I don’t know if this is the right place to discuss this, but I strongly suspect Bushnell was a trans person. I base this argument on their Twitch channel name, which is Lilyanarkitty.
Searching for “anarkitty,” besides pointing to Bushnell, gives me the pseudonym of an artist named Emma Geary, a genderfluid fictional character, and a defunct Twitter account who went by QueerfemSchmutz. So, this name has clear gender connotations, ones that are decidedly non-cishet male.
The “Lily” is self-explanatory and might be the actual name Bushnell wants to be remembered as. Bushnell chose to record their final moments using a channel name that starts with a fairly common and unambiguous woman’s name.
There’s also precedent back in 2019 when another anarchist who might have been a trans woman tried firebombing an ICE concentration camp with Molotov cocktails. I forgot what the consensus of van Spronsen’s gender identity was, but I remember the argument that van Spronsen was a trans woman to be fairly compelling. I think the main argument was that van Spronsen repeatedly used a pseudonym that was a composite of the names of famous women.
I no longer feel comfortable using Bushnell’s reported first name or even using he/him pronouns.
Edit: They had a Reddit account called acebush1. I browsed through some of the posts, and it’s consistent with what we know about Bushnell, an anarchist who’s also in the USAF. The username also makes sense, “bush” being the shortened form of their last name Bushnell. None of the posts I’ve seen stands out as eggy at all, but there’s also this. If this is true, then Bushnell’s original Twitch channel name was just acebush1 that they then changed to lilyanarkitty. So, we can rule out the channel being the channel of Bushnell’s hypothetical anarchist partner named Lily.
There appears to be more evidence every day to support this hypothesis. And I’ve seen it before, so many times. A lot of repressed US transfems go into the military in the hopes it will “fix” then, make them proper men. It’s deeply traumatic for most I’ve spoken to.
Even as we honor Bushnell’s commitment, I want to remind anyone who reads this that a long life of organized anticapitalist action does far damage to the imperial state than a single act of self-annihilation. Stay with us. Play the long game.
I had the same thought when I saw the Twitch channel “LillyAnarKitty” with the anarchist avatar. Why would a cis guy call themselves that? That’s a very femme coded name, so I instantly got trans vibes. Lilly also happens to be a common transfemme name.
I couldn’t find anything specifically trans-related on their Reddit account though, except for this:
Which, by itself doesn’t say anything about a person’s gender identity, because a cis comrade could’ve posted something like that as well. But it does show that this person was aggressively anti-TERF, which combined with the femme coded name on Twitch does add more weight to the possibility that they could’ve been trans.
Aw, that’s sad. Also annoying. Wish Bushnell could’ve left us a note or something… although maybe the plan was “okay I can’t come out in my final defiant act, it’ll be used against trans people who will survive me”
I don’t know if this is the right place to discuss this, but I strongly suspect Bushnell was a trans person. I base this argument on their Twitch channel name, which is Lilyanarkitty.
Searching for “anarkitty,” besides pointing to Bushnell, gives me the pseudonym of an artist named Emma Geary, a genderfluid fictional character, and a defunct Twitter account who went by QueerfemSchmutz. So, this name has clear gender connotations, ones that are decidedly non-cishet male.
The “Lily” is self-explanatory and might be the actual name Bushnell wants to be remembered as. Bushnell chose to record their final moments using a channel name that starts with a fairly common and unambiguous woman’s name.
There’s also precedent back in 2019 when another anarchist who might have been a trans woman tried firebombing an ICE concentration camp with Molotov cocktails. I forgot what the consensus of van Spronsen’s gender identity was, but I remember the argument that van Spronsen was a trans woman to be fairly compelling. I think the main argument was that van Spronsen repeatedly used a pseudonym that was a composite of the names of famous women.
I no longer feel comfortable using Bushnell’s reported first name or even using he/him pronouns.
Edit: They had a Reddit account called acebush1. I browsed through some of the posts, and it’s consistent with what we know about Bushnell, an anarchist who’s also in the USAF. The username also makes sense, “bush” being the shortened form of their last name Bushnell. None of the posts I’ve seen stands out as eggy at all, but there’s also this. If this is true, then Bushnell’s original Twitch channel name was just acebush1 that they then changed to lilyanarkitty. So, we can rule out the channel being the channel of Bushnell’s hypothetical anarchist partner named Lily.
There appears to be more evidence every day to support this hypothesis. And I’ve seen it before, so many times. A lot of repressed US transfems go into the military in the hopes it will “fix” then, make them proper men. It’s deeply traumatic for most I’ve spoken to.
Even as we honor Bushnell’s commitment, I want to remind anyone who reads this that a long life of organized anticapitalist action does far damage to the imperial state than a single act of self-annihilation. Stay with us. Play the long game.
I had the same thought when I saw the Twitch channel “LillyAnarKitty” with the anarchist avatar. Why would a cis guy call themselves that? That’s a very femme coded name, so I instantly got trans vibes. Lilly also happens to be a common transfemme name.
I couldn’t find anything specifically trans-related on their Reddit account though, except for this:
Which, by itself doesn’t say anything about a person’s gender identity, because a cis comrade could’ve posted something like that as well. But it does show that this person was aggressively anti-TERF, which combined with the femme coded name on Twitch does add more weight to the possibility that they could’ve been trans.
Either way, rest in power, comrade Bushnell.
Aw, that’s sad. Also annoying. Wish Bushnell could’ve left us a note or something… although maybe the plan was “okay I can’t come out in my final defiant act, it’ll be used against trans people who will survive me”
the thought that Bushnell would have to think about that in the final moments up to self-immolation is maddening…