People also search for: Why was Clementine Morrigan cancelled?
Recently, Jay and I had the pleasure and honour of interviewing Andrea Gibson on Fucking Cancelled. It’s one of my favourite interviews we’ve ever done, which is not surprising because Andrea is a wisdom powerhouse, cracking open hearts with their courageous grace and gentle strength.
Andrea is gay-famous, and queer world has a really big cancel culture problem, so it is also not surprising that Andrea’s comment section turned into a massive shit show when they announced they had done an interview on Fucking Cancelled. Of course there was tons of support and positive feedback, but there was also a bunch of people slandering me and Jay and expressing great disappointment that Andrea would dare work with us.
I keep my comments section locked down, much to the chagrin of my many cancellers, who frequently cite my closed comments section as evidence that I’m a narcissistic grifter creating an echo chamber. They love to throw temper tantrums about the fact that I don’t allow them to slander me in my own comments section. They insist on the value of their ‘feedback’ when they clearly have never given my work more than a cursory skim. They can’t hear what I’m saying or notice the many times I’ve addressed their ‘concerns’, because my work breaks the rules of social justice orthodoxy which incites in them a manager-calling rage.
For this reason, I am no longer regularly exposed to onslaughts of haterism like I was in the early days of my cancellation, and reading Andrea’s comment section reminded me just how cancelled I am, how many people hate me and believe associating with me is an unforgiveable offence, and how many people feel comfortable repeating totally false claims about me and Jay with zero evidence at all.
The comments section covered the usual bases: I was called a racist, a grifter, an abuse apologist, right wing, and there were even the true believers that I am, somehow, for some reason, a member of the American sex trafficking cult NXIVM (love that for me). Followed by the seemingly endless chorus that cancel culture isn’t real, is a right wing dog whistle, is actually restorative justice / from ‘Black twitter’ and so can’t be criticized, and has obviously not effected me in any way at all (despite you know — losing my housing, almost all my friends and community, many employment opportunities, a book deal, being black listed from many events and spaces, having everyone who associates with me be harassed and threatened, being driven close to suicide, years of extremely bad mental health, oh and my tires being slashed and literal shit poured into the air vents of my car.) All of this is obviously very upsetting but at this point, I am pretty much used to it, and it is very obvious to anyone who actually reads my work that these accusations are absurd and total bullshit.
More upsetting for me is the ever worsening/mutating slander about Jay, my long term romantic partner, political/creative collaborator, and podcast co-host. People love to repeat that my ‘boyfriend’ (Jay) is an ‘abuser’ who has targeted ‘multiple femmes of colour’ and ‘silenced them from speaking out using legal action.’ Like all widely shared cancellations the accusations are an ever changing game of broken telephone in which each retellings adds worsening and weirdly specific details. No evidence or credible sources needed of course. These blatant lies about Jay are fucking disgusting, and are based on a slander website launched on Christmas eve of 2020, maybe three months after Jay and I started Fucking Cancelled, and about 6 months after I was cancelled and refused to just lie down and take it. I can, at this point, withstand a lot of slander about me, but the slander about Jay fucking infuriates me.
I have always refused to speak directly to accusations against me or Jay. I have always known that any explanations would be twisted and used against us. I have always known that there is no mercy from the internet mob, no willingness to slow down, no desire to hear the other side of the story. I have never seen people’s attempts to clarify, to defend themselves, or to explain the ways that they are being lied about and abused through cancel culture, go well. I simply refused to dignify the insane baseless slander with a response. Despite the fact that the accusations against Jay and I are false, I also refuse to ground my opposition to cancel culture in a claim to innocence. Yes, people constantly lie and make up insane stories about me and Jay, but our right not to be dehumanized and exiled is not based on us being infallible or having never done anything wrong in our lives. Our cancellations are both fucking bullshit, but as 12 steppers, our principles are firmly rooted in compassion and grace and not defining people through the worst things they’ve ever done.
So, for the first two years or so of my cancellation I always answered “Why are you cancelled?” with “Because people decided to cancel me.” This is the true answer, both because the actual justification for my original cancellation is totally absurd, but also because there is no justification for dehumanizing someone. Even cancelled people who did do some fucked up shit still deserve dignity, autonomy, boundaries, grace, compassion, and community. And yes, I will die on that hill.
But the real story of ‘why’ I was originally cancelled is that in the summer of 2020 I was publicly called out for ‘not sharing about Black Lives Matter’ when I had literally been sharing about it. I messaged the person making this claim about me and told them that you could see multiple posts about Black Lives Matter on my grid and in my stories. This was responded to with a demand that I ‘deplatform’ and ‘give away my instagram either temporarily or permanently to a Black person.’ To this, I simply did not reply, but I knew it was fucking over for me.
Within days there were posts all over the internet that I had ‘refused to deplatform’ when ‘requested by BIPOC’ for ‘harmful behaviour toward BIPOC.’ All my friends were being messaged to ‘hold me accountable.’ The collective where I lived wanted me to do an ‘accountability process.’ I moved out. I told anyone trying to ‘hold me accountable’ that I didn’t do anything wrong. I watched my personal and professional life go up in flames as I was called a racist and white supremacist to hundreds of thousands of people. I didn’t publicly respond to the accusations because I knew there was literally nothing I could say.
Demanding that someone post about Black Lives Matter is absurd in and of itself. Cancelling someone for ‘not sharing about Black Lives Matter’ when they demonstrably have is even more absurd. Demanding that a writer with an instagram account ‘deplatform’ is absurd. Demanding that they deplatform ‘to a Black person’ is overtly fucking racist because it treats black people as interchangeable, without political differences, and that is something I will never get behind.
I finally told the story of my original cancellation at some point last year. I think it was in my Blocked and Reported interview. By that point, I had built back my career from a firmly anti cancel culture position and me telling the story was not about defending myself to people who are invested in dehumanizing me. It was just me telling the story. To me, the story, while particularly absurd, is basically irrelevant. The justifications for cancellations are varied, but the phenomenon of cancel culture is wrong. Asking ‘why’ someone is cancelled assumes that the person must deserve it somehow and 1) no one deserves this shit, and 2) a huge number of cancellations are based on absurd nonsense, overstated conflict, and false accusations.
When the Blocked and Reported interview came out, I saw people on the internet saying that I was lying and that I was ‘actually’ cancelled because of the accusations against Jay. Cancellation stories are constantly being rewritten on the internet because no one is keeping track of time lines or checking facts. The truth is that I was cancelled in the summer of 2020 for exactly the ‘reasons’ I just described. My entire life was fucking destroyed. The couple friends who were brave enough to stick around all lost friends over it. I became a social contagion, and I did not know if I would be strong enough to survive it. But I was way too therapied and had way too much 12 step recovery to lie down and take it. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong so I would not apologize. I knew what cancel culture was and I knew what was happening to me. I knew that salvaging my career or rebuilding a social life was a long shot at best, but I would not grovel, and the only way out was through.
At that point, Jay and I had already been talking about cancel culture for years. We both knew what it was and we hated it, but I had, up until this point, been too scared to publicly challenge it because I was so afraid of getting cancelled. Since the worst had already happened and I was severely fucking cancelled for no fucking reason already, we decided to make a podcast. We spent so much time talking and thinking about cancel culture — why not do it in public? I knew there was no way back for me socially or professionally under the existing state of cancel culture, so we would have to come for cancel culture itself. It was a terrifying prospect. We knew we would face harassment and dehumanization at levels we could not yet imagine. And yet, we are both stubborn, brave, and full of conviction. So we went for it.
The podcast immediately started to gain traction, because guess what — so many people on the left hate cancel culture and were waiting for left wing opposition to it. There was a huge need and we stepped in and filled that need. The many cancellers who had tried to destroy me were absolutely enraged at my audacity. Not only was I not allowed to have a career, I certainly wasn’t allowed to have a career where I directly challenged the abusive bullshit they were pulling. No fucking way.
Three months ish after the birth of Fucking Cancelled, the slander website against Jay dropped. The website claimed that Jay dated too many people causing their partners to ‘compete for attention.’ Presented in both English and French, with its own domain name, describing Jay in the worst possible light, and making demands about Jay’s dating life, the website did not actually include a single accusation that could accurately be described as abuse. The accusations boiled down to the fact that Jay is polyamorous while trying to make them sound as bad as possible. I do not see Jay reflected in the descriptions on the website and don’t think they offer an accurate or fair representation of who Jay is or how they date, but even if the descriptions on the website were 100 percent true, what is being described is not abuse. That, of course, doesn’t matter at all. Jay was cancelled as an ‘abuser.’
Jay did not have a big online following, but I did, and since I had the audacity to not only refuse to lie down and disappear after being cancelled but to directly speak out against cancel culture, cancelling my partner at an international scale would be a nice nail in the coffin to finally shut me up. The anonymous slander website about Jay was shared with hundreds of thousands of people. Everyone who wanted to see me disappear signal boosted it. I had a signed book contract with AK press and they dropped me because of the website. My cancellation took on new proportions: not only was I a racist and a white supremacist, but now I was also an abuse apologist and an enabler. In many ways, Jay’s cancellation outshone my own original cancellation, and history was rewritten so that this became the ‘real’ reason for my cancellation.
The website was up for a year. Someone even bought the domain names fuckingcancelled.com and fuckingcancelledpodcast.com and directed them to the website. Eventually all three domain names expired but the damage was done and the rumour mill proliferated with specific and detailed accusations that weren’t even on the website. Adding the made up story that Jay used to legal action to get the website taken down was a nice touch.
I never spoke publicly about the accusations and neither did Jay. We knew that there was no point. There was no way for us to share our perspective on what that website was that wouldn’t just immediately be framed as more evidence against us. That’s how cancel culture works. So we just fucking pulled ourselves together and kept doing our work despite the devastating impact of the slander. We did it even though it was insanely hard and both of us were total wrecks. We did it because we believe in it. We did it because we would not be bullied into submission by liars and cowards. We did it because we knew that this is not about us: it’s about an abusive culture that dehumanizes people and is eating the left alive. We just happen to be some of the many targets of this culture. We pushed forward and kept going.
In Andrea’s comment section as I watched people lie about me and my partner with such ease and feigned authority I finally reached a breaking point and asked Jay if I could respond to the accusations. We were both super stressed but I told them I was sick of not standing up against it and they agreed and gave me their blessing to respond. This is what I wrote:
“For everyone shit talking me in the comments: I am not a racist, a white supremacist, an abuser, a Nazi sympathizer, a cult member, right wing or any of the other shit you guys are saying about me. I am a survivor, a feminist, a socialist, and I oppose racism from a materialist, anti-essentialist perspective (in the lineage of thinkers like Barbara Fields, Karen Fields, and Adolph Reed). I am a leftist. I oppose all forms of dehumanization. My partner, Jay, is not a rapist or an abuser. They are a polyamorous person. They have three exes who made a website about them trying to control their dating life because, quite simply, Jay insisted on practicing the relationship style that they prefer. Saying no to changing your relationship style is not abuse. If a man made that website about a woman it would be very clear what it is: slut shaming and abuse. There are no allegations of rape on the website. 2 of the people who made the website are white, one is racialized. There are no other accusers. I know all the people involved and was around for all the relationships and I can say with absolute certainty that Jay did not abuse anyone, and that the website itself constitutes abuse. Jay did not have the website taken down and did not threaten legal action. It was up for a year and I guess they didn’t renew the domain name. Also Jay uses they/them pronouns and the website refers to them with they/them pronouns but all the cancellers classically call them my ‘boyfriend’ because I guess nonbinary is only real if you are afab. None of this is any of your business but since you guys love telling stories about me so much, that’s the real one. The website against Jay was published within months of us making the podcast and was shared with hundreds of thousands of people because I wouldn’t lie down and disappear when I was cancelled for ‘not sharing about Black Lives Matter’ when I had shared about it. The whole thing is fucking insane. If you want to know who I am or what I believe I have an extensive body of work that you can look into. You are free to disagree with me, but what is happening in this comments section is cancel culture.”
This is the first time I have publicly and explicitly stood up against the website and the many extrapolations and mutations that have generated in the rumour mill as a result of the website. It actually feels really good to just come out and say it, which is why I decided to share it here. For all the many people googling me and Jay to ‘get the dirt’ they can now hear what I think about it. I have been Jay’s partner for 6 and a half years. I know the people who made the website. I was around for the relationships being talked about on the website. The website itself is abusive. It is an attempt to control the social and sexual life of an ex partner by recasting mismatched needs and conflict as abuse. The fact that it was shared to hundreds of thousands of people who do not know Jay or anyone involved is just evidence of how badly people want to discredit the work Jay and I are doing on Fucking Cancelled. It is wrong. And I am just straight up fucking tired of people lying about my partner.
Despite the proliferation of slander, something really cool ended up coming out of Andrea’s comment section. For the first time that I’ve ever seen, the cancellers were outnumbered. The slander was responded to by people asking why the accuser felt confident making such huge and serious claims with no evidence. People who had read the slander website talked about how fucked it is that the whole website does not include even a single accusation of abusive behaviour. People pointed out that those claiming cancel culture does not exist were, at that very moment, enacting cancel culture by slandering me and Jay and lowkey threatening Andrea for associating with us. So many people complimented the interview and said ‘sorry about your comments section’ to Andrea. Despite the stress of being slandered, it felt really good to watch the tides turn.
As the serious allegations against me and Jay were challenged one by one and revealed to not hold water, the cancellers scrambled to shift the goal posts and make it clear that I am still very problematic and should not be supported. This is something that cancellers do, and will continue to do, and there is absolutely no point in trying to challenge them on it. There is one more thing, however, that I would like to say my piece about.
One of the things people are now framing as unquestionable evidence that I’m racist and problematic is a recent post I made on instagram about race. The offensive thing about this post is apparently that I make the statement that white people are not inherently racist. The critics in Andrea’s comment section and elsewhere do not engage with anything else I say in the post and extrapolate assumptions about what they think I mean by that. It’s bad faith engagement and annoying. The only explanation for me making such a statement, in the eyes of those who adhere to identiarian social justice orthodoxy, is white fragility, racism, and/or an unwillingness to ‘listen to the feedback of BIPOC.’ It does not occur to them that I may be grounding my opinions in a different lineage of opposition to racism than the one they are familiar with, one whose main scholars and intellectuals are racialized.
When I made this post it received a lot of support and there was also an uproar of people calling me racist. I made two posts in response to the uproar further clarifying what I’m saying (though I think the post is clear). It is very obvious, if you pay any attention to my work, that I take the responsibility to oppose racism very seriously. I oppose all forms of dehumanization and racism is a disgusting and blatant form of dehumanization. I know what I think about racism and I know why I think what I think. I have opinions on the best ways to challenge racism. I read and listen widely and have found the school of thought that I am in alignment with. It is a materialist, anti-essentialist tradition. I believe that identitarian social justice orthodoxy actually reproduces racism, for example by treating black people like they are interchangeable and do not have massive intragroup personal and political differences like all other identity groups. I believe that it is racist and condescending to accept any feedback from a racialized person as ‘truth’, and that it is important to maintain principled disagreement if you have principled disagreement.
My critics assume that my thoughts on race are shallow and based in white fragility, but they are not thoughts I come to randomly or lightly. The idea that I don’t ‘listen to BIPOC’ is insulting because my thoughts on race are informed by my socialist intellectual heroes, many of whom are not white. I do not accept the feedback of racialized people at random, but instead think carefully about the ideas of various thinkers and come to my own conclusions about what makes sense to me. That is how I act with integrity and demonstrate respect both for the thinkers I agree with and the ones I don’t. I actually had the honour and privilege of interviewing Adolph Reed Jr., an intellectual and organizer whose body of work is incredibly important to me, on Fucking Cancelled. Most of my haters would not be able to tell me what his arguments are, because when they say ‘listen to BIPOC’ what they mean is, listen to racialized people who hold the same identitarian views that they hold.
If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, there are a bunch of Fucking Cancelled episodes where I go into this at more length. There are also tons of other writers and thinkers who express similar anti-essentialist views on race. You don’t have to agree with me. In fact, you are free to be in principled disagreement with me. But calling my well considered ideas that are influenced by the work of great thinkers like Adolph Reed Jr, Karen Fields, Barbara Fields, Cedric Johnson, and Walter Benn Michaels, ‘white fragility’ is fucking insulting.
I don’t usually speak directly to the nonstop slander that is said about me on the internet, and I don’t plan to make it a habit. But, the shit show of Andrea’s comments section gave me pause. It was like standing outside of the situation and watching people do this in an unfamiliar light. When I see people piling on to someone, whether I know the target or not, I stand up for their humanity. If I know that people are lying about someone, I say something. But when it’s so close to home, it feels insanely vulnerable to stand up for myself and my partner to a mob. I am used to being dehumanized and reduced to a two dimensional caricature and I know that nothing I say matters to these people.
But it’s not about these people. I am not trying to convince a bunch of haters who see nothing wrong with making serious accusations they don’t even know the source of. I am not trying to convince people who are committed to misunderstanding me. I am just saying my piece, standing up for myself and Jay, and insisting on reality.
The haters can stay mad about it.
Announcements and new things
Talking Shit with Zachary Zane: Sex is a Huge Part of my Sexuality
Talking Shit with Andrea Gibson: A Difficult Life is Not Less Worth Living Than a Gentle One
Identity Crisis: Historical Materialism Versus Identitarianism
Evolving Love Podcast: Trauma Informed Polyamory & Breakups in the Age of Cancel Culture
iWeigh with Jameela Jamil: F*cking Cancelled with Clementine Morrigan
Clementine Morrigan is a writer and public intellectual based in Montréal, Canada. She writes popular and controversial essays about culture, politics, ethics, relationships, sexuality, and trauma. A passionate believer in independent media, she’s been making zines since the year 2000 and is the author of several books. She’s known for her iconic white-text-on-a-black-background mini-essays on Instagram. One of the leading voices on the Canadian Left and one half of the Fucking Cancelled podcast, Clementine is an outspoken critic of cancel culture and a proponent of building solidarity across difference. She is a socialist, a feminist, and a vegan for the animals and the earth.
Browse her shop, listen to her podcast, book a one on one session with her, or peruse her list of resources and further reading.
I have not been cancelled, can’t even begin to imagine the pain and distress of it but you remain a lode star for me for not collapsing my boundaries, values and ethics in the face of domination and for resisting the impulse to police and be policed by others. Thank you for standing tall and firm. You give me the strength to do the same. You never should have had to do any of this. What happened to you is so wrong. Sharing your wisdom about it is extremely generous and gracious given you’ve very often not been given the same. Thank you for everything.
I'm profoundly grateful for you and your work. It's helped me begin to process my own experiences as an abuse survivor whose abuser was cancelled. It's a strange space to occupy. Not enough people talk about how traumatic cancellation is for the survivors/victims of intimate partner violence. You helped me understand that I wasn't the one who dehumanized him...the media took care of that. Because of cancel culture, the most horrific and shameful experiences of my life became sensationalized clickbait, and people who refused to protect me in real life became keyboard warriors for his downfall. And what was it all for? The news outlets get their clicks. The keyboard warriors wipe their hands saying "our work here is done" never acknowledging their own role. The broken systems everywhere never get a second glance. And now he's in prison, for a very long time, trauma compounded. I worry about the day he gets out and he blames me. I've always known that cancel culture did not give me safety or healing, and I have this sense that it also stole something from me. I'm still working through all this, 7 years since the relationship ended, 4.5 years since the cancelling.