The Aftermath

Although the outraged emails slowed to a trickle after Tuesday, I found myself last week embroiled in another troll nightmare - someone (turns out it was the guy who sent me the email telling me to shove it) set up a fake Facebook profile and tagged me into an unwanted conversation about my being an anti-religious bigot for denying religious vaccine exemptions at my event. He had screenshot an email I had posted as a Facebook post in which I said I would not allow members of my childhood religion (the only one that makes a regular practice of refusing vaccines), but then conveniently cut off the bottom of the post in which I said I would, in fact, make exceptions for this tiny population of people. I wasn’t savvy enough at the time to recognize this was a fake profile, that we were the only ones in this conversation, and that it was in fact the same sociopath Trump supporter I had sparred with before and who’s been a menace to the dance community for well over a decade. I stopped talking to him at that point. Then the next morning he found the social media page of the hotel where I hold my event and again posted the same edited screenshot, claiming I discriminate and am a bigot, and that they should cancel my contract. I didn’t realize he’d done this until the hotel called me asking what they were talking about. Of course they believed me so I didn’t have to worry about a strained relationship there, but wow. That took it to a whole other level of crazy and dangerous. I spent the whole rest of the week wondering what else he would think of to try to ruin me. There’s a lot of things a random psycho can do to you if they really want to - which is a chilling thought.

All week I was looking over my shoulder and in a state of hyper vigilance. I couldn’t be off my phone for more than a few minutes in case he tried another point of attack that I would have to squash as quickly as possible. It was exhausting, and enraging, and scary. And incredibly triggering that he, and others, had the gall to use as an example the stupid culty religion that took my mother’s life and left me with mountains of childhood trauma. Hi. You again? 

The only thing that got me through last week was posting every single thing that happened on my FB page, and the tremendous support I got from the community. Also, the memes. I don’t normally like to air my dirty laundry like that, but I’ve realized with my event coming up, it’s probably best to be as transparent as possible. I know the vast majority of people now feel even better because they know what I’m willing to endure to protect them, and that I won’t back down. In a bizarre turn of events, I think this was actually a PR boon for me.

On Tuesday I need to send a “one week until opening!” email and I am so dreading having to go through this all over again, from those who didn’t read the last email, and then having to go through it all a third time when we open on the 1st. It’s going to be a rough couple of weeks. 

I’ve spoken to countless lawyers. First to find out if denying entry to unvaccinated people is indeed an actionable act of discrimination, whether for medical reasons (which I had already stated I would allow) or religious (which I wasn’t planning on allowing). Guess what? Nobody knows. The best I’ve gotten is, “well, I guess technically someone could sue you,” (great). Then another couple of days trying to find out if I could write a cease and desist letter and/or sue this troll for defamation. One lawyer said no; a second said maybe. I slapped down a $1500 retainer and signed an agreement for service. I doubt I want to get embroiled in an actual lawsuit - the law bends way more towards someone’s free speech than someone’s freedom from being harassed and defamed (which is why hate groups are so emboldened in this stupid country), but a cease & desist may be worthwhile just to tell that fat fuck I mean business. So hopefully the lawyer will agree we have enough evidence to at least do that. 

I have also had to rethink all of my registration policies to prevent fraud and fakers and trouble makers - I’m not even going to talk to any people claiming so-called religious exemptions unless they can prove they actually belong to a church, and for the medical exemption people, I want their documentation in advance so I can vet them, and I want to keep track. No showing up at the door and trying to get in with a fake doctor’s note that the volunteers at the door will be too overwhelmed to handle. I probably will also have to have a vaccine card checking team, extra staff, and an outside professional security team hired for thousands extra just to protect us normal people from the right wing nut jobs.

This is all Trump’s fault. Every single part of it. That fucking fat fucking fuck.

One of my lawyer friends referred to this as a “noisy time”. I pray he’s right. Will it all settle down? Have the worst pulled out all the stops already and this is all they’ve got? Maybe, maybe not. I have a feeling I’ll still be fielding the occasional bitchy email straight through to the event, and I have no idea whatsoever what to expect as far as cheaters and fakers. Let’s just say this event will be 20,000 times the work as my usual events. Which I knew, and which was why I was reluctant to even try this year. But I’m the first one up. I told my other event organizers they all owe me a fucking drink.