Neumman/“Sagal” was a 30-ish videogame developer, originally from Illinois, whose mental illness was manifested in serious antisocial behavior. At some point, it seems, Neumman/“Sagal” ran a failed startup that left employees unpaid and wrecked Neumman’s/“Sagal’s” credit rating. In 2013, Neumman/“Sagal” launched an IndieGoGo crowdfunding scam. Claiming that a near-fatal auto accident had left toxic metal embedded in his/“her” body, resulting in chronic pain, Neumman/“Sagal” said he/“she” needed $30,000 for a “life saving surgery.” But there was no accident and no toxic metal; Neumman/“Sagal” used the money for sex-change surgery.

A videogame industry journalist named Allistair Pinsof discovered the deception, but Neumman/“Sagal” threatened to commit suicide if he reported the story. Pinsof consulted with his editors, who were hesitant to go with the story, and Pinsof ultimately decided to go public with the truth on his own social-media account. Pinsof was fired and blacklisted by the videogame journalism industry, accused of wrongfully “outing” a transgender person, for reporting the truth about someone perpetrating online fraud. This was one of the scandals that preceded the #GamerGate controversy, involving so-called “social justice warriors” (SJWs) colluding with journalists to distort coverage of the videogame industry.

Good luck finding a straightforward account of who Neumman/“Sagal” actually was, and what he/“she” actually did, in any mainstream news venue. This was the point of #GamerGate after all — videogame journalism had become so corrupted by its devotion to “social justice” issues that it was impossible to get the truth from them.