I Got Thrown Off Etsy and PayPal for Expressing My Belief in Biological RealityApparently, selling mugs and shirts that glorify violence against ‘TERFs’ is just fine. But ‘I 💜 J.K. Rowling‘? That‘s hate speech.
Colin Wright
23 Jun 2022
If readers recognize my byline, it’s because I’ve spent the last few years arguing strenuously for the (apparently controversial) positions that biological sex is real, that there are only two sexes, and that the differences between males and females matter in some policy contexts.
My views are hardly out of the mainstream. Indeed, we are now seeing a pronounced (if belated) pushback against activists who’ve insisted that biological sex is some kind of transphobic mirage. But for several years, those activists have controlled the commanding heights of many universities, NGOs, and even political parties. This is one of the reasons why I left my career as an academic biologist in 2020: I was tired of researching science in a subculture whose gatekeepers demanded that I repudiate basic scientific facts about human beings.
In my post-academic life, I’ve been growing my online following, including my subscriber base on Reality’s Last Stand, a Substack that I describe as “dedicated to providing weekly news, articles, and other content about gender ideology and the science of sex differences.” Earlier this spring, I found that I’d accumulated enough subscribers to pay my rent, bills, and feed myself, thereby allowing me to quit my day job so I could pursue this mission full-time.
Self-employment in this kind of milieu necessitates being a bit scrappy: This isn’t the genteel world of academic publishing, in which one can rely on university publicists or conference organizers to legitimize and promote one’s work (and which, in any case, cater to a smaller, specialized audience). To reach a mass readership, you need to be up-to-the-minute on current events and well-researched, and you can’t shrink away from the critics who misrepresent your views (often in bad faith). It’s a brash and fast-paced world that doesn’t appeal to everyone. But those who stick around learn the rules of engagement very quickly.
Raising money means asking readers to support me if they find my content valuable, whether through subscriptions or direct donations, which is something I’ve always found awkward. My other route is to sell merchandise with brand logos and graphics (and a political cartoon I made that went viral when Elon Musk retweeted it, which I also sold as an NFT).
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All of this has attracted a predictable stream of “grifting” accusations from the perpetually enraged activist cadres that hate-follow me. It’s par for the course in their world, where a “grifter” is defined to include any gainfully employed person whose views they don’t like. I’ve tried to ignore them. But, as explained below, some of them have given up trying to argue with me, and have instead gone after my revenue streams.
Earlier this month, I received an email from Etsy, a large online store that allows everyday folks to sell their (often self-crafted) merchandise, informing me that the company had “elected to revoke [my] account privileges permanently” for violating Etsy’s policy against selling merchandise that “promotes, supports, or glorifies hatred or violence towards protected groups.” Etsy says the decision was made with “great consideration,” following a “comprehensive review” of my account.
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Source:
https://quillette.com/2022/06/23/i-got-thrown-off-etsy-and-paypal-for-expressing-my-belief-in-biological-reality/
