Here’s something weird. Listen to Matt Dillahunty talk about the recent hosts who had left the ACA:

[29:57] There are four people who were previously on The Atheist Experience, who have left The Atheist Experience. Some of them have left the ACA to go pursue their own interests, and other things, some of them are still involved in ACA or taking a break, or whatever else, and that would be Tracie, Jen, Phil, and John Iacoletti.

Wait, what about Clare Wuellner? She too was a former host, and she too left. She certainly didn’t host as often as Tracie or Jen, but she was a board member for six years, and responsible for both restarting Godless Bitches and starting Parenting Beyond Belief. Clare was no small part of the ACA, so her omission is odd. It’s possible Matt wasn’t too close to her, but they both hosted AXP at the same time within the last year, and when Matt wanted to complain during the livestream he messaged Clare.

Some evidence could explain the omission, though.

[1:31:16] CLARE: Everyone got attacked, but I think it’s fair to say that I was attacked the most. Would you say that’s fair, Tracie and Jen? Or not?

[1:31:26] TRACIE: Yeah, I mean – I just wasn’t involved in it enough to take much heat, you know? […]

[1:32:09] CLARE: And I’m not saying “poor me,” I’m just saying it was particularly viscous, and – it was obviously very personal.

When Matt was addressing the sudden outflux of hosts, he could have included Clare. Coming from someone as popular and well-known as him, it would have signaled that she was one of the crowd and provided some support. Instead, Matt omitted her, sweeping her contributions to the ACA under the rug and casting her as an unimportant character. Combined with his later accusation that she was “lying about him” and “blaming others for decisions [she] voted for,” this evidence suggests that he at least implicitly endorsed her mistreatment, and at worst helped make her life more miserable.

Think I’m reaching? After watching Essence Of Thought’s latest video, I think it sounds perfectly in character for Dillahunty.

[13:51] But what I found truly shocking was the fact that when I posted about this to the ACA Walkout support group, it turned out that several people had received the same treatment from Matt. That’s one of the big things I want to acknowledge here. There is a big difference between real Matt and Atheist Experience Matt. The Matt you see on screen right now is not the genuine thing. It’s a character.

Matt the person is so callous, so cutthroat and pitiless, that he took to blocking people who had volunteered time at the ACA for having the audacity to try and talk to him about how the way he was presenting things didn’t match up to reality.  Now I often get accused of being an unfeeling bitch, but that’s just fucking cold. But it gets even worse. As of July the 17th, at least four former volunteers found themselves banned from ACA spaces. These are spaces which have extensively permitted racist, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist rhetoric under the pretense of “discussion”. Yet apparently former volunteers can be blocked without any reason whatsoever. And to be clear, this was before my ACA testimony video went out. So that couldn’t have been the reason.

Matt has even told former volunteers that part of the reason he feels justified in doing it is because quote “I don’t need you around.” And some people thought my thumbnail was being uncharitable. Fact is his treatment of the former volunteers is generally appalling, exposing him to have the mindset that people are a disposable resource.

So apparently they’re no longer allowing discussion on Woodford’s calls to violate the human rights of trans women. Which is odd considering transphobic comments in support of said human rights violations are still permitted. It’s only people critical of said human rights violations who are held to this rule.

I think it’s perfectly fair to label someone a garbage person if they repeatedly defend a serial transphobe, and allow everyone to experience transphobia when they had the ability to prevent that. As is their style, Essence Of Thought builds quite a case to support that, with citations to statements Dillahunty and others have made. Give it a watch, or read through the transcript, and decide for yourself if I’m being fair to Dillahunty.