Sometimes, Christmas comes early. And when one is a trans woman who maintains any kind of public presence, Christmas takes the form of the occasional ingrown toenail in human guise showing up unbidden in one’s online life with bizarrely explicit comments on one’s gender, appearance, or sexual prowess. These can be hurtful or even dangerous, but most of them are just…kind of sad. A skilled tormentor could use comments like this to probe at one’s deepest weaknesses and anxieties and leave a psychological mark that takes months or years to heal, but these people are no such thing. Rather, these people try for “shocking” and come off as juvenile as the average South Park episode, and half as entertaining.
Which brings us to my old friend Niall Corbally.