No, the allegations against Ava Tyson aren’t a “problem for the trans community”

Content Note: discusses misconduct towards minors, sexual coercion, use of sexualised imagery depicting minors

Starting in June and cascading through July there has been a significant buzz around allegations of sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour by Ava Kris Tyson, a trans woman who’s work with extremely popular Youtuber Mr Beast has given her a profile that has made her a subject of public controversy ever since she came out as trans a year ago. During this time a number of significant internet influencers have chosen to turn her case (and the ongoing investigations around her behaviours) into an inquest on the moral character of trans people generally, and a number of online trans advocates have seemingly accepted that her alleged behaviour has “set our community back”. The problem is that both of these narratives, for and against do nothing to protect either survivors or the trans community and really risk fostering a climate of agreement between trans people and transphobes that if an abuser is outed within our community this will be an opportunity for transphobes to punish us collectively. For trans survivors of sexual violence by other trans people, this can have a silencing effect — if you out your abuser you may be subject to a growing global climate of transphobic demonisation of trans people as abusers.

It’s worth summarising what the allegations are. At first, the initial allegations were that Tyson had been in long term contact online with a 13 year old gamer, bringing him into a Minecraft stream for Mr Beast at one point, making him a moderator on her discord (where adult material being posted in spaces with underage users is alleged to have been a widespread problem) and at one point meeting up with him in person when he was aged 16. During that period Tyson is alleged (with substantial evidence online) to have shared a number of sexually inappropriate comments and jokes both on Twitter, and in discord chat servers. The suggestion that there was abuse beyond the inappropriate messages has been denied by the alleged victim, who is now 20, although he has affirmed that the communications were clearly inappropriate and shouldn’t have happened and he supports the investigation going forward. Another user who was a minor during the same period involved in Ava Tyson’s discord has said he does consider himself a victim of Tyson’s behaviour. Additionally to this, Tyson commissioned a piece of art from the digital artist Shadman, who is extremely notorious for his work depicting sexualised underage characters — known online as “lolicon”. Tyson tweeted in 2016, “nothing gets my knob cranking like loli”. Then aweek after the initial allegations were released, on the 27th July, Twitter/X user Mooskina came forward with new allegations saying she had been sexually assaulted by Tyson, as an adult, having been coerced into providing sexual favours while working for her as an assistant.

The first I heard of these allegations was a friend in a group chat saying “a prominent trans influencer has allegations against them, so now it’s all time for us to take a beating”. The reaction online among the trans community and allies has been one of perhaps understandable defeat and fear. There are comments running the last week saying things like “I genuinely feel bad for trans people cause they are just going to fight a war again.”, “ Now us trans people are gonna be seen as creeps and pedo’s again. Set us back CENTURIES. Genuinely this is something that will affect us for years to come.” and “wtf do you mean kris tyson is a pedophile DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOUVE JUST FUCKING SET US BACK??? YOU KNOW HOW LONG THE TRANSPHOBES ARE GONNA HOLD ONTO THIS!!!”

It’s true that some transphobes have seized upon the allegations as an opportunity to bash trans advocates. Despite the story reaching global mainstream news quickly, Gender Critical internet personalities have described the case as an example of “trans privilege”. Former comedy writer turned anti-trans activist Graham Linehan has tried to score points on what the allegations mean about “gender ideology”. Right wing trans Youtube personality and Gender Critical trans woman Blaire White said “Now they’re crying at the damage Tyson has done to them. Maybe the reason they’ve lost respect is they constantly defend pedos”.

But what is the impact of all of this? All of these people have a history of slamming the trans community. These allegations have been recruited into the confirmation bias of people who already didn’t like us, who were already working to stereotype the trans community as sympathetic to abusers. The reality is that there’s no real change here other than more material for their regular grifts.

In the meantime, the trans woman who says she was coerced into sex has had to come out and tell her story into an environment where such exposures are collectively being portrayed as a potential risk to the community she is a part of, something which is likely to hurt her. This narrative that the allegations about one famous trans person are a threat to us collectively is false and it really does set us up as a community to enable and hide incidents of abuse.

The investigation will take its place hopefully. It seems very clear (and frankly this is well known to anyone who’s grown up in online spaces) that there is frequently a culture of permissiveness and inappropriate behaviour around minors in discord servers and chat groups. Given the Discord leaks that have been released and the wider participation of multiple Youtube personalities around these it seems pretty likely that the culture of permissiveness and inappropriate exposure of young people to adult conversations and adult content goes far beyond Ava Tyson herself. Which begs the question here — what matters most, the fight with transphobes over the optics of trans representation? Or addressing the massive safeguarding problems going on in these online streaming community spaces and the ages old practice of sexual exploitation of staffers?

That the initial allegations about Ava Tyson were not broken with the consent or involvement of one alleged victim is indicative of a conversation around sexual misconduct and abuse that does nothing to prioritise those actually affected by it and everything to focus on voyeuristic monetisable attention off of the spectacle of suffering and abuse. We need to do better at centring survivors and stop trying to steer the global bad trip that is the internet conversation as if it matters more than the actual people and acts being discussed. The fact that there are a large number of bad actors making a living out of exploiting horrific allegations is a strong justification for rejecting this framing and refocusing on the material concerns of victims and survivors. The arena of true crime trauma porn turning real world acts of abuse into a Punch and Judy show isn’t one where we will help anyone, or achieve trans liberation.