Laci Green



Laci Green, also known as GoGreen18, is an American YouTube content creator who identifies as an atheist pansexual feminist and whose purpose on YouTube was nominally as a sex educator. She joined Discovery Networks' DNews science vlog as one of three presenters discussing general science, and has a show funded and produced by MTV called Braless, discussing a variety of feminine issues.

As of December 2018, Laci's main YouTube account had over 1.4 million subscribers and over 156 million page views, while her other channel account is dead.

Content
According to her Gogreen18 account, her earlier videos dealt with theology, atheism, and her transition from Mormonism to atheism. However, as time went on, her videos became less about atheism and religion and more centered around relationships, women, and sex according to Gogreen18's description.

She has a significant audience of teenagers, a point brought home in January 2012 when someone flagged her video about the clitoris as 18+ (a decision that led to mass outrage and YouTube removing the flag).

"Taking the Red Pill"
In May 2017, Green uploaded two videos to her YouTube channel, "TAKING THE RED PILL?", and its follow-up, "Caught between extremes. [ Red Pill 2]." In the first video, Green discussed how she began talking with anti-SJW YouTube personalities on Twitter during her YouTube hiatus, and stated that she planned to launch "a series of live debates with feminists and anti-feminists." She explained that she had gone "down the rabbit hole of anti-SJW videos," and while she found some channels to be "disrespectful," there were others she considered "well-cited" and "reasoned."

The videos were met by Internet reactionaries as a welcome attempt by Green at reaching across the aisle to her ideological opponents, though it could be argued that, when one side is reasonable and the other isn't, it's hardly the right thing to do for the reasonable side to come over to the unreasonable one. Ian Miles Cheong, a contributor to The Sun and writing in an article for right-wing news and opinion site Heat Street favorably described Green's "seemingly newfound rehabilitation from social justice ideology," while writers from PJ Media and Age of Shitlords also gave her coverage.

Feminists and social-justice-leaning observers, on the other hand, received the videos far less favorably. Many saw Green's attempt at "opening a dialogue" as, at best, misguided and futile, and at worst, giving legitimacy to bigots and bullies. As Steve Shives, a left-leaning YouTuber, told Green on Twitter: "I'm not advocating political censorship. I'm advocating not wasting time making nice with abusive, dishonest, opportunistic people."

Green also drew criticism for equating de-platforming (the practice of denying a host for controversial speakers' opinions) to the suppression of free speech and for downplaying the impact of hateful speech.

Not too long after the release of the videos, Green confirmed she is dating Chris Ray Gun, a noted anti-feminist YouTuber and Gamergater, and had been doing so for a few months. Many fans were shocked and upset at the news, seeing it as a betrayal of her professed feminist values, and an implicit validation of Chris Ray Gun's views and actions.

180 on Social issues
Green has since associated with the anti-SJW movement beyond just open dialogue. She has shared common anti-SJW talking points on her Twitter account, such as lecturing empty platitudes about how people need to get over their "hurt feelings" and be open to "civil dissent." This civil dissent apparently included calling Kat Blaque, a feminist Youtuber, a sociopath after Blaque produced a parody of Green's initial "red pill" video. Lindsay Amer, another YouTuber, reported that she privately sent Green the "kindest response I could" on Facebook, asking her to "step back" and consider that the people whose criticism she was "dismissing" were "largely poc, queer, and trans/non-binary." Green reportedly responded with only "Lol. Y'all are just so oblivious." and immediately blocked Amer. Despite all her talk about discourse, when it comes to negative reactions to her apparent ideological about-face, Green has been hostile to friendly dialogues and dissenting views. Pot, meet kettle.

There was a time when infamous reactionary YouTuber Sargon of Akkad and Green absolutely could not stand each other. But at VidCon 2017, the two were reconciled, with Sargon tweeting a photo of them sharing a chummy embrace. This revelation was followed by a two-part video tweet from Green, in which she explained that she'd spent fifteen minutes "crying, hugging, and talking" with Sargon. She stated that Sargon had "demonstrated a real understanding of the pain he had caused [her]" and a "willingness to stop doing that kind of shit." Meanwhile, Sargon showed his newfound self-awareness by rounding up a bunch of his anti-feminist buddies and deliberately packing the front row of a VidCon panel on the harassment women face online, which included his long-time target, Anita Sarkeesian. During the first question alone, Sarkeesian immediately referred to Sargon's continued harassment against her, and called him a "garbage human." At the very least, Green was able to recognize why this incident looked like a provocation on Sargon's part.

TERF war
In her initial "red pill" video, Green discussed the then-recent controversy surrounding the publication of an article in the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia, in which author Rebecca Tuvel, a philosophy professor, compared Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, to Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who identifies as black. The article led to widespread criticism from trans activists, who saw it as drawing a false equivalency and promoting harmful, transphobic ideas. An open letter was published calling for the journal to retract the paper. Green defended Tuval, calling the open letter a "complete misrepresentation of her argument," accusing it of trying to censor the paper and ruin Tuval's academic reputation.

Green followed her "red pill" videos with a pair of videos looking at the debate over gender identity: "HOW MANY FREAKIN GENDERS," uploaded on June 21, 2017, and "HOW MANY FREAKIN GENDERS - part 2 (feminism & my take)", uploaded on July 11.

The second video came under fire for Green's blatant misrepresentation of a tweet by trans activist and YouTuber Zinnia Jones. In the video, Green stated that she had seen "trans YouTubers" telling "lesbians" on Twitter that they "need to be willing to sleep with someone with male genitals, otherwise they're transphobic." She then accused one of these YouTubers of advocating "rubbing her dick and balls all over a straight guy's face until he's into it," presenting a screencap of Jones's tweet, with her name and avatar blacked out.

After Jones stated that she had no issue telling heterosexual cis men who are "exclusionary of trans women partners" that "they should try to work through [their reservations]," a user going by the moniker Count Slambo asked, "Work through a DICK? How does THAT work exactly?" Jones replied with a suggestion of how such a man could attempt to work through his reservations: "Have your trans girlfriend rub her balls and dick on your face until you realize how awesome it is? I don't know dude." Jones took issue with Green's singling her out and misrepresenting what she said. She personally responded "Excuse you, @gogreen18. I said "your trans girlfriend". As in new things to try with a partner. So much for sex-positivity." Green referenced the original tweet again in a Twitter thread, saying that "rubbing genitals on someone's face [without] consent is not OK," and when someone asked whether the tweet was a joke, she outed Jones as the author on the grounds that her Twitter history suggested the tweet was serious.

Green also claimed in her second video on gender identity that colleges are banning The Vagina Monologues because it "implies some women have vaginas." The citation she offered was an article from the National Review, a right-wing news and opinion site, which reported on a 2017 incident in which a student group at American University voluntarily chose not to perform the play as it had in previous years. The student group, who were concerned that the play did not include trans and non-binary people, decided to perform an alternate play they wrote instead.

Immediately after her Vagina Monologues claim, Green stated that "feminist blogs" are full of pseudoscience, such as the claim that "males get menstrual cramps too." She featured an out-of-context quote from an article. The author of the article in question, Sam Riedel, hit back against Green in a piece on the geek feminist site The Mary Sue. Riedel explained that her original article, published in 2016 on the site The Establishment, explored reports of period- and PMS-like symptoms experienced by trans women undergoing hormone replacement therapy, including herself. These included bouts of "nausea, intense abdominal cramps, heavier-than-usual mood swings, and weird cravings" that seemed to follow a monthly cycle. Riedel could not find any medical studies documenting this apparent phenomenon, and thus she conducted an informal survey on Tumblr.

To very few people's surprise, Green is being defended by right-wingers, who have quickly rallied together to smear the trans community as "cult-like." Unsurprisingly the irony is lost on them.

Death threats
Laci publicly answered a question on On July 6th, 2012, that stated the following:

Hi Laci. Why do you use the word “tranny” in your video about Haters from 2009? (The one talking about Miley Cyrus, Fred, and Chris Crocker). You really shouldn’t be using that word as a cis girl and it’s really disappointing for the people who look up to you.

Laci answered with the following:

Probably because I was 18 and ignorant. You are totally right and I sincerely apologize for my mistake. Before I educated myself about trans issues I had not the slightest inkling of how the word is used to dehumanize nor its place in the cycle of violence against transfolk. Now I have seen people hurt by it and seen it used as a nasty slur. Words have power, and “tranny” is not a word for anybody but transfolk themselves to use because only they can reclaim it. If I knew that was in a video, it would have been long long ago removed. Consider it banished forever.

Fans on her tumblr began sending her death threats. Ironically, if she hadn't apologized, the haters probably wouldn't have known about her slip-up. Later, Laci posted on her blog stating she would be taking a break from tumblr after receiving violent threats and pictures of her apartment.

hey peeps,

i am going to be taking a break from tumblr. i’m not sure how long. i have been getting a slew of people (who i can only guess are from “social justice” tumblr) telling me to kill myself, making violent threats, sending me my home address they somehow found. my inbox this morning was graced with pictures of my apartment building.

i honestly have no words.

love you all.

lace

Considering the massive amount of threats, it's not very surprising that she later revealed she went through depression in the past.

Persecution by theists
She's been criticised for being anti-Islam and anti-Mormon. Her mother was a Mormon and her father was a Muslim from Iran, and she has had negative experiences with both, citing their piss-poor track record on women's rights. Her opponents try to use these claims as "proof" that she is a misandrist.

Worth noting is the Courtier's reply-ness of the criticism, ignoring the fact that as an atheist, she doesn't believe YHWH/Allah exists to begin with, rendering the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the huge body of Islamic apologetics irrelevant for her purposes.

Persecution by others
As an outspoken feminist, she has attracted a ridiculous amount of harassment, abuse and general -- often by other atheists who think she isn't as rational as they are.

View of Trump
In her video suitably titled "TRUMPOCALYPSE", Green elaborates on her (unsurprisingly) negative view of Trump. Being part of the reality-based community, she is critical of Trump's disastrous cuts to climate change research, education, planned parenthood, and health insurance. She has also called out Vice President Mike Pence on his belief that EST cures homosexuality.

By Green

 * Laci's blog site, including extra content not made public in her main YouTube channel (older material is at lacigreen.tv)
 * Her main video site, home to her weekly series Sex+
 * Her earlier videos on atheism
 * Her Twitter page
 * DNews on YouTube

On Green

 * The Strange, Sad Case Of Laci Green — Feminist Hero Turned Anti-Feminist Defender, The Establishment
 * Youtube "Anti-SJW" response