I met Zoe about 2 1/2 years ago. I had a friend who wanted to date her, and he wanted my opinion of her. After spending some time getting to know her, she seemed really cool. She had big ideas and was extremely passionate. She even mirrored my opinions. You need to know that she's a chameleon. She's charming and can adapt to any environment. It's easy to trust her. This is all relevant to make you understand why people stand up for her. She makes everything she says seem genuine.

After I told my friend that she was cool and dateable and they started dating, things changed. Suddenly, she was using details from my life story, things that explain why I am who I am, in stories she was telling me. It was then I started to doubt the validity of other things she said (none of which I will share because that is not my place). As I started piecing together stories she told me over the time I knew her, things started not adding up. There were inconsistencies, and I started casually asking her about things when they didn't make sense with the narrative she had previously given.

This is when she started arguing the most minor things with me, which I assume was to try to discredit the questions I was asking. It also became obvious that she was trying to separate my friend from us (There were more people involved than just me, but I'm one of the only ones willing to risk this and deal with the fallout.) because she'd drag him into the arguments. Who's not going to side with their new SO? She also started sharing extreme feminist ideas, which basically tore down men.

One day, I received an email asking what my problem with Zoe was. When I described the things she did, such as stealing bits of my identity (which I believe I just called lying and didn't get into details) and creating discord between us, my friend didn't see things my way. I even pointed out then that she is the type of feminist who uses feminism to get ahead and for hate. Instead of reading the words I used and the points I made, the response I received was only that I hate her because she's a feminist. (FYI, I'm a feminist who knows that men are our allies and we need to work together.)

I recognized the lying and manipulation pretty quickly (maybe 6-8 weeks in), so I don't have a more exciting or compelling story. Ever since then, I've had to sit silently and watch her be lauded for her strong principles and social activism. Anyone I told about her behavior, even if she had screwed them in some way, excused it mostly out of fear of losing a contact or a friend who happened to be friends with her.

I don't care about her being punished or losing her status as a dev. It's not about that for me. It's about recognizing a hurtful person and that person learning and stopping it. I don't want people to harass her. I don't want people to harass her friends. I just want all the abusive behavior (from all parties) to end.