Josh Slocum advocated for funeral customers against the predatory and exploitative funeral industry as Executive Director of the Funeral Consumer Alliance (FCA). He did a lot of good work but sadly as Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.”

Vermont Fascist Watch

Today, as the Funeral Consumer Alliance is reportedly preparing to start their “Death Con 2022” conference this weekend in North Carolina, their Executive Director Joshua Slocum is finding himself out of a job, resigning from the advocacy group he held for 20 years after concerns were raised about his recent transphobic, racist and sexist bigotry and activism.

“The Board of Trustees has accepted Josh Slocum’s resignation from his position with FCA National as the Executive Director,” the organization said in a public statement. “We are working on restructuring our organization to accommodate this change. Please be patient with us as we work on this.”

The FCA at the time was reeling from onetime supporters, many of them financial, distancing themselves from the organization because Slocum was its leader. The biggest hit was from the People’s Memorial Association, who noted that despite their 56-year association with the FCA announced they were severing ties and withdrawing all financial support. “PMA cannot in good conscience partner with an organization led by someone who doesn’t believe in the fundamental humanity of both our staff and our member community,” it said in a statement. “Over our own 83-year history, we have continually reaffirmed our commitment to our core values, which include treating all Washingtonians with respect and dignity, both in life and in death.”

According to Slocum in an article on his website [https://disaffectedpod.substack.com/p/why-arent-you-more-conservative], his descent into hate politics began seven years ago. “For most of my adult life I’ve considered myself a leftist/Democrat/progressive,” he wrote. “That began to change in 2016.” His last post on the FCA twitter account was on February 19 2021. On August 1 of that year, he and his partner Kevin Hurley registered Disaffected Productions which produces ugly bigoted podcasts and videos that would have titles such as “Are women disproportionately harming society” and  “Unbridled female narcissism”. He however, particularly focus his scorn on the transgender community, describing trans people as well as progressive people as personality disordered. He frames his contempt for trans people as part of a “Trans War” between them and gay men and women, writing in an article published in the Federalist, “We fought for decades to achieve the same basic legal rights enjoyed by heterosexuals. Not special privileges, the same rights. The trans train is threatening to derail that and it’s threatening the health and well-being of our future, our children.”

Slocum’s departure is seen as welcome news from organizations like the National Home Funeral Alliance who admonished Slocum for attempting to play the role of victim in the wake of his resignation. “In his social media postings, “Mr. Slocum has denounced his resignation as a side effect of the ‘cancer’ of ‘woke culture,’ they wrote in a Facebook post. “However, free speech is not free of consequence. He is free to share his opinions as he chooses, and we are free to respond in defense of the rights of ALL humans to live lives free from public ridicule, bigotry, and hatred.

“We call upon the FCA Board of Directors to show, publicly and unequivocally, that they stand with the community they claim to serve—both as an organization and as individuals,” they further wrote. “This is not a ‘cancellation.’ This is accountability.”