There was a fear of reprisal, Joel.

In December, I wrote an article. There was one word in it that was an example of something. The word was 'trans.' The article was distributed by Medium, and therefore there could not have been anything wrong with the article.

Over the next 10 days, I received three warnings from medium that I have to adhere to the rules, and then they gave me a link to the rules. At that point, someone anonymous started pressing me for things I had not spoken about in the article.

Then, quite suddenly, I received an email from Medium telling me that if they sent me one more warning, I would be suspended, and my account removed.

They pointed to my conversation with this individual who told me it wasn't her/him that she hadn't reported me. The individual said that she 'loved my work,' would support me on patreon (never did) and would give me a $3 donation on Ko-fi (which she did.

And then she vanished, never reading my work again, from reading everything for the same 10 days that I was consistently reported.

I have never felt safe since then. I thought about positing this piece here, and then thought "to hell with it," If they suspend my account, so be it. I'll find somewhere else to write.

I am very wary of mentioning the word 'trans' on this platform. There are other issues I stay away from. The site has become very woke, and I'm not woke.