Defense Distributed it’s 3 D gun printing plans are still available on the web if you know where to look. This archive is not secret. I will not say the name of because everyone should know its name. Everyone should know that everything they put on the web has been archived going back to The beginning of most website by this organization. Furthermore, files put on the Internet In the form of torrents are distributed across many peers in a cloud of computers all around the internet in tiny pieces. The torrent file just puts those pieces together.

So the files are out there. You don’t need to be Anonymous or use Tor or search the “dark web”. The archiving of everything you put out there is just a part of the normal function of the world wide brain we call the internet. Judges and mainstream media need to be more aware of this.

Free Speech and The Web

There are issues of free speech and self defense rights involved in this. I am a progressive libertarian myself. Governments should exist to ensure the welfare and defense of their people and should do both in the least intrusive manner possible. The rights of one person stop where they impinge on the rights of another in some way. A personal space that is similar to the walls of the stalls in the ladies room. You have a right to be in your stall not to peep into someone else using the rest room. You have a right to be self deprecating about your own situation not about another….that’s just called an insult. To tie this blog to another issue… words that are simply problematic are a free speech issue. Words that are defamatory are not.

Posting plans for a 3D printed gun are a free speech issue. Printing one out and making one work is a gun rights or self defense issue. Shooting someone is NOT a right. The first two things don’t inherently harm anyone. The last one does.

Sites like twitter, which host user generated content, like the site these gun plans were posted to are not pure free speech zones. They have owners who get to set limits and policies and have to abide by them or be subject to lawsuit. On the web you need to respect the websites you comment on and try to follow their rules. 99% of the time they are enforced in an even manner.

For this reason it would be wrong to go after the websites which host this information. If it is not we can’t have the internet as we know it. The internet will become like TV where only certain corporate interest pipe ad supported content into your computer. The net as a place for free exchange by anyone will be dead.

Miscellaneous Other News

I am still going to be updating regarding my recovery from #Transgender #Transsexual surgery aka Sex Reassignment surgery / Gender Reassignment Surgery / Gender Confirmation Surgery. The name for it changes a lot. I can already see a “problem” with that last one if gender is in our heads (it is) how does surgery confirm it? Maybe Gender Affirmation Surgery..GAS. Truth be told when I talk about among friends it I just call it a sex change. A term which is considered offensive so you don’t get to reclaim it I do...I paid the dues.

One of the things that infuriates about the transgender community is how often our terminology changes. Some words have always been offensive. Others become reclaimed. Still others are irredeemable.

CrunchyRoll the Netflix of Anime has committed to sending me a comment or making a statement on the use of “trap” as a translation for the Japanese term 男の娘 (literally translated male daughter/male girl), Trap is a word which has a long ugly history of use against GLB and especially trans women. Unless the word or concept is in the original language then there is no good reason for it to be in a purported translation of that language. 男の娘 does not mean “trap” it means something like kathoey (lady boy Thai) or bakla (“gay” used in Philippines for feminine gay males and transwomen.)...just local terms for a transwoman. Unlike the harmless speech I argue for above this word and idea get people killed. As a black person and a transwoman I an say it is like the N word. Could it be reclaimed probably never...but I do find this tune catchy. If it is it is up to the trans community and no one else to do it.

That said like these gun plans if Crunchyroll bans using "trap" as a word for transwomen, other sites will still have it used. It just won’t have the sanction of being a word used in official legit licensed material. One can be against the censorship of defamatory and destructive speech and against the sponsorship of defamatory and destructive speech.