To be clear, I regard Isabel Fall's Helicopter Story as a masterpiece akin to Ballard's works, and consider that she will never write again to be a travesty and a horror that is entirely dwarfed by my vast and unending relief that the woman previously known as Fall survived.

Anyway, Isabel Fall (the author) is trans. She published this as both a tour de force of her skill and a subversion of the stupid I sexually identify as an attack helicopter trope from 15 years ago. It's brilliant even in its strategy of existence: It is Judo, not boxing. It is reclaiming something un-reclaimable.

And then she was attacked, as horribly and pointedly as anyone can be attacked online. She wasn't just attacked by haters--there were plenty, both those who refused to read the story and believed the mob conclusion that she was a fake as well as those who objected to the existence of a transwoman--but by her heroes. SF authors, some of them celebrated for their gender (this amazing female author...), piled on. A few eventually admitted to reading the story they had excoriated, but most didn't even do that. They doubled down on attacks, telling her she was a fraud, saying she couldn't possibly be trans or a woman, because they would know. She was told her writing was trash and she should stop. She was told she should kill herself.

She tried. She ended up hospitalized, of her own volition, to stay alive. She abandoned the name Isabel Fall. She sent a brief statement to Clarkesworld asking for the story to be taken down from their online magazine (the magazine's editor, by the way, was strongly supportive of Fall, though he agreed to pull the story at her request). She left a brief note that she would not be writing any longer.

The people who should have celebrated and nurtured one of the most amazing new authors in decades instead drove her out of the field and nearly to suicide. I remember some of your names. I try to separate author from art sometimes, but not here. There are a few authors whose works I will never read or recommend to anyone else.

But I will always recommend this story, the only one I personally know by the author formerly known as Isabel Fall.

Edit: There aren't many #SciFi or #Fantasy authors I know of on mastodon, but I really hope, someday, to see some actual fucking apologies. I remember one or two who were simply awful to (or about, in her absence) Ms. Fall. When they finally (maybe) read the story they'd been bashing mercilessly, they doubled down on their criticism, but this time shifted the focus of their blame. Now it wasn't "This isn't a real woman or a real transwoman"; it became "She should have known better."

Better than what? To write her experience? She should have known not to reclaim and subvert toxic memes about trans people? Fuck that. Those authors were doing the same kind of self-protecting, bullshit non-apology we hear from politicans, oil CEOs, and cops: nothing but justification and victim blaming disguised as apology. This is one of the most toxic and ridiculous things one can do: to blame a person you hurt, through your own impulsive, follow-the-crowd, mob-mentality aggression, by claiming they shouldn't have made you do the awful things. This is Trump reasoning. This is abuser reasoning. This is "look what you made me do."

I'd love to see an actual acknowledgment of what they did, someday, and a sincere apology. I'd love to see them try to get it to Ms. Fall (whatever her name is now, hoping she's alive and well) so she can see and hear their apology. But that's not how this world works. Powerful people, whether billionaires or popular SFF authors, don't honestly and sincerely apologize. They don't take responsibility when they cause harm.

#sff #tragedy #IsabelFall #friendlyfire #trans

TME people also while you're at it keep Isabel Fall's name out of your fucking mouths unless you're talking about #transmisogyny please and thank you

#isabelfall #hotallostaticload