9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Fruity, the show where we think that you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
should never live in the closet, Harry,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
even if the woman who created you changes [br]her mind.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
If you would like to support the show

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or perhaps want a little bit more of the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
show, we are on Patreon and by the time

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this episode is up, it'll be around the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
same time that I upload March's deep dive

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on Patreon, which I do every month

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and this month it is on the wokeness of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Sydney Sweeney, the right just figured

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
out who Sydney Sweeney is because

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they saw her on SNL and they never watched

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Euphoria and her being hot is, uh, is

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
causing a freakout of epic proportions.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So we're going to do a little analysis

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of a woman's body, which is something

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm fairly new to.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, you know, wish me luck.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Today we are joined, once again, by

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
someone I'm honored to call a friend

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
know her online, ContraPoints is, an

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
ex-philosopher, she is a youtuber

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but I think calling her a youtuber

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is kind of diminutive to her craft.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She puts out a couple feature film length

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
videos a year that you've probably

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
watched but if you haven't, you really

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
should go check those out.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She talks about philosophy, sex and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
gender, and capitalism, and twilight.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Thank you much for having me back on.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I am excited to be here again.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm honored to be a friend of the show.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm honored to have you as a friend

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of the show. So, a couple weeks ago

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
J.K. Rowling, she got caught up in a

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
little Holocaust denial.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She does Holocaust denial a little from

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
time to time, (laughter) yeah.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It wasn't always this way. J.K. Rowlings

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
wasn't always on Twitter denying

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that, uh, queer people were persecuted in

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the Holocaust. Until 2019, J.K. Rowlings

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was a universally beloved children's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
author who taught every kid that there

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was magic inside of them no matter how

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
cast out they may feel. Today, though,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
how would you characterize her position

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the culture today?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Well, her position in the culture is

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
kind of weirdly split, right, cause on

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the one hand, there is her continuing

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
legacy as the author of the wizard books

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and on the other hand, there's like

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
almost her entire public persona, that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which we mostly experience through Twitter

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which is basically obsessive bigotry

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
towards trans people. That's become

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
sort of her definitive thing, right?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I think that people who don't follow this

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
kind of don't understand the extent of it

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because, you know, I don't know, people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
throw around like all kinds of accusations

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on Twitter, so it's easy to think that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this is some kind of internet drama

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
blown out of proportion. But what you're

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
missing is that if you have not been

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
paying attention to J.K. Rowling's Twitter

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for the last, at this point, we're

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
talking about four or five years, which

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is a long time. Like, she's basically used

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
her platform more often than not to do

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
trans-bashing. There's a reason why that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this gets talked about so much because,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I mean, she's one of the most famous

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
authors in the world with an enormous

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
platform, and she's just using it

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
constantly to target this small and,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like, already besieged, minority of people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who are facing, like, all kinds of, like,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
legislative and cultural backlash in

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the U.S. and the U.K. So it's like really

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
devastating (chuckle) that an author

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that, that's this influential is also,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like, this obsessively devoted to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
persecute, you know, to contributing

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to the persecution of this group of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
people, who's already so harassed.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But it's also, I don't know, it's also

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
kind of a bizarre spectacle, like, in

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's own right it's kind of like another

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
reason I feel like we're drawn to this

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
maybe, is that it's kind of like darkly

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
fascinating. How does this happen?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Like, how do we go from, like, the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Gryffindor common room and, you know,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Severus Snape, to, like, these unhinged

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
rants about the transexuals. It's weird.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It, it is weird and I think also, I mean,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
yeah, if you go to J.K. Rowling's Twitter

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
right now and scroll through her feed,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it is literal years of talking every

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
single day, almost exclusively, about

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
transgender people, for years.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Which I think is the type of behavior

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we associate, with like boomer facebook

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
moms, and then I guess in a sense, she

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
kind of would have been that, if she

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
hadn't become a billionaire and one of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the most famous and beloved children's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
authors of all time. But she is those

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
things and the idea of her behaving the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
way, like, our homophobic aunt does

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or whatever, but like from some castle

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the U.K., is just like a very jarring

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
image. (Natalie) I think that summarizes

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it really well, right, like, it is, like,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
your bigoted aunts deranged Facebook post

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
except on a platform with millions of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
people as the audience. I feel like we

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as a society, have, like, yet to know how

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to deal with this type of thing cause

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
J.K. Rowling's not the only case of it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I mean, like, Elon Musk has dabbled

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a little bit in some similar forms of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
bigotry with a (inaudible) or even

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
larger platform. But I feel like what's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
unique about J.K. Rowling is that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
she's, like, single mindedly focused on

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
trans people as this one issue.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Matt) So she wasn't always this way,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
though and what we're gonna do today

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is use J.K. Rowling as what I think is

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a valuable case study in the worm hole

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that transphobia is. The way that it

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
can serve as it has for J.K. Rowling

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and so many millions of other people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as a portal into the broader world

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of right-wing ideology that gets pretty

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
scary pretty quickly. We're gonna

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
try to understand why transphobia, and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I think especially when it's cloaked,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
no pun intended, as a progressive feminist

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
cause and especially effective

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
gateway into the alt right. One day

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you're reminding people that you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
just like to be preferred to as a woman

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that you are a woman and then,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you know, the next day you are

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
participating in Holocaust denial. It can

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
happen to you. (Natalie) Many such cases.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Matt) Many such cases. And so, to begin

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this story I wanna go back to 2019

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to the first tweet that I remember

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
seeing of J.K. Rowling's, her foray into

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the anti-trans movement, which at the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
beginning was very tepid. I am going to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
send you the tweet. (Natalie) "Dress

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
however you please. Call yourself

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
whatever you like. Sleep with any

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
consenting adult who'll have you.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Live your best life in peace and security.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But force women out of their jobs for

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
stating that sex is real? Hashtag I

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
stand with Maya. Hashtag this is not

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a drill." (Matt) So what was the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
context of this one?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Natalie) So, the context is that there

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was a English consultant named

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Maya Forstater who, I guess she wasn't

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
fired but her contract was not

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
renewed because she had, like, refused

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to use the correct pronouns for a trans

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
coworker or something along those lines.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And a lot of so called "gender-critical",

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that is "transphobic", people in the U.K.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
decided to turn this into a celebrated

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
cause, they, you know, rallied behind

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this hashtag "I stand with maya".

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The idea being, like, "oh, we shouldn't

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
have to submit to gender ideology by,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you know, using the correct pronouns

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for trans people in the work place or

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
whatever. This is where J.K. Rowling

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
decided to join this discourse

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
officially. She decided to jump in on

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the side of people who think that it's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
terribly oppressive to have to use

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the correct pronouns for a trans person.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I guess at first, you know, there was

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
some ambiguity because you could be

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like, "Well she's not transphobic. Maybe

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
she just believes in free speech, and she

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
thinks that, you know, that people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
shouldn't be fired for having different

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
opinions." (inaudible) okay, like, at

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
first you could sort of plausibly think

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that maybe, given the benefit of the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
doubt, that's why she was getting

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
involved in this. But, like, to people who

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
kind of know the pattern that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
transphobia takes place, we all pretty

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
much knew that, "Oh, okay she really

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is transphobic behind the scenes".

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Like, there is no way that you would

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
-go decide to die on this hill unless[br]- Matt: Hmm.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you already were. At least that's what I

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
think now. I mean, I think J.K. Rowling

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was at her most dangerous in 2019 and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in 2020 because of the stuff she was

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
saying seems kind of plausible and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
reasonable to the average person, you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
know. And so, there's this kind of like

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
clever selection of which topics to

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
get behind, right, instead of just,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I don't know, calling trans women "men"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in dresses, or whatever, it's like she's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
defending the "right" of people to not

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
use the correct pronouns if they don't

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
agree, right?. (inaudible) this people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
kind of hedge in this way, like, when

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they have a kind of like bigoted opinion

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
instead of just stating it out, right.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
They sort of defend their right to have

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
-that opinion.[br]- Matt: Mhmm.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, that was very much with this thing

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with Maya Forstater is, right. It's like

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
she's not saying something sort of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
directly transphobic, but she is kind of

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
indirectly getting there by being like,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
"I am going to publicly champion Maya's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
right to be transphobic. "

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Matt) I feel like in the early days

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
she did so much of this plausible,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
deniability stuff where it's like, you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
know, "I'm just saying sex is real".

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Right? And the average person who

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
isn't, like, a terminally online queer

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is going to be like, "Yeah, sex is real,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
whatever, like, who cares."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You know? It's like not a big deal.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Natalie) Yeah, she was very effective

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
early on at kind of like deciding what

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it was that she thought people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
were mad about, right? And so she

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
framed the conversation, "Oh here's why

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I'm getting backlashed. I'm getting

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
backlash because I said quote on quote

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
'sex is real'. And so, it kind of seems

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like if you believe her account of what

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
people are mad about, then it sounds like

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
everyone whose mad is unreasonable

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because they are mad at her for taking

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this kind of - taking what? An abstract,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
philosophical position about the

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
metaphysics of biological sex? Like,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is that what people are mad about?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
No, right? It's of course not that

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because she is intervening in this

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
social and political debate, right,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on the side that wants trans people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
functionally to not exist in public

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
life, or not to be acknowledged in

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
public life.