WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Fruity, the show where we think that you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 should never live in the closet, Harry, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 even if the woman who created you changes her mind. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you would like to support the show 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or perhaps want a little bit more of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 show, we are on Patreon and by the time 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this episode is up, it'll be around the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 same time that I upload March's deep dive 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on Patreon, which I do every month 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and this month it is on the wokeness of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Sydney Sweeney, the right just figured 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 out who Sydney Sweeney is because 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they saw her on SNL and they never watched 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Euphoria and her being hot is, uh, is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 causing a freakout of epic proportions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we're going to do a little analysis 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of a woman's body, which is something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm fairly new to. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, you know, wish me luck. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Today we are joined, once again, by 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 someone I'm honored to call a friend 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 know her online, ContraPoints is, an 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ex-philosopher, she is a youtuber 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I think calling her a youtuber 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is kind of diminutive to her craft. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She puts out a couple feature film length 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 videos a year that you've probably 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 watched but if you haven't, you really 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 should go check those out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She talks about philosophy, sex and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 gender, and capitalism, and twilight. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Thank you much for having me back on. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I am excited to be here again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm honored to be a friend of the show. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm honored to have you as a friend 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the show. So, a couple weeks ago 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 J.K. Rowling, she got caught up in a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 little Holocaust denial. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She does Holocaust denial a little from 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 time to time, (laughter) yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It wasn't always this way. J.K. Rowlings 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wasn't always on Twitter denying 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that, uh, queer people were persecuted in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the Holocaust. Until 2019, J.K. Rowlings 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was a universally beloved children's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 author who taught every kid that there 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was magic inside of them no matter how 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cast out they may feel. Today, though, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 how would you characterize her position 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the culture today? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, her position in the culture is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of weirdly split, right, cause on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the one hand, there is her continuing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 legacy as the author of the wizard books 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and on the other hand, there's like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 almost her entire public persona, that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which we mostly experience through Twitter 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is basically obsessive bigotry 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 towards trans people. That's become 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 sort of her definitive thing, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that people who don't follow this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of don't understand the extent of it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because, you know, I don't know, people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 throw around like all kinds of accusations 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on Twitter, so it's easy to think that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this is some kind of internet drama 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 blown out of proportion. But what you're 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 missing is that if you have not been 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 paying attention to J.K. Rowling's Twitter 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the last, at this point, we're 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 talking about four or five years, which 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is a long time. Like, she's basically used 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 her platform more often than not to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans-bashing. There's a reason why that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this gets talked about so much because, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, she's one of the most famous 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 authors in the world with an enormous 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 platform, and she's just using it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 constantly to target this small and, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, already besieged, minority of people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who are facing, like, all kinds of, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 legislative and cultural backlash in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the U.S. and the U.K. So it's like really 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 devastating (chuckle) that an author 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that, that's this influential is also, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, this obsessively devoted to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 persecute, you know, to contributing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the persecution of this group of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people, who's already so harassed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it's also, I don't know, it's also 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of a bizarre spectacle, like, in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's own right it's kind of like another 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 reason I feel like we're drawn to this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 maybe, is that it's kind of like darkly 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fascinating. How does this happen? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, how do we go from, like, the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Gryffindor common room and, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Severus Snape, to, like, these unhinged 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 rants about the transexuals. It's weird. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It, it is weird and I think also, I mean, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 yeah, if you go to J.K. Rowling's Twitter 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right now and scroll through her feed, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it is literal years of talking every 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 single day, almost exclusively, about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transgender people, for years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which I think is the type of behavior 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we associate, with like boomer facebook 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 moms, and then I guess in a sense, she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of would have been that, if she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hadn't become a billionaire and one of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the most famous and beloved children's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 authors of all time. But she is those 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 things and the idea of her behaving the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 way, like, our homophobic aunt does 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or whatever, but like from some castle 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the U.K., is just like a very jarring 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 image. (Natalie) I think that summarizes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it really well, right, like, it is, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your bigoted aunts deranged Facebook post 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 except on a platform with millions of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people as the audience. I feel like we 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a society, have, like, yet to know how 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to deal with this type of thing cause 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 J.K. Rowling's not the only case of it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, like, Elon Musk has dabbled 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a little bit in some similar forms of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 bigotry with a (inaudible) or even 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 larger platform. But I feel like what's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 unique about J.K. Rowling is that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she's, like, single mindedly focused on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans people as this one issue. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Matt) So she wasn't always this way, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 though and what we're gonna do today 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is use J.K. Rowling as what I think is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a valuable case study in the worm hole 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that transphobia is. The way that it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 can serve as it has for J.K. Rowling 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and so many millions of other people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a portal into the broader world 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of right-wing ideology that gets pretty 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 scary pretty quickly. We're gonna 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 try to understand why transphobia, and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think especially when it's cloaked, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 no pun intended, as a progressive feminist 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cause and especially effective 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 gateway into the alt right. One day 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're reminding people that you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just like to be preferred to as a woman 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that you are a woman and then, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you know, the next day you are 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 participating in Holocaust denial. It can 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 happen to you. (Natalie) Many such cases. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Matt) Many such cases. And so, to begin 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this story I wanna go back to 2019 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the first tweet that I remember 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 seeing of J.K. Rowling's, her foray into 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the anti-trans movement, which at the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 beginning was very tepid. I am going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 send you the tweet. (Natalie) "Dress 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 however you please. Call yourself 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whatever you like. Sleep with any 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 consenting adult who'll have you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Live your best life in peace and security. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But force women out of their jobs for 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 stating that sex is real? Hashtag I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 stand with Maya. Hashtag this is not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a drill." (Matt) So what was the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 context of this one? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Natalie) So, the context is that there 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was a English consultant named 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Maya Forstater who, I guess she wasn't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fired but her contract was not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 renewed because she had, like, refused 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to use the correct pronouns for a trans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 coworker or something along those lines. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And a lot of so called "gender-critical", 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that is "transphobic", people in the U.K. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 decided to turn this into a celebrated 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cause, they, you know, rallied behind 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this hashtag "I stand with maya". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The idea being, like, "oh, we shouldn't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have to submit to gender ideology by, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you know, using the correct pronouns 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for trans people in the work place or 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whatever. This is where J.K. Rowling 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 decided to join this discourse 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 officially. She decided to jump in on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the side of people who think that it's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 terribly oppressive to have to use 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the correct pronouns for a trans person. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I guess at first, you know, there was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some ambiguity because you could be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, "Well she's not transphobic. Maybe 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she just believes in free speech, and she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 thinks that, you know, that people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 shouldn't be fired for having different 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 opinions." (inaudible) okay, like, at 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 first you could sort of plausibly think 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that maybe, given the benefit of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doubt, that's why she was getting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 involved in this. But, like, to people who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of know the pattern that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transphobia takes place, we all pretty 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 much knew that, "Oh, okay she really 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is transphobic behind the scenes". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, there is no way that you would 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -go decide to die on this hill unless - Matt: Hmm. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you already were. At least that's what I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 think now. I mean, I think J.K. Rowling 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was at her most dangerous in 2019 and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in 2020 because of the stuff she was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 saying seems kind of plausible and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 reasonable to the average person, you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 know. And so, there's this kind of like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 clever selection of which topics to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 get behind, right, instead of just, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know, calling trans women "men" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in dresses, or whatever, it's like she's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 defending the "right" of people to not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 use the correct pronouns if they don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 agree, right?. (inaudible) this people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of hedge in this way, like, when 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they have a kind of like bigoted opinion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 instead of just stating it out, right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They sort of defend their right to have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -that opinion. - Matt: Mhmm. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, that was very much with this thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with Maya Forstater is, right. It's like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she's not saying something sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 directly transphobic, but she is kind of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 indirectly getting there by being like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I am going to publicly champion Maya's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right to be transphobic. " 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Matt) I feel like in the early days 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she did so much of this plausible, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 deniability stuff where it's like, you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 know, "I'm just saying sex is real". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right? And the average person who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 isn't, like, a terminally online queer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is going to be like, "Yeah, sex is real, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whatever, like, who cares." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know? It's like not a big deal. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Natalie) Yeah, she was very effective 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 early on at kind of like deciding what 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it was that she thought people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were mad about, right? And so she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 framed the conversation, "Oh here's why 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm getting backlashed. I'm getting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 backlash because I said quote on quote 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 'sex is real'. And so, it kind of seems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like if you believe her account of what 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people are mad about, then it sounds like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 everyone whose mad is unreasonable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because they are mad at her for taking 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this kind of - taking what? An abstract, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 philosophical position about the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 metaphysics of biological sex? Like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that what people are mad about? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No, right? It's of course not that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because she is intervening in this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 social and political debate, right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on the side that wants trans people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 functionally to not exist in public 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 life, or not to be acknowledged in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 public life.