*This article is a cooperative series between writers Laurelai Bailey and Emmagene Cronin. Other activists have helped conduct the investigative activities involved in this article, but have chosen to remain anonymous because of fear from retaliation.*
Recently, serious allegations of violent crime have been brought to the attention of the writers about a specific member within the trans community. Evidence has been presented that amplifies many of the concerns that have been raised about this individual, their activities, ethics, and intention for services and systems that are vital to the trans community and its understanding of violence perpetrated against it.
This series of articles is a chronological timeline that shows, in great detail, that Ms. Allison Woolbert has: consistently engaged in violent and abusive activity targeting the transgender community, serious ethical violations, a complete lack of transparency in the organization she runs, a near complete departure from any sort of professional conduct, ruthless use of machiavellian tactics to cover up her misdeeds, outright lies and deceit, and worst of all, the Aggravated Sexual Assault in the first degree of a minor relative. After careful examination of all of the information that has come to light throughout this thorough investigation, we, the writes of these articles, and the undersigned members of the community are demanding the immediate dismissal of Allison Woolbert from TVTP and THRI, and any additional activities as a social activist. This type of individual no longer has a place to hide within our community.
As we all know anyone regardless of race, gender, creed, national origin etc…, a person is capable of physical or sexual violence. The fact that sometimes a violent person happens to be transgender is a statistical inevitability. What is shocking about this case, however, was how easily this particular predator insinuated herself into the community and concealed this past, as they charged others with perpetrating similar violent acts.
Under no circumstance is a violent crime ever acceptable, and under no circumstance it it acceptable to conceal that past, especially when involved in services directly dealing with victimized individuals. What follows is explanation of the process of discovery and a community response to previous allegations that have been made against Allison Woolbert, and this recent discovery of a past of sexual violence, which prompted this response. We are not in the business of presenting unsubstantiated information. All information presented herein are factually accurate and have been checked against public records and all available information about additional allegations about Ms. Woolbert are publicly available. We encourage everyone to do their own research and parse through fact and fiction and come to their own conclusions. We hope that what is presented in this series of articles enable the transgender community, and its allies, to do so.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant and that sunlight is being shown upon Alison Woolbert.
Allison Woolbert was a founding member of the Trans Violence Tracking Portal (TVTP), several other projects in relation to the trans community, in addition to some smaller efforts within the bisexual community. Questions about Ms. Woolbert’s intentions and activities first began to surface several months ago when she added journalist, and trans activist, Parker Molloy to the TVTP tracking list from what was apparently an interpersonal conflict with another trans woman. The writers of this article, and the undersigned in its final segment, do not condone the actions that led to Parker Malloy being added to the tracker. However, Ms. Woolbert did so with knowledge of suicidal ideation of both the individuals involved. For an individual advocating for strong suicide prevention within the trans community, this is a direct conflict with that advocacy and presents serious ethical issues at the very least.
Additional allegations began to surface about the TVTP and the smaller organizations that were being assembled under it. Statistics relevant to a very significant aspect of violence perpetrated against transgender people – race- was being excluded from the reporting. Individuals within the transgender community began to raise concerns that trans women of color, particularly black trans women, who are the most victimized group within the LGBTQ community were being erased from these statistics. Violent acts do not exist in a vacuum and intersectional aspects of identity, such as race, to often play a role in the violence perpetrated against transgender people. To exclude these statistics is a failure to the trans community, in the apparent spirit of solidarity, and does not provide light on some of the most susceptible minorities within the community.
Further, when presented with this significant oversight, instead of acknowledge and remedying the deficiency, Ms. Woolbert began what appeared to be a campaign to threaten and add vocal members of the trans community, that were raising this concern, to the tracking list of violence being perpetrated against the community. these individuals were added to the tracking portal as well as the facebook page doing the same. For those that are unaware, this is what is known as doxxing – the revealing of individuals personal information harass and intimidate them. to Under no circumstance is it acceptable, responsible, or ethical behavior to silence the voices of people of color, or any other oppressed class of individuals to create an appearance of homogeneity or solidarity. At the very least, an acknowledgment of statistical limitations of reporting race, or other aspects such as different ability, should have been a reasonable outcome, which was not the case, and still has not been rectified. Instead, Ms Woolbert used violence, by her own definition of what constitutes such, to harass, intimidate, and silence dissenting views. This is unacceptable behavior for any person to be undertaking at an institutional level, especially when it is the result of a personal dislike of what people are doing, and in every case thus far, have a right to do. You cannot advocate non-vilolence, yet go to such great lengths to do just that.
In addition to this denial of a central aspect of violence perpetrated against the transgender community, Ms. Woolbert began making threatening public statements to again silence voices raising concern about the erasure of trans women of color at a flag raising ceremony for the Transgender day of Remembrance (TDoR) in Toronto, Canada. Concern was also raised by many members of the trans community – many themselves being trans women of color – at this event, of the privileging of cis individuals in taking part, as well as organizing the remembrance ceremony. Attention was shown on the fact that during the event, it was planned that no names of trans people who’s lives were lost in the previous year would be read, which is a central part of TDoR Ceremonies and the specific reason for the event, as well as casting aside trans women of color who largely make up the names we read each year, from speaking.
Further, the flag itself was an issue with the trans community. What was planned to be raised, and eventually was, is a flag of a local Toronto trans organization and not the actual transgender flag, nor did it resemble the actual transgender flag. These were all significant issue that garnered enough attention within the community to prompt a letter response, and protest about the activity, which Ms. Wolbert also characterized as an act of violence, culminating in the doxxing of trans people, and allies, for no more than a dissenting opinion and openly protesting these erasures and grievances. These threats and actions to silence much needed conversation and activity, whether she agreed with it or not, and the actions she threatened and did take, present a significant conflict of interest in her misuse, and abuse, of institutional power relative to the TVTP and is characteristic of the behavior of individuals that seek to have power over others. This, by the very definitions that TVTP and Allison Woolbert have used, is violence.
Under no circumstance is it acceptable behavior to bully, harass, intimidate, silence, or doxx members of the trans community and its allies for expressing outrage, especially when that outrage seems justified. It is not up to a sole individual to decide what the actions of others should be and how those actions should be expressed. These are a series of extremely manipulative and abusive action by Ms. Woolbert to silence individuals in an apparent attempt to gain power over their voices and the conversation. All opinions are valid, and none should be silenced. This, on its own, is behavior that rises to the level of negligence within an organization in its brazen disregard, by Woolbert, of the very things it claims to be working for.
While most of these events were going on, Ms. Woolbert was also pressuring other member of the TVTP team, some through direct threats that they now refuse to publicly speak about, to remove any material they were reporting through independent individual or group social media that was completely unaffiliated with TVTP or its emerging sub-organizations, under fear of being removed from the project, or other coercion in the form of possible benefits to members. This has been confirmed by several member that have had involvement with the project at various points since it began. In addition this raises significant questions about the institutional practices not only Ms. Woolbert, but also TVTP in it entirety. We implore others to seeks out a governing set of bylaws, rules of conduct, or any relative document from TVTP that would support this. the Authors of this series of articles have spent a great deal of time trying to find any governing document that would support this behavior, but to the best of our knowledge and long investigation, none exist. Additionally, the use of coercion or bribery for material benefit, in most jurisdictions is a criminal offense that carries significant penalties.
A short time later Ms. Woolbert released an internal memorandum to individuals involved with TVTP, as well as her close friends. It details an extremely biased an authoritarian stance that was to be taken by Ms. Woolbert in what she saw as an appropriate response to any dissenting opinions. This is characteristic of individuals that seek to gain, and hold, power over others, and is the same type of behavior that is motivation for for many sexual assaults and rape of any character. If we are to judge the rules by its contents, any voice that speaks out, according to Ms. Woolbert, is one that is violent and one that will be silenced. It is important to note that the working definition of Violence, from Ms. Woolbert, is anyone who speaks as a dissenting voice to what she say. Both of the authors of this investigation, and every person involved with it, would be considered violent and would be subsequently blacklisted, and most likely doxxed, for simply speaking against Ms. Woolbert. What follows is a screenshot of these specific “rules” for her authoritarian and machiavellian silencing.
Another aspect of our investigation has uncovered that Ms Woolbert has also lied about her qualifications and background, in her removed – as of today – website, Phoneix Consulting Group, she states that “In 1995, after working for many large and small firms, Allison began Phoenix Consultants Group that provides specialized custom software applications.” However this is clearly untrue. In 1992 Woolbert was sentenced to 6 years in prison, and in 1995 she was *still there*. According to the internet archive her company only came into existence in 1999. The domain registration dates it to december 31st, 1997. Further research proved that her company was incorporated on january first 1997, it seems unusual to add two years to her experience in running this company, especially when during some of that time Ms. Woolbert was clearly still in prison for the sex crime she committed in 1991.
It seems as though Woolbert’s life has been fabricated on an apparent series of lies and manipulation of information. Many of her claims are dubious at best and at worst obvious lies once investigated, as has been shown here. It seems as though Ms. Woolbert has, thus far, been apparently undertaking a campaign to achieve some relative status within the community where she is capable of making profound decisions and seems quite willing to falsify information, and cause harms to other individuals in order to do so.
Her address, 9 Orchard Circle is not owned by her, its owned by one Irving Crespi, who according to Google is deceased, and the property is in the care of one Robert Crespi.
The interesting thing about Irving is his career was in researching the manipulation of public opinion.
This is apparently Ms. Woolbert has been doing from the beginning. How did she come to live there and why is she living in a dead mans house, whose career was built on researching ways to change public views? One must question the manner in which Ms. Woolbert came into the trans community and rose to such a prominent position without anyone having any direct knowledge of who she was, or is now, or what her true motives were. She appears to be a master manipulator with connections to high places. According to an anonymous source (we are protecting their identity for their safety) who was friends with Allison, stated that she rented this house very cheaply from Mr. Crespi because they were friends of her family. One wonders how much “help” these friends of the family have given her.
For those that might doubt this is the same Irving we have verified that this house belonged to the same Irving Crespi who wrote that paper.
The Chicago tribune has an Obituary for him having his date of death march 18 2004.
Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-03-25/news/0403250118_1_social-research-polling-baruch-college
A lookup of Irving Crespi in public records shows he lived at 9 orchard circle with the same year and month of death, as well as the same age.
And then the worst part of this investigation, thus far, came to light.
Ms Allison Woolbert is a convicted child rapist. How the law defined this act, in 1991, was as a penetrative act, unlike classifications of aggravated sexual assault today. Worse yet is that because her conviction predates 1994, she was not required to register on New Jersey’s Sex Offender Registry database, making it more difficult for anyone to discover this information unless conducting a criminal record check. In fact, Nametheproblem, a TERF website keen on smearing trans women, consistently writing about what they claim are violent trans women, also passed over this conviction. Now stop and read that one more time.
Questions have since been raised, if Nametheproblem could have been aware of this conviction for some time, and if this conviction was hidden for possible future use, which would be a significant disservice to all people, no matter who they are. Once the group conducting this investigation – the authors of this article – began to look, it took under 5 minutes to have a complete record of this information. This further lends to the possibly that this information was already in the hands of individuals running, and associated with, Nametheproblem. One must question, if the information was not being held for alternative reasons, how it could have been missed. With little work we found an actual predator, which is extremely odd as they have devoted significant time to looking for things just like this. Is this gross incompetence or a possible situation of blackmail?
Allison Woolbert has a conviction for 1 count of Aggravated Sexual Assault in the 1st degree in New Jersey against a minor under the age of 16 who is also a relative. As a bit of background on what that charge specifically means, the law in question, 2c:14-2a, reads as follows:
Aggravated Sexual Assault is codified under N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2a, which provides:
- An actor is guilty of aggravated sexual assault if he commits an act of sexual penetration with another person under any one of the following circumstances:
- The victim is less than 13 years old;
- The victim is at least 13 but less than 16 years old and
- The actor is related to the victim by blood or affinity to the third degree; or
- The actor has supervisory or disciplinary power over the victim by virtue of the actor’s legal, professional, or occupational status; or
- The actor is a resource family parent, a guardian, or stands in loco parentis within the household;
- The act is committed during the commission, or attempted commission, whether alone or with one or more other persons, of robbery, kidnapping, homicide, aggravated assault on another, burglary, arson or criminal escape;
- The actor is armed with a weapon or any object fashioned in such a manner as to lead the victim to reasonably believe it to be a weapon and threatens by word or gesture to use the weapon or object;
- The actor is aided or abetted by one or more other persons and the actor uses physical force or coercion;
- The actor uses physical force or coercion and severe personal injury is sustained by the victim;
- The victim is one whom the actor knew or should have known was physically helpless, mentally defective or mentally incapacitated.
As you can see from the public records the rape in question happened to a minor and Ms. Woolbert was sentenced to six years in prison for this crime, it is yet unclear if Ms. Woolbert was in a capacity to care for this relative child, who is now an adult, but it is clear that this child was directly related to her, as designated by the “rel” in the above screenshots.
Upon learning of this information, members of the trans community, prompted by the authors of this article, apparently asked Ms. Wolbert directly about the information uncovered through this investigation. This is the point when Allison Woolbert seems to have panicked about what was uncovered and began to engage in further lies and manipulation of the information in an attempt to control its release and grossly misrepresent the nature of her crime, when this investigation began, and how it would proceed.
On January 7th, one day after this investigation was initiated, Ms. Woolbert drafted and published a release detailing information about her crime. However, this release, on its own, is full of significant misinformation. When the release was first made, Ms. Woolbert dated it two days prior to when the information was actually presented to her, as you can see from the following screenshot.
As has already been mentioned, this release was made on January 7th, and not on January 5th. The writers of this article believe that this was a further attempt by Ms. Woolbert, to conceal information and represent what was know about it, when it was known, who knew it, and the purpose of finding the information. There are very few know organizations that do not have an auto-date feature built into their software, which lends to the fact that this was intentionally manipulated.
This apparent backdating of when this article was released is believed to be significant. Upon publication of this information, It took only a few hours, at most, for Trans-exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) to find it. So, had Ms. Woolbert actually published the release when she had initially claimed (it has since been changed to the actual date), TERFs would have immediately found this information. This act of deception, coercion, and manipulation of individuals and information is only an addition to the long, well established, history of Ms Woolbert. It is also interesting to note that this investigation was initiated because of allegations of fraud, deception and abuse. It is notable that none of the individuals involved in this investigation, nor the authors of it put what was, and still is, an ongoing investigation into Ms. Woolbert’s activities in the public sphere. Once it was brought to the attention of Ms Woolbert, she began an immediate campaign to create a narrative where she has painted herself as a victim, but also smear the writers, and by extension publisher, of a story that did not yet exist.
It is reasonable for one to believe or assume that the explanation given by Ms. Woolbert (contained in the first screencap below) is also misleading in an attempt to manipulate the situation. Also, the research into her background wasn’t done until the 6th, as evidenced in the second screencap.
Additionally, Ms. Woolbert’s statements go a significant distance in downplaying her actual crime by using language that disguises the nature of it, is less than critical of her actions, and diverts attention from additional issues that have been raised or fails to address them at all. The way people use language can tell a lot about what is being said, it can reveal intent, display micro- and macro aggressions, as well as develop specific narratives, all of which are present in this release. Ms. Woolbert stated this about the crime.
This is a mischaracterization of the nature of the crime in what seems an apparent attempt to sway public opinion about what her crime was by failing to name what she has done, in addition to using soft language to describe such. It was not just an “unconscionable behavior as a human being”, this was the violation of another human being body through sexual penetration, which constitutes rape. It is the ultimate form of intimidation and control of another human being. This failure to name what she did is extremely manipulative and demonstrative of what appears to be an inability to own her past and what she has done. Remember, that soon after TVTP was started, Ms. Woolbert had absolutely no problem permanently marking Parker Malloy for words, despite the nature of them. However, when the situation involves Ms. Woolbert, the goalpost move quickly and misdeeds must be forgiven. How can an organization that is headed by an individual that conceals their past and only reveals that when other find out about it, goes to lengths to whitewash that past, and also crucifies others for words, but expects different accountability for their own actions have any legitimacy? At every turn Allison Woolbert has made the wrong decision, and this emphasizes such. How can an organization headed by this person be viewed with any legitimacy in light of this crime, or any of the other significant issues raised?
This need for power and control is also evidenced in the statement itself – in its very first paragraph.
Notice the apparent attempt to control the information. It would be appropriate for one to believe that given this need to control and manipulate things, having a narrative coming directly from her allows her to direct as much attention as possible, given the circumstances of her crime, elsewhere. This is characteristic of the behavior that seems to be consistent throughout everything detailed thus far about Allison Woolbert.
This is not the end of what need to be looked at in Ms. Woolbert’s release. She also had this to say:
While it may be true that Ms. Woolbert has made earnest efforts to avoid and additional harm to her victim, a family member, it also seems likely that Ms. Woolbert has avoided any sort of disclosure about this past because of the negative effects it would have on herself. This crime, in the context of the work Ms. Woolbert has undertaken, presents an extreme ethical problem and a conflict of interest when that crime is not disclosed, in any manner.
Every person deserves a benefit of the doubt in situations of past histories. People do things that are terrible, but these things can be recovered from if people acknowledge and learn from what they have done, moving forward in their lives. However, when an individual places themselves in a position where they work with victims of any sort of abuse, it is unacceptable to do so without disclosing that previous history. Not doing so presents a situation in which that person tries to hide that past, would be an ethical violations by the standards of most organizations, and grounds for immediate dismissal. In addition, the exposure of that past can be, understandably, extremely traumatizing to an individual subject to similar abuse, especially when it is in context of a community that is already victimized by abusers. Until the point when this investigation began, and allegations were brought to Ms. Woolberts attention, there was no disclosure of that information made. It is entirely reasonable to believe that had this investigation not been conducted into Ms. Woolbert’s past, she may have never disclosed this horrible past as a sex offender who violated a child, continuing to promote herself as something she is not – A rapist.
The final section of Woolbert’s statement reinforces much of the manipulation and misdirection outlined in these words.
It seems reasonable on the surface that Woolbert it making a genuine attempt to rectify the concealment of her violent criminal past; it looks as if it is a way to make whole the various ethical issues that her lack of disclosure has created, however, this could be farther from the truth. The “Board of Trustees” that Woolbert mentions is a hand-picked, close group of her friends. At best, this is only a disingenuous attempt to do the right thing. It is however more likely that this hand picked group of friend that directly benefits from a relationship with Ms. Woolbert would produce little more than a shell game where Woolbert feigns regret, is “removed” from her position to maintain any legitimacy, but remains in-charge. It is also likely that this hand picked group of friends do nothing and claim that this willingness to disclose (remember, this was concealed until the moment Woolbert knew it was going to come out) her history as a rapist showed her reform and suitability for the position.
As mentioned earlier, this investigation began on January 6th. It has been an in progress article since the moment that Ms. Woolbert’s past came into the light of day. Until that point, as has already been mentioned, Ms. Wolbert made absolutely no attempt to disclose this information and presumably never would have, had it not been discovered by the writers of this article and those assisting with the investigation.
Stay tuned for the continuation of this multi-part series
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