so, after news spread not too long ago that transfeminist writer Tara Knight had allegedly received a threatening letter from the FBI, I noted that several details about the story didn't pass the smell test. consequently, I decided to wait for further evidence before jumping to any conclusions.

after the accusation surfaced, The Needle reached out to Knight to ask for a copy of the letter in question. what they received was, well, so obvious an AI-generated forgery as to be almost farcical. additionally, it was set to auto-delete just like her original claim on her Instagram story - only this time, by sheer accident, someone at The Needle managed to screenshot a copy of what she sent.

in other words: there is no FBI letter.

now, my initial assumption was that maybe someone sent Knight this blatant fake and she panicked. that would at least be understandable. but she made specific claims about the content of the letter - the text of which cannot be parsed, because it's an AI-generated fake.

the only conclusion that I can come to, then, is that Tara Knight is a grifter - someone who attempted to cynically play on transfeminine people's justified anxieties in order to promote her own self-image and upcoming book.

she's an alleged transfeminist who stooped to harming so many of our sisters through amplifying panic for her own personal gain.

and that fucking sucks.

needless to say, I will not be engaging with Knight's body of writing any further. and neither should you.

looking at Bluesky, it appears as though this isn't the first time that Knight has used AI-generated content. among other things, this quote, allegedly by Andrea Dworkin, is not something that Dworkin ever said - and the URL LINKS TO FUCKING CHATGPT

@YKantRachelRead ugh, I hate that 😞

@TransTina yeah, same 😞 in addition to the widespread harm it caused, it reflects badly on transfems in general, and transfeminists in particular.

@YKantRachelRead I think it's notable how much the phrasings in those posts resembled a leftie version of the 'call to arms rile-up section' of an infowars episode. so much of it was designed specifically to pluck at transfem heartstrings.

@YKantRachelRead and in retrospect a lot of people were a bit too eager for the validation of having state goons view transfeminist *theory* as a threat. lesson for the future: if it's too validating to be true...

@roughling seriously, like, I've pissed off plenty of people on the internet, but I'm not bigheaded enough to believe that the feds give a shit about me

oh, and her upcoming book is most likely at least I part AI slop as well. yay. these are screenshots from Barnes and Noble reviews (credit to Katie Tightpussy on Bsky for finding them)

Tara, meanwhile, is parading around on Bsky claiming that she's being HAL'd.

fuck. that.

https://bsky.app/profile/bundleofstyxx.bsky.social/post/3mcn4l5czmk2f

@YKantRachelRead Yeah i didn't want to call it but this isn't surprising. Her writing smells of genAI too, not totally but absolutely editing around it.

@YKantRachelRead yeah, this is gonna be weaponized by anti-transfeminists

@YKantRachelRead this shit is dangerous as fuck not just for panicking the community for no reason but undermining our credibility for when it actually does happen

@YKantRachelRead i have absolutely no idea who tara knight is but i'll boost in case any followers does

@YKantRachelRead “worse”? a bit disheartened that people are conflating the harm of “fabricating a situation that would have a chilling/suppressive effect on actual organizing” with “used ai in an article and book”. like the important thing isn’t that someone used the lie box in order to lie, it’s that the entire community was put on edge and discouraged from participating in action for no tangible reason.

@YKantRachelRead idk it feels like led in my mouth that people are painting a black transfem as some sort of evil lie woman for reasons completely tangential to the actual harm she caused

@shitpostalotl you're not wrong tbh. the discovery that she's been using AI-generated junk is a sideshow, and you're right that I'm much more concerned about the widespread harm that she caused through panic.

@shitpostalotl the use of the word 'worse' wasn't to imply that using AIslop was somehow worse than cynically spreading panic for self-promotion, but instead to say, "here's another thing on top of the awful thing."

@YKantRachelRead sure, but it just felt a bit strange that you where extending your first post (which i felt like covered the important situation pretty well) in order to give these sideshows more space. i don’t think that live coverage of this woman’s fall from grace is actually helpful to process the original incident in a constructive way. there is something to be learned here about the importance of verifying reporting even within the community and the way to do that isn’t to fan the flames of every reason someone could have to dislike Tara Knight personally.

@shitpostalotl fair enough. I do feel that the use of AI is relevant insofar as that's how she gained enough of a platform to make grifts like this work, and I also believe that this is far bigger a thing than you're making it out to be. the original claim showed up in literally every trans space that I'm a part of, and it caused literal panic attacks. Tara is a verifiable bad actor who sowed widespread fear for her own personal gain, and I have a personal interest in keeping people like that out of our spaces.

but then, I'm happy to agree to disagree there. I don't expect everyone to agree with everything I post.

the fact that other people are continuing to defend Tara is fucking wild. like she's openly doubling/tripling/quadrupling down, piling on more lies, offering non-apologies, and klanjacketing her critics when they point out how blatant her lies are and call for her to hold herself accountable - and some folks are continuing to be like "how dare you so heavily scrutinize a Black trans woman"

Black trans women are human. humans can be shitty, liars, grifters, no matter who we are or how marginalized we are. this particular Black trans woman lied, manufactured alarm, magnified American trans people's anxieties and panic, and sowed further doubt targeted at transfeminist (especially Black transfeminist) standpoints, all for her own vain self-promotion.

we do not, in fact, have to defend people who unapologetically hurt others en masse just because they happen to be marginalized.

we're now squarely in the Ro playbook - "I'm the real victim here and the people demanding accountability from me are a racist hate mob"

@YKantRachelRead I think Tara's upset is much more justified than Ro's has ever been.

Not saying that it is justified. But that she is actually facing the online hate that Ro pretends to.

Even if she's lashing out in a harmful way.

@fedilore I'm curious, what do you think makes this situation more justified?

@YKantRachelRead I think the The Needle article is fairly worth being angry about, even if it is true.

@YKantRachelRead I mean:

The second-hand hate that Ro claims is actually true of Tara.

Tara is dramatically more socially vulnerable than Ro is.

The article by The Needle is really poorly written and edited, and way too long.

The Needle appears to be a transmedicalist blog.

Bringing up Tara's alleged drug use or the largely unrelated accusations against SophieFromMars is very inflammatory, and unrelated to the actual story.

@YKantRachelRead As an example, let's imagine the SophieFromMars stuff was necessary for the article. Which it wasn't.

The allegations against Sophie pretty specifically avoid using the word "rape".

The article links to the original allegations using the sentence "Sophie From Mars is best known among trans women for being credibly accused of rape by five people who knew her."

@fedilore I see your point there. that all feels more than a bit like, "X person caused widespread harm in Y and Z ways and then lied about it. but we can't stop at reporting that - we need to insinuate that she did A, B, and C things too, because X person can only be ontologically evil."

@YKantRachelRead I think that using the word "rape" to describe Sophie, if you're writing as a journalist, is irresponsible.

I think that using allegations against Sophie to imply anything about Tara is also irresponsible.

The Needle did both, and also speculated that Tara had a drug addiction.

The vibe I get is that the whole article is pretty sloppy like that.

update: she finally admitted the letter was falsified. I checked and the post is real. hopefully this should draw any further discussion to a close.

https://bsky.app/profile/theneedlenews.com/post/3mcqno4mflk2y

@YKantRachelRead still saying "accountability and transparency" like it's from an alien language I see.

@itsmaya "accountability and transparency" means doubling down and piling on the lies for two days straight, then announcing the truth in an auto-deleting post that not many people will see

@YKantRachelRead oh I didn't even catch that part, "look I told the mob to stop harassing you so it's not my fault... where? that's a secret why are you victim blaming me?"