The fact that Isabel Fall was an unknown led to her death.
July 2, 2021 6:57 AM   Subscribe

"I believe the story’s detractors were hurt by the title or some of the content or the very idea of the story. I believe they truly feel that trans stories should only be written by trans people and that Fall should have had to out herself before publishing. I believe they believe — still — that they did the right thing. They still destroyed a woman’s life." Emily Van Der Werff writes about the helicopter story, and what came after it. Features detailed interviews of the woman who was once Isabel Fall.

NK Jesmin, a science fiction writer who contributed her thoughts without having read the story (although after Fall had already checked into hospital) has issued an apology statement. Neil Clarke says that if anyone wants to email (using his address, neil@clarkesworldmagazine.com) apologies to Fall, he will make sure she receives them.

Previously on metafilter
posted by Acheman (4 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Heya, see the previous go at this in this deleted post; no knock to Van Der Werff's writing about the situation, but the original thread about Fall's story was a really deep wound for a ton of folks on MetaFilter and that's not a wound we want to reopen just for the sake of some discussion. -- cortex



 
Hopefully this thread can be a space for people to reflect on what happened, including the part that they may have played in it, in a way that is open and honest. What happened to Fall can't be undone, but it's by spending time thinking and talking about events like these that we do better in the future.
posted by Acheman at 7:02 AM on July 2, 2021 [2 favorites]


This article was a fascinating exploration of the modern internet. L. I enjoyed the original story and read it, I think, in the spirit in which it was intended. I was aware of some of the controversy but had no idea it had affected the writer so profoundly. What a time to be alive...
posted by humuhumu at 7:05 AM on July 2, 2021


I read this article yesterday, and it's a relatively long read, but well worth it. Van Der Werff knows what she's talking about, and it's an excellent and thorough analysis of what happened.

Personally, I thought the story was an amazing, dirty, messy, and intimate thought exercise that simply couldn't have been a troll. It was far too on the nose for someone who related to trans identity only through jokes.
posted by explosion at 7:06 AM on July 2, 2021


So many posters were pretty terrible in the previously thread, and I really do hope they think about how they arrived at the conclusions they did, and why they voiced them in the way they did.

I read NK Jemisin's apology, and it was... certainly not as full-throated as I'd like, and has a lot of "I'm sorry that you interpreted me wrong" in it.
posted by sagc at 7:06 AM on July 2, 2021 [5 favorites]


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