A STATEMENT ABOUT THE CT SITUATION
I Didn’t Want The Large Publication To Go Away
All I wanted to do was raise awareness about the story and have the people responsible for writing it and then editing it take ownership of it and apologize
I say this with a heavy heart. The most recent publication that I just signed up for to write at has shut down permanently. I had just written a story in there a little while ago. I was planning on writing more.
Then I saw a story that shocked me to the core. It was a story so hateful and poorly written that it made my head hurt. It also made me do something that I never do. I criticized the writer harshly for his hateful words against the LGBTQ community. I knew deep down that something was wrong with the story so I decided to report it.
I didn’t think much about what would happen for merely reporting a blatantly hateful story. I figured that the platform would either take down the writer’s story, punish the writer and then move on. Instead, the whole ordeal ended with a huge, awesome publication shutting down.
That’s not the beginning of the story though. I should take it back a little bit. I had to share the story with some of my other editor friends first in a private chat to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind thinking that the story was as bad and as hateful as I thought that it was.
I even went as far as to criticize the editor on it without knowing who the editor was at the time. It turned out that the editor was in fact the owner of this publication. He had even endorsed the story with 50 claps. In a letter that he just published today, he apologized and said he was overworked and stressed. I can excuse that but it was such a short story and was so poorly written, I don’t know how even on my worst day I’d let that into one of my publications.
Before I found out who the editor was, I private messaged the owner of this publication after I had noticed this. I didn’t want him to get dinged for someone else’s mistake. Up to this point, I really respected him and his publication. That’s why I wanted to continue to write with him.
When I found out the information mentioned previously about him letting it through and that he seemed to be defending his initial decision even after all of the backlash from many respected editors, including myself, I started to feel a little angry and hurt.
I couldn't reconcile the version of this man that I was seeing now versus the one that I’d submitted to just days before and was in awe and respected very much.
A few people then started tweeting support to get him to remove the piece. I had heard that he had but by then it was too late. His publication was erased from existence for good. His profile was gone. The offending story and any trace of it were gone. And the writer who’d written it was gone.
It was like Medium after all of the urging and reporting just wanted to wipe the stain of the controversy completely away. Honestly, I don’t blame them for not wanting to be part of such hateful messaging against the gay community. I think that they wanted to make it clear that anyone who was involved in publishing or writing it should be harshly punished.
I’m sad because I’m starting to feel that people are going to think that it was too harsh of a punishment. Even I, the one who got the ball rolling with this, think that it’s too harsh of a punishment. I didn’t want anyone to get removed from the platform, let alone an entire large publication with a massive following.
I just wanted to help this publication owner save his reputation and own up to his mistakes and error in his ways. Well, now, he’s saying that he’ll continue to self-publish elsewhere and this was all a blessing in disguise but I can’t help but feel a little remorse for what happened after the fact.
I really wanted this man who I’ll only name W and his publication which I’ll only refer to as CT to continue going and feel terrible for the punishment that this led to for him. It could’ve just been a simple oversight on his part. I know that with him publishing and endorsing the hateful story, it definitely didn’t look good but he never seemed like a hateful person to me ever. He was a warm, welcoming, and supportive writer and editor.
I wish him well in whatever he does next and I just wanted people who are going to feel the large hole left without CT to know that we can move on and move forward from what has happened. I have always been about building community and I want to continue to do that with my fellow brilliant minds here. Let’s grow stronger and move faster from this than ever before. I know a lot of us are grieving this loss right now.
