When the Pianobook Discord was set up in February 2022, I was one of a few people who put their hands up to be a moderator. Having run my own discord servers in the past, and moderated others, I was both well-qualified for this role, and had plenty of experience. I have also had experience moderating other communities going all the way back to the hey-day of IRC.
As the only moderator applicant in the Oceania region, and being a person of transgender experience used to the subtleties of working with this in public communities, I was accepted as a mod and have been working in that capacity ever since.
Since those early days, the total membership of the server has grown to over 4000 people. As mods, we were volunteers, but the administrators of the server occasionally gifted us some Spitfire Audio libraries in appreciation for our efforts. The community has – generally speaking – been very wholesome. They care about sampling instruments and creating sample libraries to publish on the Pianobook website. Many of them have been explicitly supportive of minorities and that has been lovely to experience as an older trans person in my 50s.
Christian Henson – one of the co-founders of Pianobook and Spitfire Audio – was a person I have looked up to for his approach towards making music recording and composing a more inclusive, more democratised platform. He is one of the admins on the Pianobook site. His YouTube channel had lots of useful industry information and observations. He seemed committed to inclusivity until September the 6th, 2022, when he tweeted the following:
The CEO of Spitfire Audio responded quickly to the PR hit this tweet created, stating that Mr Henson would be “taking a break” for an unspecified period. As of December, Henson was actively working on projects at Spitfire Audio again, with other Pianobook Discord admins without further comment from Spitfire Audio other than a note of support for the trans community from another Spitfire Audio employee who was also an admin of the discord. That individual left the Pianobook server not long after Henson’s return.
During the initial days after the Henson tweet, a large number of transphobes came into the Pianobook discord to voice their support for Christian Henson’s stance, and engaging in persistent “sealioning” in spite of server rules against hate speech and political discourse. These were dealt with by the mods professionally, and with minimal rancor. However, the mod responses were screenshotted by some of these trans-hostile individuals and shared with Graham Linehan – the notorious transphobe whose anti-trans concern-trolling over trans people trying to “convert” autistic children to “trans ideology” had triggered Henson’s transition from industry champion of inclusion to common transphobe. Two mods were named, and an unflattering photo of a fellow trans mod were published by Linehan, resulting in online harassment and death threats.
Since then, another trans community member who had a “Pianobook Artists” series sample library published by Spitfire Audio, has left the community, after attempting to engage Henson in civil discussion about his now trans-exclusionary views and receiving litter better than abuse in return.
Given that:
- The Pianobook discord community has largely recovered its equilibrium and returned to quiet progress on sampling and publishing sample libraries;
- None of the admins on the discord are showing any kind of leadership on restorative justice to the mods and trans community members who have been harmed by Henson’s actions
- Henson has done nothing to distance himself from the trolls and transphobes that he attracted to the server, nor spoken out against the publishing of mod’s details or comments outside the server by Linehan, nor the death threats received as a result…
… I feel like I am in a position where I have no choice but to show solidarity for the harms done to other mods and trans members of the Pianobook discord and to leave the community.
The music industry can be very good at paying lip service to the support of transgender musicians. However, its follow-through is often lacking, and I would love to see more of the kind of allyship shown by the now-departed administrator who put their own position on the line on a point of principle. It’s hard to enumerate the extreme level of discrimination that trans individuals experience when battling for any job, and in an industry as image conscious as music, even doubly so.
I want to thank Spitfire Audio for their generosity in issuing a few product licenses to mods as gifts in recognition of our voluntary service. I am also looking forward to seeing what some of the Pianobook community members continue to publish on the site. And I also want to thank the Pianobook community as a whole for their support and advocacy in the face of bigotry and spiteful behaviour.
To be clear, I value and support my fellow mods. The cisgender mods have proven themselves to be staunch allies. The mods who remain do so for their own reasons, and I bear them no ill will for doing so. One of those targeted by Linehan for abuse has already left. It was only after their departure that I learned of the abuse they and another mod had been enduring. I have only remained since learning of that because I wanted to see whether Pianobook/Spitfire’s leadership would implement any kind of restorative actions. It seems evident now that they will not. So as a member of the community targeted for hostility by Henson, Linehan and their supporters, I feel I have no choice left but to depart on my own terms.
I call upon Spitfire Audio’s CEO Will Evans, and Mr Henson’s business partner, Paul Thomson, to censure Mr Henson for his unprofessionalism in failing to support the volunteers who have fostered and supported the Pianobook discord community.
I sincerely hope that this post is seen as a mark of a professional industry participant with personal integrity, rather than as a wave-making source of trouble. However, time will tell. On the flipside, I hope that Mr Henson comes to an awareness of the lack of personal and professional integrity he has shown throughout this troubled period of Pianobook and Spitfire Audio’s history and does his best to make amends with compensation for those targeted by Linehan and his rusted on transphobic supporters.
