mountain-spirits

[mountain-spirits]

Hi Tumblr,

If you’re visiting this blog it’s either because you followed me before I deleted or you’ve been directed here by Ana Tiffany Devez’s (@ghosttbirdd, @chucanita, @archae-heart) harassment campaign against me.

I ran a blog called thoughtforbees from 2008-2017, and after that I ran the original archae-heart blog from January 2018 to January 2021. In this three year span of archae-heart I gained over 142,000 followers, and the experience of micro-celebrity (and then notoriety) threw my life into a tailspin.

In late December of 2020 I began receiving harassing and threatening texts, phone calls, and emails from fake numbers/accounts. Most of these messages referenced posts that I had made on Tumblr. I blocked and moved on until my employer, my alma maters, my husband’s employer, and my tribal council all alerted me to the fact that someone was repeatedly calling to A) attempt to confirm my affiliation with all of the above and B) disparage me based on Tumblr posts. The last straw came when an anonymous Tumblr blog doxxed my full name and the address to my home. This is when I deleted archae-heart, and assumed whoever was stalking me would be content with me leaving. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

I became aware of Ana’s existence in 2021 after I deleted my blog when my former mutuals (many of which know me in real life) started sending me new posts from “archae-heart”, which had now been taken over by Ana (though I did not know who was behind the cyberstalking at the time). These included accusations of being a TERF and lying about my race/ethnicity — and the “proof” provided were not from anything I had posted on archae-heart or thoughtsforbees, but screenshots from a website called Babycenter.

Now is the time I want to make it painstakingly clear that I have *never* had ANY account on Babycenter; not as myself and certainly not as any other persona. After being made aware that my photos were being posted there, I spent a significant amount of time delving into the site. It soon became clear that Ana Devez did, in fact, frequent Babycenter under numerous aliases — apparently involving herself in similar dramas where she has accused Black women of racefaking + has herself been accused of racefaking on numerous occasions — for many years. And then, through my research, it came to light that she also had a Tumblr. Ana interacted with my content when I was archae-heart and then when I came back to Tumblr as sweetgrass-soul in August 2021, Ana immediately found me, followed me, and constantly interacted with my content again. I knew who she was at this point, and remain confused as to why she would pretend to befriend me on her “real” account while at the same time continuing to admonish and defame me on archae-heart.

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I want to take the time to finally address some of the accusations levied by Ana against me.

1. I have lied about my race/ethnicity and pretended to be Black and/or Brown elsewhere online.

Ana is correct in her most recent post that I am bi-ethnic; white and Mexican. I am also Indigenous, and am enrolled with a federally recognized tribe. Anyone who followed me at archae-heart or thoughtsforbees for any amount of time knows that I have always been upfront about my (white-assumed) phenotype, that my mother is a white woman + my father a brown man, as well as my experiences reconciling my Chicana + Indigenous heritage with my white heritage. The photos used by Ana in an attempt to out me as a “racefaker” were pulled directly from my archae-heart blog, where I uploaded them — because I never attempted to to hide my phenotype. To re-upload them now while claiming she is doing so because I have represented myself as a brown woman — without any of the context of my original blog and relying on the ignorance of her mostly-teenage audience— is a disingenuous misconstruing at best and a purposefully constructed lie at worst.

I have never once claimed to be a POC/WOC (I don’t use these terms for anyone, much less myself) or a “brown” Native. And under no circumstances have I ever, EVER claimed to be Black - on Tumblr or any other website.

2. I am a TERF.

I am not, have never been, and never will be a TERF. This is just low-hanging fruit, because calling anyone a TERF on Tumblr is the easiest way to incite harassment towards them. Trans people will always be included in my feminism.

3. I am a queer baiter.

Again, this is a desperate reach made to incite as much anger against me as possible. I am a bisexual woman married to a man. I have written about my romantic and sexual experiences with both men and women. Since I am a human being and not a novel/film/show, I quite literally can’t be a “queerbaiter”. As a woman who was married to a man and has children with two different men, Ana should know better. The hypocrisy is astounding.

4. I have uploaded content that is not my own without properly sourcing.

This is an accusation I cannot and will not deny. There is no excuse for not crediting original artists, so I won’t attempt to make any. I am holding myself accountable on this, and am personally reaching out to apologize to photographers whose photos I uploaded to my blog. This is such a massive problem on Tumblr in general when it comes to aesthetic blogs, and I’m ashamed to have contributed.

5. I have been “mean” to our nannies.

I don’t know if this rumor was started or perpetuated by Ana, but it’s another odd one, and I feel compelled to address it. I’m not even sure how someone could possibly glean this from my blog/s, but uhhhh…I have never mistreated any employee, and certainly cherish the village who helps me raise my children.

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I have been silent on this issue up to this point even through the harassment and vitriol at the advice of my counsel, as we were trying to find the identity of the person/s running the Babycenter account/s without formally involving attorneys. Our personal efforts have proved fruitless, so our only recourse from here will be an ISP subpoena. I want to make it clear that I am not accusing Ana of running these Babycenter accounts or posting my photos there; I only know that she is running my old Tumblr, archae-heart, where she has posted my photos — because she openly admits it.

I am asking people to think critically about the evidence they’re being fed. The majority of these accusations against me are backed by seemingly altered screenshots from a website (Babycenter) I have never been affiliated with, under screen-names I have never used on Tumblr or any other website. On only one of these accounts I’ve been accused of owning were photos of me ever posted - both of which were swiped from my archae-heart blog where they had previously been uploaded by myself. There were never any photos of me posted that weren’t publicly available online. As a marginally-public figure, it was not unusual to find that photos of myself or my children were being used elsewhere online. This is bound to happen with six figures worth of followers and countless more lurkers, but I never imagined they would be used in such a nefarious way.

It’s incredibly stressful and embarrassing to think that someone hating my Tumblr blog would one day lead to a possible civil suit. I didn’t want to spend the money, or effort on something so silly; but time has only emboldened and made worse the cyberstalking, and what I once saw as high-school-mean-girl-bullying now feels sinister and even potentially dangerous. This amount of obsession is not normal, stable, or healthy.

I will never come back to Tumblr under any URL and I want to make it clear that I have no other social media accounts. Anyone using previous real URLs, any of the fake screennames, or posting my face and personal information online are impersonators.

Stay safe, and remember to protect yourselves online. You can’t be too careful on the internet.