Assigned Male Cartoonist Attacked By Online Haters

I've loved the online webcomic Assigned Male ever since I stumbled across it during one of my web searching forays for interesting things to write about.

I wrote about its importance to our community, and even had the pleasure of meeting its lovely artist Sophie Labelle in the vendors area during last year's Philadelphia Trans Health Conference.

But what I'm not happy to hear is that haters have been sending Labelle death threats, doxxed her and hackers in a coordinated attack were successful in temporarily taking down her Facebook website with over three years of Assigned Male strips on it.  

And this is happening during a week in which the Canadian Senate was debating Bill C-16, the Trans Rights Act in a Senate committee

Fortunately she'd backed up her work and the Facebook site is now back up online, but it forced her to cancel a book tour appearance in Halifax.

Labelle's book is entitled Dating Tips For Trans and Queer Weirdos, and is a 28 page one that explores the relationship between Ciel and Eirikur, two of the Assigned Male comic characters.  

The book tour has two more stops in Quebec City on May 25 and Vancouver on June 1.

Labelle says in a Toronto Star interview that she is more determined than ever to not let the haters win and give it the best she's got.

That's wonderful to  hear because the comic stip is important to our trans kids.   They need to see positive representations of themselves in the comic world, and I agree with Sophie, that's one of the reasons why the haters came after your strip.

But it's nice to know that your book tour will not only continue, but we'll see more of the Assigned Male adventures of Stephanie and her friends. .