I started writing this series because I was seriously concerned about Alec Peters of all people – someone who has threatened, harassed, and bullied me for a while now – joining a supposed anti-bullying Facebook group called Trekkers Against Bullying (which, in an attempt to link said group in this post, I am being told no longer exists, meaning it was either deleted or has been hidden from searches or even direct links – OOF).

I was in the process of writing part 4 of my series when it came to light that “TAB” had asked AP to leave their Facebook group. My first reaction was “good, you finally removed a bully from your anti-bullying group”, but unfortunately it turned out that there was more to it than that…and this is where I have to digress (not entirely, but more than a little bit) from my own story to explain how things have evolved since I began writing this series.

Previous Installments:
Part 1: I’m not a Star Trek Fan
Interlude: Proving My Point
Part 2: I’m not an “Axanar Hater”
Part 3: I’m Not Perfect

Listen, I have always wanted to give the people involved with Trekkers Against Bullying the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe that they meant well but simply didn’t know what they were doing. Even when they got involved with a known bully, I figured that maybe they just didn’t know his history – and it’s very possible that they didn’t. The problem is, when confronted with Alec Peters’ history, their response was to double down, with one of their admins making a post stating that TAB was “embracing differences” including “respecting different views and trying your best to understand those views and the courage to maintain an open mind to the possibilities of those views”.

The person who wrote that post went on to say that the guy who bullied him in high school is now a friend, because people change and “life has no place for harbored negative feelings”.

I don’t disagree with that…to an extent. But we are also talking about a person who not only has threatened lawsuits but followed through with those threats. A person who has threatened people like me, whom he has never even officially met in person, with lawsuits. A person who has rallied his girlfriend and his rabid followers to disparage myself and my partner. And that’s just my story.

There was also a post on the public Trekkers Against Bullying Facebook page about seeing “internal conflict” within the group because some of them had negative views of Alec Peters, stating that he “may have a checkered past in fandom. Alec Peters has been embroiled in some controversy. Nevertheless, he has been bullied in the past. Some of you may feel that you’ve been bullied by Alec. Personally, I have never experienced that from Alec, but some of you may feel that he has bullied you. What saddens me most is the response to the information that Alec joined TAB. That information brought about anger and that negative emotion brought about bullying, even from our own members who say they are against bullying.” (note: bold/italics added by me)

I’m including the following screenshots of the post in its entirety for posterity’s sake, because the Facebook page – and therefore the post itself – have disappeared entirely.

Listen, the tl;dr is that they straight up said “You might not agree with Alec’s choice in life or in fandom, but we must respect his opinions.”

I’m not quite sure what the “WE must respect his opinions” means – that the people running TAB have to do so? That all members of the group have to do so? Or that people in general have to do so? I really hope it’s not the latter because as someone who has been attacked, bullied, harassed, and threatened by this person, NO, I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT have to “respect his opinions”. Nor does anyone else who has suffered the same, or anyone who simply knows about the controversy he has been embroiled in (which, as stated and shown above, is wording straight from the ‘mouth’ of a TAB admin).

Again, those previous screenshots are from the Trekkers Against Bullying Facebook page, which they have since deleted (or perhaps unpublished from Facebook). After deleting my comment, along with straightforward, factual comments left by others who disagreed with the problematic position they were taking. Here is what I said:

Because yes, as a test, I DID try to join the private “Trekkers Against Bullying” Facebook group. I actually have Alec, his girlfriend Crysstal, and at least one of their followers blocked, so there is no way I could have caused a stir regarding anything they posted…and yet my request was still denied. No hurt feelings on my part because like I said, I was just trying to prove a point…one that they proved for me by not accepting my request to join, which was prior to the comment left above, and when the only “contact” I had even *attempted* to have with them was tagging them in a Tweet several weeks ago when I wrote part 1 of this series.

And I wasn’t the only person whose comment they deleted. One of my friends left one very measured comment, which was removed, and then went back and wrote the following much longer comment on the aforementioned public post from the now-deleted/unpublished public TAB Facebook page:

What her point boiled down to was that TAB was trying to control their narrative; they were enabling the abuser; they deleted even well-worded, measured critique; yes, people on the “other side” of the Alec issue have seemingly ‘gone too far’ but maybe they just weren’t great at the execution (which I agree with) and are just sticking up for themselves in the only avenues they felt were open to them.

Yes, the “other side” (in this case, the side I ended up on after Alec sued my partner, and then became actively involved in after he and the people on ‘his side’ started coming after me directly) is imperfect, but is it really surprising that some people might lash out after being referred to as “pathetic losers”, “freaking morons”, “fat fucks”, “fucktards”, etc., or having things such as “their plumbing ain’t right, beside[sic] they all ugly too”, “not a single person at Axamonitor has accomplished anything of note”, “too chicken shit to confront anyone face to face”, “him and the group need A LOT of help psychologically”, “the Stay Puft marshmallow man has more muscle tone”, etc. said about them?

Again, the lengthy comment shown in the screenshots above was very measured and up front in its critique of how TAB was handling things – as was the original, shorter comment that they deleted, which is what prompted Shanna to speak up again. And if it weren’t for some recent developments, I would have continued to agree with her that the person who posted on the TAB Facebook page is probably a good person (or rather, IMO, at least not a BAD person) but they were/are woefully misguided., and Alec took advantage of them.

However, I feel the need to repeat something that I mentioned in part 1: The idea that untrained, uneducated people could ever possibly be the go-between for two sides who each felt they were being bullied by the other is seriously problematic.

All that said, before TAB deleted their public Facebook page, they did respond to Shanna:

First, let me point out: “Alec has left the group both at his decision and a request from us”. So…which was it? Because if he simply DECIDED to leave the group, that is VERY different from you requesting that he leave. And also, WHY did you request him to leave? Was it because you were getting too much pushback from members and too many receipts from people who he has, in fact, bullied? Or was it because you ACTUALLY realized that you made a bad decision by welcoming a known bully into your anti-bullying group? (Note: These are rhetorical questions that I completely understand I will probably never receive answers to.)

Second, they are now asking a person who disagreed with their handling of the situation to come fix things for them? Yet another red flag. But listen, okay, I agree that these people clearly have zero idea what they’re doing…and while I still feel that way, I am [rightfully] questioning how exactly Alec “left” the group, because their claim that they “asked” Alec to leave is from sometime in the afternoon on Sunday February 12th…and then that SAME EVENING Alec himself posted the following in their Facebook group!

As far as I know (because again, I’m not a member of that private group, but I haven’t been informed otherwise) this post is still up. Comments might have been turned off but from what I have been told, IT IS STILL THERE.

On top of that, the very next morning the following post showed up on the Axanar website/was [I think] sent to those who subscribe to Axanar emails. I’m including screenshots because AP is known to delete or hide posts after the fact)…

In regard to that post on the Axanar website:

Listen, I can’t say for a fact that people weren’t going a little bit too far in their attempts to prove to TAB that Alec is a bully, because I don’t know what private messages might have been sent. That said, I highly doubt anyone was “bullying” or “harassing” them because (a) the one or two so-called “haters” who were granted access to the private TAB Facebook group – and there weren’t many who bothered trying, by the way – were, again, very measured in their comments from what I have seen, (b) the only things I DID see or hear about on Facebook were the comments I have already posted screenshots of (which were, at best, judgmental, but certainly not bullying or harassing), and (c) the following tweets that were posted by Matt of Trekzone, who is named in Alec’s very angry post (so angry that he typed ‘Axanart’ instead of ‘Axanar’ and switched between 1st and 3rd person throughout) are nothing like what Alec claimed they were (side note: damn, it’s nice to have actual receipts, isn’t it?):

I also know for a fact that at least one person sent the admins of Trekkers Against Bullying direct messages that included the “proof of…claims” that Alec is claiming no one sent them. Screenshots of past bullying comments from Alec were also shared on public TAB posts. Shoot, I tagged the TAB twitter account when I tweeted a link to part 1 of this series. Not to mention the fact that even a brief perusal of the images that have been uploaded to the public Axamonitor would surely reveal quite a few screenshots of past bullying/threatening posts made by Alec and others in his camp.

(Oh, and before they simply made their group super double secret, while my single request to join was denied, I still saw a “Join” button, which means I at least had not been banned. ::shrug::)

One quick side note: Alec calling someone a “sociopath” in that post on the Axanar website is so over the top. Alec is not a psychologist/psychiatrist, and using that sort of terminology in such a flippant manner is degrading and damaging – a person who does not have a degree in psych (and even one who does, but who has not actually treated the person in question) should NEVER label (libel?) someone like that. Additionally, flippantly and incorrectly throwing terms like that around is essentially shaming people who actually have mental health problems in general, but hey, it fits his narrative, so to him it’s okay. EXEPT. IT. IS. NOT. Period, full stop. It is disgusting on so many levels.

On top of that – and I will get into this in future installments – while I agree that the situation that led Alec Peters to get a basic protective order over Shawn O’Halloran never should have happened to begin with – Shawn was never “convicted of stalking” nor did he “assault” Alec (In fact, the opposite, but that’s another story for another time).

In conclusion, my point with this particular interlude post is this: while on the surface it seems like a positive move on the part of the so-called “Trekkers Against Bullying” to ask a known bully like Alec Peters to leave their group, it very much appears that they didn’t do so in good faith. What they DID do is claim that they asked him in to leave in what appears to be an attempt to save face…because since they “supposedly” ASKED him to leave:

• As mentioned previously, their public Facebook page – and therefore the post that people were leaving insightful comments on – has been removed from Facebook, thus ending any sort of actual public discourse about this problem
• They allowed him to make that fallacy-filled post IN THEIR FACEBOOK GROUP, and their group is now apparently hidden (which of course also makes it unsearchable)
• He made that grossly disparaging blog post, which they have not spoken out against (and let’s be real, likely will not speak out against)

So while from the beginning I really wanted to believe that this was just complete ignorance on the part of a group of people who MEANT well but failed miserably because they simply did not know what they were doing (/maybe didn’t know who they were dealing with), their recent actions have led me to believe otherwise. I would love to hear from someone with TAB who could maybe explain their reasoning to me, as it seems they won’t be making any more public statements anytime soon. In fact, I will even allow for the possibility that an acquaintance of mine suggested – that being, perhaps some of the well-written comments they received “caused them to do a little introspection and reconsider their approach and they’ve just temporarily retreated to rethink and regroup”.

But for now, everything that I have seen from TAB – and everything that I am not seeing now that they have apparently gone to ground – makes it look like from the start, they merely wanted attention (which they proved with their own statements in their webcast with Alec, which I included in part 1 of this series)…and they got it. Just not in the way they hoped.

Previous Installments:
Part 1: I’m not a Star Trek Fan
Interlude: Proving My Point
Part 2: I’m not an “Axanar Hater”
Part 3: I’m Not Perfect
Continue reading:
Part 4: I’m Not Required to Ignore Attacks Against Me
Part 5: I’m Going to Protect My Family
Interlude 3: The Aftermath of an Interview