Quoth Melody Hensley of the Center for Inquiry:
I’m really sick of the stupid lies that get flung about me. Yes, I have PTSD from Twitter, blogs, horrible videos, cyberstalking.
— Melody Hensley (@MelodyHensley) November 23, 2013
No, seriously. And don’t let anyone question her:
@NeptunFallen You are very insensitive to question someone that has a life altering disorder. This is harassment. You will be blocked. — Melody Hensley (@MelodyHensley) April 9, 2014
How about some icing on that cake, to make sure we really understand how bad her twitter-induced trauma is?
If you are in the military and you are harassing me about my PTSD, expect that I will be speaking to your commanding officer. — Melody Hensley (@MelodyHensley) April 13, 2014
There’s more to say, but we think Thunderf00t pretty much says it all:
Oh, but let’s let this embarrassment to the once-respectable Center for Inquiry respond, so we aren’t accused of “silencing” her:
So I hear Thunderfuck is responsible for this cybermob attacking me. He should join up with AVfM and make it official.
— Melody Hensley (@MelodyHensley) April 15, 2014
That video is harassment.
— Melody Hensley (@MelodyHensley) April 15, 2014
Until today, we’ve never published anything on Melody Hensley. Although we happen to know at least one gay MRA (there are a number of those, you know) who she called a stalker just for questioning her and suggesting she and other feminists were hijacking of gay men’s experiences and co-opting their issues. In any case, we’ve never so much as spoken to Thunderf00t, let alone joined forces with him.
Who knows? Thunderf00t may not even like us. Maybe one day he or The Amazing Atheist or some other person in the “skeptic community” who isn’t completely nuts will make a video about why we suck. If it’s sane and rational, we’ll try to accept the criticism. If we think it’s wrong somewhere, we’ll say what we think is wrong with it. The thing is, unlike feminists, we do not demand that people identify with our cause or movement in order to support them or their work when it’s rational and sane and based on documentable fact. Hell, we don’t always even agree with each other, let alone expect everyone else to.
So, subscribe to Thunderf00t, who isn’t “one of us” and doesn’t have to be to be in order to be worth watching. In addition to making really awesome science videos, has taken up the cudgels to identify and call out hateful pseudoscientific ideology in what is loosely known as the “skeptic community.” Identifying people who are toxic to free inquiry by malicious false claims of harassment, innuendo, quote-mining, whispering campaigns, and playing damsel-in-distress is a noble endeavor. It’s good to see anyone sane making note of it.