Stepping down (again) from the MacAdmins Slack admin team
I’m stepping down as an admin of the MacAdmins Slack workspace. Again.
I want to offer an explanation, even though I don’t owe anyone a justification.
This post reflects my personal experiences and perspective. I’m not speaking on behalf of the Mac Admins Foundation or the current admin team.
The first time around
I stepped away from the admin team in the fall of 2021. I was burned out - from the community, from my day job, from the constant low-level stress of moderating a space with tens of thousands of people in it.
People don’t talk enough about what it takes to moderate a community at that scale. You’re navigating interpersonal conflicts, making judgment calls about what crosses a line, absorbing people’s anger when they disagree with those calls. You’re doing it in your spare time, for free, because you care about the community. And you’re doing it knowing that no matter what you decide, someone will be upset with you.
The emotional labor is real. The mental health toll is real. I needed to step back, so I did.
Coming back
Last December, I was in a different place. I’d been active in the Mac Admin space again, I’d recovered from the burnout, and I genuinely wanted to help. The current admin team was stretched thin - down to about 10 people when they really needed 20. I reached out and asked if they needed help. They welcomed me back unanimously.
I thought that was the end of it.
What actually happened
The community’s response was… not what I expected. There were questions about transparency, about the process, about whether I’d somehow “skipped the line” by rejoining before the new public recruitment process launched. Those were fair questions. The admin team should have announced my return immediately instead of waiting until someone noticed. That was a miss, and we owned it.
But underneath those questions was something else. The thread got heated. There was a comment aggressively deadnaming and misgendering me that had to be deleted by the admin team. The public stuff got handled, but what most people didn’t see was everything else.
The part people don’t see
I’m a semi-public figure in niche circles who happens to be transgender. That means I face more harassment than most people probably realize. Most of it gets deleted quickly enough that you never see it - the comments in Slack, the replies on social media. But there’s also the private harassment. Anonymous emails. Text messages to my personal phone number. I had to remove the contact form from my website because of the abuse coming through it.
I’ve had anonymous messages sent to friends, to family members, to my employer, trying to “expose” me as transgender. As if it’s some kind of secret. As if being trans is something shameful that needs to be hidden.
The harassment ramped up significantly after I rejoined the admin team.
Someone gained access to my email and other personal accounts by exploiting a Tailscale OAuth token I’d accidentally exposed in GitHub Actions logs. Then they posted my home address and personal phone number in an online forum dedicated to harassing trans people. Police showed up at my door for a “wellness check” I never requested. Now I’m getting junk mail addressed to my deadname sent to my home.
I’m not usually one to let bullies win. I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before, and I’ll deal with it again. But what I didn’t anticipate was how someone’s attempt at bullying me would spread into the MacAdmins community itself. Watching people I respect have to spend their time and energy dealing with the fallout from harassment aimed at me - that’s different. That affects people I care about. That affects a community I helped build.
Knowing when to step back
I don’t have the spoons for this particular fight right now. That’s not defeat - that’s recognizing my limits. That’s choosing where to put my energy. That’s understanding that sometimes the cost of staying is higher than the value I can provide.
I still care about the Mac Admin community. I’m not going anywhere - I’ll still be around, still contributing in the ways I can.
To the current admin team: thank you for welcoming me back. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay longer.
To the community: be kind to your moderators. The work they do is so much harder than it looks.
And to whoever’s reading this and thinking about sending me another harassing message: I see you. I’m not afraid of you. I’m just tired of giving you my energy.