Hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit Fruity, the show where we think that you should never live in the closet, Harry, even if the woman who created you changes her mind. If you would like to support the show or perhaps want a little bit more of the show, we are on Patreon and by the time this episode is up, it'll be around the same time that I upload March's deep dive on Patreon, which I do every month and this month it is on the wokeness of Sydney Sweeney. The right just figured out who Sydney Sweeney is because they saw her on SNL and they never watched Euphoria and her being hot is, uh, is causing a freakout of epic proportions. So we're going to do a little analysis of a woman's body, which is something I'm fairly new to. So, you know, wish me luck. Today we are joined, once again, by someone I'm honored to call a friend of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may know her online, ContraPoints is, an ex-philosopher, she is a YouTuber but I think calling her a YouTuber is kind of diminutive to her craft. She puts out a couple feature film-length videos a year that you've probably watched but if you haven't, you really should go check those out. She talks about philosophy, and sex and gender, and capitalism, and twilight Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity. Thank you much for having me back on. I am excited to be here again. I'm honored to be a friend of the show. I'm honored to have you as a friend of the show. So, a couple weeks ago J.K. Rowling, she got caught up in a little Holocaust denial. She does Holocaust denial a little from time to time, (laughter) yeah. It wasn't always this way. J.K. Rowlings wasn't always on Twitter denying that, uh, queer people were persecuted in the Holocaust. Until 2019, J.K. Rowlings was a universally beloved children's author who taught every kid that there was magic inside of them no matter how cast out they may feel. Today, though, how would you characterize her position in the culture today? Well, her position in the culture is kind of weirdly split, right, cause on the one hand, there is her continuing legacy as the author of the wizard books and on the other hand, there's like almost her entire public persona, that which we mostly experience through Twitter which is basically obsessive bigotry towards trans people. That's become sort of her definitive thing, right? I think that people who don't follow this kind of don't understand the extent of it because, you know, I don't know, people throw around like all kinds of accusations on Twitter, so it's easy to think that this is some kind of internet drama blown out of proportion. But, what you're missing is that if you have not been paying attention to J.K. Rowling's Twitter for the last, at this point, we're talking about four or five years, which is a long time. Like, she's basically used her platform more often than not to do trans-bashing. There's a reason why that this gets talked about so much because, I mean, she's one of the most famous authors in the world with an enormous platform, and she's just using it constantly to target this small and, like, already besieged, minority of people who are facing, like, all kinds of, like, legislative and cultural backlash in the U.S. and the U.K. So it's like really devastating (chuckle) that an author that, that's this influential is also, like, this obsessively devoted to persecute, you know, to contributing to the persecution of this group of people, who's already so harassed. But it's also, I don't know, it's also kind of a bizarre spectacle, like, in it's own right it's kind of like another reason I feel like we're drawn to this maybe, is that it's kind of like darkly fascinating. How does this happen? Like, how do we go from, like, the Gryffindor common room and, you know, Severus Snape, to, like, these unhinged rants about the transexuals. It's weird. It, it is weird and I think also, I mean, yeah, if you go to J.K. Rowling's Twitter right now and scroll through her feed, it is literal years of talking every single day, almost exclusively, about transgender people, for years. Which I think is the type of behavior we associate, with like boomer facebook moms, and then I guess in a sense, she kind of would have been that, if she hadn't become a billionaire and one of the most famous and beloved children's authors of all time. But she is those things and the idea of her behaving the way, like, our homophobic aunt does or whatever, but like from some castle in the U.K., is just like a very jarring image. (Natalie) I think that summarizes it really well, right, like, it is, like, your bigoted aunts deranged Facebook post except on a platform with millions of people as the audience. I feel like we as a society, have, like, yet to know how to deal with this type of thing cause J.K. Rowling's not the only case of it. I mean, like, Elon Musk has dabbled a little bit in some similar forms of bigotry with a comparable or even larger platform. But I feel like what's unique about J.K. Rowling is that she's, like, single mindedly focused on trans people as this one issue. (Matt) So she wasn't always this way though, and what we're gonna do today is use J.K. Rowling as what I think is a valuable case study in the worm hole that transphobia is. The way that it can serve as it has for J.K. Rowling and so many millions of other people as a portal into the broader world of right-wing ideology that gets pretty scary pretty quickly. We're gonna try to understand why transphobia, and I think especially when it's cloaked, no pun intended, as a progressive feminist cause and especially effective gateway into the alt right. One day you're reminding people that you just like to be referred to as a woman and that you are a woman and then, you know, the next day you are participating in Holocaust denial. It can happen to you. (Natalie) Many such cases. (Matt) Many such cases. And so, to begin this story I wanna go back to 2019 to the first tweet that I remember seeing of J.K. Rowling's, her foray into the anti-trans movement, which at the beginning was very tepid. I am going to send you the tweet. (Natalie) "Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who'll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? Hashtag I stand with Maya. Hashtag this is not a drill." (Matt) So what was the context of this one? (Natalie) So, the context is that there was a English consultant named Maya Forstater who, I guess she wasn't fired but her contract was not renewed because she had, like, refused to use the correct pronouns for a trans coworker or something along those lines. And a lot of so called "gender-critical", that is "transphobic", people in the U.K. decided to turn this into a celebrated cause, they, you know, rallied behind this hashtag "I stand with maya". The idea being, like, "oh, we shouldn't have to submit to gender ideology by, you know, using the correct pronouns for trans people in the work place or whatever. This is where J.K. Rowling decided to join this discourse officially. She decided to jump in on the side of people who think that it's terribly oppressive to have to use the correct pronouns for a trans person. And I guess at first, you know, there was some ambiguity because you could be like, "Well she's not transphobic. Maybe she just believes in free speech, and she thinks that, you know, that people shouldn't be fired for having different opinions." And like okay, like, at first you could sort of plausibly think that maybe, given the benefit of the doubt, that's why she was getting involved in this. But, like, to people who kind of know the pattern that transphobia takes place, we all pretty much knew that, "Oh, okay she really is transphobic behind the scenes". Like, there is no way that you would -go decide to die on this hill unless - Matt: Hmm. you already were. At least that's what I think now. I mean, I think J.K. Rowling was at her most dangerous in 2019 and in 2020 because of the stuff she was saying seems kind of plausible and reasonable to the average person, you know. And so, there's this kind of like clever selection of which topics to get behind, right, instead of just, I don't know, calling trans women "men" in dresses, or whatever, it's like she's defending the "right" of people to not use the correct pronouns if they don't agree, right? These people kind of hedge in this way, like, when they have a kind of like bigoted opinion instead of just stating it out, right. They sort of defend their right to have -that opinion. - Matt: Mhmm. So, that was very much with this thing with Maya Forstater is, right. It's like she's not saying something sort of directly transphobic, but she is kind of indirectly getting there by being like, "I am going to publicly champion Maya's right to be transphobic. " (Matt) I feel like in the early days she did so much of this plausible, deniability stuff where it's like, you know, "I'm just saying sex is real". Right? And the average person who isn't, like, a terminally online queer is going to be like, "Yeah, sex is real, whatever, like, who cares." You know? It's like not a big deal. (Natalie) Yeah, she was very effective early on at kind of like deciding what it was that she thought people were mad about, right? And so she framed the conversation, "Oh here's why I'm getting backlashed. I'm getting backlash because I said quote on quote 'sex is real'. And so, it kind of seems like if you believe her account of what people are mad about, then it sounds like everyone whose mad is unreasonable because they are mad at her for taking this kind of - taking what? An abstract, philosophical position about the metaphysics of biological sex? Like, is that what people are mad about? No, right? It's of course not that because she is intervening in this social and political debate, right, on the side that wants trans people functionally not to exist in public life, or not to be acknowledged in public life. So, that is what people are mad about, right? But early on, I think she was able to kind of frame her position as being this like, I don't know, almost philosophical position about the reality of sex or something, you know? That is what she wanted to make it sound like instead of a political position about the place of transgender people in society. When you first saw that tweet were, like, alarm bells ringing? Oh, absolutely. I mean, at that point I was like, yeah I basically internally thought there was like a nine hundred and ninety-nine out of one thousand percent chance that -it's, as people say, over, right? -Matt: (laughter) Right It's so over, right? Like I already basically already kind of knew that. But I also kind of knew that, like, well, most people aren't gonna notice that it's over until she says something more explicit. Until she's doing Holocaust denial. Yeah, until she's doing Holocaust denial, exactly. But, of course, I've seen enough people who kind of start this way with this flirtation with bigotry where stage one is usually like, "Well I support the right for people to be bigots" Like, I don't like that there's this, like, cancel culture, whatever politically correct - you can't say anything anymore. Like, that's usually the prelude to a bunch of bigoted stuff. It's kind of like a softer way of getting a foot in the door. Like, you're not necessarily committing yourself to saying anything bigoted. But you'll stand up for the right of people to say that and you don't like how, you know, how vicious people are being towards people who are getting criticized for saying more bigoted things. In retrospect, it's clear that she's preparing the way to be the one saying those bigoted things herself. For a while longer, well into 2020, she, like, continues this road of like, "sex is real". And so I'm going to send you another thread. It's funny how I know all of these -like, by heart practically -Matt: Oh (laughter) -It's like song lyrics (laughter) -Natalie: Right? I'm a scholar -of the things she has said about -Matt: (laughing) trans people, right? Like, "Ah yes, -tweet seven, verse three". -Matt: (wheezes) I know, cause, like, we've read these -f***ing tweets so many times -Natalie: I know, the last four years has been dominated by having to read these terrible opinions again and again. This is, honestly, no one should be allowed to get this famous. It's too dangerous. (laughter) Okay, but for the normal people listening who aren't so online, do you want to read what she tweeted on June 6, I believe, 2020? (Natalie) Dear normal people, this is me reading from the book of Rowling, chapter six (laughter). Quote, "If sex isn't real, there's no same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn't hate to speak the truth." Tweet two, "The idea that women like me, who've been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they're vulnerable in the same way as women - ie. to male violence - 'hate' trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - (English Accent): it is a nonsense." -Natalie: Sorry, (inaudible) I feel I -Matt: (laughter) cannot say, "is a nonsense" without doing -it in an English accent. -Matt: (laughing) (Natalie) I'm gonna switch to doing an English accent for the last one because I feel like, I just feel like (English) "I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so." (Matt) "I'd march with you if you were being discriminated against." (Natalie) Yeah, that's a big, big red flag, right? And this was, like, the same month that the U.S., like, Donald Trump had, like, announced, like, an intention to, like, ban trans healthcare. Yes. The notion that, like, discrimination against trans people is this, like, hypothetical thing that might occur in the future, right? If ever there was a trans person who faced bigotry on the basis of their identity, I would stand up for them. But that hasn't happened yet. So, I'm just -not, I'm not standing up -(Natalie) Yeah, right. No one's ever been discriminated against for being trans. But, like, if it does happen, I'll march with you. But, okay, first of all, by the way, these tweets got hundreds of thousands of likes - and people were like, - Natalie: Yes. "Yes! You're a warrior!" But it's like again, a normal person who isn't super online, and, I mean, you know, from the queer and pro-trans end, but also from, like, the super TERF-y anti-trans end. Like if you aren't a part of either of those groups, you're reading this and are like, "What the f*** is she talking about? Like what is this 'sex is real' thing?" Like, what is she talking about? It's a weird argument, right? Because it seems on the surface like it's a linguistic point that she's trying to make, right? There's this idea, like she says, quote, "If we get rid of the concept of sex that removes the ability of many to discuss their lives." Okay, this is what I think the assumption is: it's, like, if we acknowledge that trans people are who they say they are, then that means that none of the rest of us can talk about how gender has impacted our lives, right? In other words, think of if a trans woman, is a woman, then I guess, you know, "I, J.K,. Rowling, can never talk about the way that I have been discriminated against for being a woman." I mean, it's a little bit of an oppression olympics almost kind of - argument, where it's like - Matt: Mmm there can only be one oppressed group, right? And if we talk about how, you know, there's no way to include trans people as a valid concept without sort of somehow, like, deleting or erasing the entire concept of women. Which, I mean, it doesn't make any sense, right? In fact, J.K. Rowling will later use as an example. Okay what does it mean to "erase women"? I mean, well, okay, so she'll use the example of, like, okay, some hospital somewhere, on a piece of paperwork says, uses the term "pregnant person" instead of "pregnant woman". Why? Because there is transgender men who can and have gotten pregnant. And so, saying "pregnant people" is a more, like, even if you find that to be an awkward phrase, like, it's still a more inclusive phrase that is going to help trans men who need reproductive healthcare that, you know, conventionally would be "women's health", right? I just don't understand why making it inclusive to transgender men somehow, like, deletes the concept of women from existence. Like, (stammers) it just doesn't make any sense to me. I feel like it's, like, a weird pretext for being prejudicial. -It's just such a lie. I mean, you see -Natalie: Yeah. this a lot with TERF's trans exclusionary radical feminists. It's like the arm of quote on quote, "feminism" that is basically just defined by transphobia. Especially towards trans women. Yeah, I don't even know if I would say that it's especially towards trans women. I would say that there is especially vitriolic towards trans women - and they kind of vilify. - Matt: Mmm Trans women are sort of cast as, like, dangerous predators. But trans men, I feel like, the way that a lot of, like, including J.K. Rowling, like, talk about trans men as a quite reprehensible I - think, too. Like, usually the idea - Matt: Mmm is, like, trans men are like confused girls who've been tricked by, like, the medical establishment, like, the evil cabal of endocrinologist who have, like, somehow, like, hoodwinked vulnerable girls into thinking that they're men. Which, of course, is not how the healthcare system works at all. Like, you really have to scream and cry to get hormones. Like, no one is persuading you to do this. In fact, quite the opposite. Everyone is telling you not to. So, the idea that trans men or that any kind of assigned female at birth trans person is this sort of confused, vulnerable baby child. Like, it's not vilification to the extent that they've vilified trans women as dangerous predators, but it's in infantilizing in a way that I think can be just as harmful in its consequences, right? When someone says, "Oh, you can't make decisions about your own body because you're too confused and childish." Like, you know, that has devastating consequences which we see. Any feminist should be aware of how this works cause this is what they say about abortion; it's what they about contraception; it's what they say about women's health in general. "Shut up, little girl," right, "You can't make decisions about your body. We'll do it for you." It's exactly the same thing J.K. Rowling is essentially saying to trans men. TERFS especially towards trans men do this like, "We're losing our lesbians. They're all becoming trans men thing." Which that as a refrain, I just don't understand at all because, like, statistically when you look at, like, the number of gen Z people who are coming out as queer, under every single one of the letters, it's higher in all of them. -(Natalie) Right. Like there are more out lesbians today than there have ever been. (stammers) Yes, there's never been more -lesbians, like, yeah - Matt: Theres- (laughs) And to be clear I love that (laughs) Yeah it's good, it's good actually, yeah. No, I mean, I feel like it comes from, it's like a very, like, selfish, like, childish perspective. It's almost like, "No don't transition, you're so sexy aha," - you know? Like, I feel like, thats kind - Matt: Yeah (laughs) of, like, (stammers) and some gay women do say this about trans men. Like, "No, all the butch women are transitioning, like, I wanted to f*** them before, no!" And it's like, okay, well, too bad, like (scoffs) other people don't have to live their lives in accordance with what you find sexually attractive. Like, again, as a woman (stammers) you should know this, right? - you should know that what you're - Matt: Yeah doing, what you're speaking about someone as if your sexual attraction to them entitles you to their living a certain way. You should know why that's bad and why that feels violating and why that robs someone of autonomy, right? And with TERFs and this whole thing of, like, "they're erasing the linguistic concept of a woman." It's like (sighs) - what world do you have to live in - (Natalie) Yeah. for that to feel like the truth? And look, I'm not a woman. And so, sometimes with these conversations I'm very careful about, like, even J.K. Rowling, a woman who I disagree with entirely on so many of these issues, it's like, I don't wanna police her understanding of her own trauma - as it pretence to being a woman. - (Natalie) Yeah. However, I still, like, we all live in the same society, and it's like, I'm just very hard pressed to think that the word "woman" is going anywhere. (Natalie scoffs) It's like, I don't think that, because on some, like, in some medical papers that are being published, that they're using the terms "people who get pregnant," "people have periods," I don't think that means that, like, they're gonna start calling you in casual conversation "a person who menstruates." No. And no one talks like that way. I've never heard of a trans person casually refer to cis woman as "people who menstruate." Because the entire point of that term is that it doesn't just refer to cis women. There are people who have a sort of visceral reaction to it, which I guess I can kind of understand. Like, I think if you were to make, like, an intelligible, like, understandable argument out of what J.K. Rowling seems to be saying in these tweets, I mean I think you could put it like this, "For most women, the way that they are oppressed in society is in fact intertwined with biology," right? With women's reproductive role, as most women are capable of getting pregnant. And that becomes a area where women's lives are policed, right? It's interesting how J.K. Rowling never talks about this, - right? Not a word, not a word - Matt: Mhmm about Roe v Wade being overturned in the United States. For most women, biology and misogyny, they certainly are - intertwined. And there's a case to be - Matt: Yeah. made that anyone who's assigned female at birth does sort of belong to a oppressed class by virtue of their reproductive capability. Especially, like, you know, the sensitivity around, like, you know, "saying people who menstruate" or "people who give birth." I feel like if you hear those phrases in isolation, they kind of, like, can be abrasive sounding because there's, like, a lot of shame and stigma, there have for thousands of years around menstruation and, you know, women often are kind of reduced by patriarchy to, like, birthing people in a sense, right? So, I feel like that there's, like, some grain of something I can sympathize with her in terms of having a visceral, negative reaction to these phrases. But I feel like anyone who takes a second to cool down, understand the context of the phrase, will see that's, like, clearly not the intention. They know that it's going to have an emotional effect for a - lot of women to see those phrases. - Matt: Mhmm And so, they kind of decontextualize it and blast it onto Twitter with, like, a kind of vague implication that, "Oh, this is what they are going to reduce you to," and, like, "they" is who? "They" is quote on quote trans ideology. Which is sort of vaguely implied to be this, like, powerful cabal. (laughs) Right, which is also incredible because in real life it's like people with a hundred followers on Twitter. Yes, right! It's like you're being yelled at by, like, random, like, furries. (laughing) J.K. Rowling, she does fixate heavily on her own perceived persecution by trans people on Twitter. J.K. Rowling often gets into these, like, feuds, like very public feuds that she- actually I wanna google how many followers she has on Twitter. J.K. Rowling... Do you know the number by heart? I mean, I think it used to be like fourteen million. Oh! It's fourteen million. I hate that I know this. (laughter) Me too. I don't want these stocks in my head. J.K. Rowling, to her fourteen million followers, she, like, regularly puts these random a**, people on blast, and it's like, I don't know, I have, what? I have four hundred thousand Twitter followers, which is, by the way, too many for a twink. But, none the less, it's like, lots of horrible people say horrible things to me on the internet. You have to be aware of the power dynamic of, like, when you have fourteen million followers. I feel like it was missing from J.K. Rowling's discussion of how she's, like, victimized by social media, is any understanding of power, and I think that a key thing that is going on with J.K. Rowling is that she doesn't conceptualize herself as a powerful person. I mean, and this is common, right? Cause, you know, most people kind of think of themselves as, like, heroic underdogs, I feel, because, I don't know, you got bullied as a child, you got, you know, (stutters) right, like, in J.K. Rowling's case, like, she used to live in relative poverty. She was a single mom, she fled a, you know, a abusive relationship. And so, I still think in a way she kind of thinks of herself as this, like, small, like, scared person, like, on the run. Mmmm I mean, she's had, like, twenty-five years to, like, catch up to the new reality, but I feel like internally she still hasn't, right? I think it's hard for a lot of people to make this switch where you realize, "Oh, I am the big fish now," right? Like, "I am the one who has power." And I think that, I mean a lot of what privilege is is a kind of blindness to your own power. She hasn't noticed that she's extremely powerful and influential. So, it hasn't occurred to her that, like, I don't know, going after some random YouTuber with a hundred, you know, hundred thousands of subscribers, is, like, weird behavior for a celebrity of her size. And not even a YouTuber with a hundred thousand subscribers, random a** people. I was just scrolling through her Twitter the other day getting ready for this episode, and, like, she was sending multiple tweets, like, screenshotting this man's tweets and then sending out her responses to her fourteen million followers. This guy named Rajan, who wrote, "I am a CIS male and an ally of the LGBTQ community. All of my life I have fought for diversity and equality. I advised two Attorney General's on race and equality issues and prosecuted on behalf of victims of crime. I know who I am and am proud of what I stand for." And she responded with, uh, with her own tweet, which she was pretending to speak in his voice, in Rajan's voice. She wrote, "I am a man who wants to see girls and women stripped of their rights and protections for the benefit of my fellow men." And it's like, okay, obviously that's not what Rajan was saying. But then I was like, "Who the hell is Rajan?" He has four hundred and fifty-three followers. The tweet which she sent out to her fourteen million followers, Rajan's original tweet had twenty-five likes! Yeah, it's, like, literally just some guy and she's just, (stutters) like, there's no sense of the influence she wields. I mean, in a way, she does think that she's just someone's, like, Facebook aunt. She's behaving in a way that is indistinguishable from the way- she's not acting like a public figure. I just can't understand how J.K. Rowling has spent, and this is what she does everyday by the way, listener, feel free to go to her Twitter. She's beefing with someone who lives in, like, f****** Iowa. And it's like, I just can't (laughs) conceptualize, especially if I had a billion dollars. I don't know. I would be on, like, a yacht probably. And not arguing with f****** Rajan four hundred, fifty-three followers. Rajan, if you're out there, shout out. You seem like a great guy. (laughter) Yeah, we love Rajan on this podcast. I just can't make sense of her spending, I imagine her rocking back n' forth in the corner of, like, her eleventh living room in her sixth castle; just, like, on Twitter sweating. (scoffs) I think we like to imagine that when people get, you know, really rich and famous, then there's a sense of, like, peace or happiness or tranquility that accompanies that, but that does not seem to be the case, right? I mean, I'm trying to imagine being in that situation. I feel that, like, once you achieved a certain level of, like, you know, success beyond most people's wildest dreams... It must be hard to know what to do with that feeling of discontentment that's, - like, still inside of you. - (Matt) Mmm And I think that sometimes people, like, you know, wildly successful people, like J.K. Rowling or Elon Musk, they sort of get addicted to Twitter as this, like, - source of conflict (scoffs) almost. - (Matt) Mmm It's almost like (stutters) once you don't have to worry about money, once, you know, you're free of your, you know, your past abusive relationship, once you've, you know, accomplish all the things you previously wanted to accomplish, it's, like, it's almost like you need to- you just can't be happy with that. You need to, like, find a new, like, fight almost. And so, people go looking on Twitter; you can always find a fight on Twitter. I think there's something very unhealthy about the way a lot of people, uh, relate to using the internet as a source of conflict, and then once your ego gets invested, I think that's, you know, part of what's going on with J.K. Rowling, of course, is that because she's come, you know, she's, like, positioned herself so firmly on the anti-trans side. She now feels like she has to defend it viciously. Because otherwise, that would mean admitting that she was wrong and admitting that she's caused a massive amount of damage. Yes and you know what? It is really hard to, like, profess your beliefs in front of a lot of people. Like I have basically done that as part of my job of making, like, social and political content and commentary online for the lat few years. Like one of the things that took me too long to come to grips with is that, like, sometimes you need to know when you're wrong. And, like, taking the L as - the kids say, and I've had to - (Natalie) Yeah. take L's online and it's embarrassing and it makes you feel small. I mean, Natalie, I know that's happened to you where you've had to come to the mic and be like, "Yeah I was wrong about this thing," even if it takes a while to do that. That is also one of the greatest, like, personal lessons that I've taken away from, like, being online politically; is that being wrong is actually, like, I mean it's so f****** corny, but it's like an opportunity. I think it's, like, genuinely, like, spiritually good for you to be able to accept that. It's been helpful to me overtime to learn, to get a lot of criticism, and to kind of be at peace with it, and to not feel like I need to constantly be, like, a vigilant defender of my own ego. People are going to say things about me, they're going to misrepresent me, they're going to criticize me, and some of it will be true, and a lot of it will be false. And like, you just kind of have to learn to - find peace with that. Otherwise you'll - (Matt) Mmm go crazy. But, yeah, what we have on our hands here with Ms. Rowling is a case of someone who is pathologically incapable of ever letting anything go ever, right? - Matt: (laughs) Ever. Like, I don't think she's ever once admitted to being wrong about a single thing. No, and that includes the Holocaust denial arc, which I'm teasing the listener with cause we're not quite there yet. I wanna return to the role of language in all of this and, like, semantics, right? We're going to be talking about the transphobia serving as a gateway into further right wing, you know, broader right wing ideology. But then I also think that taking it back a step, I think that some people's entry into transphobia are these, like, frankly, like, silly semantic - word arguments. - (Natalie) Yeah. They're erasing the word "women." And so, as another example, what I think is a powerful example of that: Ana Kasparian. So, Ana Kasparian, she's one of the political commentators on the Young Turks, which is one of the bigger and of the earlier left wing political YouTube shows. You know she had her viral, um, "I don't care what the Bible says! I don't, like... (video) "I don't care if you're Christian. In fact, I will fight for you to have your religious liberty and practice your Christianity. I believe in that. I don't believe in Christianity, which means that you do not get to dictate the way I live my life based on your religion. I don't care what the Bible says. You have every right in the world. All those women who identify with your religion have every right in the world to not get an abortion, to not take birth control. But they do not have the right to dictate my life and what I decide to do with my body. I don't care about your godd*mn religion." (Matt) I think she's, like, had some really great things to say over the years. And none of that, none of the education, none of anything stopped her from falling into transphobic semantic rabbit hole last May; like all horrible things that took place on Twitter. So I'm going to send you the tweets. Okay so this first tweet is, "I'm a woman. Please don't ever refer to me as a person with a uterus, birthing person, or person who menstruates. How do people not realize how degrading this is? You can support the transgender community without doing this s***." If you're just taking this tweet at face value, I don't even disagree with it. I think, like, yeah, right, don't, you shouldn't refer to an individual person as a "birthing person," that's weird. I agree. I feel like where I disagree is in the subtext, right? The first question I have is, in what context did someone refer to Anna in this way? Did this happen? Did someone call her (Natalie) "a person who menstruates"? Like, in what context? Was the context on a piece of medical paperwork? Should phrases such as "a person who menstruates" replace the phrase "woman" in everyday English? No, of course not. Who's suggesting that? Is anyone suggesting that? I've never once heard trans person suggest that. So, it's like, we're arguing against this position that, like, who are we arguing against? I don't know. It feels like (stutters) for some reason there's this need to argue against this, like, strong man version of a trans activist, who insist that we stop using the word "women". I've never heard someone claim that. I also think, like, even the extent to which this is used in medical context is overstated. Like, I don't know, I'm thinking of, like, recent times I've interacted with the medical system. I feel like I'm often, you know, when you select your gender on medical paperwork, it's usually male, female, or, like, other (scoffs) and it'll ask you to explain. So, I will usually, like, add, you know, as a context note that I am a transgender woman. So that, in so far as that's medically relevant, it's noted. I have no given birth, nor have I been to the hospital with someone giving birth recently. So, I cannot say what the experience is like. But I guess I'll be curious to know, like, how often, I don't know, if someone is listening this, um, you know, if you, like, had a baby at a hospital recently, like, how frequently were phrases like "birthing person" used? My guess is not very frequently. - So I'm not sure (stammers) It just - (Matt) Right. feels like a sort of imaginary argument that we're having. Totally, totally. (stammers) I'm, like, lacking context for, like, where is this occurring? I spend a lot of time around women, actually. And I feel like I don't see the word- I don't see these phrases being thrown around very often these days. And I'm in a very trans inclusive, you know, kind of social - environment. So, you'd think if - Matt: (laughs) lots of people had replaced the word "woman" with "person with a uterus," I think I would have heard that but I haven't. (laughs) Right? So, she's starting to get kind of dogged online and she responds with tweet number two. Please hold... Did you receive? Umm, hold on. Not yet. Oh, wait. Did it not send to you? - I don't see it. - (Matt) Oh, weird. Okay wait let me try again. Maybe I just sent it to the wrong person (laughs) And then out of nowhere you receive it (laughter) and its some tweet from a year ago You might want to figure out who you - just send that to. It could be kind of - (Matt laughing) weird with no context. (laughing continues) Okay tweet two, "LOL. The meltdowns over wanting to be referred to as a woman rather than a "birthing person" is pretty wild. I'll never apologize for that, especially as biological woman who has had a f****** lifetime of being told I'm less than. I'm a woman. No apologies," (sighs) So, again it's like, I don't know, a lot of this type of transphobic stuff comes from a kind of, like, misdirected frustration with misogyny. Anna reacted with, "Oh, people are sort of forcing me to be called the 'birthing person', and then that's sort of somehow erasing the lifetime of misogyny that I've had to experience as a woman." I mean, I think it's like a kind of scapegoat in a way. I feel that, like, a lot of times, like, people who get (stutters) into this gender critical talking points, it's often a kind of, like, displaced rage and frustration at experiences of misogyny, often in, like, leftist spaces, right? Cause that's a real thing. Misogyny is pretty rampant on the left as it is everywhere. And I think that a lot of women find that hard to complain about. And it's difficult in part because men usually are in power. I don't know, you kind of, as a woman, you kind of have to, like, pander to men to get through the day to some extent. Yeah So, it's like frightening to take a stand against men. But trans people this kind of, like, hated minority that is sort of easy to, like, it's kind of easy to, like, dump all of your, like, frustrations and rage onto trans people because there's a social momentum behind that in a way that there sort of isn't against, like, I don't know, frustration with misogyny and leftist spaces, for example. I honestly kinda feel bad for Ana reading these tweets because obviously there's some massive life, as she says, a lifetime of, like, of difficult experiences that's behind this. And it's blowing up now, but it's choosing as its target, this very weird thing that seems to me, to be slightly off topic. So these tweets are in March. And then in July, she is still kind of stuck on this transgender issue. In a discussion about various social justice movements and their methods for accomplishing their goals, she tweets what I have selected as to be tweet number three. Which I will send to you now. - Oh, this one (scoffs) Yeah this is... - (Matt laughs) Okay, and see this is (stutters) okay, this tweet- I know I'm talking about the tweet before I've read it. But I do feel that this tweet that I'm about to read, it really kind of does showcase the way that transphobia is kind of a red flag and it's often the prelude to a whole bunch of nonsense. Okay (breaths deeply) Ana Kasparian quote, "The Civil Rights Movement did not use the same strategies as the trans movement. They didn't barricade speakers they disagreed with in a classroom for three hours. They persuaded through non-violence and showing America their humanity." So this is (exhales) this is basically the entire thing that the podcast called, "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" was about, um. This was what the podcast with Megan Phelps-Roper of Westboro Baptist Church fame, uh and J.K. Rowling. A lot of the argument was, like, "Oh, what we really hate about the trans movement is they use, like, illiberal methods. And it's so unlike all past movements. Like Gay Rights wasn't like this, and Women's Rights wasn't like this, and the Civil Rights Movement, they never did anything violent and they were always polite and they never raised their voices and they never called people names." And it's just, like, "Well I'm sorry that is historically not true." And it's so jarring to see someone like - Ana Kasparian, who knows all of that, - (Natalie) Knows, yeah. though. She knows all of that. I mean, all of these movements had (stammers) You think about that one famous, uh, clip of Angela Davis talking about, like, whether or not she endorses violence. And she's just like, "Well, whether or not I endorse it is besides the point. Violence is the only thing I've ever known as a black person in America. " Have these people heard of Malcolm X? Have they heard (stammers and scoffs) Stonewall! Like, come on! What do these people think the Civil Rights Movement was? Like, I mean, it's literally every one of these movements, too. Like, I mean, again, people think of Women's Suffrage assumes to be like, you know, you think of the women marching with their banners and it's like, "Oh, they just had to show people their humanity by being peaceful," and it's like, churches were firebombed (scoffs) by suffragettes acts in the U.K. People were physically, they were murdered for Women's Suffrage. Which is not to say that I am endorsing these violent methods, but it's like, I'm about to get so demonetized. Wait, hold on, i can- let me rephrase that People were unalived (Matt laughs) People were unalived in the name of women's suffrage, right, churches became more on fire than they previously had been, in the name of women's suffrage, right, like, this is the historical reality that people forget because it's sort of more comfortable I guess to assume that like, oh, Martin Luther King jr. just had to get up on a podium and say "I have a dream, look, I'm human" and then all the white people clapped and said "Yes, let's have rights for all" and it's like no, that's not what happened To desegregate schools in Alabama, president Eisenhower had to send in the army, desegregation happened at gunpoint, it was not a peaceful process I hope that trans rights can be accomplished with less violence than that, and I think, in fact, there's no reason why that shouldn't be the case But to suggest that the trans rights movement is this uniquely violent- it's just isn't