I've made some statements on twitter but I'm going to write something more concise here - My good friend Xan, who flew out here a couple years ago to escape their abusive family, is still being stalked by those family members (and even some friends of the family).

Well over two years ago, Xan told them, flatly, "Do not contact me or my friends", for a while after this, there was some silence. Then I started getting texts again out of nowhere, asking if Xan would be over for the holidays or inviting us to events, just ignoring the message Xan sent to them. This does not help that when I was first contacted, I never explicitly gave them my phone number. I could understand this at the very first, since Xan was too utterly terrified to listen to the voice mails left on their phone after the flight, but my email is FAR more prominent than my phone number AND my preferred mode of contact AND available on nearly all of my profiles, and yet they use my PHONE to contact me?

To make matters worse, yesterday, they contacted my dad directly, by phone. I have never given them my dad's number, I still do not know how they even got it in the first place. The fact that they did, is not only appalling but frightening and an indication of how little they care about someone's well being and privacy. This is the only reason I have not spoken a word about this for over 2 years, to prevent other people from getting wrapped up and to prevent Xan from being tracked. I've been dealing with unsolicited texts & voice mails for 2 years now. Luckily, they have not been very frequent, but the fact that it keeps occurring and has escalated to trying to drag in my own family, has me utterly livid.

Xan does not want anything to do with their exfamily, the family is emotionally and physically abusive, on top of being dangerously bigoted. (and I do mean literally dangerous, threats of physical violence against POC & gender variant and sexuality variant people, on top of some other things that I cannot publicly mention.) I know why the contact has escalated, but Xan wants nothing to do with them, and it hasn't changed. I'm hoping their extended contact is isolated to just my dad and does not extend further, but if someone attempts to ask you about Xan, please do not respond. They will, unfortunately, be using Xan's dead name in the process.

As for now, my biggest concern is making sure Xan is safe, that's been my focus in the past and it continues to be my focus now. I will not allow an abusive family find and drag back the very person they kept trapped in a place of terror and anguish.