Heather Armstrong, a pioneering female blogger, took her life yesterday. My gears are grinding entry time I see a headline about her death, reducing her to a "mommy blogger". Even worse, over the next few days you're going to read many posts smearing her as an unhinged anti trans feminist. Heather deserves better.

For those who aren't aware of Heather's trajectory, she began her blog Dooce over 20 years ago. Heather began writing about her job and posted hilarious stories about her coworkers foibles (never using their real names or her employers name). She was one of the first victims of cancel culture. She was doxxed and her employer fired her.

She bounced back, gaining 25k daily readers after her firing. Her blog posts were raw and brutally honest, a rarity in this virtue signaling world. She wrote about her expanding family, navigating an internet based career change, depression, and addiction. She also became a published author who wrote four well received books.

I haven't been a daily reader of Dooce in several years so when I read about her death I did a deep dive. I knew she suffered from life long depression and always appreciated her posts about her struggle with maintaining sobriety.

What I didn't realize was that the last few years of her life were tragic. Here's where the smears and reduction of Heather's legacy begins.

Her marriage ended in divorce. She survived a suicide attempt two years ago. Heather loved her two daughters fiercely. Almost a year after the divorce Heather's younger daughter adopted a non binary identity. On Heather's Instagram she originally posted supportive superlatives about her daughter and the "LGBTQ+ community". After all, Heather was a progressive white woman and that's what progressive white women do: pledge their fealty to gender ideology.

Most of Heather's readers were also progressive white women so last August they were shocked to find Heather posted an "anti trans screed". The backlash was swift and as harsh as you may imagine. Very online people scoured Heather's social media. They accused her of being a transphobe after they discovered that Heather erased all references to her daughter's fake identity from her Instagram. They took out of context screenshots of Heather's post about gender ideology and yep, you guessed it, they canceled Heather again. Her entire life's work was reduced to ashes once she was smeared as a transphobe. In less than 24 hours Heather removed the post and essentially went into hiding.

I admired Heather's early work. She was whip smart and was always willing to support female writers.

So I had to try and find her infamous "anti trans screed". Fortunately someone else copy and pasted its entirety. Fellow ovarit readers, take the time to read this. Heather wasn't a transphobe.... Heather had her JKR moment. The post was directed at progressive white women. Her post pleaded for them to wake up, to break the spell of gender ideology and protect their daughters. She was sounding the alarm because she herself was trying to protect her own daughter.

Here is the link then a small snippet. After reading this, it should be clear why Heather was so admired by so many women. To smear her and reduce her prose to transphobia makes my blood boil.

Heather Hamilton (nee Armstrong) you did the best you could in this life. You were an incredible writer. Your deserve accolades not smears, and I hope you are at peace now. RIP Dooce.

Link: https://amywelborn.wordpress.com/2022/08/12/dooce-and-joan/

"Desisters and Destransitioners, these women are my heroes. And they are going to save this planet because no one else has the guts to do it. And I am going to help them.

Desisters and Destransitioners are being silenced. And they are being kicked off every forum and social platform for trying to tell you to stop doing this to them and to each other. They are telling you what they wish they had known long before they headed down a path toward transition, and I am the only progressive white woman alive who is willing to say publicly and proudly and authentically and unapologetically:

These Desisters and Destransitioners, these women, they are right.

I am a white progressive women who co-opted oppression and saddled my own teenage girls with all that baggage. These Desisters and Destransitioners are now tasked with the burden of undoing the damage done to them by their own parents and trying to figure out a way to get everyone to safety before the whole boat sinks.

They are trying to megaphone the shit out of this goddamn tragedy of millennial proportions. They are screaming:

Get off that boat because that boat is heavier than the Titanic."

EDIT: here is Heather's post in full. It's long and heavy and intense and I sobbed after reading it. She went full terf. Rest well, sister. https://archive.is/GxIV3