole lot more complex in a very crunchy and cool way. I’ll flesh out my update to this article soon, but sufficed to say, I’ve changed all references to Abigail’s deadname and old pronouns for the time being.
Hauuuunnnnggg, how I wish I had a filter.
The number of people who have read that article since the release of her video and my subsequent promise has absolutely sky-rocketed. I mean, hundreds of people have viewed that article in the past week, whereas merely a few dozen had done so in the past few months since I published it.
But the truth is…
I got nothing.
The thing is, I had all but forgotten I had written that story at all by the time Thorn came out. To be completely honest, I was becoming a little self-conscious about my lack of presence on this platform and I wanted to write a short essay about something juicy and topical while I had the chance.
I do that sometimes. To be honest, I’m doing it now. I’m sorry.
I really was excited about the idea of rethinking what was then such a benign event from a more complicated lens. I thought, this has got to be more interesting now. If for no other reason than comedy purposes.
Imagine Abigail Thorn gleefully reading the critical “-sincerely a trans ally” responses to…
