There's (topically enough) a NYT article about Hough's incident[1], which I will briefly excerpt:
> “In a series of now-deleted tweets, Lauren Hough exhibited what we believed to be a troubling hostility toward transgender critics and trans-allies and used her substantial platform — due in part to her excellent book — to harmfully engage with readers and critics,” Cleopatra Acquaye and Maxwell Scales, Lambda Literary’s interim co-executive directors, said in a joint statement Monday.
[...]
> Hough said Monday that she could not recall whether she had deleted any tweets, and denied that any of her tweets had been transphobic. Lambda did not provide examples of the posts they were most critical of. The Times has not reviewed any deleted tweets.
...now, my sympathies were honestly with Hough until I saw "could not recall whether [I] had deleted any tweets" attributed to her. Which, if she said that to a reporter, is not a good look. Because it makes my mind jump immediately to "I certainly did delete some tweets, but I don't want to admit to it because then I'll be asked what they said".
Nobody being willing to actually say what she's being judged for so that we can make our own minds up does leave us in the awkward position of having to rely on these proxy inferences.
> “In a series of now-deleted tweets, Lauren Hough exhibited what we believed to be a troubling hostility toward transgender critics and trans-allies and used her substantial platform — due in part to her excellent book — to harmfully engage with readers and critics,” Cleopatra Acquaye and Maxwell Scales, Lambda Literary’s interim co-executive directors, said in a joint statement Monday.
[...]
> Hough said Monday that she could not recall whether she had deleted any tweets, and denied that any of her tweets had been transphobic. Lambda did not provide examples of the posts they were most critical of. The Times has not reviewed any deleted tweets.
...now, my sympathies were honestly with Hough until I saw "could not recall whether [I] had deleted any tweets" attributed to her. Which, if she said that to a reporter, is not a good look. Because it makes my mind jump immediately to "I certainly did delete some tweets, but I don't want to admit to it because then I'll be asked what they said".
Nobody being willing to actually say what she's being judged for so that we can make our own minds up does leave us in the awkward position of having to rely on these proxy inferences.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/21/books/lauren-hough-lambda...