- Joined
- Aug 24, 2014
"We're the chosen few to be trannies"
Chosen few implies privilege. Just a heads-up.
Chosen few implies privilege. Just a heads-up.
Greta Gustava Martela / Kjel Anderson & Nina Chaubal / Niraj Chaubal - Stole $350k+ from Trans Lifeline, kill count of 2+ from negligence, Founders of Sisterwood/La Zorra.
- Thread starter CatParty
- Start date
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- Joined
- Oct 3, 2016
Okay, I have reviewed what I have written twice. I am presenting this secondary draft to you all so you may give me advice, correct errors I made, and provide incidents and evidence. It's actually only about 1k characters longer than what's there now, and the preface is about 1,300 characters longer. I have never written a wiki article before, so despite my natural talents and being given some guidance on proper wiki editing, I assume this work is to some degree incongruent with the optimal wiki style. After I post this I will start reviewing and retrieving evidence, and adding those tags and uploading files accordingly. There are probably a few minor factual errors since the strategy was constructing the basic article first, and reviewing and inserting citations and files later. Thus, there are no <ref> tags and the like yet. I've spent so much time on this recently that most of what I wrote was derived directly from my memory.
After I complete the next version and overhaul the entire wiki article with it, I intend to adjustments and additions to it when warranted, and to create separate pages of particularly complex and noteworthy events (immigration, the declaration of war on KF and Null, etc). I need to return to scanning this thread and intend to make one or two more compilations, but I doubt I can start on that before Sunday. I hope that by the end of next week, the wiki article and the thread analysis will be completely finished (discounting the occasional need to update them).
After I complete the next version and overhaul the entire wiki article with it, I intend to adjustments and additions to it when warranted, and to create separate pages of particularly complex and noteworthy events (immigration, the declaration of war on KF and Null, etc). I need to return to scanning this thread and intend to make one or two more compilations, but I doubt I can start on that before Sunday. I hope that by the end of next week, the wiki article and the thread analysis will be completely finished (discounting the occasional need to update them).
Synopsis
Trans LifeLine (TLL) is a hotline which is self-described as a crisis and suicide prevention hotline for and by the transgender community, founded by the trans couple Greta Martela and Nina Chaubal. TLL and the founders, particularly Martela, have become the subject of critcism and controversy for a myriad of issues. Personal conduct and beliefs, the core principles of TLL, the management and effectiveness of TLL, and even the legal residency status of the native Indian Chaubal, all have been causes of very significant concern and condemnation from an extremely diverse array of people and communities.
TLL's own budgets in 2015 and 2016 (the latter entirely projected) showed the majority of income being allocated towards salaries, payroll, and travel- 2015 being especially egregious and giving the appearance of inurement by the founders. It has not been satisfactorily explained why expenses were such despite their call answer rate falling below 20% in 2015 by their own admission, or why independent sources assessed responsiveness at under 10% in 2016 when there were supposedly 100s of volunteers and active plans to hire paid ones. The founders have been observed doing little besides travelling, fundraising, and conversing on social media despite such appalling staff shortages.
TLL has not been accredited by any association pertaining to crisis and suicide services, and volunteers are given extremely short and lax training relative to mainstream standards. TLL has come under severe critcism for its steadfast refusal to involuntarily summon emergency services on a caller for any circumstances short of bomb and death threats- even when a child is suicidal and/or being sexually abused. Its leaders, doctrine, and training manuals have been widely criticized for needlessly generating fear and contributing to trans marginalization, and for conveying hostility towards even allied cisgender people.
The behavior of its founders, especially Executive Director Greta Martela, have been considered alarming and extremely unprofessional by many. Martela has expressed animus towards the male and cisgender populations in general. She blocked the widow of a TLL caller who committed suicide after she objected to her invoking the deceased in an online furor with another entity. In August of 2016, after purchasing and broadcasting a knife purchase and a desire to harm theoretical assailants with weapons, she made a sudden visit to the home of the webmaster of a highly critical site, Joshua Moon of the website Kiwi Farms, then vowed via PM that she was "just getting started". Most or all of this was ultimately paid with TLL funds due to her TLL salary and travel allotments. In late December 2016, Martela and Chaubal were stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint, and Chaubal was arrested and transferred to ICE for failing to prove legal residency. On 3 January 2017 she bonded out and is pursuing an asylum claim, a tacit admission the co-founder was here illegally- despite a successful fundraiser to pay immigration process costs in April 2016.
For these and many other reasons, the legitimacy of TLL and founders have been greatly impugned, and there are no perceivable indications any of the major concerns will be addressed.
Ideology and Doctrine
TLL was founded on the core overarching principle that the transgender community has to empower and serve itself because society at large- even the LGBT movement in general- had miserably failed transpeople. Thus, aside from a few board-level positions, all staff of TLL must be transgender. According to them, 1/3 of respondents in one of their surveys would not seek help if there was a chance of involuntary EMS. Using this premise, their policy is EMS services may never summoned to a caller without their consent. This is a highly controversial doctrine, and is contrary to that of major and reputable suicide hotline organizations. According to TLL, this bars them from gaining accredidation and grants from the American Association of Suicidology. While an effective defense of a no-involuntary doctrine for usual adult cases can be made, TLL's doctrine on this matter is near-absolute and extends to children and victims of ongoing sexual assault. All reputable organizations and the extremely overwhelming majority of people find a refusal to summon police to a critically suicidal child- especially one who is also being sexually abused- to be unconscionable.
TLL's documentation convey a preference for transwomen and transpeople of African descent. While those demographics indubitably fare worse than the general normal and trans populations, many have taken issue with a stated preference for and fixation on some trans people over others merely on the basis of race or gender. Co-founder Martela's documented hostility towards males in general amplifies these fears of bias.
Training and Standards
Obviously, the task of being a suicide hotline operator is a high-stakes job, and can in some scenarios be very stressful or even highly traumatic. Thus, in a typical suicide hotline, operators are extensively trained to be suitably prepared and knowledgeable in a myriad of scenarios (presumably including LGBT and trans callers), and are given heavy oversight and care to maintain or recover their own emotional health. Sufficient training requires dozens of hours. Operators are also screened and vetted, so that they are confident their staff are morally and emotionally fit for the job. However, according to TLL's own report, operators are given only 2 hours of training. Written after-action reports from TLL operators and testimony from callers have demonstrated their training and attitudes are insufficient for the more serious cases. According to Martela, TLL turned down an offer by the Trevor Project to train their operators, insisting on doing their own training. Why they have refused to accept such altruistic offers- especially given their very poor answer rates and professed limitations- is unknown.
While a system which trains operators as rapidly as TLL's is supposed to could be defended on the basis it ensures maximal coverage so a caller will likely reach SOMEONE, TLL consistently lacks numbers AND quality for operators. The lack of vetting, structure, standards, and training likely contribute massively to the lack of activity by those who are on the roster. According to their own figures, their rate of call response plummeted over the course of 2015 to under 20%. Outside analysis of their responsiveness in 2016 concluded it fell to below 10%, despite having nearly 300 volunteers on the roster and stated plans to pay for volunteers. Multiple people have complained their application wasn't responded to.
As stated above, TLL's policy on intervention is to refuse to summon EMS against the caller's will no matter what (excluding death and bomb threats). This is contrary to the generally accepted standards of this field, and TLL asserts this is why they cannot become accredited by the AAS or gain grants by major organizations. It is unknown whether this is indeed the reason or there are other causes. The extremely low training duration for and minimal screening of operators certainly are additional and glaring deviations from the mainstream standards.
Budgetary
TLL has released budgets for 2015 and 2016, both of which were in their rather sloppily made 2015 report. The 2015 budget projected income for Nov and Dec, while the 2016 one was entirely projected. Well under half of the income for both years was allocated to things which are directly related to hotline operations. Their 2015 budget stated an income of 88k, a travel expense of 26k for the founders, and a 24k salary for Martela, but only 11k was allocated to hosting and phone service, and zero for operator training and recruitment. Their projected 2016 budget asserted an income of 315k, and expenses for salaries, payroll (which was 28k, almost the same as the board members' salaries), and travel of 203.4k- nearly 2/3 of their expected income. No concrete budget for 2016, or a projected one for 2017, have been provided. No explanation of the rationale or necessity for the various concerning expenses has been given.
Their own budgets within the 2015 report demonstrate some of their assertions to the IRS while applying for non-profit status in 2014 were false. They have paid staff, have provided compensation/funding for activities, have operated in another country, and have argued against legislation (the infamous NC NB2 bill). No report for 2016 or 2017 has been released, and no tax forms for those years have been submitted as of January 2017.
Call Responsiveness, Attempts to Obfuscate
The rate of answered calls has been the subject of a great amount of speculation and analysis. TLL's 2015 report conceded this fell below 20% in the latter half of 2015. Various people sporadically have complained TLL hardly responded to calls. When interest in TLL and Martela greatly rose in the wake of the attempted confrontation of Joshua Moon, it was noted the # of operators on duty, a publicly accessible statistic at the time, seemed to most often be 0 or 1, sometimes 2 or 3. Moon, known as Null on the site he owns named Kiwi Farms, created a simple bot to track this information, which yielded embarrasing results for TLL and confirmed what people had been manually observing theretofore. Curiosity was piqued further when TLL noticed the criticism and his bot and disabled that feature.
A defector from TLL came to Kiwi Farms and granted Null/Moon access to their volunteer account and the intimate information which is available to all such accounts, allowing him to circumvent TLL's attempt at concealment. This mole account was discovered and deactivated after several days, but the data Null derived from it was extremely embarrassing: Martela and Chaubal never went on-call, operators who were considered on duty typically weren't actually on call, and the general response rate was under 10%. It should be noted the response rate seemed to decline despite TLL being so heavily scrutinized at the time.
The user LordKat ran an experiment over a period of almost 4 months which ended in early January 2017, and this yielded similarly appalling results: under 7% of calls were answered, and 2 of those 5 were severely mishandled.
Neither TLL nor any of its staff have given an explanation of any of the results or how they could have so many volunteers on their roster yet have almost zero response. Rather than explain and answer critics, information has been concealed and withdrawn, and Martela has loudly blocked people for polite inquiries into such matters.
The answering service message is extremely terse: "No one is available to take your call. Try again later?". This apparent lack of effort or compassion, and the refusal to provide secondary numbers and resources to those in crisis who call while no one is available, are additional causes of disapproval.
Aggressive Behavior From Martela
Martela has displayed highly aggressive, combative, and provocative behavior on numerous occasions, during times when TLL badly needed more manpower on phones. The most egregious example of her tendencies towards violence and aggression is the chain of events over a period of a week pertaining to Kiwi Farms and its webmaster Joshua Moon a.k.a. Null.
Upon noticing some negative attention and commentary from users of Kiwi Farms, on 5 August 2016 she broadcast on FB a knife purchase and that she carries knives. On 7 August she made highly incendiary statements indicating she wanted to use weapons on people from Kiwi Farms IRL (including the comment "I've got a cross bow that I'm dying to try out") and wage an intensive campaign against all of its users with the intention of "destroying" them. On 10 August she posted a picture of herself at a firing range.
On 9 August, she made an unannounced and unwelcome visit to Moon's house after awaiting his and his mother's return from a dinner engagement. Moon's mother answered the door while he was in the bathroom, and lied about his current location to persuade her to depart due to fear she engendered. Immediately after the house visit, she published part of her FB conversation with Moon which included the taunt "I'm just getting started fucking with you boo.". The weapons posts and her taunt made Moon feel threatened enough to report the incidents to police after informing her he would invoke Florida's "stand your ground" law if necessary. It should be noted that she was on a roadtrip during all of this, and the two founders not only draw salaries but also a travel expense. Thus, TLL donations ultimately funded these purchases and the excursion- all when very few calls were being answered.
Elizabeth Waite was a caller of TLL who committed suicide. Her death was erroneously attributed to harassment from users of Kiwi Farms. These circumstances prompted TLL and Martela to wage an angry campaign over Twitter aimed at Cloudflare and KF. The widow of the deceased disapproved of the accusations about the cause of her suicide and her name being invoked by TLL, and objected to TLL and Martela. Martela blocked her quickly afterwards rather than acquiesce or politely speak to the widow, behavior that is remarkably callous for a manager of a suicide line campaigning against needless cruelty.
Once Martela expressed a desire to advocate for violent rioting by transgender people, and a refusal to do so because of fears of extermination by the cisgender population in response. On another occasion, she herself implied she was almost thrown out of a DMV due to her truculence over their demand that Chaubal pull her pants up. There are innumerable other occasions too minor to mention. The effects such behaviors and expenditures of energy on personal conflicts have on TLL are substantial and detrimental.
Accusations of Misandry and Cisphobia
Various statements and documents have conveyed a level of animosity towards the general (cisgender) population, and even to the overall male population. The absolute refusal to allow non-trans people to be operators alone is widely seen as inherently exclusive and antagonistic, and on one occasion when such a person argued in favor of being allowed to contribute as an operator, other TLL followers shouted her down while TLL tolerated this. Manuals and documentations frequently convey a level of generalized mistrust.
Martela is more abrasive and vociferous than TLL in general. The most egregious example of bigotry from her is a Tweet of her openly praising misandry. There is a FB post where she asserts she would advocate transgender people riot if she didn't believe the cisgender majority would exterminate them. The manuals TLL uses which she wrote use only female pronouns. There are several documented cases of her being condescending and angry with the cisgender population in general rather than particular offenders.
Inurement, Self-Enrichment, and Corruption Accusations
There have been multiple well documented occasions where Martela and/or Chaubal have used TLL resources to enrich themselves or pay for services which don't benefit the organization. In one situation, TLL had announced the termination of an employee for using the TLL name to enrich themselves, and this prohibition explicitly included the Executive Director (which is Martela). Not long afterwards, the TLL social media accounts promoted a GoFundMe for Martela's dental care needs. On another occasion, the TLL accounts were used to promote a GoFundMe for the immigration process costs of Chaubal and raised over $700- almost 50% above the goal. Yet, it did not serve the intended purpose since she was arrested for illegal residency almost 9 months later, and an explanation of the fate of that money has not been provided.
As Chaubal's work visa had expired and was not replaced or renewed in any way, it was illegal for her to be employed at all until that was rectified. However, in 2016, she was made an employee of TLL and took in 24k per year along with Martela, and also worked as an Uber driver in 2015. It obviously is very complicating and also personally distracting when one of the founders of a non-profit is deemed an undocumented alien by a federal agency. Additionally, a fundraising campaign online done under the TLL name was conducted to raise money to pay Chaubal's bond and first round of legal fees. Undoubtedly more such TLL-led fundraising for Chaubal's immigration legal fees will follow, which is utterly irrelevant to the reason for existence and mission of TLL.
In addition to taking in about 50k per year in salary combined, they were paid a substantial amount of money by the organization to travel, which took the form of frequent roadtrips. It has never been explained beyond nebulous justifications of drumming up awareness and interest how exactly they were benefiting the organization or its cause through so many trips, and rarely or never were specific legitimate events or objectives described. The tone of the many roadtrips was that of being on vacation rather than working for TLL. ~75k in 2016, and ~50k in 2015, was spent on the founders' salaries and travel, and what TLL has gotten in exchange has never been expounded. It is not unreasonable to assume donations to TLL mostly or entirely paid for Martela's knife and travel expenses during the August attempted confrontation of Null.
Unprofessionalism and Mismanagement by Founders
The founders of TLL- in particular Martela- have behaved in ways which an average person would deem irresponsible and reckless given their positions. The sense of being on near-constant vacation with TLL money is but one example. Martela's personal life seems totally intertwined with her professional life, so whatever she says or does as Martela is effectively done as/by TLL as well. This is extremely bad due to her temperament. A critical example of this was the case of Elizabeth Waite, a caller of TLL and acquaintance of Martela who committed suicide. A major furor erupted over who or what was responsible for this, amplified by her denouncing Kiwi Farms for its perceived role and starting a heated campaign through TLL's Twitter to have Cloudflare dump KF as a client. When the grieving widow appeared and demanded Martela cease invoking the deceased's name and case in the conflagration, Martela stated she was "no longer welcome here" and blocked her.
It was noted by the defector and by Moon while he had access to the former's staff account, that neither Chaubal nor Martela went on call despite serious shortages of operator manpower. Martela on at least two occasions asserted she was not on call for long periods of time, and few of either of their social media posts speak of manning phones. Martela once stated she hadn't checked her e-mail in 3 weeks. Martela often posts about traveling, miscellaneous subjects, or conflicts with people both online and face-to-face.
In August of 2016 when there was a high level of scrutiny on their operations and ethics, they responded numerous times by removing access to information and not addressing the criticism. Even the staff page was withdrawn (and is still unavailable). Some people who civilly asked to address a concern were angrily blocked by Martela. TLL once reacted to a Tumblr user's damning compilation by addressing only limited fragments of it and then disabling comments on their own article while the Tumblr user was barraged with hostile messages. Detailed sets of information akin to the 2015 report have not been presented since then, and what information is given is often implausible or self-contradictory.
Immigration Saga
Chaubal was a temporary resident of the US on a work visa with Google being the sponsor. In 2015 Chaubal's employment by Google ended, which ended Google's sponsorship and thus her visa's validity soon afterwards. In 2015 and 2016 Martela spoke of trying to complete an alternate path to legal residency, but had encountered problems. Chaubal worked for Uber and 2015 and TTL in 2016 or earlier, both of which were unlawful since she had become an illegal immigrant after her visa expired. Despite attempts to acquire needed documentation and raising $720 ($220 over the goal) for various immigration expenses, in December 2016 she remained an unlawful resident of the USA.
On 28 December 2016, while driving back to their Chicago home in the "Trans LifeLine Van" (it's unknown what exactly they were doing for the good of or on behalf of TLL) along a route very close to the Mexican border (it should be noted a contact's polite questioning of the wisdom of this was met with hostility, and another who advised her to stop provoking her critics was angrily blocked), they encountered a Border Patrol checkpoint. Chaubal was subsequently detained, and then transferred to the infamous Eloy Detention Center. On 3 January 2017, $4,500 bond was paid and Chaubal left Eloy. She admitted in a 10 January article she was still preparing documentation for the immigration process, though it's unknown what exactly was keeping her from finishing that and applying for a new green card on the basis of marriage to an American citizen. Regardless of how the case plays out, TLL and its founders will be spending a great amount of resources addressing a preventable immigration status quagmire during a time responsiveness to calls is virtually zero.
Trans LifeLine (TLL) is a hotline which is self-described as a crisis and suicide prevention hotline for and by the transgender community, founded by the trans couple Greta Martela and Nina Chaubal. TLL and the founders, particularly Martela, have become the subject of critcism and controversy for a myriad of issues. Personal conduct and beliefs, the core principles of TLL, the management and effectiveness of TLL, and even the legal residency status of the native Indian Chaubal, all have been causes of very significant concern and condemnation from an extremely diverse array of people and communities.
TLL's own budgets in 2015 and 2016 (the latter entirely projected) showed the majority of income being allocated towards salaries, payroll, and travel- 2015 being especially egregious and giving the appearance of inurement by the founders. It has not been satisfactorily explained why expenses were such despite their call answer rate falling below 20% in 2015 by their own admission, or why independent sources assessed responsiveness at under 10% in 2016 when there were supposedly 100s of volunteers and active plans to hire paid ones. The founders have been observed doing little besides travelling, fundraising, and conversing on social media despite such appalling staff shortages.
TLL has not been accredited by any association pertaining to crisis and suicide services, and volunteers are given extremely short and lax training relative to mainstream standards. TLL has come under severe critcism for its steadfast refusal to involuntarily summon emergency services on a caller for any circumstances short of bomb and death threats- even when a child is suicidal and/or being sexually abused. Its leaders, doctrine, and training manuals have been widely criticized for needlessly generating fear and contributing to trans marginalization, and for conveying hostility towards even allied cisgender people.
The behavior of its founders, especially Executive Director Greta Martela, have been considered alarming and extremely unprofessional by many. Martela has expressed animus towards the male and cisgender populations in general. She blocked the widow of a TLL caller who committed suicide after she objected to her invoking the deceased in an online furor with another entity. In August of 2016, after purchasing and broadcasting a knife purchase and a desire to harm theoretical assailants with weapons, she made a sudden visit to the home of the webmaster of a highly critical site, Joshua Moon of the website Kiwi Farms, then vowed via PM that she was "just getting started". Most or all of this was ultimately paid with TLL funds due to her TLL salary and travel allotments. In late December 2016, Martela and Chaubal were stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint, and Chaubal was arrested and transferred to ICE for failing to prove legal residency. On 3 January 2017 she bonded out and is pursuing an asylum claim, a tacit admission the co-founder was here illegally- despite a successful fundraiser to pay immigration process costs in April 2016.
For these and many other reasons, the legitimacy of TLL and founders have been greatly impugned, and there are no perceivable indications any of the major concerns will be addressed.
Ideology and Doctrine
TLL was founded on the core overarching principle that the transgender community has to empower and serve itself because society at large- even the LGBT movement in general- had miserably failed transpeople. Thus, aside from a few board-level positions, all staff of TLL must be transgender. According to them, 1/3 of respondents in one of their surveys would not seek help if there was a chance of involuntary EMS. Using this premise, their policy is EMS services may never summoned to a caller without their consent. This is a highly controversial doctrine, and is contrary to that of major and reputable suicide hotline organizations. According to TLL, this bars them from gaining accredidation and grants from the American Association of Suicidology. While an effective defense of a no-involuntary doctrine for usual adult cases can be made, TLL's doctrine on this matter is near-absolute and extends to children and victims of ongoing sexual assault. All reputable organizations and the extremely overwhelming majority of people find a refusal to summon police to a critically suicidal child- especially one who is also being sexually abused- to be unconscionable.
TLL's documentation convey a preference for transwomen and transpeople of African descent. While those demographics indubitably fare worse than the general normal and trans populations, many have taken issue with a stated preference for and fixation on some trans people over others merely on the basis of race or gender. Co-founder Martela's documented hostility towards males in general amplifies these fears of bias.
Training and Standards
Obviously, the task of being a suicide hotline operator is a high-stakes job, and can in some scenarios be very stressful or even highly traumatic. Thus, in a typical suicide hotline, operators are extensively trained to be suitably prepared and knowledgeable in a myriad of scenarios (presumably including LGBT and trans callers), and are given heavy oversight and care to maintain or recover their own emotional health. Sufficient training requires dozens of hours. Operators are also screened and vetted, so that they are confident their staff are morally and emotionally fit for the job. However, according to TLL's own report, operators are given only 2 hours of training. Written after-action reports from TLL operators and testimony from callers have demonstrated their training and attitudes are insufficient for the more serious cases. According to Martela, TLL turned down an offer by the Trevor Project to train their operators, insisting on doing their own training. Why they have refused to accept such altruistic offers- especially given their very poor answer rates and professed limitations- is unknown.
While a system which trains operators as rapidly as TLL's is supposed to could be defended on the basis it ensures maximal coverage so a caller will likely reach SOMEONE, TLL consistently lacks numbers AND quality for operators. The lack of vetting, structure, standards, and training likely contribute massively to the lack of activity by those who are on the roster. According to their own figures, their rate of call response plummeted over the course of 2015 to under 20%. Outside analysis of their responsiveness in 2016 concluded it fell to below 10%, despite having nearly 300 volunteers on the roster and stated plans to pay for volunteers. Multiple people have complained their application wasn't responded to.
As stated above, TLL's policy on intervention is to refuse to summon EMS against the caller's will no matter what (excluding death and bomb threats). This is contrary to the generally accepted standards of this field, and TLL asserts this is why they cannot become accredited by the AAS or gain grants by major organizations. It is unknown whether this is indeed the reason or there are other causes. The extremely low training duration for and minimal screening of operators certainly are additional and glaring deviations from the mainstream standards.
Budgetary
TLL has released budgets for 2015 and 2016, both of which were in their rather sloppily made 2015 report. The 2015 budget projected income for Nov and Dec, while the 2016 one was entirely projected. Well under half of the income for both years was allocated to things which are directly related to hotline operations. Their 2015 budget stated an income of 88k, a travel expense of 26k for the founders, and a 24k salary for Martela, but only 11k was allocated to hosting and phone service, and zero for operator training and recruitment. Their projected 2016 budget asserted an income of 315k, and expenses for salaries, payroll (which was 28k, almost the same as the board members' salaries), and travel of 203.4k- nearly 2/3 of their expected income. No concrete budget for 2016, or a projected one for 2017, have been provided. No explanation of the rationale or necessity for the various concerning expenses has been given.
Their own budgets within the 2015 report demonstrate some of their assertions to the IRS while applying for non-profit status in 2014 were false. They have paid staff, have provided compensation/funding for activities, have operated in another country, and have argued against legislation (the infamous NC NB2 bill). No report for 2016 or 2017 has been released, and no tax forms for those years have been submitted as of January 2017.
Call Responsiveness, Attempts to Obfuscate
The rate of answered calls has been the subject of a great amount of speculation and analysis. TLL's 2015 report conceded this fell below 20% in the latter half of 2015. Various people sporadically have complained TLL hardly responded to calls. When interest in TLL and Martela greatly rose in the wake of the attempted confrontation of Joshua Moon, it was noted the # of operators on duty, a publicly accessible statistic at the time, seemed to most often be 0 or 1, sometimes 2 or 3. Moon, known as Null on the site he owns named Kiwi Farms, created a simple bot to track this information, which yielded embarrasing results for TLL and confirmed what people had been manually observing theretofore. Curiosity was piqued further when TLL noticed the criticism and his bot and disabled that feature.
A defector from TLL came to Kiwi Farms and granted Null/Moon access to their volunteer account and the intimate information which is available to all such accounts, allowing him to circumvent TLL's attempt at concealment. This mole account was discovered and deactivated after several days, but the data Null derived from it was extremely embarrassing: Martela and Chaubal never went on-call, operators who were considered on duty typically weren't actually on call, and the general response rate was under 10%. It should be noted the response rate seemed to decline despite TLL being so heavily scrutinized at the time.
The user LordKat ran an experiment over a period of almost 4 months which ended in early January 2017, and this yielded similarly appalling results: under 7% of calls were answered, and 2 of those 5 were severely mishandled.
Neither TLL nor any of its staff have given an explanation of any of the results or how they could have so many volunteers on their roster yet have almost zero response. Rather than explain and answer critics, information has been concealed and withdrawn, and Martela has loudly blocked people for polite inquiries into such matters.
The answering service message is extremely terse: "No one is available to take your call. Try again later?". This apparent lack of effort or compassion, and the refusal to provide secondary numbers and resources to those in crisis who call while no one is available, are additional causes of disapproval.
Aggressive Behavior From Martela
Martela has displayed highly aggressive, combative, and provocative behavior on numerous occasions, during times when TLL badly needed more manpower on phones. The most egregious example of her tendencies towards violence and aggression is the chain of events over a period of a week pertaining to Kiwi Farms and its webmaster Joshua Moon a.k.a. Null.
Upon noticing some negative attention and commentary from users of Kiwi Farms, on 5 August 2016 she broadcast on FB a knife purchase and that she carries knives. On 7 August she made highly incendiary statements indicating she wanted to use weapons on people from Kiwi Farms IRL (including the comment "I've got a cross bow that I'm dying to try out") and wage an intensive campaign against all of its users with the intention of "destroying" them. On 10 August she posted a picture of herself at a firing range.
On 9 August, she made an unannounced and unwelcome visit to Moon's house after awaiting his and his mother's return from a dinner engagement. Moon's mother answered the door while he was in the bathroom, and lied about his current location to persuade her to depart due to fear she engendered. Immediately after the house visit, she published part of her FB conversation with Moon which included the taunt "I'm just getting started fucking with you boo.". The weapons posts and her taunt made Moon feel threatened enough to report the incidents to police after informing her he would invoke Florida's "stand your ground" law if necessary. It should be noted that she was on a roadtrip during all of this, and the two founders not only draw salaries but also a travel expense. Thus, TLL donations ultimately funded these purchases and the excursion- all when very few calls were being answered.
Elizabeth Waite was a caller of TLL who committed suicide. Her death was erroneously attributed to harassment from users of Kiwi Farms. These circumstances prompted TLL and Martela to wage an angry campaign over Twitter aimed at Cloudflare and KF. The widow of the deceased disapproved of the accusations about the cause of her suicide and her name being invoked by TLL, and objected to TLL and Martela. Martela blocked her quickly afterwards rather than acquiesce or politely speak to the widow, behavior that is remarkably callous for a manager of a suicide line campaigning against needless cruelty.
Once Martela expressed a desire to advocate for violent rioting by transgender people, and a refusal to do so because of fears of extermination by the cisgender population in response. On another occasion, she herself implied she was almost thrown out of a DMV due to her truculence over their demand that Chaubal pull her pants up. There are innumerable other occasions too minor to mention. The effects such behaviors and expenditures of energy on personal conflicts have on TLL are substantial and detrimental.
Accusations of Misandry and Cisphobia
Various statements and documents have conveyed a level of animosity towards the general (cisgender) population, and even to the overall male population. The absolute refusal to allow non-trans people to be operators alone is widely seen as inherently exclusive and antagonistic, and on one occasion when such a person argued in favor of being allowed to contribute as an operator, other TLL followers shouted her down while TLL tolerated this. Manuals and documentations frequently convey a level of generalized mistrust.
Martela is more abrasive and vociferous than TLL in general. The most egregious example of bigotry from her is a Tweet of her openly praising misandry. There is a FB post where she asserts she would advocate transgender people riot if she didn't believe the cisgender majority would exterminate them. The manuals TLL uses which she wrote use only female pronouns. There are several documented cases of her being condescending and angry with the cisgender population in general rather than particular offenders.
Inurement, Self-Enrichment, and Corruption Accusations
There have been multiple well documented occasions where Martela and/or Chaubal have used TLL resources to enrich themselves or pay for services which don't benefit the organization. In one situation, TLL had announced the termination of an employee for using the TLL name to enrich themselves, and this prohibition explicitly included the Executive Director (which is Martela). Not long afterwards, the TLL social media accounts promoted a GoFundMe for Martela's dental care needs. On another occasion, the TLL accounts were used to promote a GoFundMe for the immigration process costs of Chaubal and raised over $700- almost 50% above the goal. Yet, it did not serve the intended purpose since she was arrested for illegal residency almost 9 months later, and an explanation of the fate of that money has not been provided.
As Chaubal's work visa had expired and was not replaced or renewed in any way, it was illegal for her to be employed at all until that was rectified. However, in 2016, she was made an employee of TLL and took in 24k per year along with Martela, and also worked as an Uber driver in 2015. It obviously is very complicating and also personally distracting when one of the founders of a non-profit is deemed an undocumented alien by a federal agency. Additionally, a fundraising campaign online done under the TLL name was conducted to raise money to pay Chaubal's bond and first round of legal fees. Undoubtedly more such TLL-led fundraising for Chaubal's immigration legal fees will follow, which is utterly irrelevant to the reason for existence and mission of TLL.
In addition to taking in about 50k per year in salary combined, they were paid a substantial amount of money by the organization to travel, which took the form of frequent roadtrips. It has never been explained beyond nebulous justifications of drumming up awareness and interest how exactly they were benefiting the organization or its cause through so many trips, and rarely or never were specific legitimate events or objectives described. The tone of the many roadtrips was that of being on vacation rather than working for TLL. ~75k in 2016, and ~50k in 2015, was spent on the founders' salaries and travel, and what TLL has gotten in exchange has never been expounded. It is not unreasonable to assume donations to TLL mostly or entirely paid for Martela's knife and travel expenses during the August attempted confrontation of Null.
Unprofessionalism and Mismanagement by Founders
The founders of TLL- in particular Martela- have behaved in ways which an average person would deem irresponsible and reckless given their positions. The sense of being on near-constant vacation with TLL money is but one example. Martela's personal life seems totally intertwined with her professional life, so whatever she says or does as Martela is effectively done as/by TLL as well. This is extremely bad due to her temperament. A critical example of this was the case of Elizabeth Waite, a caller of TLL and acquaintance of Martela who committed suicide. A major furor erupted over who or what was responsible for this, amplified by her denouncing Kiwi Farms for its perceived role and starting a heated campaign through TLL's Twitter to have Cloudflare dump KF as a client. When the grieving widow appeared and demanded Martela cease invoking the deceased's name and case in the conflagration, Martela stated she was "no longer welcome here" and blocked her.
It was noted by the defector and by Moon while he had access to the former's staff account, that neither Chaubal nor Martela went on call despite serious shortages of operator manpower. Martela on at least two occasions asserted she was not on call for long periods of time, and few of either of their social media posts speak of manning phones. Martela once stated she hadn't checked her e-mail in 3 weeks. Martela often posts about traveling, miscellaneous subjects, or conflicts with people both online and face-to-face.
In August of 2016 when there was a high level of scrutiny on their operations and ethics, they responded numerous times by removing access to information and not addressing the criticism. Even the staff page was withdrawn (and is still unavailable). Some people who civilly asked to address a concern were angrily blocked by Martela. TLL once reacted to a Tumblr user's damning compilation by addressing only limited fragments of it and then disabling comments on their own article while the Tumblr user was barraged with hostile messages. Detailed sets of information akin to the 2015 report have not been presented since then, and what information is given is often implausible or self-contradictory.
Immigration Saga
Chaubal was a temporary resident of the US on a work visa with Google being the sponsor. In 2015 Chaubal's employment by Google ended, which ended Google's sponsorship and thus her visa's validity soon afterwards. In 2015 and 2016 Martela spoke of trying to complete an alternate path to legal residency, but had encountered problems. Chaubal worked for Uber and 2015 and TTL in 2016 or earlier, both of which were unlawful since she had become an illegal immigrant after her visa expired. Despite attempts to acquire needed documentation and raising $720 ($220 over the goal) for various immigration expenses, in December 2016 she remained an unlawful resident of the USA.
On 28 December 2016, while driving back to their Chicago home in the "Trans LifeLine Van" (it's unknown what exactly they were doing for the good of or on behalf of TLL) along a route very close to the Mexican border (it should be noted a contact's polite questioning of the wisdom of this was met with hostility, and another who advised her to stop provoking her critics was angrily blocked), they encountered a Border Patrol checkpoint. Chaubal was subsequently detained, and then transferred to the infamous Eloy Detention Center. On 3 January 2017, $4,500 bond was paid and Chaubal left Eloy. She admitted in a 10 January article she was still preparing documentation for the immigration process, though it's unknown what exactly was keeping her from finishing that and applying for a new green card on the basis of marriage to an American citizen. Regardless of how the case plays out, TLL and its founders will be spending a great amount of resources addressing a preventable immigration status quagmire during a time responsiveness to calls is virtually zero.
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2016
This is pretty awesome. My only suggestion would be for an additional section detailing all of the fundraisers TLL has held if the information about them - and final dollar figures raised - can be found.
unclestryker
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2015
Ok well today for some reason greta is a #freechelseanow kick. Which my opinion pardoning ed snowden is a more pressing issue.
(obama telling the people that they can go fuck themselves on the ed snowden situation)
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden
http://archive.is/3rLyu
Also I found another facebook page for greta.
https://www.facebook.com/gretagustavamartela/
http://archive.is/qp5gQ
So now thats out of the way on to the posts.
We not the ones who have deranged fantasies about brutally kill those you disliked.
(obama telling the people that they can go fuck themselves on the ed snowden situation)
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-edward-snowden
http://archive.is/3rLyu
Also I found another facebook page for greta.
https://www.facebook.com/gretagustavamartela/
http://archive.is/qp5gQ
So now thats out of the way on to the posts.
We not the ones who have deranged fantasies about brutally kill those you disliked.
Nina still hasn't figured out the buzzfeed story wasn't true.
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2016
Seeing one picture of El Nino here made me happy (in a very sad way) that Aaron Swartz didn't live long enough to become a troon himself.
Shameless promoting my "what'd be your tranny name" thread on the off-topic forum
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/what-would-be-your-tranny-name.27453/
Shameless promoting my "what'd be your tranny name" thread on the off-topic forum
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/what-would-be-your-tranny-name.27453/
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2013
Anyone who takes buzzfeed seriously as a news source just proves how retarded they are.
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
@Field Marshal Crappenberg - you might want to change the bit about Nina being a "native Indian" to something like "Indian national" or "citizen of India", so casual ICE readers don't mix it up with "Native American".
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
Holy fuck. It would have happened, wouldn't it have?
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2014
Wait, hang on. Chelsea Manning deserves a full pardon because. . .?
Seven years is a slap on the wrist for treason.
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2013
Because trannies deserve special treatment and immunity from all criminal charges or having to take responsibility for their actions.
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2014
I get that, but what's the real reason?
. . .oh, wait, that is the real reason, isn't it.
- Joined
- May 25, 2013
I think it's funny
Only troons make their sexuality the focal point of their lives.
You never hear them talk about anything else, it's always troon this and troon that.
Maybe they're just super boring people who have to focus on their troon-hood because they got nothing else to talk about.
Only troons make their sexuality the focal point of their lives.
You never hear them talk about anything else, it's always troon this and troon that.
Maybe they're just super boring people who have to focus on their troon-hood because they got nothing else to talk about.
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2016
The only reason Manning got attention was because despite being a whistleblower, the media made the whole trans identity a big deal.
Then Manning went full autismo because he was still in the feddy for releasing information that he decided to starve himself and show the man how badass he was.
Convicts and inmates going on hunger strikes isn't news worthy, but how dare a TRANS convict consciously harm themself, it must be the cisnormative patriarchy's fault somehow?
Then Manning went full autismo because he was still in the feddy for releasing information that he decided to starve himself and show the man how badass he was.
Convicts and inmates going on hunger strikes isn't news worthy, but how dare a TRANS convict consciously harm themself, it must be the cisnormative patriarchy's fault somehow?
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2014
Shouldn't not allowing cisgender people to operate the phones be considered discrimination?
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2015
I've never received a clear answer on why Manning should be free.
Yes, her treatment has been awful, but that's a system problem not a sentence problem.
Perhaps her sentence was harsher than it should have been, but 7 years is light for treason (and let's not kid ourselves, she was military personnel that stole classified documents and sent them to foreign powers) and something that should be handled through the military judicial system.
Yes, her treatment has been awful, but that's a system problem not a sentence problem.
Perhaps her sentence was harsher than it should have been, but 7 years is light for treason (and let's not kid ourselves, she was military personnel that stole classified documents and sent them to foreign powers) and something that should be handled through the military judicial system.
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2016
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2016
I could never find a clear explanation for why Manning was arrested, other than articles going on and on about discrimination and hunger strikes.
As best I pieced it together, Manning was a gay solder in charge of confidential information. Had stressed t
He had depression and suicidal tendencies before, which was the first red flag. They gave him a desk job instead, in charge of shit kept under lock and key.
There was some things I picked up about how Manning was very out about being gay, and no one really seemed to care about it or didn't want in his pants. Not sure about the accuracy here. I'm assuming Manning got more depressed and was intending to off himself, proceeded to go out with a bang somehow by disclosing tons of shit on Bush and Iraq.
After arrest, Chelsea came out as trans, and suddenly the crimes were no longer big ticket, it was all about how this poor trans woman needed to be free. No one talks about the treason and espionage commited, that had it been more serious information would have screwed us over big time.
To me, Manning deserves that jail cell, and shouldn't be pampered by shit like VICE making daily ads on TV to mail him letters.
As best I pieced it together, Manning was a gay solder in charge of confidential information. Had stressed t
He had depression and suicidal tendencies before, which was the first red flag. They gave him a desk job instead, in charge of shit kept under lock and key.
There was some things I picked up about how Manning was very out about being gay, and no one really seemed to care about it or didn't want in his pants. Not sure about the accuracy here. I'm assuming Manning got more depressed and was intending to off himself, proceeded to go out with a bang somehow by disclosing tons of shit on Bush and Iraq.
After arrest, Chelsea came out as trans, and suddenly the crimes were no longer big ticket, it was all about how this poor trans woman needed to be free. No one talks about the treason and espionage commited, that had it been more serious information would have screwed us over big time.
To me, Manning deserves that jail cell, and shouldn't be pampered by shit like VICE making daily ads on TV to mail him letters.
R
RP 520
Guest
kiwifarms.net
They also want taxpayers to pay for his transition.
Also somehow despite being a poor trans isolated in a solitary confinement, he somehow gets a lot of messages out and sends out messages to "news" sites on what he's doing etc.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
Why should taxpayers pay for something troons claim is just a personal choice with nothing to do with any medical problem?
Why not just buy me a free late model Mercedes instead? I'm sure I'd be happier with a really bitchin rad car.
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2016
Voluntary sterilization of the undesired and retarded is good for society as a whole.