by Macunaima » Thu Feb 05, 2015 9:11 pm
It´s not so much that he´s exploiting them, at least to my mind, WFF. In fact, I´m pretty sure now that he just gives them their money without asking them to do much of anything. The POTENTIAL for abuse is there in spades, mind you, but I´ve seen nothing other than Bambi´s accusation confirming it, yet.
The three problems to my mind are as follows:
1) Bill is an Elder in one of the most homophobic religions in the Western world, the folks almost single-handedly responsible for getting gay marriage banned in California (although that backfired on them spectacularly). So in his "approved for society" persona as William Armintrout, he officially goes along with LDS policy that homosexuality is a disease and trans- people are basically sick or criminals.
Meanwhile, as Monty Scwhab, Bill just loves him some t-folk! And then he hires them for peanuts, supposedly to give them oin the job training because they are so stigmatized by society.
So Bill is on the one hand contributing to this stigmatization and on the other, making bank off of it as a charity act.
2) This leads into the second problem: Bill´s "ban everything" attitude to people who supposedly "invaded others' privacy" is, in fact, to protect HIS privacy as a Mormon Elder who wants to stone his trannies and be transpinnays pal, too. The women themselves posted on the two sites with the same fotos, the same names.... They weren´t using any aliases at all, except the ones they were commonly know under. Meanwhile "Monty Schwab's" identity was sacrosanct: HE was the one who couldn´t be talked about.
When you realize this, Bill comes off as a mealy-mouthed little hypocrite. He didn´t want anyone to know he was hiring trans editors because it might backfire on him. It was only when HE HIMSELF got outed as "Monty Schwab" that Bill, suddenly and publicly, started saying "What's wrong with trans editors anyhow? Frothers are a bunch of homophobes!"
He certainly wasn´t going to risk his reputation in the LDS by publicly associating with transwomen, however, until some Frothers made that inevitable
So no, Billy shouldn´t be getting "good Samaritan" points for fighting the good fight against transphobia, being that he himself is VIRULENTLY transphobic. This sort of phobia doesn´t mean, necessarily, that you hate the object of your obsession. More often than not, your fascinated by it, but also repelled.
Bill wants to hobnob with transpeople, but then not have his good name associated with those doings?
Mormon, please.
3) Finally, there was something undeniably sleazy about the way Bill introduced these women to the gaming community. They were the center of a lot of sexual double entendres and attention. Many TMP members protested about this back in the day, saying it was sexual harassment. I think consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want as long as they don´t hurt others. If the women are OK with the flirting and their boss will back them up if things get out of hand, then I don´t think we need Big Brother watching over everything we say in order to "protect women". I said this at the time.
The fact that this was a huge debate back in 2013 shows, however, how common the sexualized banter between the ladies and certain TMP members was. Frankly, for anyone who was aware of the stereotype of the socially inept male gamer, it was hella embarassing. And Bill egged it on with his updates as to the editrixes' relationship status. In short, there was a very serious vibe that the editrixes were more than passing interested in certain of the men on TMP, who were CERTAINLY interested in the editirixes.
Well, it then becomes downright disconcerting to find out that Billy was previously advertising his services to these women, on his other site, as a relationship guru who could help them land western boyfriends and navigate tricky immigration procedures.
Maybe Billy's favorite film is The Crying Game, but in real life, those sorts of situations can get very violent, very quickly, because of homo and transphobia. Again, I am sure the editirixes don´t need to be protected from themselves, but one wonders just how far some of that flirting went and when, if ever, the men found out that the women in question weren´t cis.
This is a complicated question in trans ethics, for which there is no good response (and it´s a shame that Wendy got tired of all the anti-trans bullshit floating around this discussion -- she could give us her opinion). But I think I feel safe in saying that Bill dealt with this situation with his usual customary grace and tact: i.e., something akin to an elephant on roller-skates.
