Paizo Update from Jeff Alvarez

...
This whole affair has been really hard on the trans community on these forums, because we can't have a conversation about someone doing something transphobic without having to also have to educate everyone about everything to do with being trans, and dealing with a bunch of people debating us on whether we get to exist or not. But those of us who do speak up often don't feel like we can step away from the discussions regardless of how draining it all is, because we know that there are probably dozens of other trans people who are too afraid or don't have the energy to do this stuff who are silently being hurt by this stuff.

Tender Tendrils and others.

Thank you for taking the draining effort to reach out and further educate. Your efforts and that of others have made me realize that my support for and knowledge of trans people is not enough and that I need to further educate myself through research and not questions.

Thank you

Here's the funny thing about saying "I wouldn't mind being called 'she' sometimes": It's a hypothetical that is completely divorced from the context of why we do mind. It's a statement made in complete ignorance--using that word neutrally--of gender dysphoria, the forms of harassment and abuse most commonly and easily used against us, and the challenges of transitioning.

I agree with those who have expressed exhaustion with those who would rather demand we explain ourselves than simply look it up. That being said, it's better that people learn than that they don't, so here goes. Here's why that comparison comes across as embarrassingly sheltered.

Misgendering has no meaning if there's no system of oppression or trauma to empower it. It's like trying to call a white person a racial slur. There is no implicit threat to me calling you a girl (aside from, perhaps, the implication that you might be gay, but that's a different issue).

(non-specific "you" follows)

To a trans person, being deliberately misgendered or deadnamed is an act of violence. It is an implicit threat to our ability to self-identify. How are we supposed to react? If we politely correct you, but you ignore us, the message is clear: We don't get to decide how we're referred to in this space, you are. Other people in the space might hear what you call us and use that out of confusion, or might feel more empowered to call us that deliberately where otherwise they would not have risked the potential for conflict. Even people who support us will be constantly reminded that we're trans, since it's now placed front-and-center in any conversation with us. Worst of all, I'm not exaggerating when I call it an act of violence: It could literally be a threat that if we try to call you out, you'll hurt us.

You are telling us you're in charge of our name and our identity. And a cis person doesn't know what that's like because a cis person has never actually been deadnamed.

A trans person with a deadname grew up with that deadname. They were called it every day. They had to consciously reject it, consciously choose a new name. Same goes for misgendering. A cis person has never been meaningfully misgendered because cis people don't have to justify to justify their gender to anyone to begin with.

It's quite possible that a cis person could experience gender dysphoria. Suppose, without warning, a cis man's body began to act like a cis woman's. Their genitalia started reversing and started growing breasts (what some men might playfully call "moobs"). Their voice started to break to pre-puberty levels. Most seriously of all, everyone around them started calling them a woman all the time, calling them by a name they didn't recognize--and threatening them with harassment, bullying or outright assault whenever they tried to use their original male name or pronouns, or even wear anything other than skirts and dresses.

But barring that, Sunderstone, you literally have no idea what deadnaming or misgendering feels like. Your experiences are fundamentally different from mine. Without "cis", what word are we supposed to use when referring to your fundamentally different experiences? "Normal"? "Default"?

If you don't like being called cisgender, that's a good thing to get over. These labels are survival tools for the rest of us.

EDIT: As a sidenote, I want to note why I emphasized how "easy" deadnaming is as a form of harassment. Conflict is expensive for most people. We don't enjoy it. We really don't enjoy other people seeing us as a jerk. For this reason, most forms of harassment seek to be subtle, safe, and ideally invisible to all except the target.

Deadnaming and misgendering are exceptionally safe by default. Many who aren't explicitly involved in trans issues don't even notice it--you seemed surprised it even bothered us. Not only is it "cheap" to misgender someone, it is extremely "costly" to call someone out on it. It forces the trans person to seem like the fragile nitpicker, the whiner, the scold. And that's if people generally support us! That's if it was an accident! If not, it could turn into a full-on argument where we are put in danger, where the entire room turns against us. It marks us as the aggressors. It's an extremely effective tactic of harassment.

For this reason, deadnaming and misgendering are very popular tactics for transphobes. "Accidental" misgendering/deadnaming is an especially common practice in left-leaning spaces, where being openly bigoted would get you ejected but being quietly, "oops-I-did-it-again" bigoted is perfectly safe.

Also, two other things I want to note:

1. I don't really want to paint being trans as some item of horrible suffering. It's exhausting to paint it that way when most of our suffering comes as the consequence of how we're treated. In this case, I'm forced to talk about our trauma so that our concerns will be taken seriously (which is, by the way, "why we have to talk about experiences at all"), but I don't want to center trans trauma as the cornerstone of the trans experience. Being trans is not a tragedy, and many of us take great joy in it.

2. When I talk about the "implicit threat", bear in mind that "intention to follow through" is not a factor here. It doesn't matter if only 1 in every 100 of those who threaten us would ever actually follow through. One is enough that we have to take the other ninety-nine seriously.

I'm going to defer to Inheritor on this, though, and not engage any further. I just wanted to say all this for those who do read these posts in good faith.

Here's the funny thing about saying "I wouldn't mind being called 'she' sometimes": It's a hypothetical that is completely divorced from the context of why we do mind. It's a statement made in complete ignorance--using that word neutrally--of gender dysphoria, the forms of harassment and abuse most commonly and easily used against us, and the challenges of transitioning.

Misgendering has no meaning if there's no system of oppression or trauma to empower it. It's like trying to call a white person a racial slur. There is no implicit threat to me calling you a girl (aside from, perhaps, the implication that you might be gay, but that's a different issue).

All of that being true, a lot of cis people will still react strongly, often very strongly, to being misgendered. Even by accident, but even more so if done intentionally. I'll take Sunderstone at his word he wouldn't, but it's far from a general rule.

It's all tied up in gender roles and status. Ideas of proper masculinity and femininity. A lot of nasty insults are tied up in saying someone is like the other* gender. Even the implication you might be gay might work as much the other way around. Partly, being gay is bad because it's breaking the proper gender roles. Gay guys are stereotyped as effeminate. Effeminate guys are stereotyped as gay. The two are tied together because both are likened to being like a woman. (I think it's similar but different for women. I'm more familiar with seeing it play out among guys.)

For anyone who thinks trans people are oversensitive about being misgendered and cis people wouldn't care, I advise not going to your local dive bar and testing this theory.

*Ignoring nonbinary genders here because anyone cool with that is unlikely to be reacting this way.

I agree with those who have expressed exhaustion with those who would rather demand we explain ourselves than simply look it up. That being said, it's better that people learn than that they don't, so here goes. Here's why that comparison comes across as embarrassingly sheltered.

Let me say thank you for providing more perspective and insight into the trans experience. We all (or at least most of us) agree that you are under no obligation nor are we (non-trans) entitled to the commentary, but it nonetheless allows us to better understand your experiences and try to better understand how our actions affect you.

...a lot of cis people will still react strongly, often very strongly, to being misgendered. Even by accident, but even more so if done intentionally.

I personally couldn't care less what people call me, but I have the privilege of not being part of a community that is routinely disrespected and harassed so its never going to affect me like it does others. The simple fact is, since I have never been the subject of this negativity, I am never going to truly understand at a fundamental level why words could have such an effect on a person to be considered violence. For me, it is a simple matter of "sticks and stone will break my bones, but words can never hurt me." I know I am 'old school' in that regard.

(It's also possible that cis people who say they wouldn't mind being misgendered have other reasons behind it. Some people just don't have very strong gender identities, and that's fine--it's just another highly distinct experience.)

thejeff wrote:

...a lot of cis people will still react strongly, often very strongly, to being misgendered. Even by accident, but even more so if done intentionally.

I personally couldn't care less what people call me, but I have the privilege of not being part of a community that is routinely disrespected and harassed so its never going to affect me like it does others. The simple fact is, since I have never been the subject of this negativity, I am never going to truly understand at a fundamental level why words could have such an effect on a person to be considered violence. For me, it is a simple matter of "sticks and stone will break my bones, but words can never hurt me." I know I am 'old school' in that regard.

Plenty of old school people who are part of a privileged community still react really badly to being misgendered. That was my point. If you don't, that's great.

For many privileged people though, reacting strongly is a way of defending and asserting that privilege. The reasons why are far different from why trans people are hurt by it, but the idea that misgendering is this strange thing that trans people invented and cis people just can't understand why it bothers them is just nonsense. Misgendering has a been a way to insult cis people basically for ever. Long before trans people had enough public stature to complain about it.

(It's also possible that cis people who say they wouldn't mind being misgendered have other reasons behind it. Some people just don't have very strong gender identities, and that's fine--it's just another highly distinct experience.)

Certainly a possibility. Or they're secure enough in their identity (and their privilege?) they can laugh it off.

I don't think I've ever met anyone in real life who doesn't have some particular aspect of their identity that is like a raw nerve when othered, ignored, or actively used against them.

It may not be their gender identity, but nearly everyone has something foundational and precious to their sense of self.

Just dropping in real quick here to publicly thank you, Kobold Cleaver, for some of the most patient and informative and brave and positive posts I've seen show up on these boards in a long, long time. You are appreciated. And you are heard.

(It's also possible that cis people who say they wouldn't mind being misgendered have other reasons behind it. Some people just don't have very strong gender identities, and that's fine--it's just another highly distinct experience.)

So this happened to me at a pub. I had very long hair and a rather sizable full beard. My partner and I were out for some food seated in the back by the wall. I was wearing a Hawaiian print shirt and had my back to central area, and more importantly was from where the servers approached our table. My partner is cisfemale and pretty obviously so. So we are chatting when our server makes her first contact with us.

"So how are you ladies doing tonight?"

My partner, Asmodeus bless her soul, starts laughing. I say nothing and just turn my head and look at her, giggling and smiling.

"OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY!"
"Not a big deal, I totally understand. I'd like some cheese curds, please."

Now, this happened a second time with a different server. My partner, Asmodeus bless her soul, just laughed some more.

"OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY!"

The servers were more embarrassed about it than I was. I found it humorous; I must look like a rather broad shouldered woman from behind while sitting down. Sadly, both the beard and the hair are now no more.

Just dropping in real quick here to publicly thank you, Kobold Cleaver, for some of the most patient and informative and brave and positive posts I've seen show up on these boards in a long, long time. You are appreciated. And you are heard.

'-'

transphobia needs to go the way of apartheid
oppressive, discriminatory conduct has no place in civilized society

sadly, many often show our society is less civilized than we want to believe or hope it is

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

but the idea that misgendering is this strange thing that trans people invented and cis people just can't understand why it bothers them

I'm confused here. Do you think that's what I said?

No, not at all.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Here's the funny thing about saying "I wouldn't mind being called 'she' sometimes": It's a hypothetical that is completely divorced from the context of why we do mind. It's a statement made in complete ignorance--using that word neutrally--of gender dysphoria, the forms of harassment and abuse most commonly and easily used against us, and the challenges of transitioning.

Misgendering has no meaning if there's no system of oppression or trauma to empower it. It's like trying to call a white person a racial slur. There is no implicit threat to me calling you a girl (aside from, perhaps, the implication that you might be gay, but that's a different issue).

All of that being true, a lot of cis people will still react strongly, often very strongly, to being misgendered. Even by accident, but even more so if done intentionally. I'll take Sunderstone at his word he wouldn't, but it's far from a general rule.

It's all tied up in gender roles and status. Ideas of proper masculinity and femininity. A lot of nasty insults are tied up in saying someone is like the other* gender. Even the implication you might be gay might work as much the other way around. Partly, being gay is bad because it's breaking the proper gender roles. Gay guys are stereotyped as effeminate. Effeminate guys are stereotyped as gay. The two are tied together because both are likened to being like a woman. (I think it's similar but different for women. I'm more familiar with seeing it play out among guys.)

For anyone who thinks trans people are oversensitive about being misgendered and cis people wouldn't care, I advise not going to your local dive bar and testing this theory.

*Ignoring nonbinary genders here because anyone cool with that is unlikely to be reacting this way.

Now now, don't use pronouns for Sunderstone. For Sunderstone is an enigma which refuses to be labeled by such trivial things such as gender or race. Sunderstone just is.

TwilightKnight wrote:

I would just eliminate all pronouns from my library, but many forums, including this one make it difficult or impossible to use Prince's "love symbol" to represent everyone regardless of their gender/orientation preference.

I actively focus on referring to everyone as 'they' when I don't know otherwise.

Still efforting on this, but pretty much same.

Good afternoon my friends! It has been brought to our attention by more than one beloved member of our community that someone here has been stirring the pot with transphobic comments.

Let me make myself clear, this will absolutely not be tolerated here. We want this to be a safe space for everyone. Bullying, deadnaming, and misgendering are not welcome here, ever. Speak to others the way you wish to be spoken to and treat others the way you wish to be treated.

Ignorance of something is not an excuse to be hurtful. It may fly with some people once, but after that it is clearly deliberate. There is no reason to not make the effort to educate yourself on things you don't have knowledge on. If everyone just took a moment to see things from another perspective, with a bit of empathy and understanding, we would all benefit.

Please understand we are quite short staffed at the moment, and are having some difficulties keeping up with the posts that are being flagged. We appreciate those of you that have emailed customer service directly and brought our attention to the matter.

Be excellent to each other.
Power to the peaceful.

Okay, here's my best low-effort effort at summarizing the biggest issues we've all talked about. Let me know if I missed anything major!

Hostile Environment Allegations/Sara Marie's Firing
On September 13th, former employee Diego Valdez posted about the firing of his boss, Sara Marie, in an event he described as "the culmination of both herself and my entire department having to deal with some especially difficult and problematic internal stuff for the last 3 weeks specifically." He resigned in protest of her firing.

Shortly after, former employee Jessica Price posted an in-depth thread with a host of allegations, most of which have by now been to some extent corroborated by others or confirmed by Paizo staff. She described an environment at the Paizo offices which heavily discouraged any kind of employee advocacy or organizing, including a bizarre and bullheaded resistance to a request that the Paizo offices be vacuumed after seven years, even while employees such as Crystal Frasier were suffering asthma attacks. Crystal has confirmed this. Other incidents included an attitude of, in Jessica's words, "[we] figure we've only got 3 or 4 more years before it becomes too politically incorrect to do madness stuff in our books so we need to milk it while we can,", heavy reluctance from management towards a lot of the same representation they now accept praise for, company president Jeff Alderez harassing a woman into quitting with questionable gifts and referring to gay employees as "little [f-slurs]", and Jason Bulmahn instructing his team not to communicate with Jessica after she rejected his (reportedly respectfully-made) advances. That last incident has been, I believe, confirmed by Jason himself?

Low Salaries
Another issue is that developers are paid very little, especially considering they are expected to live near enough to commute to the Paizo offices, located in one of the most expensive cities in the country. Literally less than some fast food jobs. This is discussed by Liz Courts here and here, as well as by Mark Seifter in this thread. It seems that there is a sense of nihilistic "how long before I have to quit for a real job" dread among many Paizo employees, for whom the local cost of living looms tall against their small earnings. Liz Courts made $36,000 per year.

There is not currently much transparency about salaries at Paizo, so while many have suggested that Paizo simply does not make enough money to pay its employees the undeniable value of their work (Mark Seifter and Jessica have both compared working on official Pathfinder content to working in academia in terms of the skills and experience required), it's impossible for us to know for sure--at least at this time.

Paizo remains a for-profit, privately-owned company, and is not publicly traded. Some have suggested implementing varying levels of workplace democracy or employee ownership, pursuing a nonprofit model, increasing the cost of some or all products, soliciting donations via some sort of tip jar system, or selling the golem for scrap metal. Okay, nobody's suggested the last one yet.

"That Time President Doxxed Someone"
Under a year ago, the now-President of the company, Jeff Alderez, called out a perceived-rude poster using their real-world name, which they did not use on the forums. This was the second time he'd done so to someone on the thread, but the first time anyone noticed and called him out on it. It appears Jeff accessed the strictly confidential information kept on Paizo's storefront to in an effort to intimidate the poster into being more civil. His justification was basically, "Well, you all get to call me out by name, I should be able to do the same to you." This is, objectively speaking, a form of doxxing, and has been described as extremely unprofessional even by those who consider it a minor infraction.

After 13 days of both sides of the original argument telling him this behavior was inappropriate, Jeff redacted the names and issued the following apology:

Apologies [username], I wanted to get your attention and get the rest of you guys to understand how seriously we are taking this but I really didn't mean for you to feel unsafe. I've removed your name from my original post and I'll be cleaning up the thread a bit as well.

...

I honestly had no idea that this was such a big deal and I apologize for my behavior.

We don't know anything else about the incident in question. This has not stopped people from speculating.

Transphobia
Shortly after Jessica Price's thread, former employee Crystal Frasier came forward talking about negative experiences she had working at Paizo as an out trans woman.

Jess hasn't even talked about how Paizo explicitly laid out different freelancing rules for their only transgender employee at the time solely because a queer employee made that manager uncomfortable and she didn't want her having outside opportunities.

Or how they fired that employee remotely while she was out with a broken ankle, because that manager wanted to hire one of her (straight, cisgender) friends instead

Or how Paizo made employees double up in convention rooms, and refused to bring transgender employees to conventions (limiting career development and networking) because they wouldn't room a cis woman employee with a trans woman coworker even when they both said it was fine.

...

The only con I ever had a room for was PaizoCon & only b/c my wife also worked at Paizo and he could put us in together. He wouldn't let me come to any other convention because he claimed he couldn't afford to give me a room to myself. Even after Amanda volunteered to room w/ me

...

Yeah, even the year I was an Industry Insider, I had to crowdfund my trip to GenCon. The other years I've been there were b/c Green Ronin brought me out and put me up (and I roomed with a cis woman without incident)

...

Heh. I still remember making changes to some blatant, over-the top transphobic material in one book, then getting yelled at by the manager who had written it for messing with his "vision."

...

If you never listen to your minority employees, and hand-wave off their complaints, eventually they’ll stop coming to you.
And if you’re the kind of manager who never listened in the first place, you’ll probably mistake that silence for the problem being solved.

If you are confused at why this is a big deal, I encourage you to go back and browse this thread for a while. There has been a lot of thinly- and not-so-thinly-veiled transphobia on the forums these last few weeks, including deadnaming and misgendering (referring to a trans person by the wrong name/pronouns), doxxing threats against trans posters, and a lot of bad-faith sea lioning. The moderators are swamped, as their team is down multiple members and dealing with a change in leadership. This has made it a stressful environment for trans community members, many of whom have expressed exhaustion with explaining the same thing many times on the same thread--sometimes to the same people. Some of those who find the allegations unconcerning have expressed a desire to see these threads locked, and there have been a number of likely troll accounts who've joined over the last few weeks and only posted here to start fights.

On the other hand, a number of people have been asking questions who do revise their positions when given answers. Some community members are definitely asking in good faith.

Basically, if you have to "just ask questions", keep in mind that you may be interpreted as attempting to start an argument or frustrate people. If it seems like other posters aren't being as trusting as you think they ought to be, consider that we may have already talked to three people who spoke exactly like you and just wanted to troll us.

In "Conclusion"
As far as I know, none of the ex-employees have called for a boycott. A number of them have asked that we send kindness to current and former employees and keep telling Paizo that we want to pay for queer representation, diverse stories, and the good treatment of the content's creators. That said, a number of us have expressed a reluctance to buy Paizo products until and unless these current matters are resolved in a satisfactory manner. I personally don't want to buy anything else from them until I know that Paizo is a company I can trust again. A lot of people have talked about the necessity of Paizo hiring a third party to investigate these issues fully, or even for Jeff to step down. The most common thread is that we want more than words.

Jeff's first statement, above, does not address many of the issues we're talking about now--in particular, it almost entirely ignores allegations of transphobia and the doxxing issue (though the doxxing issue wasn't being discussed much until after the statement came out). We are presently waiting for a second statement--one that, according to many of those working at Paizo, will be substantive. There's a lot of talk of things going on behind the scenes at the company, but not a lot has been shared so far except what seem to be assurances from numerous employees that this is being taken seriously.

EDIT: This statement from James Jacobs seems worth including as well. :)

My understanding is that Jason Buhlman confirmed that he did make advances, but not instructing his team not to communicate with her afterwards, just saying that the working relationship suffered.

Ah, thank you!

Thank you to Heather and KC both.

I'd also like to point out what seems to be a tacit admission that the office cleanliness issue that Jessica Price spoke on in particular was specifically all but confirmed by Jeff Alvarez in the blog post.

It may seem petty but as someone currently trying to get a OSHA violation resolved in their own workplace without resorting to the nuclear option, I'm of the opinion the person or persons who allowed for it to get bad enough that such steps were required should probably not hold any kind of executive power. It is an effective demonstration that they do not care about their employees' well being in any meaningful way outside of the bare minimum required to produce profit.

Really appreciate the summary Kobold. I've been trying to follow along but I'm not the most social media literate, so I quickly lost track of what was going on with Twitter and these huge threads are difficult to follow as well, especially with so much of the conversation getting removed.

My understanding is that Jason Buhlman confirmed that he did make advances, but not instructing his team not to communicate with her afterwards, just saying that the working relationship suffered.

He did mention it -may- have played a part in the communication breakdown.

Me thinks Jason is lucky to escape Legal action for this, I am curious why he still has a job. However. Is the type of person Paizo wants on staff? The sort of workplace they want to encourage? Where managers can make sexual advances on people, and when rebuffed cut them out of the process..

Not dating in the workplace is something I was taught at my first seasonal job when I was 19. Just saying.

How could they allow the carpet to not be vacuumed in that long? Asco.

Jessica indicated Bulmahn had a reputation for asking out all the female coworkers, which is, you know. Not a great reputation for professionalism. I don't want to infer beyond what we know, but in general, I agree with keftiu.