writersyndrome: Man Banter Harassment at

writersyndrome:

Man Banter Harassment at New York Comic Con Update

UPDATE: October 13th, 2013

Above are the responses to my letters and social media statements that I issued late last night and this morning about the harassment incident from yesterday.

I want to thank the many, many people who have signal-boosted the incident on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, and those who have personally contacted New York Comic Con with their concerns.

I want to thank Lance publicly for his respectful, serious, and prompt reply, and hope this will result in further action from NYCC regarding their Press background checks in the future.

I’m posting this here without further comment, other than to express the fact that you should not be afraid to speak up against harassment at convention spaces.  

People are listening.

An update on the NYCC harassment situation that I reblogged in my last post.  Thank you to everybody who signal boosted. :)

Edit: I just want to add that while it’s awesome the internet awareness in this case led to a good end, just 2 weeks ago, a trans woman wrote about the harassment she took at a video game convention and when Kotaku picked up her tweets, she got a landslide of hate, death threats, degendering, rape threats, and attempts to uncover her past identity to humiliate and hurt her.  So, sometimes speaking up can be dangerous for some women, and we should respect the times when women don’t feel safe to speak up, and not do awareness in those cases without asking them first, nor try to pressure them into saying something if they feel unsafe. (Escher Girls didn’t write about the initial incident because she requested all sites not to, at the time.)  And ultimately, we should try to make an environment where people don’t have to face harassment, and if they do, they can feel safe to speak up, and supported if they do.