hello, hello and welcome back to A Bit
Fruity, the show where we think that you
should never live in the closet, Harry,
even if the woman who created you changes her mind.
If you would like to support the show
or perhaps want a little bit more of the
show, we are on Patreon and by the time
this episode is up, it'll be around the
same time that I upload March's deep dive
on Patreon, which I do every month
and this month it is on the wokeness of
Sydney Sweeney, the right just figured
out who Sydney Sweeney is because
they saw her on SNL and they never watched
Euphoria and her being hot is, uh, is
causing a freakout of epic proportions.
So we're going to do a little analysis
of a woman's body, which is something
I'm fairly new to.
So, you know, wish me luck.
Today we are joined, once again, by
someone I'm honored to call a friend
of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may
know her online, ContraPoints is, an
ex-philosopher, she is a youtuber
but I think calling her a youtuber
is kind of diminutive to her craft.
She puts out a couple feature film length
videos a year that you've probably
watched but if you haven't, you really
should go check those out.
She talks about philosophy, sex and
gender, and capitalism, and twilight.
Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity.
Thank you much for having me back on.
I am excited to be here again.
I'm honored to be a friend of the show.
I'm honored to have you as a friend
of the show. So, a couple weeks ago
J.K. Rowling, she got caught up in a
little Holocaust denial.
She does Holocaust denial a little from
time to time, (laughter) yeah.
It wasn't always this way. J.K. Rowlings
wasn't always on Twitter denying
that, uh, queer people were persecuted in
the Holocaust. Until 2019, J.K. Rowlings
was a universally beloved children's
author who taught every kid that there
was magic inside of them no matter how
cast out they may feel. Today, though,
how would you characterize her position
in the culture today?
Well, her position in the culture is
kind of weirdly split, right, cause on
the one hand, there is her continuing
legacy as the author of the wizard books
and on the other hand, there's like
almost her entire public persona, that
which we mostly experience through Twitter
which is basically obsessive bigotry
towards trans people. That's become
sort of her definitive thing, right?
I think that people who don't follow this
kind of don't understand the extent of it
because, you know, I don't know, people
throw around like all kinds of accusations
on Twitter, so it's easy to think that
this is some kind of internet drama
blown out of proportion. But what you're
missing is that if you have not been
paying attention to J.K. Rowling's Twitter
for the last, at this point, we're
talking about four or five years, which
is a long time. Like, she's basically used
her platform more often than not to do
trans-bashing. There's a reason why that
this gets talked about so much because,
I mean, she's one of the most famous
authors in the world with an enormous
platform, and she's just using it
constantly to target this small and,
like, already besieged, minority of people
who are facing, like, all kinds of, like,
legislative and cultural backlash in
the U.S. and the U.K. So it's like really
devastating (chuckle) that an author
that, that's this influential is also,
like, this obsessively devoted to
persecute, you know, to contributing
to the persecution of this group of
people, who's already so harassed.
But it's also, I don't know, it's also
kind of a bizarre spectacle, like, in
it's own right it's kind of like another
reason I feel like we're drawn to this
maybe, is that it's kind of like darkly
fascinating. How does this happen?
Like, how do we go from, like, the
Gryffindor common room and, you know,
Severus Snape, to, like, these unhinged
rants about the transexuals. It's weird.
It, it is weird and I think also, I mean,
yeah, if you go to J.K. Rowling's Twitter
right now and scroll through her feed,
it is literal years of talking every
single day, almost exclusively, about
transgender people, for years.
Which I think is the type of behavior
we associate, with like boomer facebook
moms, and then I guess in a sense, she
kind of would have been that, if she
hadn't become a billionaire and one of
the most famous and beloved children's
authors of all time. But she is those
things and the idea of her behaving the
way, like, our homophobic aunt does
or whatever, but like from some castle
in the U.K., is just like a very jarring
image. (Natalie) I think that summarizes
it really well, right, like, it is, like,
your bigoted aunts deranged Facebook post
except on a platform with millions of
people as the audience. I feel like we
as a society, have, like, yet to know how
to deal with this type of thing cause
J.K. Rowling's not the only case of it.
I mean, like, Elon Musk has dabbled
a little bit in some similar forms of
bigotry with a (inaudible) or even
larger platform. But I feel like what's
unique about J.K. Rowling is that
she's, like, single mindedly focused on
trans people as this one issue.
(Matt) So she wasn't always this way,
though and what we're gonna do today
is use J.K. Rowling as what I think is
a valuable case study in the worm hole
that transphobia is. The way that it
can serve as it has for J.K. Rowling
and so many millions of other people
as a portal into the broader world
of right-wing ideology that gets pretty
scary pretty quickly. We're gonna
try to understand why transphobia, and
I think especially when it's cloaked,
no pun intended, as a progressive feminist
cause and especially effective
gateway into the alt right. One day
you're reminding people that you
just like to be preferred to as a woman
and that you are a woman and then,
you know, the next day you are
participating in Holocaust denial. It can
happen to you. (Natalie) Many such cases.
(Matt) Many such cases. And so, to begin
this story I wanna go back to 2019
to the first tweet that I remember
seeing of J.K. Rowling's, her foray into
the anti-trans movement, which at the
beginning was very tepid. I am going to
send you the tweet. (Natalie) "Dress
however you please. Call yourself
whatever you like. Sleep with any
consenting adult who'll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for
stating that sex is real? Hashtag I
stand with Maya. Hashtag this is not
a drill." (Matt) So what was the
context of this one?
(Natalie) So, the context is that there
was a English consultant named
Maya Forstater who, I guess she wasn't
fired but her contract was not
renewed because she had, like, refused
to use the correct pronouns for a trans
coworker or something along those lines.
And a lot of so called "gender-critical",
that is "transphobic", people in the U.K.
decided to turn this into a celebrated
cause, they, you know, rallied behind
this hashtag "I stand with maya".
The idea being, like, "oh, we shouldn't
have to submit to gender ideology by,
you know, using the correct pronouns
for trans people in the work place or
whatever. This is where J.K. Rowling
decided to join this discourse
officially. She decided to jump in on
the side of people who think that it's
terribly oppressive to have to use
the correct pronouns for a trans person.
And I guess at first, you know, there was
some ambiguity because you could be
like, "Well she's not transphobic. Maybe
she just believes in free speech, and she
thinks that, you know, that people
shouldn't be fired for having different
opinions." (inaudible) okay, like, at
first you could sort of plausibly think
that maybe, given the benefit of the
doubt, that's why she was getting
involved in this. But, like, to people who
kind of know the pattern that
transphobia takes place, we all pretty
much knew that, "Oh, okay she really
is transphobic behind the scenes".
Like, there is no way that you would
-go decide to die on this hill unless - Matt: Hmm.
you already were. At least that's what I
think now. I mean, I think J.K. Rowling
was at her most dangerous in 2019 and
in 2020 because of the stuff she was
saying seems kind of plausible and
reasonable to the average person, you
know. And so, there's this kind of like
clever selection of which topics to
get behind, right, instead of just,
I don't know, calling trans women "men"
in dresses, or whatever, it's like she's
defending the "right" of people to not
use the correct pronouns if they don't
agree, right?. (inaudible) this people
kind of hedge in this way, like, when
they have a kind of like bigoted opinion
instead of just stating it out, right.
They sort of defend their right to have
-that opinion. - Matt: Mhmm.
So, that was very much with this thing
with Maya Forstater is, right. It's like
she's not saying something sort of
directly transphobic, but she is kind of
indirectly getting there by being like,
"I am going to publicly champion Maya's
right to be transphobic. "
(Matt) I feel like in the early days
she did so much of this plausible,
deniability stuff where it's like, you
know, "I'm just saying sex is real".
Right? And the average person who
isn't, like, a terminally online queer
is going to be like, "Yeah, sex is real,
whatever, like, who cares."
You know? It's like not a big deal.
(Natalie) Yeah, she was very effective
early on at kind of like deciding what
it was that she thought people
were mad about, right? And so she
framed the conversation, "Oh here's why
I'm getting backlashed. I'm getting
backlash because I said quote on quote
'sex is real'. And so, it kind of seems
like if you believe her account of what
people are mad about, then it sounds like
everyone whose mad is unreasonable
because they are mad at her for taking
this kind of - taking what? An abstract,
philosophical position about the
metaphysics of biological sex? Like,
is that what people are mad about?
No, right? It's of course not that
because she is intervening in this
social and political debate, right,
on the side that wants trans people
functionally not to exist in public
life, or not to be acknowledged in
public life. So, that is what people
are mad about, right? But early on,
I think she was able to kind of
frame her position as being this
like, I don't know, almost philosophical
position about the reality of sex or
something, you know? That is what she
wanted to make it sound like instead of
a political position about the place of
transgender people in society.
When you first saw that tweet were, like,
alarm bells ringing?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, at that point
I was like, yeah I basically internally
thought there was like a nine
hundred and ninety-nine out of
one thousand percent chance that
-it's, as people say, over, right? -Matt: (laughter) Right
It's so over, right? Like I already
basically already kind of knew that.
But I also kind of knew that, like,
well, most people aren't gonna notice
that it's over until she says something
more explicit.
Until she's doing Holocaust denial.
Until she's doing Holocaust denial,
exactly. But, of course, I've seen
enough people who kind of start this way
with this flirtation with bigotry where
stage one is usually like, "Well I
support the right for people to be bigots"
Like, I don't like that there's this,
like, cancel culture, whatever politically
correct - you can't say anything anymore.
Like, that's usually the prelude to a
bunch of bigoted stuff. It's kind of
like a softer way of getting a foot
in the door. Like, you're not necessarily
committing yourself to saying anything
bigoted. But you'll stand up for the right
of people to say that and you don't
like how, you know, how vicious people
are being towards people who are getting
criticized for saying more bigoted things.
In retrospect, it's clear that she's
preparing the way to be the one saying
those bigoted things herself.
For a while longer, well into 2020,
she, like, continues this road of
like, "sex is real". And so I'm going to
send you another thread.
It's funny how I know all of these
-like, by heart practically -Matt: Oh (laughter)
-It's like song lyrics (laughter) -Natalie: Right? I'm a scholar
-of the things she has said about -Matt: (laughing)
trans people, right? Like, "Ah yes,
-tweet seven, verse three". -Matt: (wheezes)
I know, cause, like, we've read these
-f***ing tweets so many times -Natalie: I know,
the last four years has been
dominated by having to read these
terrible opinions again and again.
This is, honestly, no one should be
allowed to get this famous. It's too
dangerous.
(laughter)
Okay, but for the normal people listening
who aren't so online, do you want to read
what she tweeted on June 6, I believe,
2020?
(Natalie) Dear normal people, this is me
reading from the book of Rowling,
chapter six (laughter).
Quote, "If sex isn't real, there's no
same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real,
the lived reality of women globally
is erased. I know and love trans people,
but erasing the concept of sex removes
the ability of many to meaningfully
discuss their lives. It isn't hate to
speak the truth."
Tweet two, "The idea that women like me,
who've been empathetic to trans people
for decades, feeling kinship because
they're vulnerable in the same way
as women - ie. to male violence - 'hate'
trans people because they think sex is
real and has lived consequences -
(English): it is a nonsense."
-Natalie: Sorry, (inaudible) I feel I -Matt: (laughter)
cannot say, "is a nonsense" without doing
-it in an English accent. -Matt: (laughing)
(Natalie) I'm gonna switch to
doing an English accent for the last
one because I feel like, I just feel like
(English) "I respect every trans person's
right to live any way that feels
authentic and comfortable to them.
I'd march with you if you were
discriminated against on the basis
of being trans. At the same time, my
life has been shaped by being female.
I do not believe it's hateful to say so."
(Matt) "I'd march with you if you were
being discriminated against."
(Natalie) Yeah, that's a big, big red
flag, right? And this was, like, the
same month that the U.S., like, Donald
Trump had, like, announced, like, an
intention to, like, ban trans healthcare.
Yes.
The notion that, like, discrimination
against trans people is this, like,
hypothetical thing that might occur in
the future, right?
If ever there was a trans person who
faced bigotry on the basis of their
identity, I would stand up for them. But
that hasn't happened yet. So, I'm just
-not, I'm not standing up -(Natalie) Yeah, right.
No one's ever been discriminated against
for being trans. But, like, if it does
happen, I'll march with you.
But, okay, first of all, by the way, these
tweets got hundreds of thousands of likes
- and people were like, - Natalie: Yes.
"Yes! You're a warrior!" But it's like
again, a normal person who isn't super
online, and, I mean, you know, from
the queer and pro-trans end, but also
from, like, the super anti-trans end.
Like if you aren't a part of either of
those groups, you're reading this
and are like, "What the f*** is she
talking about? Like what is this 'sex
is real' thing?" Like, what is she
talking about?
It's a weird argument, right? Because
it seems on the surface like it's a
linguistic point that she's trying to
make, right? There's this idea, like she
says, quote, "If we get rid of the
concept of sex that removes the
ability of many to discuss their lives."
Okay, this is what I think the assumption
is: it's, like, if we acknowledge that
trans people are who they say they
are, then that means that none of
the rest of us can talk about how gender
has impacted our lives, right? In other
words, think of a trans, is a woman, then
I guess, you know, "I, J.K,. Rowling, can
never talk about the way that I have
been discriminated against for being
a woman." I mean, it's a little bit of an
oppression olympics almost kind of
- argument, where it's like - Matt: Mmm
there can only be one oppressed group,
right? And if we talk about how, you
know, there's no way to include trans
people as a valid concept without sort of
somehow, like, deleting or erasing the
entire concept of women. Which, I mean,
it doesn't make any sense, right?
In fact, J.K. Rowling will later use as
an example. Okay what does it mean to
"erase women"? I mean, well, okay, so
she'll use the example of, like, okay,
some hospital somewhere, on a piece of
paperwork says, uses the term "pregnant
person" instead of "pregnant woman".
Why? Because there is transgender men who
can and have gotten pregnant. And so,
saying "pregnant people" is a more, like,
even if you find that to be an awkward
phrase, like, it's still a more inclusive
phrase that is going to help trans men
who need reproductive healthcare
that, you know, conventionally would be
"women's health", right? I just don't
understand why making it inclusive to
transgender men somehow, like, deletes
the concept of women from existence.
Like, (stammers) it just doesn't make
any sense to me. I feel like it's, like,
a weird pretext for being prejudicial.
-It's just such a lie. I mean, you see -Natalie: Yeah.
this a lot with Turph's trans
exclusionary radical feminists. It's like
the arm of quote on quote, "feminism"
that is basically just defined by
transphobia. Especially towards trans
women.
Yeah, I don't even know if I would say
that it's especially towards trans women.
I would say that there is especially
vitriolic towards trans women
- and they kind of vilify. - Matt: Mmm
Trans women are sort of cast as, like,
dangerous predators. But trans men, I
feel like, the way that a lot of, like,
including J.K. Rowling, like, talk about
trans men as a quite reprehensible I
- think, too. Like, usually the idea - Matt: Mmm
is, like, trans men are like confused
girls who've been tricked by, like, the
medical establishment, like, the evil
cabal of endocrinologist who have, like,
somehow, like, hoodwinked vulnerable girls
into thinking that they're men. Which, of
course, is not how the healthcare system
works at all. Like, you really have to
scream and cry to get hormones. Like, no
one is persuading you to do this. In
fact, quite the opposite. Everyone is
telling you not to. So, the idea that
trans men or that any kind of assigned
female at birth trans person is this sort
of confused, vulnerable baby child. Like,
it's not vilification to the extent that
they've vilified trans women as dangerous
predators, but it's in tantalizing in a
way that I think can be just as harmful
in its consequences, right? When someone
says, "Oh, you can't make decisions about
your own body because you're too confused
and childish." Like, you know, that has
devastating consequences which we see.
Any feminist should be aware of how this
works cause this is what they say about
abortion; it's what they about
contraception; it's what they say about
women's health in general. "Shut up,
little girl," right, "You can't make
decisions about your body. We'll do it
for you." It's exactly the same thing J.K.
Rowling is essentially saying to trans
men.
(inaudible) especially towards trans men
do this like, "We're loosing our lesbians.
They're all becoming trans men thing."
Which that as a refrain, I just don't
understand at all because, like,
statistically when you look at, like,
the number of gen Z people who are
coming out as queer, under every single
one of the letters, it's higher in all
of them. -(Natalie) Right.
Like there are more out lesbians today
than there have ever been.
(stammers) Yes, there's never been more
-lesbians, like, yeah - Matt: (laughs) And to be clear
I love that (laughs)
Yeah it's good, it's good actually, yeah.
No, I mean, I feel like it comes from,
it's like a very, like, selfish, like,
childish perspective. It's almost like,
"No don't transition, you're so sexy aha,"
- you know? Like, I feel like, thats kind - Matt: Yeah (laughs)
of, like, (stammers) and some gay women
do say this about trans men. Like,
"No, all the butch women are
transitioning, like, I wanted to f***
them before, no!" And it's like, okay,
well, too bad, like (scoffs) other people
don't have to live their lives in
accordance with what you find sexually
attractive. Like, again, as a woman
(stammers) you should know this, right?
- you should know that what you're - Matt: Yeah
doing, what you're speaking about someone
as if your sexual attraction to them
entitles you to their living a certain
way. You should know why that's bad and
why that feels violating and why that robs
someone of autonomy, right?
And with Turphs and this whole thing of,
like, "they're erasing the linguistic
concept of a woman." It's like (sighs)
- what world do you have to live in - (Natalie) Yeah.
for that to feel like the truth? And
look, I'm not a woman. And so, sometimes
with these conversations I'm very careful
about, like, even J.K. Rowling, a woman
who I disagree with entirely on so many
of these issues, it's like, I don't wanna
police her understanding of her own trauma
- as it pretends to being a woman. - (Natalie) Yeah.
However, I still, like, we all live in
the same society, and it's like, I'm
just very hard pressed to think that the
word "woman" is going anywhere.
(Natalie scoffs)
It's like, I don't think that, because on
some, like, in some medical papers that
are being published, that they're using
the terms "people who get pregnant,"
"people who get periods," I don't think
that means that, like, they're gonna start
calling you in casual conversation
"a person who menstruates."
No. And no one talks like that way.
I've never heard of a trans person
casually refer to cis woman as
"people who menstruate." Because the
entire point of that term is that it
doesn't just refer to cis women.
There are people who have a sort of
visceral reaction to it, which I
guess I can kind of understand. Like,
I think if you were to make, like, an
intelligible, like, understandable
argument out of what J.K. Rowling seems
to be saying in these tweets, I mean I
think you could put it like this,
"For most women, the way that they are
oppressed in society is in fact
intertwined with biology," right? With
women's reproductive role, as most women
are capable of getting pregnant. And
that becomes a area where women's lives
are policed, right? It's interesting how
J.K. Rowling never talks about this,
- right? Not a word, not a word - Matt: Mhmm
about Roe v Wade being overturned
in the United States. For most women,
biology and misogyny, they certainly are
- intertwined. And there's a case to be - Matt: Yeah.
made that anyone who's assigned
female at birth does sort of belong
to a oppressed class by virtue of
their reproductive capability. Especially,
like, you know, the sensitivity around,
like, you know, "same people who
menstruate" or "people who give birth."
I feel like if you hear those phrases in
isolation, they kind of, like, can be
abrasive sounding because there's,
like, a lot of shame and stigma, there
have for thousands of years around
menstruation and, you know, women
often are kind of reduced by patriarchy
to, like, birthing people in a sense,
right? So, I feel like that there's, like,
some grain of something I can sympathize
with her in terms of having a visceral,
negative reaction to these phrases.
But I feel like anyone who takes a second
to cool down, understand the context
of the phrase, will see that's clearly
not the intention. They know that it's
going to have an emotional effect for a
- lot of women to see those phrases. - Matt: Mhmm
And so, they kind of decontextualize it
and blast it onto Twitter