a transphobic TERF blog post

1. Fired For Feminism
How I became the most hated software engineer in Philly for writing about feminism
M. K. FAIN
19 DEC 2019 • 8 MIN READ

2.
This is my story of being #canceled. I was actually canceled twice. The first
time I lost my house, my friends, my community, and an organization I had
dedicated my life to — but that situation was contained, limited in scope to a
tight-knit community of vegan activists. The second time was more dramatic
and is what labeled me officially radioactive. This is the story of the second
time.
In November of 2018, I started working as a software engineer at a
Philadelphia agency called ​Promptworks​. Promptworks makes its money by

3. making products for larger companies and startups, like Wells Fargo or
GoPuff, in addition to military contracting. For most of my time there, I was
on the launch of a new URBN brand, ​Nuuly​. From the very beginning at
Promptworks it was clear there were issues with leadership. There were no
women in technical leadership roles at all, or people of color in any form of
leadership at all. This gives you a decent idea of what we’re working with:

4. Screenshots from Promptworks.com
I can’t say I was happy here or loved this job — but I did love some of the
women I worked with. Montana, Leigh, Rachel, Upma, and Lan became close

5. friends of mine as we bonded over our shared struggles surviving in this
environment.
In June, Montana, Leigh, Rachel and I filed a complaint to the CEO, Greg
Sterndale, about how HR had mishandled conflicts, including sexual
harassment. Greg then proceeded to intimidate each of us individually by
refusing to allow us to discuss our concerns as a group. I left my last
conversation with him in tears and was unable to return to the office for the
rest of the day.
In July, Promptworks laid off four employees for “budgetary reasons”. The
layoffs disproportionately affected female engineers and included Rachel (who
made the lowest salary of any engineer, and was the previous chair of the
diversity committee), and Montana (their longest-employed female engineer
at the time).

6. Slide from my canceled DEI presentation
At this point, it was clear to me that women, especially those who spoke out,
were being targeted by management. It was not clear to me if this was
intentional or subconscious bias. I created a presentation for the next
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee calling out the problem and
proposing radical structural changes going forward. I showed the presentation
to my manager, Matt Riedel, before the meeting as he claimed to be a feminist
ally and I wanted to give him a heads up. He convinced me not to give the
presentation and, in exchange, he would bring up my concerns.

7. I organized a record-breaking attendance for the DEI meeting, and I was
tasked with helping run a DEI post-mortem.
I stayed close friends with Montana and Rachel, and the group of us regularly
went out for drinks and supported each other in slack chats.
About one week after the DEI meeting, I was called into a meeting and told I
was being fired for violations of Promptworks’ “Social Media Policy”:
“This letter confirms our discussion today that your employment with
Promptworks has been terminated for cause, effective immediately. Like all
employees at our company, you are employed on an at-will basis.
On July 23, 2019, Promptworks executive became aware of an article you
published on Medium, dated July 14, titled “Non-binary is the new ‘not like
other girls,’ and it’s deeply rooted in misogyny.” We determined the content
of your article and the linking to Promptworks and Promptworks clients
violates the company’s social media policy and is inconsistent with th offer

8. letter signed on November 16, 2018. As a result, we’ve decide (sic) to
terminate your employment effective immediately.”
This is the article I was fired for writing:
Non-Binary Is the New “Not Like Other Girls,” and it’s Deeply Rooted in
Misogyny
In the summer of 2018 I lived in a house with 3 other women. We spent
a lot of time together that year, and there were many late-night
conversations about the sexism, misogyny, and male violence we had
experienced. We talked about not fitting into what society had expected
of women, we stopped shavi…
M. K. Fain4W - A Feminist Publication

9.
It discusses the rise of the “non-binary” identity and how this is linked to
internalized misogyny, based on my experience with three female roommates
who all identified as non-binary.
The article was published on Medium, with no mention of my employer or
clients. It was linked from the /blog page of my personal website, which also
contained no mention of Promptworks or its clients. During my termination
meeting, they claimed that because I said I worked at Promptworks on the
“software engineer” portion of my website, that this was the violation. Here is
an ​archive link​ to what my website looked like at the time. Additionally, I did
not have a Twitter account or any other social media in my name at the time

10. that they could have referenced. My Twitter account(​mkay_fain​) was created
after I was fired. Claiming I had violated the Social Media policy was a massive
stretch. I believe they were trying to get rid of me.
They took a pro-rated portion of my signing bonus out of my final paycheck,
and threatened to cut off my health insurance right away and withhold
severance unless I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). They also
threated to prevent me from getting unemployment benefits unless I signed,
attempting to use money to silence me. I refused to sign the NDA, and walked
out of there empty-handed.
This is part of a pattern of women being targetted and fired for speaking out
about the harms of gender identity on women. Most recently, Maya Forstater
has been in the news after being fired from her job at the ​Center for Global
Development​ (CGD), a think tank in London, for writing an article critical of
the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.
Her article​ titled, “International development: lets talk about sex”, defends the
use of the biological definition of “woman” rather than one based on gender
identity and self-identification.

11. J.K. Rowling defended Forstater after the employment tribunal ruled against
her, stating, “Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of
their jobs for stating that sex is real?”
From J.K. Rowling’s twitter, Dec. 19
When I was fired, word of my article spread across the Philadelphia tech
community. Rachel and Montana, whom I had supported when they were
fired by Promptworks, said I could not hang out with them anymore.
(Montana had actually helped me edit the article, and had previously

12. expressed that she agreed with a lot of my positions). Leigh encouraged me to
take the article down and apologize. These were women who I had been
willing to put my job on the line to defend after they were targetted.
screenshots from conversations with “friends”
The same day, I was kicked out of multiple Slack groups — including We
Evolve, a Slack community aimed at women in tech which I volunteered for. I
was also kicked out of the Philly Dev slack. The We Evolve crew, led by Suzie
Nieman, organized to start emailing anyone I was affiliated with to have me
canceled. I received private messages from people saying they couldn’t believe
what was happening, but none of them would defend me publicly for fear the
witch-hunt would turn on them.

14. I was scheduled to speak at two Conferences: Write/Speak/Code in San
Fransisco, and Anxiety Tech in New York City. Both received mass complaints
about me from We Evolve and withdrew my invitation. Write/Speak/Code was
a paid speaking opportunity. I lost money on tickets I had already paid for.
Worth noting: Write/Speak/Code is managed by a Trans-identifying male, Zoe
Gagnon. Write/Speak/Code also specifically mentioned that my work with
Women’s Human Rights Campaign ​— an organization committed to
advancing sex-based rights for women and girls across the globe with support
in over 100 countries, is considered “transphobic”.

15. The “activists” also targeted a Philadelphia-based women’s organization which
provides funding to other organizations that serve women, especially abortion
services, since I managed their blog. They harassed the Executive Director into
firing me from this ​volunteer​ position. The ED stated to me privately that she
agreed with me, but felt I was “too ahead of my time.” She expressed concerns
that she would be fired by the Board if she defended me, or that the
organization would lose its funding from their major donors. Women’s
organizations have been ​under pressure to give into female erasure​ lately or
else risk losing support from important donors.

16. After all of this, my partner motivated me to start ​Spinster​, a feminist social
media platform, and I’ve decided to double down on my writing, creating
4W — a feminist publication​. I am publishing some of my writing in an essay
collection next year.
My experience is hardly unique. Women across the world are being targetted,
harassed, assaulted, and silenced for defending sex-based rights for
women — something that used to be considered Feminism 101.
I knew when I wrote the article that there was a risk I would be fired and
canceled for it, but I am still disgusted by the misogyny I experienced in the
Philadelphia tech community. I am lucky that I was in a privileged enough
position to afford being fired — I had been saving the majority of my salary
just in case. Most women are not in the position to take these risks, and so the
Orwellian silencing tactics of the Men’s Rights Activists are working, scaring
women into silence. That a group of people who use the force of capitalism to
silence feminist consider themselves “leftist” shows just how backward the
situation currently is.

17. Defending women’s rights, stating biological reality, and supporting the
abolition of regressive gender roles is not hateful — no matter how many
times or how loudly some claim it is.