WEBVTT 00:00:00.062 --> 00:00:02.952 Hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit 00:00:02.952 --> 00:00:06.012 Fruity, the show where we think that you 00:00:06.012 --> 00:00:08.332 should never live in the closet, Harry, 00:00:08.332 --> 00:00:11.304 even if the woman who created you changes her mind. 00:00:11.304 --> 00:00:13.983 If you would like to support the show 00:00:13.983 --> 00:00:16.158 or perhaps want a little bit more of the 00:00:16.158 --> 00:00:19.160 show, we are on Patreon and by the time 00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:21.710 this episode is up, it'll be around the 00:00:21.710 --> 00:00:24.720 same time that I upload March's deep dive 00:00:24.720 --> 00:00:26.875 on Patreon, which I do every month 00:00:26.875 --> 00:00:30.687 and this month it is on the wokeness of 00:00:30.687 --> 00:00:33.228 Sydney Sweeney. The right just figured 00:00:33.228 --> 00:00:34.858 out who Sydney Sweeney is because 00:00:34.858 --> 00:00:36.898 they saw her on SNL and they never watched 00:00:36.898 --> 00:00:39.644 Euphoria and her being hot is, uh, is 00:00:39.644 --> 00:00:42.944 causing a freakout of epic proportions. 00:00:42.944 --> 00:00:45.364 So we're going to do a little analysis 00:00:45.364 --> 00:00:48.214 of a woman's body, which is something 00:00:48.214 --> 00:00:49.303 I'm fairly new to. 00:00:49.303 --> 00:00:51.072 So, you know, wish me luck. 00:00:51.072 --> 00:00:53.740 Today we are joined, once again, 00:00:53.740 --> 00:00:56.269 by someone I'm honored to call a friend 00:00:56.269 --> 00:00:58.580 of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may 00:00:58.580 --> 00:01:01.088 know her online, ContraPoints is, an 00:01:01.088 --> 00:01:04.564 ex-philosopher, she is a YouTuber 00:01:04.564 --> 00:01:06.919 but I think calling her a YouTuber 00:01:06.919 --> 00:01:08.829 is kind of diminutive to her craft. 00:01:08.829 --> 00:01:11.700 She puts out a couple feature film-length 00:01:11.704 --> 00:01:13.964 videos a year that you've probably 00:01:13.964 --> 00:01:15.795 watched but if you haven't, you really 00:01:15.795 --> 00:01:17.220 should go check those out. 00:01:17.220 --> 00:01:20.264 She talks about philosophy, and sex and 00:01:20.264 --> 00:01:23.400 gender, and capitalism, and twilight 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:26.373 Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity. 00:01:26.373 --> 00:01:28.267 Thank you much for having me back on. 00:01:28.267 --> 00:01:29.790 I am excited to be here again. 00:01:29.790 --> 00:01:34.439 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 comparable 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 referred 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." And like 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? These 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 not to 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. So, that is what people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are mad about, right? But early on, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think she was able to kind of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 frame her position as being this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, I don't know, almost philosophical 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 position about the reality of sex or 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 something, you know? That is what she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wanted to make it sound like instead of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a political position about the place of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transgender people in society. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you first saw that tweet were, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 alarm bells ringing? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Oh, absolutely. I mean, at that point 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was like, yeah I basically internally 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 thought there was like a nine 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hundred and ninety-nine out of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 one thousand percent chance that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -it's, as people say, over, right? -Matt: (laughter) Right 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's so over, right? Like I already 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 basically already kind of knew that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I also kind of knew that, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 well, most people aren't gonna notice 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that it's over until she says something 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 more explicit. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Until she's doing Holocaust denial. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah, until she's doing Holocaust denial, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 exactly. But, of course, I've seen 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 enough people who kind of start this way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with this flirtation with bigotry where 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 stage one is usually like, "Well I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 support the right for people to be bigots" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, I don't like that there's this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, cancel culture, whatever politically 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 correct - you can't say anything anymore. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, that's usually the prelude to a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 bunch of bigoted stuff. It's kind of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like a softer way of getting a foot 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the door. Like, you're not necessarily 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 committing yourself to saying anything 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 bigoted. But you'll stand up for the right 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of people to say that and you don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like how, you know, how vicious people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are being towards people who are getting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 criticized for saying more bigoted things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In retrospect, it's clear that she's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 preparing the way to be the one saying 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 those bigoted things herself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For a while longer, well into 2020, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she, like, continues this road of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, "sex is real". And so I'm going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 send you another thread. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's funny how I know all of these 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -like, by heart practically -Matt: Oh (laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -It's like song lyrics (laughter) -Natalie: Right? I'm a scholar 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -of the things she has said about -Matt: (laughing) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans people, right? Like, "Ah yes, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -tweet seven, verse three". -Matt: (wheezes) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know, cause, like, we've read these 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -f***ing tweets so many times -Natalie: I know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the last four years has been 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 dominated by having to read these 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 terrible opinions again and again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is, honestly, no one should be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 allowed to get this famous. It's too 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 dangerous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Okay, but for the normal people listening 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who aren't so online, do you want to read 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what she tweeted on June 6, I believe, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 2020? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Natalie) Dear normal people, this is me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 reading from the book of Rowling, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 chapter six (laughter). 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Quote, "If sex isn't real, there's no 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the lived reality of women globally 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is erased. I know and love trans people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but erasing the concept of sex removes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the ability of many to meaningfully 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 discuss their lives. It isn't hate to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 speak the truth." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Tweet two, "The idea that women like me, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who've been empathetic to trans people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for decades, feeling kinship because 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they're vulnerable in the same way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as women - ie. to male violence - 'hate' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans people because they think sex is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 real and has lived consequences - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (English Accent): it is a nonsense." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -Natalie: Sorry, (inaudible) I feel I -Matt: (laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cannot say, "is a nonsense" without doing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -it in an English accent. -Matt: (laughing) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Natalie) I'm gonna switch to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doing an English accent for the last 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 one because I feel like, I just feel like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (English) "I respect every trans person's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right to live any way that feels 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 authentic and comfortable to them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'd march with you if you were 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 discriminated against on the basis 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of being trans. At the same time, my 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 life has been shaped by being female. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I do not believe it's hateful to say so." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Matt) "I'd march with you if you were 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 being discriminated against." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Natalie) Yeah, that's a big, big red 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 flag, right? And this was, like, the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 same month that the U.S., like, Donald 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Trump had, like, announced, like, an 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 intention to, like, ban trans healthcare. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The notion that, like, discrimination 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 against trans people is this, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hypothetical thing that might occur in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the future, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If ever there was a trans person who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 faced bigotry on the basis of their 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 identity, I would stand up for them. But 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that hasn't happened yet. So, I'm just 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -not, I'm not standing up -(Natalie) Yeah, right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No one's ever been discriminated against 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for being trans. But, like, if it does 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 happen, I'll march with you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But, okay, first of all, by the way, these 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 tweets got hundreds of thousands of likes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - and people were like, - Natalie: Yes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Yes! You're a warrior!" But it's like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 again, a normal person who isn't super 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 online, and, I mean, you know, from 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the queer and pro-trans end, but also 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 from, like, the super TERF-y anti-trans end. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like if you aren't a part of either of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 those groups, you're reading this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and are like, "What the f*** is she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 talking about? Like what is this 'sex 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is real' thing?" Like, what is she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 talking about? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a weird argument, right? Because 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it seems on the surface like it's a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 linguistic point that she's trying to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 make, right? There's this idea, like she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 says, quote, "If we get rid of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 concept of sex that removes the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ability of many to discuss their lives." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Okay, this is what I think the assumption 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is: it's, like, if we acknowledge that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans people are who they say they 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are, then that means that none of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the rest of us can talk about how gender 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has impacted our lives, right? In other 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 words, think of if a trans woman, is a woman, then 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I guess, you know, "I, J.K,. Rowling, can 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 never talk about the way that I have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 been discriminated against for being 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a woman." I mean, it's a little bit of an 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 oppression olympics almost kind of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - argument, where it's like - Matt: Mmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there can only be one oppressed group, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? And if we talk about how, you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 know, there's no way to include trans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people as a valid concept without sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 somehow, like, deleting or erasing the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 entire concept of women. Which, I mean, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it doesn't make any sense, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In fact, J.K. Rowling will later use as 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 an example. Okay what does it mean to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "erase women"? I mean, well, okay, so 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she'll use the example of, like, okay, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some hospital somewhere, on a piece of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 paperwork says, uses the term "pregnant 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 person" instead of "pregnant woman". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Why? Because there is transgender men who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 can and have gotten pregnant. And so, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 saying "pregnant people" is a more, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 even if you find that to be an awkward 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 phrase, like, it's still a more inclusive 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 phrase that is going to help trans men 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who need reproductive healthcare 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that, you know, conventionally would be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "women's health", right? I just don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 understand why making it inclusive to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transgender men somehow, like, deletes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the concept of women from existence. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, (stammers) it just doesn't make 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 any sense to me. I feel like it's, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a weird pretext for being prejudicial. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -It's just such a lie. I mean, you see -Natalie: Yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this a lot with TERF's trans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 exclusionary radical feminists. It's like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the arm of quote on quote, "feminism" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that is basically just defined by 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transphobia. Especially towards trans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 women. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah, I don't even know if I would say 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that it's especially towards trans women. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I would say that there is especially 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 vitriolic towards trans women 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - and they kind of vilify. - Matt: Mmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Trans women are sort of cast as, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 dangerous predators. But trans men, I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 feel like, the way that a lot of, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 including J.K. Rowling, like, talk about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans men as a quite reprehensible I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - think, too. Like, usually the idea - Matt: Mmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is, like, trans men are like confused 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 girls who've been tricked by, like, the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 medical establishment, like, the evil 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cabal of endocrinologist who have, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 somehow, like, hoodwinked vulnerable girls 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 into thinking that they're men. Which, of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 course, is not how the healthcare system 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 works at all. Like, you really have to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 scream and cry to get hormones. Like, no 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 one is persuading you to do this. In 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fact, quite the opposite. Everyone is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 telling you not to. So, the idea that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans men or that any kind of assigned 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 female at birth trans person is this sort 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of confused, vulnerable baby child. Like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's not vilification to the extent that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they've vilified trans women as dangerous 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 predators, but it's in infantilizing in a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 way that I think can be just as harmful 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in its consequences, right? When someone 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 says, "Oh, you can't make decisions about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your own body because you're too confused 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and childish." Like, you know, that has 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 devastating consequences which we see. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Any feminist should be aware of how this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 works cause this is what they say about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 abortion; it's what they about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 contraception; it's what they say about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 women's health in general. "Shut up, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 little girl," right, "You can't make 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 decisions about your body. We'll do it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for you." It's exactly the same thing J.K. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Rowling is essentially saying to trans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 men. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 TERFS especially towards trans men 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 do this like, "We're losing our lesbians. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They're all becoming trans men thing." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which that as a refrain, I just don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 understand at all because, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 statistically when you look at, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the number of gen Z people who are 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 coming out as queer, under every single 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 one of the letters, it's higher in all 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of them. -(Natalie) Right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like there are more out lesbians today 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 than there have ever been. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (stammers) Yes, there's never been more 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -lesbians, like, yeah - Matt: Theres- (laughs) And to be clear 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I love that (laughs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah it's good, it's good actually, yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No, I mean, I feel like it comes from, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's like a very, like, selfish, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 childish perspective. It's almost like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "No don't transition, you're so sexy aha," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - you know? Like, I feel like, thats kind - Matt: Yeah (laughs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of, like, (stammers) and some gay women 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 do say this about trans men. Like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "No, all the butch women are 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transitioning, like, I wanted to f*** 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 them before, no!" And it's like, okay, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 well, too bad, like (scoffs) other people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 don't have to live their lives in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 accordance with what you find sexually 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 attractive. Like, again, as a woman 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (stammers) you should know this, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - you should know that what you're - Matt: Yeah 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doing, what you're speaking about someone 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as if your sexual attraction to them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 entitles you to their living a certain 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 way. You should know why that's bad and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 why that feels violating and why that robs 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 someone of autonomy, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And with TERFs and this whole thing of, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, "they're erasing the linguistic 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 concept of a woman." It's like (sighs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - what world do you have to live in - (Natalie) Yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for that to feel like the truth? And 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 look, I'm not a woman. And so, sometimes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with these conversations I'm very careful 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about, like, even J.K. Rowling, a woman 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who I disagree with entirely on so many 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of these issues, it's like, I don't wanna 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 police her understanding of her own trauma 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - as it pretence to being a woman. - (Natalie) Yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 However, I still, like, we all live in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the same society, and it's like, I'm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just very hard pressed to think that the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 word "woman" is going anywhere. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Natalie scoffs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's like, I don't think that, because on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some, like, in some medical papers that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are being published, that they're using 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the terms "people who get pregnant," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "people have periods," I don't think 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that means that, like, they're gonna start 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 calling you in casual conversation 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "a person who menstruates." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No. And no one talks like that way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I've never heard of a trans person 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 casually refer to cis woman as 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "people who menstruate." Because the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 entire point of that term is that it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doesn't just refer to cis women. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There are people who have a sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 visceral reaction to it, which I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 guess I can kind of understand. Like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think if you were to make, like, an 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 intelligible, like, understandable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 argument out of what J.K. Rowling seems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to be saying in these tweets, I mean I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 think you could put it like this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "For most women, the way that they are 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 oppressed in society is in fact 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 intertwined with biology," right? With 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 women's reproductive role, as most women 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are capable of getting pregnant. And 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that becomes a area where women's lives 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are policed, right? It's interesting how 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 J.K. Rowling never talks about this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - right? Not a word, not a word - Matt: Mhmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about Roe v Wade being overturned 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the United States. For most women, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 biology and misogyny, they certainly are 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - intertwined. And there's a case to be - Matt: Yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 made that anyone who's assigned 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 female at birth does sort of belong 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to a oppressed class by virtue of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 their reproductive capability. Especially, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, you know, the sensitivity around, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, you know, "saying people who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 menstruate" or "people who give birth." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I feel like if you hear those phrases in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 isolation, they kind of, like, can be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 abrasive sounding because there's, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, a lot of shame and stigma, there 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have for thousands of years around 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 menstruation and, you know, women 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 often are kind of reduced by patriarchy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to, like, birthing people in a sense, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? So, I feel like that there's, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some grain of something I can sympathize 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with her in terms of having a visceral, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 negative reaction to these phrases. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I feel like anyone who takes a second 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to cool down, understand the context 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the phrase, will see that's, like, clearly 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not the intention. They know that it's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 going to have an emotional effect for a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - lot of women to see those phrases. - Matt: Mhmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so, they kind of decontextualize it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and blast it onto Twitter with, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a kind of vague implication that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Oh, this is what they are going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 reduce you to," and, like, "they" is who? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "They" is quote on quote trans ideology. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which is sort of vaguely implied to be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this, like, powerful cabal. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughs) Right, which is also incredible 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because in real life it's like people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with a hundred followers on Twitter. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yes, right! It's like you're being yelled 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at by, like, random, like, furries. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughing) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 J.K. Rowling, she does fixate heavily on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 her own perceived persecution by trans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people on Twitter. J.K. Rowling often 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 gets into these, like, feuds, like very 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 public feuds that she- actually I wanna 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 google how many followers she has on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Twitter. J.K. Rowling... Do you know 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the number by heart? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, I think it used to be like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fourteen million. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Oh! It's fourteen million. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I hate that I know this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughter) Me too. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't want these stocks in my head. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 J.K. Rowling, to her fourteen million 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 followers, she, like, regularly puts these 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 random a**, people on blast, and it's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, I don't know, I have, what? I have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 four hundred thousand Twitter followers, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is, by the way, too many for a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 twink. But, none the less, it's like, lots 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of horrible people say horrible things 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to me on the internet. You have to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 be aware of the power dynamic of, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when you have fourteen million followers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I feel like it was missing from J.K. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Rowling's discussion of how she's, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 victimized by social media, is any 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 understanding of power, and I think 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that a key thing that is going on with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 J.K. Rowling is that she doesn't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 conceptualize herself as a powerful 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 person. I mean, and this is common, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? Cause, you know, most people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of think of themselves as, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 heroic underdogs, I feel, because, I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 don't know, you got bullied as a child, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you got, you know, (stutters) right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, in J.K. Rowling's case, like, she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 used to live in relative poverty. She was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a single mom, she fled a, you know, a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 abusive relationship. And so, I still 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 think in a way she kind of thinks of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 herself as this, like, small, like, scared 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 person, like, on the run. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mmmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, she's had, like, twenty-five years 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to, like, catch up to the new reality, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I feel like internally she still 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hasn't, right? I think it's hard for a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 lot of people to make this switch where 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you realize, "Oh, I am the big fish now," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? Like, "I am the one who has power." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think that, I mean a lot of what 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 privilege is is a kind of blindness 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to your own power. She hasn't noticed that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she's extremely powerful and influential. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, it hasn't occurred to her that, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know, going after some random 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 YouTuber with a hundred, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hundred thousands of subscribers, is, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, weird behavior for a celebrity of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 her size. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And not even a YouTuber with a hundred 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 thousand subscribers, random a** people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was just scrolling through her Twitter 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the other day getting ready for this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 episode, and, like, she was sending 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 multiple tweets, like, screenshotting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this man's tweets and then sending out 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 her responses to her fourteen million 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 followers. This guy named Rajan, who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wrote, "I am a CIS male and an ally 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the LGBTQ community. All of my life 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I have fought for diversity and equality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I advised two Attorney General's on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 race and equality issues and prosecuted 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on behalf of victims of crime. I know 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who I am and am proud of what I stand 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for." And she responded with, uh, with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 her own tweet, which she was pretending 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to speak in his voice, in Rajan's voice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She wrote, "I am a man who wants to see 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 girls and women stripped of their rights 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and protections for the benefit of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 my fellow men." And it's like, okay, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 obviously that's not what Rajan was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 saying. But then I was like, "Who the hell 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is Rajan?" He has four hundred and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fifty-three followers. The tweet which she 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 sent out to her fourteen million 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 followers, Rajan's original tweet 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 had twenty-five likes! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah, it's, like, literally just some guy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and she's just, (stutters) like, there's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 no sense of the influence she wields. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, in a way, she does think that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she's just someone's, like, Facebook 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 aunt. She's behaving in a way that is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 indistinguishable from the way- she's not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 acting like a public figure. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I just can't understand how J.K. Rowling 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has spent, and this is what she does 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 everyday by the way, listener, feel 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 free to go to her Twitter. She's beefing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with someone who lives in, like, f****** 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Iowa. And it's like, I just can't (laughs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 conceptualize, especially if I had a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 billion dollars. I don't know. I would 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 be on, like, a yacht probably. And not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 arguing with f****** Rajan four hundred, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fifty-three followers. Rajan, if you're 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 out there, shout out. You seem like a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 great guy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah, we love Rajan on this podcast. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I just can't make sense of her spending, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I imagine her rocking back n' forth in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the corner of, like, her eleventh living 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 room in her sixth castle; just, like, on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Twitter sweating. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (scoffs) I think we like to imagine 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that when people get, you know, really 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 rich and famous, then there's a sense of, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, peace or happiness or tranquility 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that accompanies that, but that does not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 seem to be the case, right? I mean, I'm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trying to imagine being in that situation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I feel that, like, once you achieved a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 certain level of, like, you know, success 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 beyond most people's wildest dreams... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It must be hard to know what to do with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that feeling of discontentment that's, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - like, still inside of you. - (Matt) Mmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think that sometimes people, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you know, wildly successful people, like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 J.K. Rowling or Elon Musk, they sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 get addicted to Twitter as this, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - source of conflict (scoffs) almost. - (Matt) Mmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's almost like (stutters) once you don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have to worry about money, once, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're free of your, you know, your past 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 abusive relationship, once you've, you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 know, accomplish all the things you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 previously wanted to accomplish, it's, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, it's almost like you need to- you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just can't be happy with that. You need 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to, like, find a new, like, fight almost. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so, people go looking on Twitter; 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you can always find a fight on Twitter. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think there's something very unhealthy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about the way a lot of people, uh, relate 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to using the internet as a source of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 conflict, and then once your ego gets 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 invested, I think that's, you know, part 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of what's going on with J.K. Rowling, of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 course, is that because she's come, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you know, she's, like, positioned herself 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so firmly on the anti-trans side. She now 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 feels like she has to defend it viciously. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because otherwise, that would mean 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 admitting that she was wrong and admitting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that she's caused a massive amount of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 damage. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yes and you know what? It is really hard 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to, like, profess your beliefs in front of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of people. Like I have basically 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 done that as part of my job of making, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, social and political content and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 commentary online for the lat few years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like one of the things that took me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 too long to come to grips with is that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, sometimes you need to know when 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're wrong. And, like, taking the L as 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - the kids say, and I've had to - (Natalie) Yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 take L's online and it's embarrassing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it makes you feel small. I mean, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Natalie, I know that's happened to you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where you've had to come to the mic and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 be like, "Yeah I was wrong about this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 thing," even if it takes a while to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that. That is also one of the greatest, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, personal lessons that I've taken 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 away from, like, being online 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 politically; is that being wrong is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 actually, like, I mean it's so f****** 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 corny, but it's like an opportunity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think it's, like, genuinely, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 spiritually good for you to be able to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 accept that. It's been helpful to me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 overtime to learn, to get a lot of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 criticism, and to kind of be at peace 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with it, and to not feel like I need to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 constantly be, like, a vigilant defender 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of my own ego. People are going to say 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 things about me, they're going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 misrepresent me, they're going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 criticize me, and some of it will be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 true, and a lot of it will be false. And 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, you just kind of have to learn to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - find peace with that. Otherwise you'll - (Matt) Mmm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 go crazy. But, yeah, what we have on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 our hands here with Ms. Rowling is a case 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of someone who is pathologically 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 incapable of ever letting anything go 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ever, right? - Matt: (laughs) Ever. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, I don't think she's ever once 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 admitted to being wrong about a single 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No, and that includes the Holocaust denial 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 arc, which I'm teasing the listener with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cause we're not quite there yet. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I wanna return to the role of language 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in all of this and, like, semantics, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? We're going to be talking about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the transphobia serving as a gateway 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 into further right wing, you know, broader 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right wing ideology. But then I also think 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that taking it back a step, I think that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some people's entry into transphobia are 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 these, like, frankly, like, silly semantic 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - word arguments. - (Natalie) Yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They're erasing the word "women." And so, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as another example, what I think is a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 powerful example of that: Ana Kasparian. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, Ana Kasparian, she's one of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 political commentators on the Young Turks, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which is one of the bigger and of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 earlier left wing political YouTube shows. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know she had her viral, um, "I don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 care what the Bible says! I don't, like... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (video) "I don't care if you're Christian. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In fact, I will fight for you to have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your religious liberty and practice 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your Christianity. I believe in that. I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 don't believe in Christianity, which means 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that you do not get to dictate the way I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 live my life based on your religion. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't care what the Bible says. You have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 every right in the world. All those women 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who identify with your religion have every 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right in the world to not get an 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 abortion, to not take birth control. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But they do not have the right to dictate 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 my life and what I decide to do with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 my body. I don't care about your godd*mn 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 religion." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Matt) I think she's, like, had some 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 really great things to say over the years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And none of that, none of the education, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 none of anything stopped her from falling 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 into transphobic semantic rabbit hole 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 last May; like all horrible things that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 took place on Twitter. So I'm going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 send you the tweets. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Okay so this first tweet is, "I'm a woman. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Please don't ever refer to me as a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 person with a uterus, birthing person, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or person who menstruates. How do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people not realize how degrading this is? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You can support the transgender community 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 without doing this s***." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you're just taking this tweet at face 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 value, I don't even disagree with it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think, like, yeah, right, don't, you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 shouldn't refer to an individual person 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a "birthing person," that's weird. I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 agree. I feel like where I disagree is in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the subtext, right? The first question 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I have is, in what context did someone 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 refer to Anna in this way? Did this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 happen? Did someone call her 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Natalie) "a person who menstruates"? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, in what context? Was the context 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on a piece of medical paperwork? Should 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 phrases such as "a person who menstruates" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 replace the phrase "woman" in everyday 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 English? No, of course not. Who's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 suggesting that? Is anyone suggesting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that? I've never once heard trans person 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 suggest that. So, it's like, we're 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 arguing against this position that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, who are we arguing against? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know. It feels like (stutters) for 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some reason there's this need to argue 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 against this, like, strong man version of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a trans activist, who insist that we stop 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 using the word "women". I've never heard 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 someone claim that. I also think, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 even the extent to which this is used 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in medical context is overstated. Like, I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 don't know, I'm thinking of, like, recent 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 times I've interacted with the medical 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 system. I feel like I'm often, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when you select your gender on medical 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 paperwork, it's usually male, female, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or, like, other (scoffs) and it'll ask 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you to explain. So, I will usually, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 add, you know, as a context note that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I am a transgender woman. So that, in so 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 far as that's medically relevant, it's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 noted. I have no given birth, nor have I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 been to the hospital with someone giving 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 birth recently. So, I cannot say what the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 experience is like. But I guess I'll be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 curious to know, like, how often, I don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 know, if someone is listening this, um, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you know, if you, like, had a baby at a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hospital recently, like, how frequently 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were phrases like "birthing person" used? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 My guess is not very frequently. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - So I'm not sure (stammers) It just - (Matt) Right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 feels like a sort of imaginary argument 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we're having. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Totally, totally. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (stammers) I'm, like, lacking context for, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, where is this occurring? I spend a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 lot of time around women, actually. And 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I feel like I don't see the word- I don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 see these phrases being thrown around 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 very often these days. And I'm in a very 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 trans inclusive, you know, kind of social 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - environment. So, you'd think if - Matt: (laughs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 lots of people had replaced the word 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "woman" with "person with a uterus," I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 think I would have heard that but I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 haven't. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughs) Right? So, she's starting to get 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of dogged online and she responds 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with tweet number two. Please hold... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Did you receive? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Umm, hold on. Not yet. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Oh, wait. Did it not send to you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - I don't see it. - (Matt) Oh, weird. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Okay wait let me try again. Maybe I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just sent it to the wrong person (laughs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then out of nowhere you receive it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughter) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and its some tweet from a year ago 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You might want to figure out who you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - just send that to. It could be kind of - (Matt laughing) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 weird with no context. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (laughing continues) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Okay tweet two, "LOL. The meltdowns over 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wanting to be referred to as a woman 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 rather than a "birthing person" is pretty 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wild. I'll never apologize for that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 especially as biological woman who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has had a f****** lifetime of being 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 told I'm less than. I'm a woman. No 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 apologies," (sighs) So, again it's like, I 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 don't know, a lot of this type of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transphobic stuff comes from a kind of, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, misdirected frustration with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 misogyny. Anna reacted with, "Oh, people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are sort of forcing me to be called 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the 'birthing person', and then that's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 sort of somehow erasing the lifetime of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 misogyny that I've had to experience 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a woman." I mean, I think it's like a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kind of scapegoat in a way. I feel that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, a lot of times, like, people who 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 get (stutters) into this gender critical 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 talking points, it's often a kind of, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, displaced rage and frustration at 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 experiences of misogyny, often in, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 leftist spaces, right? Cause that's a 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 real thing. Misogyny is pretty rampant on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the left as it is everywhere. And I think 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that a lot of women find that hard to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 complain about. And it's difficult in part 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because men usually are in power. I don't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 know, you kind of, as a woman, you kind 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of have to, like, pander to men to get 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 through the day to some extent. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, it's like frightening to take a stand 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 against men. But trans people this kind 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of, like, hated minority that is sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 easy to, like, it's kind of easy to, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, dump all of your, like, frustrations 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and rage onto trans people because 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 there's a social momentum behind that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in a way that there sort of isn't against, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, I don't know, frustration with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 misogyny and leftist spaces, for example. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I honestly kinda feel bad for Ana reading 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 these tweets because obviously there's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some massive life, as she says, a lifetime 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of, like, of difficult experiences that's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 behind this. And it's blowing up now, but 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's choosing as its target, this very 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 weird thing that seems to me, to be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 slightly off topic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So these tweets are in March. And then in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 July, she is still kind of stuck on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this transgender issue. In a discussion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about various social justice movements 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and their methods for accomplishing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 their goals, she tweets what I have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 selected as to be tweet number three. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which I will send to you now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - Oh, this one (scoffs) Yeah this is... - (Matt laughs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Okay, and see this is (stutters) okay, this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 tweet- I know I'm talking about the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 tweet before I've read it. But I do feel 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that this tweet that I'm about to read, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it really kind of does showcase the way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that transphobia is kind of a red flag and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's often the prelude to a whole bunch 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of nonsense. Okay (breaths deeply) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Ana Kasparian quote, "The Civil Rights 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Movement did not use the same strategies 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as the trans movement. They didn't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 barricade speakers they disagreed with in 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a classroom for three hours. They 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 persuaded through non-violence and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 showing America their humanity." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So this is (exhales) this is basically the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 entire thing that the podcast called, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about, um. This was what the podcast with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Megan Phelps-Roper of Westboro Baptist 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Church fame, uh and J.K. Rowling. A lot 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the argument was, like, "Oh, what we 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 really hate about the trans movement is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they use, like, illiberal methods. And 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's so unlike all past movements. Like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Gay Rights wasn't like this, and Women's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Rights wasn't like this, and the Civil 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Rights Movement, they never did anything 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 violent and they were always polite and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they never raised their voices and they 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 never called people names." And it's just, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, "Well I'm sorry that is historically 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not true." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it's so jarring to see someone like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - Ana Kasparian, who knows all of that, - (Natalie) Knows, yeah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 though. She knows all of that. I mean, all 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of these movements had (stammers) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You think about that one famous, uh, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 clip of Angela Davis talking about, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whether or not she endorses violence. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And she's just like, "Well, whether or not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I endorse it is besides the point. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Violence is the only thing I've ever known 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a black person in America. " 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Have these people heard of Malcolm X? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Have they heard (stammers and scoffs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Stonewall! Like, come on! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What do these people think the Civil 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Rights Movement was? Like, I mean, it's 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 literally every one of these movements, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 too. Like, I mean, again, people think of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Women's Suffrage assumes to be like, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you think of the women marching with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 their banners and it's like, "Oh, they 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just had to show people their humanity by 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 being peaceful," and it's like, churches 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were firebombed (scoffs) by suffragettes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the U.K. People were physically, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they were murdered for Women's Suffrage. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which is not to say that I am endorsing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 these violent methods, but it's like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm about to get so demonetized. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Wait, hold on, I can- let me rephrase that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 People were unalived (Matt laughs) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 People were unalived in the name of women's suffrage, right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 churches became more on fire than they previously had been, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the name of women's suffrage, right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, this is the historical reality 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that people forget because it's sort of more comfortable I guess 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to assume that like, oh, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just had to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 get up on a podium and say "I have a dream, look, I'm human" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then all the white people clapped and said 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Yes, let's have rights for all" and it's like no, that's not what happened 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To desegregate schools in Alabama, president Eisenhower had to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 send in the army, desegregation happened at gunpoint, it was not a peaceful process 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I hope that trans rights can be accomplished with less violence than that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think, in fact, there's no reason why that shouldn't be the case 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 line:1 But to suggest that the trans rights movement is this uniquely violent- it's just isn't 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It just isn't. It's just false. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You've tead me up. We've arrived at Holocaust denialism. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We sure have. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Two weeks ago, JK Rowling saw a tweet someone had written to her 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare and research, why are you so desperate 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to uphold their ideology around gender?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, this obviously pissed her off a lot, because she screenshotted it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and, uh, tweeted it out to her own audience, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with the additional caption, where she wrote, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "I just....how How did you type this out and press send without thinking 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 'I should maybe check my source for this, because it might've been a fever dream?'" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, I just want to add, before we get into any of this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 my favorite thing about this exchange is that the tweet which JK Rowling took 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which accused her of sharing the Nazi's ideaology on, uh, trans healthcare, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the tweet has five views. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Not likes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Wow. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It has five views. That is zero likes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That is, like, you get five views on a tweet just by it existing in the ether. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah, that is a-I mean I've almost never seen a tweet with that few views. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She- [laughing] she went out of her way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to find a tweet that would allow her to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 participate in Holocaust denial. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was like she had to chase this one. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yeah, that makes it all the more baffling because it's, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 okay, I understand why you would say- why you would start doing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a little casual Holocaust denial in the heat of the moment, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because, if, I don't know, you were like on the spot 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and like, I don't know, someone was- someone was- someone had you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 backed into a corner and you were just, like, said whatever you thought you needed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to say to win the argument- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Matt] Right 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -but it's like, this is just, like, this is just like freeform, like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 completely, like, out of the blue. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know what, I've been searching around the dark corners of Twitter lately 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I feel like today is the day I shall begin denying the Holocaust. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Matt laughing] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, like what? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You need to buy a yacht and just go on it! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So she tweet this, right? And so the person accuses- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the person's claim is that Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare and research, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and JK Rowling says that they must be experiencing a fever dream 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to have claim that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That is absolutely true. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Nazis did ban, uh, hordes of books, of some of the earliest and most important 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the time books on trans healthcare and research. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Specifically what this person is referencing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is, uh, the burning of the library of the Institute for Sexual Research. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, just, a little bit of quick history: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was this young doctor, young gay doctor, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in Germany, his name was Magnus Hirschfeld, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in 1919, he opened the- I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best German voice- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the Institute for Sexualwissenschaft. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which, translates roughly to the Institute for Sexual Research. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was the first sexology research center in the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know, Hirschfeld was gay, he had grown up in a deeply homophobic 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 era of Germany, he was super traumatized, not only by being gay 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but witnessing homophobia against other queer people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He would later go on to talk about having witnessed in medical school, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 watching a fellow gay student who was trotted out naked in front of a class 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to be humiliated by the rest of the class for being a quote-unquote degenerate. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, at this Institute of Sexual Research, which he opened, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he basically had all of these gay and trans patients 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who he would treat for various needs. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There were anti-crossdressing laws in Germany at the time, and he 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would get his trans patients this, like, special transgender ID card 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that, like, by today's standards would be, y'know, strange and demoralizing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but at the time, it actually legally protected them from being prosecuted 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 under these crossdressing laws. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If the cops came up to you, you were like, "Here's my trans ID, see I'm a certified 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transgender," and then they'd be like, "Okay, you're-" y'know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Magnus Hirschfeld was- this was, like, gay-trans, like, cis gay to trans allyship. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Also in the Institute of Sexual Research, there was among the first libraries 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about sexuality and gender. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this guy was collecting research a hundred years ago on these topics 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that would be considered progressive today. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Um, there was some of the earliest literature on the various gender-affirming 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 surgeries, and by 1930, the Institute was performing some of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 first, you know, what we think of today as modern gender-affirming surgeries 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And who was one of his patients? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Lili Elbe. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Lili Elbe! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Danish girl. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Was one of his patients! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know, so, the Nazi party comes to rise, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and Hitler wanted to cleanse society of you know, what he deemed lives 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 unworthy of living. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On May 6th, 1933, the Nazis raided the Institute of Sexual Research, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and burned 20,000 of its books in the street. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, this was, like, very famously, like, one of the first Nazi book burnings. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, there are photos of it, this isn't, like, deep buried- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No, it's not obscure. It's not obscure stuff. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's like one of the most famous photos of Nazi book burning, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which I guarantee most people have seen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, so, this initial tweet that JK Rowling called this person 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 basically insane for writing was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare and research. Why are you so desperate 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to uphold their ideology around gender?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so this is just factually true. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Right? Like, whatever you think of JK Rowling, like, the Nazis did do that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and she does share their view on trans healthcare in gen- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, that's just what's happening. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so, people start to point out that, like, babe, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're doing a little bit of Holocaust denial by saying that this didn't happen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Alejandra Caraballo, who is a notable trans person on Twitter, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she responded, writing, "You're engaging in Holocaust denial." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 JK Rowling responds, "Neither of your articles support the contention that trans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 people were the first victims of the Nazis or that all research on trans healthcare 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was burned in 1930s Germany. You are engaging in lying, Alejandra." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, she responds by being, like, pedantic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know, it's hard to take- it's hard to respect this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's not engaging at all with, like, the spirit of what anyone is saying. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, so, first of all, like, we can get- I mean, we can, and it is interesting, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like, to dive into the actual, like, historical record of this, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the way that some of the, you know, first, like, Nazi book burnings were, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in fact, targeting an early library of books about gay rights and about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 transgender, you know, medicine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it also, you know, like, even without talking about the factual 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 record, like, like, let's think big picture here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Do we really think that the National Socialist Party was [stammers] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would have just been fine with transgender people? Like, right? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, oh, no, they're against the gays, and they're against the Jews, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and they're against the Romani, but sure, that the- the transvestites, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 yeah we love them! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, like, what? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, and of course, we can verify historically that, yes, trans people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were persecuted. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I- I've seen a lot of what I consider extremely bad faith discourse about this 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 controversy with people saying, like, "Well, the Nazis didn't have, like, the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 category transgender, which is a more recent invention," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and yes, that's true, but, like, okay the Nazis didn't officially persecute 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 lesbians, either, because I don't think that- because, I mean, if you look 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the history of, like, lesbophobia, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 often the form that lesbophobia takes is that lesbians are just not seen as real, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 right? It's just sort of not acknowledged, even, as a valid phenomenon, where 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 male homosexuality is seen as degeneracy, and then that's something to be persecuted. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Oftentimes, it's just kind of like flatly denied that lesbians exist. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, does that just say that no lesbians were persecuted in the Holocaust? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Almost certainly not. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know that like the Nazis had these categories of like asocial. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Matt] Correct. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like, this like, it's like a black triangle that's like the badge- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [Matt] Yeah 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 -and I think that a lot of queer women were sort of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 killed on the, on the basis of being asocial, quote unquote. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, this kind of, pedantry of being kind of, well, technically the Nazis 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 didn't use the wo- like, okay, but they [stammers] they still killed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 queer women.