0:00:00.062,0:00:02.952 Hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit 0:00:02.952,0:00:06.012 Fruity, the show where we think that you 0:00:06.012,0:00:08.332 should never live in the closet, Harry, 0:00:08.332,0:00:11.304 even if the woman who created you changes [br]her mind. 0:00:11.304,0:00:13.983 If you would like to support the show 0:00:13.983,0:00:16.158 or perhaps want a little bit more of the 0:00:16.158,0:00:19.160 show, we are on Patreon and by the time 0:00:19.160,0:00:21.710 this episode is up, it'll be around the 0:00:21.710,0:00:24.720 same time that I upload March's deep dive 0:00:24.720,0:00:26.875 on Patreon, which I do every month 0:00:26.875,0:00:30.687 and this month it is on the wokeness of 0:00:30.687,0:00:33.228 Sydney Sweeney. The right just figured 0:00:33.228,0:00:34.858 out who Sydney Sweeney is because 0:00:34.858,0:00:36.898 they saw her on SNL and they never watched 0:00:36.898,0:00:39.644 Euphoria and her being hot is, uh, is 0:00:39.644,0:00:42.944 causing a freakout of epic proportions. 0:00:42.944,0:00:45.364 So we're going to do a little analysis 0:00:45.364,0:00:48.214 of a woman's body, which is something 0:00:48.214,0:00:49.303 I'm fairly new to. 0:00:49.303,0:00:51.072 So, you know, wish me luck. 0:00:51.072,0:00:53.740 Today we are joined, once again, 0:00:53.740,0:00:56.269 by someone I'm honored to call a friend 0:00:56.269,0:00:58.580 of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may 0:00:58.580,0:01:01.088 know her online, ContraPoints is, an 0:01:01.088,0:01:04.564 ex-philosopher, she is a YouTuber 0:01:04.564,0:01:06.919 but I think calling her a YouTuber 0:01:06.919,0:01:08.829 is kind of diminutive to her craft. 0:01:08.829,0:01:11.700 She puts out a couple feature film-length 0:01:11.704,0:01:13.964 videos a year that you've probably 0:01:13.964,0:01:15.795 watched but if you haven't, you really 0:01:15.795,0:01:17.220 should go check those out. 0:01:17.220,0:01:20.264 She talks about philosophy, and sex and 0:01:20.264,0:01:23.400 gender, and capitalism, and twilight 0:01:23.400,0:01:26.373 Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity. 0:01:26.373,0:01:28.267 Thank you much for having me back on. 0:01:28.267,0:01:29.790 I am excited to be here again. 0:01:29.790,0:01:34.439 I'm honored to be a friend of the show. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm honored to have you as a friend 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the show. So, a couple weeks ago 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 J.K. Rowling, she got caught up in a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 little Holocaust denial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She does Holocaust denial a little from 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 time to time, (laughter) yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It wasn't always this way. J.K. Rowlings 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wasn't always on Twitter denying 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that, uh, queer people were persecuted in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Holocaust. Until 2019, J.K. Rowlings 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was a universally beloved children's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 author who taught every kid that there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was magic inside of them no matter how 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cast out they may feel. Today, though, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how would you characterize her position 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the culture today? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, her position in the culture is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of weirdly split, right, cause on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the one hand, there is her continuing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 legacy as the author of the wizard books 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and on the other hand, there's like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 almost her entire public persona, that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which we mostly experience through Twitter 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is basically obsessive bigotry 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 towards trans people. That's become 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sort of her definitive thing, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think that people who don't follow this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of don't understand the extent of it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because, you know, I don't know, people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 throw around like all kinds of accusations 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on Twitter, so it's easy to think that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this is some kind of internet drama 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 blown out of proportion. But, what you're 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 missing is that if you have not been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 paying attention to J.K. Rowling's Twitter 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for the last, at this point, we're 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talking about four or five years, which 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is a long time. Like, she's basically used 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 her platform more often than not to do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans-bashing. There's a reason why that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this gets talked about so much because, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, she's one of the most famous 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 authors in the world with an enormous 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 platform, and she's just using it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 constantly to target this small and, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, already besieged, minority of people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who are facing, like, all kinds of, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 legislative and cultural backlash in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the U.S. and the U.K. So it's like really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 devastating (chuckle) that an author 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that, that's this influential is also, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, this obsessively devoted to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 persecute, you know, to contributing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to the persecution of this group of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people, who's already so harassed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But it's also, I don't know, it's also 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of a bizarre spectacle, like, in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's own right it's kind of like another 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reason I feel like we're drawn to this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 maybe, is that it's kind of like darkly 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fascinating. How does this happen? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, how do we go from, like, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Gryffindor common room and, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Severus Snape, to, like, these unhinged 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rants about the transexuals. It's weird. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It, it is weird and I think also, I mean, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 yeah, if you go to J.K. Rowling's Twitter 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right now and scroll through her feed, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it is literal years of talking every 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 single day, almost exclusively, about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transgender people, for years. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which I think is the type of behavior 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we associate, with like boomer facebook 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 moms, and then I guess in a sense, she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of would have been that, if she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hadn't become a billionaire and one of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the most famous and beloved children's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 authors of all time. But she is those 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things and the idea of her behaving the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 way, like, our homophobic aunt does 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or whatever, but like from some castle 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the U.K., is just like a very jarring 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 image. (Natalie) I think that summarizes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it really well, right, like, it is, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your bigoted aunts deranged Facebook post 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 except on a platform with millions of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people as the audience. I feel like we 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as a society, have, like, yet to know how 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to deal with this type of thing cause 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 J.K. Rowling's not the only case of it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, like, Elon Musk has dabbled 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a little bit in some similar forms of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bigotry with a comparable or even 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 larger platform. But I feel like what's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 unique about J.K. Rowling is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she's, like, single mindedly focused on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans people as this one issue. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Matt) So she wasn't always this way 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 though, and what we're gonna do today 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is use J.K. Rowling as what I think is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a valuable case study in the worm hole 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that transphobia is. The way that it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can serve as it has for J.K. Rowling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and so many millions of other people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as a portal into the broader world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of right-wing ideology that gets pretty 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 scary pretty quickly. We're gonna 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 try to understand why transphobia, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think especially when it's cloaked, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 no pun intended, as a progressive feminist 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cause and especially effective 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gateway into the alt right. One day 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you're reminding people that you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just like to be referred to as a woman 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and that you are a woman and then, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you know, the next day you are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 participating in Holocaust denial. It can 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happen to you. (Natalie) Many such cases. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Matt) Many such cases. And so, to begin 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this story I wanna go back to 2019 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to the first tweet that I remember 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 seeing of J.K. Rowling's, her foray into 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the anti-trans movement, which at the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 beginning was very tepid. I am going to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 send you the tweet. (Natalie) "Dress 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 however you please. Call yourself 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whatever you like. Sleep with any 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 consenting adult who'll have you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Live your best life in peace and security. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But force women out of their jobs for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 stating that sex is real? Hashtag I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 stand with Maya. Hashtag this is not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a drill." (Matt) So what was the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 context of this one? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Natalie) So, the context is that there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was a English consultant named 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Maya Forstater who, I guess she wasn't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fired but her contract was not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 renewed because she had, like, refused 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to use the correct pronouns for a trans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 coworker or something along those lines. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And a lot of so called "gender-critical", 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that is "transphobic", people in the U.K. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 decided to turn this into a celebrated 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cause, they, you know, rallied behind 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this hashtag "I stand with maya". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The idea being, like, "oh, we shouldn't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have to submit to gender ideology by, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you know, using the correct pronouns 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for trans people in the work place or 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whatever. This is where J.K. Rowling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 decided to join this discourse 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 officially. She decided to jump in on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the side of people who think that it's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 terribly oppressive to have to use 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the correct pronouns for a trans person. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I guess at first, you know, there was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some ambiguity because you could be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, "Well she's not transphobic. Maybe 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she just believes in free speech, and she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thinks that, you know, that people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 shouldn't be fired for having different 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 opinions." And like okay, like, at 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 first you could sort of plausibly think 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that maybe, given the benefit of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doubt, that's why she was getting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 involved in this. But, like, to people who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of know the pattern that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transphobia takes place, we all pretty 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 much knew that, "Oh, okay she really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is transphobic behind the scenes". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, there is no way that you would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -go decide to die on this hill unless[br]- Matt: Hmm. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you already were. At least that's what I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 think now. I mean, I think J.K. Rowling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was at her most dangerous in 2019 and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in 2020 because of the stuff she was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 saying seems kind of plausible and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reasonable to the average person, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 know. And so, there's this kind of like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 clever selection of which topics to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 get behind, right, instead of just, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't know, calling trans women "men" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in dresses, or whatever, it's like she's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 defending the "right" of people to not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 use the correct pronouns if they don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 agree, right? These people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of hedge in this way, like, when 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they have a kind of like bigoted opinion 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 instead of just stating it out, right. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They sort of defend their right to have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -that opinion.[br]- Matt: Mhmm. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, that was very much with this thing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with Maya Forstater is, right. It's like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she's not saying something sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 directly transphobic, but she is kind of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 indirectly getting there by being like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "I am going to publicly champion Maya's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right to be transphobic. " 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Matt) I feel like in the early days 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she did so much of this plausible, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 deniability stuff where it's like, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 know, "I'm just saying sex is real". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Right? And the average person who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 isn't, like, a terminally online queer 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is going to be like, "Yeah, sex is real, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whatever, like, who cares." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know? It's like not a big deal. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Natalie) Yeah, she was very effective 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 early on at kind of like deciding what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it was that she thought people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were mad about, right? And so she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 framed the conversation, "Oh here's why 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm getting backlashed. I'm getting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 backlash because I said quote on quote 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 'sex is real'. And so, it kind of seems 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like if you believe her account of what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people are mad about, then it sounds like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 everyone whose mad is unreasonable 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because they are mad at her for taking 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this kind of - taking what? An abstract, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 philosophical position about the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 metaphysics of biological sex? Like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is that what people are mad about? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No, right? It's of course not that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because she is intervening in this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 social and political debate, right, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on the side that wants trans people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 functionally not to exist in public 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 life, or not to be acknowledged in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 public life. So, that is what people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are mad about, right? But early on, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think she was able to kind of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 frame her position as being this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, I don't know, almost philosophical 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 position about the reality of sex or 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 something, you know? That is what she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wanted to make it sound like instead of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a political position about the place of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transgender people in society. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When you first saw that tweet were, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 alarm bells ringing? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Oh, absolutely. I mean, at that point 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was like, yeah I basically internally 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thought there was like a nine 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hundred and ninety-nine out of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one thousand percent chance that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -it's, as people say, over, right? [br]-Matt: (laughter) Right 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's so over, right? Like I already 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 basically already kind of knew that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But I also kind of knew that, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 well, most people aren't gonna notice 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that it's over until she says something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 more explicit. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Until she's doing Holocaust denial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, until she's doing Holocaust denial, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 exactly. But, of course, I've seen 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 enough people who kind of start this way 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with this flirtation with bigotry where 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 stage one is usually like, "Well I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 support the right for people to be bigots" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, I don't like that there's this, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, cancel culture, whatever politically 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 correct - you can't say anything anymore. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, that's usually the prelude to a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bunch of bigoted stuff. It's kind of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like a softer way of getting a foot 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the door. Like, you're not necessarily 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 committing yourself to saying anything 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bigoted. But you'll stand up for the right 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of people to say that and you don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like how, you know, how vicious people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are being towards people who are getting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 criticized for saying more bigoted things. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In retrospect, it's clear that she's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 preparing the way to be the one saying 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those bigoted things herself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For a while longer, well into 2020, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she, like, continues this road of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, "sex is real". And so I'm going to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 send you another thread. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's funny how I know all of these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -like, by heart practically[br]-Matt: Oh (laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -It's like song lyrics (laughter)[br]-Natalie: Right? I'm a scholar 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -of the things she has said about[br]-Matt: (laughing) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans people, right? Like, "Ah yes, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -tweet seven, verse three".[br]-Matt: (wheezes) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I know, cause, like, we've read these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -f***ing tweets so many times[br]-Natalie: I know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the last four years has been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 dominated by having to read these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 terrible opinions again and again. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is, honestly, no one should be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 allowed to get this famous. It's too 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 dangerous. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Okay, but for the normal people listening 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who aren't so online, do you want to read 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what she tweeted on June 6, I believe, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 2020? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Natalie) Dear normal people, this is me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reading from the book of Rowling, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 chapter six (laughter). 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Quote, "If sex isn't real, there's no 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the lived reality of women globally 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is erased. I know and love trans people, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but erasing the concept of sex removes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the ability of many to meaningfully 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 discuss their lives. It isn't hate to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 speak the truth." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Tweet two, "The idea that women like me, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who've been empathetic to trans people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for decades, feeling kinship because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they're vulnerable in the same way 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as women - ie. to male violence - 'hate' 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans people because they think sex is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 real and has lived consequences - 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (English Accent): it is a nonsense." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -Natalie: Sorry, (inaudible) I feel I [br]-Matt: (laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cannot say, "is a nonsense" without doing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -it in an English accent.[br]-Matt: (laughing) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Natalie) I'm gonna switch to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doing an English accent for the last 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one because I feel like, I just feel like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (English) "I respect every trans person's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right to live any way that feels 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 authentic and comfortable to them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'd march with you if you were 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 discriminated against on the basis 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of being trans. At the same time, my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 life has been shaped by being female. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I do not believe it's hateful to say so." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Matt) "I'd march with you if you were 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 being discriminated against." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Natalie) Yeah, that's a big, big red 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 flag, right? And this was, like, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 same month that the U.S., like, Donald 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Trump had, like, announced, like, an 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 intention to, like, ban trans healthcare. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The notion that, like, discrimination 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 against trans people is this, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hypothetical thing that might occur in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the future, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If ever there was a trans person who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 faced bigotry on the basis of their 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 identity, I would stand up for them. But 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that hasn't happened yet. So, I'm just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -not, I'm not standing up[br]-(Natalie) Yeah, right. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No one's ever been discriminated against 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for being trans. But, like, if it does 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happen, I'll march with you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But, okay, first of all, by the way, these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 tweets got hundreds of thousands of likes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - and people were like, [br]- Natalie: Yes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Yes! You're a warrior!" But it's like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 again, a normal person who isn't super 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 online, and, I mean, you know, from 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the queer and pro-trans end, but also 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 from, like, the super TERF-y [br]anti-trans end. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like if you aren't a part of either of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those groups, you're reading this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and are like, "What the f*** is she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talking about? Like what is this 'sex 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is real' thing?" Like, what is she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talking about? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's a weird argument, right? Because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it seems on the surface like it's a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 linguistic point that she's trying to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 make, right? There's this idea, like she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 says, quote, "If we get rid of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 concept of sex that removes the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ability of many to discuss their lives." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Okay, this is what I think the assumption 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is: it's, like, if we acknowledge that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans people are who they say they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are, then that means that none of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the rest of us can talk about how gender 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 has impacted our lives, right? In other 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 words, think of if a trans woman, [br]is a woman, then 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I guess, you know, "I, J.K,. Rowling, can 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 never talk about the way that I have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 been discriminated against for being 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a woman." I mean, it's a little bit of an 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 oppression olympics almost kind of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - argument, where it's like [br]- Matt: Mmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there can only be one oppressed group, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right? And if we talk about how, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 know, there's no way to include trans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people as a valid concept without sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 somehow, like, deleting or erasing the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 entire concept of women. Which, I mean, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it doesn't make any sense, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In fact, J.K. Rowling will later use as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 an example. Okay what does it mean to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "erase women"? I mean, well, okay, so 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she'll use the example of, like, okay, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some hospital somewhere, on a piece of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 paperwork says, uses the term "pregnant 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 person" instead of "pregnant woman". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Why? Because there is transgender men who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can and have gotten pregnant. And so, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 saying "pregnant people" is a more, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 even if you find that to be an awkward 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 phrase, like, it's still a more inclusive 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 phrase that is going to help trans men 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who need reproductive healthcare 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that, you know, conventionally would be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "women's health", right? I just don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 understand why making it inclusive to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transgender men somehow, like, deletes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the concept of women from existence. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, (stammers) it just doesn't make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 any sense to me. I feel like it's, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a weird pretext for being prejudicial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -It's just such a lie. I mean, you see[br]-Natalie: Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this a lot with TERF's trans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 exclusionary radical feminists. It's like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the arm of quote on quote, "feminism" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that is basically just defined by 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transphobia. Especially towards trans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 women. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, I don't even know if I would say 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that it's especially towards trans women. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I would say that there is especially 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 vitriolic towards trans women 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - and they kind of vilify.[br]- Matt: Mmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Trans women are sort of cast as, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 dangerous predators. But trans men, I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 feel like, the way that a lot of, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 including J.K. Rowling, like, talk about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans men as a quite reprehensible I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - think, too. Like, usually the idea [br]- Matt: Mmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is, like, trans men are like confused 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 girls who've been tricked by, like, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 medical establishment, like, the evil 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cabal of endocrinologist who have, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 somehow, like, hoodwinked vulnerable girls 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into thinking that they're men. Which, of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 course, is not how the healthcare system 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 works at all. Like, you really have to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 scream and cry to get hormones. Like, no 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one is persuading you to do this. In 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fact, quite the opposite. Everyone is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 telling you not to. So, the idea that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans men or that any kind of assigned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 female at birth trans person is this sort 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of confused, vulnerable baby child. Like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's not vilification to the extent that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they've vilified trans women as dangerous 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 predators, but it's in infantilizing in a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 way that I think can be just as harmful 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in its consequences, right? When someone 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 says, "Oh, you can't make decisions about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your own body because you're too confused 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and childish." Like, you know, that has 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 devastating consequences which we see. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Any feminist should be aware of how this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 works cause this is what they say about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 abortion; it's what they about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 contraception; it's what they say about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 women's health in general. "Shut up, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 little girl," right, "You can't make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 decisions about your body. We'll do it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for you." It's exactly the same thing J.K. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rowling is essentially saying to trans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 men. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 TERFS especially towards trans men 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 do this like, "We're losing our lesbians. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They're all becoming trans men thing." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which that as a refrain, I just don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 understand at all because, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 statistically when you look at, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the number of gen Z people who are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 coming out as queer, under every single 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one of the letters, it's higher in all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of them.[br]-(Natalie) Right. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like there are more out lesbians today 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 than there have ever been. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (stammers) Yes, there's never been more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -lesbians, like, yeah [br]- Matt: Theres- (laughs) And to be clear 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I love that (laughs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah it's good, it's good actually, yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No, I mean, I feel like it comes from, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's like a very, like, selfish, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 childish perspective. It's almost like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "No don't transition, you're so sexy aha," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - you know? Like, I feel like, thats kind[br]- Matt: Yeah (laughs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of, like, (stammers) and some gay women 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 do say this about trans men. Like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "No, all the butch women are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transitioning, like, I wanted to f*** 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 them before, no!" And it's like, okay, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 well, too bad, like (scoffs) other people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 don't have to live their lives in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 accordance with what you find sexually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 attractive. Like, again, as a woman 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (stammers) you should know this, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - you should know that what you're [br]- Matt: Yeah 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doing, what you're speaking about someone 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as if your sexual attraction to them 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 entitles you to their living a certain 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 way. You should know why that's bad and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 why that feels violating and why that robs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 someone of autonomy, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And with TERFs and this whole thing of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, "they're erasing the linguistic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 concept of a woman." It's like (sighs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - what world do you have to live in[br]- (Natalie) Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for that to feel like the truth? And 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 look, I'm not a woman. And so, sometimes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with these conversations I'm very careful 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about, like, even J.K. Rowling, a woman 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who I disagree with entirely on so many 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of these issues, it's like, I don't wanna 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 police her understanding of her own trauma 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - as it pretence to being a woman.[br]- (Natalie) Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 However, I still, like, we all live in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the same society, and it's like, I'm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just very hard pressed to think that the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 word "woman" is going anywhere. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Natalie scoffs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's like, I don't think that, because on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some, like, in some medical papers that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are being published, that they're using 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the terms "people who get pregnant," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "people have periods," I don't think 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that means that, like, they're gonna start 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 calling you in casual conversation 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "a person who menstruates." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No. And no one talks like that way. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I've never heard of a trans person 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 casually refer to cis woman as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "people who menstruate." Because the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 entire point of that term is that it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doesn't just refer to cis women. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There are people who have a sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 visceral reaction to it, which I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 guess I can kind of understand. Like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think if you were to make, like, an 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 intelligible, like, understandable 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 argument out of what J.K. Rowling seems 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be saying in these tweets, I mean I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 think you could put it like this, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "For most women, the way that they are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 oppressed in society is in fact 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 intertwined with biology," right? With 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 women's reproductive role, as most women 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are capable of getting pregnant. And 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that becomes a area where women's lives 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are policed, right? It's interesting how 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 J.K. Rowling never talks about this, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - right? Not a word, not a word [br]- Matt: Mhmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about Roe v Wade being overturned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the United States. For most women, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 biology and misogyny, they certainly are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - intertwined. And there's a case to be[br]- Matt: Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 made that anyone who's assigned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 female at birth does sort of belong 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to a oppressed class by virtue of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 their reproductive capability. Especially, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, you know, the sensitivity around, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, you know, "saying people who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 menstruate" or "people who give birth." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I feel like if you hear those phrases in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 isolation, they kind of, like, can be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 abrasive sounding because there's, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, a lot of shame and stigma, there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have for thousands of years around 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 menstruation and, you know, women 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 often are kind of reduced by patriarchy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to, like, birthing people in a sense, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right? So, I feel like that there's, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some grain of something I can sympathize 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with her in terms of having a visceral, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 negative reaction to these phrases. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But I feel like anyone who takes a second 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to cool down, understand the context 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the phrase, will see [br]that's, like, clearly 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not the intention. They know that it's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 going to have an emotional effect for a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - lot of women to see those phrases. [br]- Matt: Mhmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, they kind of decontextualize it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and blast it onto Twitter with, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a kind of vague implication that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Oh, this is what they are going to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reduce you to," and, like, "they" is who? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "They" is quote on quote trans ideology. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which is sort of vaguely implied to be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this, like, powerful cabal. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughs) Right, which is also incredible 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because in real life it's like people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with a hundred followers on Twitter. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yes, right! It's like you're being yelled 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at by, like, random, like, furries. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughing) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 J.K. Rowling, she does fixate heavily on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 her own perceived persecution by trans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people on Twitter. J.K. Rowling often 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gets into these, like, feuds, like very 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 public feuds that she- actually I wanna 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 google how many followers she has on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Twitter. J.K. Rowling... Do you know 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the number by heart? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, I think it used to be like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fourteen million. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Oh! It's fourteen million. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I hate that I know this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughter) Me too. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't want these stocks in my head. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 J.K. Rowling, to her fourteen million 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 followers, she, like, regularly puts these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 random a**, people on blast, and it's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, I don't know, I have, what? I have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 four hundred thousand Twitter followers, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is, by the way, too many for a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 twink. But, none the less, it's like, lots 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of horrible people say horrible things 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to me on the internet. You have to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 be aware of the power dynamic of, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when you have fourteen million followers. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I feel like it was missing from J.K. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rowling's discussion of how she's, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 victimized by social media, is any 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 understanding of power, and I think 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that a key thing that is going on with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 J.K. Rowling is that she doesn't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 conceptualize herself as a powerful 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 person. I mean, and this is common, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right? Cause, you know, most people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of think of themselves as, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 heroic underdogs, I feel, because, I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 don't know, you got bullied as a child, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you got, you know, (stutters) right, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, in J.K. Rowling's case, like, she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 used to live in relative poverty. She was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a single mom, she fled a, you know, a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 abusive relationship. And so, I still 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 think in a way she kind of thinks of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 herself as this, like, small, like, scared 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 person, like, on the run. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Mmmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, she's had, like, twenty-five years 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to, like, catch up to the new reality, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but I feel like internally she still 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hasn't, right? I think it's hard for a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lot of people to make this switch where 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you realize, "Oh, I am the big fish now," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right? Like, "I am the one who has power." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I think that, I mean a lot of what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 privilege is is a kind of blindness 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to your own power. She hasn't noticed that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she's extremely powerful and influential. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, it hasn't occurred to her that, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't know, going after some random 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 YouTuber with a hundred, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hundred thousands of subscribers, is, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, weird behavior for a celebrity of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 her size. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And not even a YouTuber with a hundred 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thousand subscribers, random a** people. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was just scrolling through her Twitter 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the other day getting ready for this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 episode, and, like, she was sending 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 multiple tweets, like, screenshotting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this man's tweets and then sending out 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 her responses to her fourteen million 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 followers. This guy named Rajan, who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wrote, "I am a CIS male and an ally 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the LGBTQ community. All of my life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I have fought for diversity and equality. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I advised two Attorney General's on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 race and equality issues and prosecuted 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on behalf of victims of crime. I know 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who I am and am proud of what I stand 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for." And she responded with, uh, with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 her own tweet, which she was pretending 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to speak in his voice, in Rajan's voice. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She wrote, "I am a man who wants to see 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 girls and women stripped of their rights 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and protections for the benefit of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my fellow men." And it's like, okay, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 obviously that's not what Rajan was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 saying. But then I was like, "Who the hell 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is Rajan?" He has four hundred and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fifty-three followers. The tweet which she 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sent out to her fourteen million 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 followers, Rajan's original tweet 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 had twenty-five likes! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, it's, like, literally just some guy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and she's just, (stutters) like, there's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 no sense of the influence she wields. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, in a way, she does think that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she's just someone's, like, Facebook 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 aunt. She's behaving in a way that is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 indistinguishable from the way- she's not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 acting like a public figure. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I just can't understand how J.K. Rowling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 has spent, and this is what she does 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 everyday by the way, listener, feel 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 free to go to her Twitter. She's beefing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with someone who lives in, like, f****** 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Iowa. And it's like, I just can't (laughs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 conceptualize, especially if I had a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 billion dollars. I don't know. I would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 be on, like, a yacht probably. And not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 arguing with f****** Rajan four hundred, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fifty-three followers. Rajan, if you're 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 out there, shout out. You seem like a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 great guy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, we love Rajan on this podcast. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I just can't make sense of her spending, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I imagine her rocking back n' forth in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the corner of, like, her eleventh living 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 room in her sixth castle; just, like, on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Twitter sweating. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (scoffs) I think we like to imagine 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that when people get, you know, really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rich and famous, then there's a sense of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, peace or happiness or tranquility 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that accompanies that, but that does not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 seem to be the case, right? I mean, I'm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trying to imagine being in that situation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I feel that, like, once you achieved a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 certain level of, like, you know, success 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 beyond most people's wildest dreams... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It must be hard to know what to do with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that feeling of discontentment that's, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - like, still inside of you. [br]- (Matt) Mmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I think that sometimes people, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you know, wildly successful people, like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 J.K. Rowling or Elon Musk, they sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 get addicted to Twitter as this, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - source of conflict (scoffs) almost. [br]- (Matt) Mmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's almost like (stutters) once you don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have to worry about money, once, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you're free of your, you know, your past 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 abusive relationship, once you've, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 know, accomplish all the things you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 previously wanted to accomplish, it's, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, it's almost like you need to- you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just can't be happy with that. You need 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to, like, find a new, like, fight almost. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, people go looking on Twitter; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you can always find a fight on Twitter. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think there's something very unhealthy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about the way a lot of people, uh, relate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to using the internet as a source of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 conflict, and then once your ego gets 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 invested, I think that's, you know, part 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of what's going on with J.K. Rowling, of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 course, is that because she's come, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you know, she's, like, positioned herself 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so firmly on the anti-trans side. She now 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 feels like she has to defend it viciously. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because otherwise, that would mean 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 admitting that she was wrong and admitting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that she's caused a massive amount of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 damage. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yes and you know what? It is really hard 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to, like, profess your beliefs in front of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a lot of people. Like I have basically 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 done that as part of my job of making, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, social and political content and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 commentary online for the lat few years. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like one of the things that took me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 too long to come to grips with is that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, sometimes you need to know when 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you're wrong. And, like, taking the L as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - the kids say, and I've had to[br]- (Natalie) Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 take L's online and it's embarrassing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it makes you feel small. I mean, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Natalie, I know that's happened to you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where you've had to come to the mic and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 be like, "Yeah I was wrong about this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thing," even if it takes a while to do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that. That is also one of the greatest, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, personal lessons that I've taken 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 away from, like, being online 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 politically; is that being wrong is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually, like, I mean it's so f****** 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 corny, but it's like an opportunity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think it's, like, genuinely, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 spiritually good for you to be able to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 accept that. It's been helpful to me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 overtime to learn, to get a lot of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 criticism, and to kind of be at peace 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with it, and to not feel like I need to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 constantly be, like, a vigilant defender 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of my own ego. People are going to say 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things about me, they're going to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 misrepresent me, they're going to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 criticize me, and some of it will be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 true, and a lot of it will be false. And 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, you just kind of have to learn to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - find peace with that. Otherwise you'll[br]- (Matt) Mmm 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 go crazy. But, yeah, what we have on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 our hands here with Ms. Rowling is a case 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of someone who is pathologically 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 incapable of ever letting anything go 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ever, right? [br]- Matt: (laughs) Ever. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, I don't think she's ever once 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 admitted to being wrong about a single 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No, and that includes the Holocaust denial 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 arc, which I'm teasing the listener with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cause we're not quite there yet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I wanna return to the role of language 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in all of this and, like, semantics, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right? We're going to be talking about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the transphobia serving as a gateway 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into further right wing, you know, broader 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right wing ideology. But then I also think 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that taking it back a step, I think that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some people's entry into transphobia are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these, like, frankly, like, silly semantic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - word arguments. [br]- (Natalie) Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They're erasing the word "women." And so, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as another example, what I think is a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 powerful example of that: Ana Kasparian. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, Ana Kasparian, she's one of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 political commentators on the Young Turks, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which is one of the bigger and of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 earlier left wing political YouTube shows. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know she had her viral, um, "I don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 care what the Bible says! I don't, like... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (video) "I don't care if you're Christian. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In fact, I will fight for you to have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your religious liberty and practice 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your Christianity. I believe in that. I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 don't believe in Christianity, which means 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you do not get to dictate the way I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 live my life based on your religion. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't care what the Bible says. You have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every right in the world. All those women 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who identify with your religion have every 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right in the world to not get an 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 abortion, to not take birth control. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But they do not have the right to dictate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my life and what I decide to do with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my body. I don't care about your godd*mn 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 religion." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Matt) I think she's, like, had some 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really great things to say over the years. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And none of that, none of the education, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 none of anything stopped her from falling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into transphobic semantic rabbit hole 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 last May; like all horrible things that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 took place on Twitter. So I'm going to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 send you the tweets. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Okay so this first tweet is, "I'm a woman. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Please don't ever refer to me as a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 person with a uterus, birthing person, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or person who menstruates. How do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people not realize how degrading this is? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You can support the transgender community 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 without doing this s***." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you're just taking this tweet at face 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 value, I don't even disagree with it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think, like, yeah, right, don't, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 shouldn't refer to an individual person 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as a "birthing person," that's weird. I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 agree. I feel like where I disagree is in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the subtext, right? The first question 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I have is, in what context did someone 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 refer to Anna in this way? Did this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happen? Did someone call her 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (Natalie) "a person who menstruates"? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, in what context? Was the context 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on a piece of medical paperwork? Should 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 phrases such as "a person who menstruates" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 replace the phrase "woman" in everyday 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 English? No, of course not. Who's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 suggesting that? Is anyone suggesting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that? I've never once heard trans person 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 suggest that. So, it's like, we're 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 arguing against this position that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, who are we arguing against? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't know. It feels like (stutters) for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some reason there's this need to argue 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 against this, like, strong man version of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a trans activist, who insist that we stop 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 using the word "women". I've never heard 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 someone claim that. I also think, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 even the extent to which this is used 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in medical context is overstated. Like, I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 don't know, I'm thinking of, like, recent 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 times I've interacted with the medical 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 system. I feel like I'm often, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when you select your gender on medical 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 paperwork, it's usually male, female, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or, like, other (scoffs) and it'll ask 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you to explain. So, I will usually, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 add, you know, as a context note that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I am a transgender woman. So that, in so 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 far as that's medically relevant, it's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 noted. I have no given birth, nor have I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 been to the hospital with someone giving 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 birth recently. So, I cannot say what the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 experience is like. But I guess I'll be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 curious to know, like, how often, I don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 know, if someone is listening this, um, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you know, if you, like, had a baby at a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hospital recently, like, how frequently 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were phrases like "birthing person" used? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My guess is not very frequently. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - So I'm not sure (stammers) It just [br]- (Matt) Right. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 feels like a sort of imaginary argument 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that we're having. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Totally, totally. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (stammers) I'm, like, lacking context for, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, where is this occurring? I spend a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lot of time around women, actually. And 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I feel like I don't see the word- I don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 see these phrases being thrown around 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 very often these days. And I'm in a very 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trans inclusive, you know, kind of social 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - environment. So, you'd think if [br]- Matt: (laughs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lots of people had replaced the word 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "woman" with "person with a uterus," I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 think I would have heard that but I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 haven't. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughs) Right? So, she's starting to get 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of dogged online and she responds 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with tweet number two. Please hold... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Did you receive? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Umm, hold on. Not yet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Oh, wait. Did it not send to you? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - I don't see it. [br]- (Matt) Oh, weird. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Okay wait let me try again. Maybe I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just sent it to the wrong person (laughs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then out of nowhere you receive it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughter) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and its some tweet from a year ago 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You might want to figure out who you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - just send that to. It could be kind of[br]- (Matt laughing) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 weird with no context. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (laughing continues) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Okay tweet two, "LOL. The meltdowns over 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wanting to be referred to as a woman 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rather than a "birthing person" is pretty 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wild. I'll never apologize for that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 especially as biological woman who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 has had a f****** lifetime of being 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 told I'm less than. I'm a woman. No 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 apologies," (sighs) So, again it's like, I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 don't know, a lot of this type of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transphobic stuff comes from a kind of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, misdirected frustration with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 misogyny. Anna reacted with, "Oh, people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are sort of forcing me to be called 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the 'birthing person', and then that's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sort of somehow erasing the lifetime of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 misogyny that I've had to experience 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as a woman." I mean, I think it's like a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 kind of scapegoat in a way. I feel that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, a lot of times, like, people who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 get (stutters) into this gender critical 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talking points, it's often a kind of, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, displaced rage and frustration at 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 experiences of misogyny, often in, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 leftist spaces, right? Cause that's a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 real thing. Misogyny is pretty rampant on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the left as it is everywhere. And I think 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that a lot of women find that hard to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 complain about. And it's difficult in part 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because men usually are in power. I don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 know, you kind of, as a woman, you kind 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of have to, like, pander to men to get 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 through the day to some extent. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, it's like frightening to take a stand 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 against men. But trans people this kind 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of, like, hated minority that is sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 easy to, like, it's kind of easy to, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, dump all of your, like, frustrations 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and rage onto trans people because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there's a social momentum behind that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in a way that there sort of isn't against, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, I don't know, frustration with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 misogyny and leftist spaces, for example. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I honestly kinda feel bad for Ana reading 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these tweets because obviously there's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some massive life, as she says, a lifetime 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of, like, of difficult experiences that's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 behind this. And it's blowing up now, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's choosing as its target, this very 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 weird thing that seems to me, to be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 slightly off topic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So these tweets are in March. And then in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 July, she is still kind of stuck on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this transgender issue. In a discussion 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about various social justice movements 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and their methods for accomplishing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 their goals, she tweets what I have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 selected as to be tweet number three. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which I will send to you now. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - Oh, this one (scoffs) Yeah this is... [br]- (Matt laughs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Okay, and see this is (stutters) [br]okay, this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 tweet- I know I'm talking about the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 tweet before I've read it. But I do feel 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that this tweet that I'm about to read, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it really kind of does showcase the way 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that transphobia is kind of a red flag and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's often the prelude to a whole bunch 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of nonsense. Okay (breaths deeply) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ana Kasparian quote, "The Civil Rights 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Movement did not use the same strategies 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as the trans movement. They didn't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 barricade speakers they disagreed with in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a classroom for three hours. They 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 persuaded through non-violence and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 showing America their humanity." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So this is (exhales) this is basically the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 entire thing that the podcast called, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about, um. This was what the podcast with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Megan Phelps-Roper of Westboro Baptist 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Church fame, uh and J.K. Rowling. A lot 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the argument was, like, "Oh, what we 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really hate about the trans movement is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they use, like, illiberal methods. And 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's so unlike all past movements. Like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Gay Rights wasn't like this, and Women's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rights wasn't like this, and the Civil 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rights Movement, they never did anything 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 violent and they were always polite and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they never raised their voices and they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 never called people names." And it's just, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, "Well I'm sorry that is historically 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not true." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And it's so jarring to see someone like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 - Ana Kasparian, who knows all of that, [br]- (Natalie) Knows, yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 though. She knows all of that. I mean, all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of these movements had (stammers) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You think about that one famous, uh, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 clip of Angela Davis talking about, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whether or not she endorses violence. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And she's just like, "Well, whether or not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I endorse it is besides the point. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Violence is the only thing I've ever known 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as a black person in America. " 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Have these people heard of Malcolm X? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Have they heard (stammers and scoffs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Stonewall! Like, come on! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What do these people think the Civil 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rights Movement was? Like, I mean, it's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 literally every one of these movements, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 too. Like, I mean, again, people think of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Women's Suffrage assumes to be like, [br]you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you think of the women marching with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 their banners and it's like, "Oh, they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just had to show people their humanity by 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 being peaceful," and it's like, churches 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were firebombed (scoffs) by suffragettes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the U.K. People were physically, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they were murdered for Women's Suffrage. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which is not to say that I am endorsing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these violent methods, but it's like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'm about to get so demonetized. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Wait, hold on, I can- let me rephrase that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People were unalived[br](Matt laughs) 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People were unalived [br]in the name of women's suffrage, right, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 churches became more on fire [br]than they previously had been, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the name of women's suffrage, right, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, this is the historical reality 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that people forget because it's [br]sort of more comfortable I guess 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to assume that like, oh, [br]Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just had to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 get up on a podium and say "I have a dream, look, I'm human" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then all the white people clapped and said 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Yes, let's have rights for all" [br]and it's like no, that's not what happened 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To desegregate schools in Alabama, [br]president Eisenhower had to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 send in the army, desegregation happened [br]at gunpoint, it was not a peaceful process 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I hope that trans rights can be [br]accomplished with less violence than that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I think, in fact, there's no reason [br]why that shouldn't be the case 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But to suggest that the trans rights movement[br]is this uniquely violent- it's just isn't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It just isn't. It's just false. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You've tead me up. We've arrived at[br]Holocaust denialism. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We sure have. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Two weeks ago, JK Rowling[br]saw a tweet someone had written to her 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare[br]and research, why are you so desperate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to uphold their ideology around gender?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, this obviously pissed her off a lot,[br]because she screenshotted it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, uh, tweeted it out to her[br]own audience, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with the additional caption,[br]where she wrote, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "I just....how How did you type this out[br]and press send without thinking 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 'I should maybe check my source for this,[br]because it might've been a fever dream?'" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, I just want to add,[br]before we get into any of this, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my favorite thing about this exchange[br]is that the tweet which JK Rowling took 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which accused her of sharing the Nazi's[br]ideaology on, uh, trans healthcare, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the tweet has five views. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Not likes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Wow. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It has five views. That is zero likes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is, like, you get five views on[br]a tweet just by it existing in the ether. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, that is a-I mean I've almost[br]never seen a tweet with that few views. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She- [laughing] she went out of her way 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to find a tweet that would allow her to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 participate in Holocaust denial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was like she had to chase this one. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah, that makes it all the more baffling[br]because it's, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 okay, I understand why you would say-[br]why you would start doing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a little casual Holocaust denial[br]in the heat of the moment, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because, if, I don't know,[br]you were like on the spot 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and like, I don't know, someone was-[br]someone was- someone had you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 backed into a corner and you were just,[br]like, said whatever you thought you needed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to say to win the argument- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] Right 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -but it's like, this is just, like,[br]this is just like freeform, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 completely, like, out of the blue. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know what, I've been searching[br]around the dark corners of Twitter lately 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I feel like today is the day[br]I shall begin denying the Holocaust. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt laughing] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, like what? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You need to buy a yacht and just[br]go on it! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So she tweet this, right?[br]And so the person accuses- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the person's claim is that Nazis burnt[br]books on trans healthcare and research, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and JK Rowling says that they must be[br]experiencing a fever dream 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to have claim that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is absolutely true. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Nazis did ban, uh, hordes of books,[br]of some of the earliest and most important 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at the time books on trans healthcare and[br]research. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Specifically what this person is referencing, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is, uh, the burning of the library of[br]the Institute for Sexual Research. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, just, a little bit of quick history: 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There was this young doctor, young gay doctor, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in Germany, his name was[br]Magnus Hirschfeld, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in 1919, he opened the-[br]I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best German voice- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Institute for Sexualwissenschaft. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which, translates roughly to[br]the Institute for Sexual Research. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was the first sexology research center[br]in the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, Hirschfeld was gay,[br]he had grown up in a deeply homophobic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 era of Germany, he was super[br]traumatized, not only by being gay 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but witnessing homophobia against[br]other queer people. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He would later go on to talk about having[br]witnessed in medical school, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 watching a fellow gay student who was[br]trotted out naked in front of a class 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to be humiliated by the rest of the class[br]for being a quote-unquote degenerate. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, at this Institute of Sexual Research,[br]which he opened, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 he basically had all of these gay and[br]trans patients 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who he would treat for various[br]needs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There were anti-crossdressing laws[br]in Germany at the time, and he 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 would get his trans patients this, like,[br]special transgender ID card 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that, like, by today's standards would be,[br]y'know, strange and demoralizing, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but at the time, it actually legally[br]protected them from being prosecuted 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 under these crossdressing laws. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If the cops came up to you, you were like,[br]"Here's my trans ID, see I'm a certified 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transgender," and then they'd be like,[br]"Okay, you're-" y'know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Magnus Hirschfeld was- this was, like, [br]gay-trans, like, cis gay to trans allyship. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Also in the Institute of Sexual Research,[br]there was among the first libraries 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about sexuality and gender. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And this guy was collecting research[br]a hundred years ago on these topics 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that would be considered progressive today. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Um, there was some of the earliest[br]literature on the various gender-affirming 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 surgeries, and by 1930,[br]the Institute was performing some of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 first, you know, what we think of today[br]as modern gender-affirming surgeries 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And who was one of his patients? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Lili Elbe. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Lili Elbe! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Danish girl. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Was one of his patients! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You know, so, the Nazi party comes to rise, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and Hitler wanted to cleanse society of[br]you know, what he deemed lives 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 unworthy of living. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On May 6th, 1933, the Nazis raided[br]the Institute of Sexual Research, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and burned 20,000 of its books[br]in the street. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, this was, like, very famously, like,[br]one of the first Nazi book burnings. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, there are photos of it, this isn't,[br]like, deep buried- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No, it's not obscure. It's not obscure stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's like one of the most famous photos[br]of Nazi book burning, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which I guarantee most people have seen. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And, so, this initial tweet that[br]JK Rowling called this person 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 basically insane for writing was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare[br]and research. Why are you so desperate 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to uphold their ideology around gender?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so this is just factually true. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Right? Like, whatever you think of[br]JK Rowling, like, the Nazis did do that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and she does share their view on trans[br]healthcare in gen- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, that's just what's happening. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And so, people start to point out[br]that, like, babe, you know, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you're doing a little bit of Holocaust[br]denial by saying that this didn't happen. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Alejandra Caraballo, who is a notable[br]trans person on Twitter, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 she responded, writing, "You're[br]engaging in Holocaust denial." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 JK Rowling responds, "Neither of your[br]articles support the contention that trans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people were the first victims of the Nazis[br]or that all research on trans healthcare 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was burned in 1930s Germany.[br]You are engaging in lying, Alejandra." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, she responds by being, like,[br]pedantic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't know, it's hard to take-[br]it's hard to respect this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's not engaging at all with, like,[br]the spirit of what anyone is saying. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, so, first of all, like, we can get-[br]I mean, we can, and it is interesting, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like, to dive into the actual, like,[br]historical record of this, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the way that some of the, you know,[br]first, like, Nazi book burnings were, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in fact, targeting an early library of[br]books about gay rights and about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transgender, you know, medicine. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But it also, you know, like,[br]even without talking about the factual 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 record, like, like, let's think[br]big picture here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Do we really think that the National[br]Socialist Party was [stammers] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 would have just been fine with transgender[br]people? Like, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, oh, no, they're against the gays,[br]and they're against the Jews, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they're against the Romani, but[br]sure, that the- the transvestites, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 yeah we love them! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, like, what? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, and of course, we can verify[br]historically that, yes, trans people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were persecuted. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I- I've seen a lot of what I consider[br]extremely bad faith discourse about this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 controversy with people saying, like,[br]"Well, the Nazis didn't have, like, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 category transgender, which is a more[br]recent invention," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and yes, that's true, but, like,[br]okay the Nazis didn't officially persecute 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lesbians, either, because I don't think[br]that- because, I mean, if you look 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at the history of, like, lesbophobia, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 often the form that lesbophobia takes[br]is that lesbians are just not seen as real, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 right? It's just sort of not acknowledged,[br]even, as a valid phenomenon, where 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 male homosexuality is seen as degeneracy,[br]and then that's something to be persecuted. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Oftentimes, it's just kind of like flatly[br]denied that lesbians exist. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, does that just say that no lesbians[br]were persecuted in the Holocaust? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Almost certainly not. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I know that like the Nazis had these[br]categories of like asocial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] Correct. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like, this like, it's like a black triangle[br]that's like the badge- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] Yeah 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 -and I think that a lot of [br]queer women were sort of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 killed on the, on the basis of[br]being asocial, quote unquote. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, this kind of, pedantry of being[br]kind of, well, technically the Nazis 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 didn't use the wo- like, okay,[br]but they [stammers] they still killed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 queer women, and they still[br]killed trans people. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, like, why are you playing this[br]pedantic game to- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 why- because [stammers] they're[br]engaging in denial of transphobia, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] Well, and it's so exhausting too[br]because she writes, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "The contention that trans people were the[br]first victims of the Nazis were that all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or that all research on trans healthcare[br]was burned in the 1930s." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And it's like she's arguing against the[br]point that nobody made. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Natalie] Yeah, she didn't say that-[br]did Alejandra say that? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] No! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Natalie] Did she say that every single[br]piece of research was destroyed? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] No! Alejandra didn't say that,[br]and the original tweet that JK Rowling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 said was insane, once again, just said,[br]"The Nazis burned books on trans healthcare 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and research." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That was the claim. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Natalie] Yeah, so she's consistently, [br]like, arguing against positions that no one 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 has taken. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] Correct, and it's, like,[br]instead of ever admitting fault, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and, right, and- and she just[br]shifts the goalpost over and over. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then that leads you- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Really, with transphobia or with anything[br]like if you refuse to admit fault in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 anything that you say, you will keep[br]shifting the goalpost because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that will be the only way, that,[br]in your head, you can maintain 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the upper hand in an argument. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This refusal to admit being wrong ever[br]leads you to some fucking whacky places. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It led her to Holocaust denialism, and it[br]led Ana Kasparian to saying that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Civil Rights Movement was entirely[br]peaceful. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which, she knows that that's not true! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Natalie] Well, it's like, if you make-[br]if you can never admit that you're wrong 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about anything, if you make one wrong[br]turn, you'll never get on the right path 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 again. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] Right. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Natalie] Because if you don't admit that[br]you've made a wrong turn, then you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can't correct it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, I feel like that is part of the-[br]the fallacy that's going on here 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where, like, okay, JK Rowling can't[br]admit that she was ever wrong about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 anything, and so, she has no choice but[br]to double down and triple down and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 quadruple down and just keep walking[br]in this terrible direction, basically, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To completely mix my metaphors. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's why she has, and will continue to[br]say more absurd and dangerous things; 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because that is the only option[br]that she has, if she can't admit 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that she made a wrong turn somewhere. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 [Matt] I want to talk a little bit[br]about this, like, transphobia to, like, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 general right-wing madness pipeline[br]a little bit. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Media Matters conducted this study where[br]they made a TikTok account 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and in that TikTok account, they only[br]liked exclusively anti-trans content 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to see what the For You Page algorithm[br]would then feed the account. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Very quickly, the videos-[br]and they did an analysis of like four hundred 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 videos that TikTok then fed into their 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For You Page- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 did not just keep feeding them transphobic[br]videos, but racist videos, misogynistic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 videos, anti-vax and kind of other[br]right-wing conspiracy theories, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a lot of antisemetic conspiracy theories,