Dannyzerk

I wanted to make one final post to address everything so we can all move on from this. I had never heard of Ember until the last so many months. If I’m being honest, I still don’t know a ton about Ember. My only real interaction with him was in a small collab I was invited to a couple months ago by Celestium. Shortly after that stream, one of my community members reached out in dms to share that they believed Ember was a biological man pretending to be a woman. I was shocked, because I was under the impression he was a woman. The evidence was all very damning and I especially felt my friend Celestium had a right to know, so I messaged her on September 26th shortly after I received the information. I showed her the screenshots and asked if Ember was open about being trans, but she said no, and that she was under the impression Ember was a woman. I told her I did not want to collab with Ember anymore and how this made me uncomfortable. We all talk about how wrong it is for trans people to infiltrate women’s spaces and I had felt Ember had done that by being in these groupchats with women under false pretenses. Some female VTubers have also come forward and shared that their conversations with Ember sometimes took on a sexual tone. I think this is important context to consider, especially when discussing the trust and boundaries involved in these interactions. And since this situation began over the last day, other creators have also dmed me with their own experiences, as well as even more evidence that clearly pointed to Ember being a biological man. I didn't speak up sooner because I honestly had a lot going on in my personal life, and I knew this situation would bring backlash that I wasn't particularly eager to deal with. I also genuinely wasn't sure what the best way to handle it was. Some people have said I should have privately messaged him first. Personally, I do not believe I owed Ember a private conversation. He was already responding to allegations about his voice changer publicly and lying about being a woman both publicly and privately. I was not friends with him, and I also didn’t feel comfortable having a private conversation where I believed he would not have been honest. I do not appreciate being lied to. Pretending to be a biological woman and hiding your true identity is wrong, especially when you’re forming close relationships with other women who believe you are also a woman. Women share certain things with other women that they would not typically share with a man, and it is a violation of trust. Now that Ember has publicly come out and admitted it, I say good for him. I am glad he is now being honest about who he really is. I did watch the beginning of his stream and did hear him clarify that he is unsure if he is trans but that he would like his community to still call him she/her if they are willing. He also said he isn’t playing some other character, he is himself on stream, just possibly a slightly different version of himself. Regardless, I will continue to call him a he, because that is who he is. I stand firm that transgender ideology is damaging, and clearly Ember is struggling, and for that I do have sympathy. But I believe feeding into these transgender thoughts and calling him a woman is bad and harmful to his mental wellbeing. And I believe lying about who he was to people, both in public and in private, was also wrong. Lastly, Ember also has mentioned his book and how I got the context wrong. Personally, I disagree. My issue was not only that a 14 year old boy character was forcibly raped and castrated, then turned into a woman against his will whilst in a coma, but that it then turned into a romance novel afterwards. It is fiction and I was not trying to cancel him over the book, although I do believe it’s very weird (and relevant to the conversation) and I am entitled to feel that way. That’s really all I have to say on this. I do appreciate the support I have received throughout the situation, it means a lot to me. God bless you all.