Semy Says… Pride, Palette, & Disappointments.

So today this will be a shorter blog (probably) than my usual. I’m not going to add links to previous blogs, talk about the Second Life projects I’m part of, or plug upcoming events. I’m simply going to address something really saddening, discuss it a little, and leave you all to draw your own conclusions. Mainly I just want to share it with you because the subject has deeply saddened me and it is connected to a month when we should all be celebrating.

Rather than rewrite everything I’m going to share the same stuff I did in discord; then I’ll add some extra info and commentary after that. Please note that I fully intended to write a longer blog covering the awesome pride creations from other stores (which I mention in the discord stuff) but today I felt like this specific topic needed addressing sooner.

The following was posted in discord (word for word aside from a couple of spelling corrections) on the 1st of June.

“I intend to write a blog about Pride clothing and events in the coming days and what I’m about discuss below will form part of that (a sad negative in what will be a sea of positives) but until that happens I want to let you all know about a recent experience I have had interacting with a SL clothing store owner via social media.

Anyhow Pride has started and for the awesome Pride at Home event loads of creators are making Pride themed items. Yesterday I spotted that one such store is Palette (you will see them at events like Kustom9 every month pretty much) and they created a trans pride flag bikini outfit. It’s cute. Sadly not rigged for many trans avatars in SL though; not one flat chest option for femboys, transmascs, or any folks who don’t have breasts, and no bulge bottom option at all. So after liking the pic on Flickr I politely commented and asked “hi as you have used the trans pride flag would you consider community inclusive rigging?”

Pretty fair question right? Well the owner didn’t agree because they deleted my comment, locked the post so comments couldn’t be made, and blocked me (all my previous Flickr favs from their store vanished from the folder). I considered that a reaction which is either transphobic or at the least a whole situation which displays fake ally-ship.

I tried tweeting them and had no response. So today I contacted the owners of the Pride at Home event and had a conversation with Coral (who was super lovely); they were dismayed at what had happened but also expressed that clothing makers often face restrictions on how much stuff they can rig for – something which I totally understand. But if they make a trans flag bikini surely asking if they would rig for trans people is reasonable right? Coral agreed with me and said they would contact the owner of Palette and hopefully the store owner would contact me soon.

So what happened next?

Well a couple of hours later I had heard nothing so got back in touch with Coral. The owner of Palette (Emma) thought that my polite inquiry was offensive; she didn’t rig for flat chests and other stuff because she doesn’t have the kits – despite being one of the most prolific clothing event participants who also charges a premium price by the way; something I should know because I’ve recently been a customer :(. Also they found my suggestion that their overreaction in blocking me was either a demonstration of transphobia or fake ally-ship to be deeply offensive apparently. They refused to speak to me ever and proceeded to also block me on Twitter. So there you go folks; apparently asking for pride themed – in fact expressively trans pride themed – clothing to be rigged to include trans avatars is offensive.

I don’t think I’m being impolite or rude at all asking for pride stuff to more proactively include any member of our awesome LGBTQAI+ community; in fact shouldn’t it be the expectation? So please don’t support the store Palette with your L$. They don’t want to rig for us, they don’t want to hear from us, they don’t want to talk to us. We offend them. (edited)

I’m really sorry for having to share all of the above but I think I need to. As members of our community you all should know who you might be dealing with when you make your shopping choices.

If you would like to visit their tweet and share an opinion that’s up to you; please don’t attack them though; it’s not worth getting a ban or anything. But if you want to see my tweets on the subject they are here:

https://twitter.com/SMeridoc/status/1664068878371106817

Please please please don’t let this news spoil any part of pride or the awesome Pride at Home event though. Awesome creators have made loads of wonderful items and we should support them as they support us. Some of them are even members of our server and they are all fantastic.

I’ll make a larger blog post in a few days when I don’t feel as disheartened as I do right now and share all the awesome finds from those wonderful creators with you then.

Hugs and Love.

Semy.”


So that’s the post I shared yesterday. Here’s some follow up. Palette’s owner posted this on Facebook:

I’d like to address some of her comments.

I don’t have a screenshot of my original Flickr comment because I never expected all of this would happen. It was politely written, not demanding in any way, it was inquiring. I may not recall it word for word but it was something along the lines of (as stated in my discord post I shared above):

“hi as you have used the trans pride flag would you consider community inclusive rigging?”

I didn’t even go into specifics; I figured she might reply and ask for examples or let me know that whilst this item couldn’t be rigged for say flat chests or bulge bottoms that in the future she would consider it at least. I didn’t expect to just get blocked. I tried tweeting after I was blocked and didn’t receive an answer so the next day I contacted one of the people who run the Pride at Home event. Emma from Palette says this in her Facebook post:

“I hope we can reach a mutual understanding and work towards avoiding such misunderstandings in future.”

Her words there are directly counter to her actions. She didn’t attempt dialogue with me at all. How do you mutually understand with anyone if you choose to ignore them?

She also says that she “had concerns about unintentionally overlooking any aspect or lacking any inclusivity in my work”. But a couple of paragraphs above that she detailed exactly why she wouldn’t be being as inclusive as possible – time and money. Now I respect that creators don’t have to rig for every body option – we know there are so many – but if they want to use/appropriate pride symbolism for their creations then surely that is the one time to be specifically inclusive. She chose to use the trans pride flag; we didn’t force her. Plus besides any other issues if you make an outfit with the trans pride flag on it isn’t it just sensible business to rig it so trans customers can wear it and therefore want to buy it?

I’d like to share something else too. The sad thing is I genuinely love her outfit designs. I even recently swapped to using Legacy Perky Petite (instead of V-tech or Maitreya flat chest options) specifically with her store in mind. I bought one of her outfits a couple of weeks ago:

I don’t know about everyone else but that wasn’t a small amount of Linden dollars to spend either. Plus whilst I couldn’t afford to buy more at the time I even grabbed a load of demos a few days later so I could plan my next purchase from her store when I could afford it:

I’m not some horrible ghoul who attacked her because she wasn’t being inclusive. I am/was someone who really thinks she makes lovely clothing, changed my own avatar so I could wear it, and hoped if I asked nicely she would consider rigging for others in the community in future. It was her response – well lack of I guess seeing as she blocked me and didn’t speak to me at all – that lead me to conclude that her pride intentions were at best disingenuous or at worst that her actions were transphobic.

Sadly the comments on her Facebook post show that some other people just think that asking for inclusion is “entitlement” or “their needs FIRST”:

It’s important to remember context here; we’re talking about asking for a trans pride flag adorned outfit to be rigged for – this is shocking right- trans people. How will that ever be an unreasonable question?

I think these people have forgotten what pride is supposed to be about. What happened to inclusion? Apparently if you ask for something on behalf of your community you’re being a “toddler” and treating the creator like a “slave”. Or suggesting that her extreme overreaction might be transphobia is “abusing people”. I wasn’t trying to “ACT offended” I was hoping that a designer might support us with her work and not just use a pride flag when it’s convenient to do so.

Semy Says…

So as I said before I’m sharing this so you can make informed choices about who you support with your Linden dollars. I was told I should use my consumer power and make sure to spend my money elsewhere. I will do and I’d suggest that maybe you should too.