Gillian, very well said, and I'm sorry you had to deal with an accusation so ignorant and unfair. Fwiw, I didn't see any LGBTQ+ bashing in your Ellen piece at all. The backlash you received, though, reminds me a little of when the "Grace" story hit about Aziz Ansari during MeToo; some people berated Grace for daring to speak out because they felt it wasn't fair for a man of color to face such scrutiny, given POCs' already-underprivileged status. (Never mind that public figures like Degeneres and Ansari enjoy levels of privilege that most people can only dream of.)
Your experience also reminds me that this is why it took me well over a decade, for instance, to write publicly about having been sexually preyed upon in a poor, Latin American country. It wasn't that it took me over a decade to heal. It was that it took me over a decade — as a white woman from a wealthy, English-speaking place — to overcome my fear of daring to speak about MY OWN life experiences, since my experiences there aligned so lamentably and inconveniently with toxic stereotypes that many in the wealthy, English-speaking world already hold. Yet, to write glowingly of the non-English-speaking, non-white, global-southern men who harassed and/or assaulted me would have been dishonest and absurd. Similarly, to sidestep these complications and simply forfeit my right to tell my story altogether would've been a grave injustice to myself. (An insult added to all the injury.)
So when I see writers like you or whistleblowers like "Grace" attacked for daring to ask that someone be held accountable, it's deeply discouraging. Not just for myself, but probably for many writers who wish to speak truth to power and injustice. AND for the victims of the people in question.
All of this said, thank you for writing what you wrote. ❤︎