The Ratfuck

Ratfuck, verb, American slang, origin: 1960s South Carolina: (vulgar) To sabotage; to fight dirty against or betray and cause disarray, especially in political elections or gatherings.

This morning, before the start of an extremely busy workday, 225 days after filing my initial complaint, I received a response from the Code of Conduct Committee of the DFL.

225 days to receive a dismissal of my complaint due to “lack of evidence.”

On September 9th, 2025, the Feminist Caucus meeting happened.

On September 10th, I filed my complaint.

On Sunday, November 16th - over two months later - the complaint was assigned to a review committee. I was informed that same day that there was a complaint lodged against me.

On December 9th, the Constitution, Bylaws and Rules Committee (CBRC) ruled that the Feminist Caucus had failed to maintain decorum in their meeting and unnecessarily escalated tensions. They ruled in particular that Latonya Reeves’ use of Black/Queen as her pronouns was provocative and escalatory. This report was provided to the Code of Conduct Committee by me.

On February 18th, 2026, another two months later, I received a request for evidence from the Code of Conduct Committee’s Review Board B. The request was as follows: “Please provide a written description of any additional information, including any documents, recordings, or other evidence you have that directly relates to the events in the Incident Report by midnight on Thursday, February 26, 2026.”

I did not have additional evidence to provide as my original complaint contained transcripts and I had replied to the complaint against me with testimony about not being on camera during that time because I came off camera to talk to Latyona before signing off for the entire night. I was also aware, from discussing with other people who were there that night and had filed complaints, that video evidence was provided as well as transcripts of the relative times. Because the meeting was not recorded - which the Feminist Caucus leadership were reprimanded for from the CBRC in December.

And now, two months after that request for evidence, I have finally received a judgement. This judgement claims that because a full recording or transcript of the five hour meeting was not available, they are unable to judge whether or not members of the Feminist Caucus were violating the code of conduct. 

They rest their dismissal on the portions of the transcript I provided, asserting that because these offenders repeatedly corrected themselves, there was no case to be made for transphobia. This ignores that the totality of the circumstances - being misgendered repeatedly, despite corrections - creates an environment that is extremely hostile toward transgender people and makes it much harder for us to participate. This point was made in my original code of conduct complaint, so they deliberately chose to ignore the total effect of each microaggression, which must be considered in order to make a judgement about transphobia.

I checked in with the Code of Conduct committee to ask for a timeline and information on how the complaint was progressing at least a dozen times in the seven and a half months since my initial complaint. The judgement of the committee was that they waited until they had evidence from all the cases stemming from that meeting in hand to make judgments in all of them.

That does not explain the massive delay in response. The CBRC had an extensive, comprehensive review and judgement 90 days after the meeting happened. It was an additional four months to receive a dismissal from the Code of Conduct Committee, with absolutely no transparency in that time.

Two of my colleagues in the DFL have received a suspension of 60 days, which appears to include barring them from serving as duly elected delegates to the State Convention.

The timing of this is extremely suspicious and is being received as a deliberate attempt to quash progressive voices who are organizing in the DFL. I pointed out to them multiple times that allowing us to go into convention season with no response was wildly inappropriate because it meant something like this could happen. They knew the timeline - no one participating at this level in the DFL is unaware that 60 days from this point includes the state convention.

The Code of Conduct at this point is a rogue committee, operating without guardrails or accountability. The only mechanism for appeal is to the body from which Code of Conduct committee members are chosen, making it impossible to have a fair hearing of the evidence.

A respectable, trustworthy committee does not operate in silence, issuing judgements at random times on a Wednesday morning before a typical workday. They appear to be wielding their power inappropriately, either with complete ignorance of how the timing of their suspensions suppresses participation in the DFL, or, if fully aware, doing so to deliberately silence people in the midst of an extremely vital time for the party.

This isn’t the first time a standing state committee, operating without checks on their power, have attempted a ratfuck of the progressive wing of the party.

Processes protect people. A lack of process here has destroyed trust within one of the most important mechanisms we have for dealing with misconduct in the party. This cannot stand.

In the three hours since the judgement went out and we went public with the dismissals, several trans individuals have reached out to both myself and others, reiterating that this kind of thing is why they do not trust the DFL. All the work we have done to rebuild that trust and include people is undermined because of a small handful of party insiders.