J.K. Rowling’s Spiral into Madness (with ContraPoints)

From “sex is real” to Holocaust denial — if it happened to the wizard lady, it can happen to you.

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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

causing a freakout of epic proportions.

So we're going to do a little analysis

of a woman's body, which is something

I'm fairly new to.

So, you know, wish me luck.

Today we are joined, once again,

by someone I'm honored to call a friend

of the show, Natalie Wynn, or as you may

know her online, ContraPoints is, an

ex-philosopher, she is a YouTuber

but I think calling her a YouTuber

is kind of diminutive to her craft.

She puts out a couple feature film-length

videos a year that you've probably

watched but if you haven't, you really

should go check those out.

She talks about philosophy, and sex and

gender, and capitalism, and Twilight

Natalie Wynn welcome back to A Bit Fruity.

Thank you much for having me back on

I am excited to be here again.

I'm honored to be a friend of the show.

I'm honored to have you as a friend

of the show. So, a couple weeks ago

J.K. Rowling, she got caught up in a

little Holocaust denial.

She does Holocaust denial a little from

time to time, (laughter) yeah.

It wasn't always this way. J.K. Rowling

wasn't always on Twitter denying

that, uh, queer people were persecuted in

the Holocaust. Until 2019, J.K. Rowling

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

we mostly experience through Twitter

which is basically obsessive bigotry

towards trans people. That's become

sort of her definitive thing, right?

I think that people who don't follow this

kind of don't understand the extent of it

because, you know, I don't know, people

throw around like all kinds of accusations

on Twitter, so it's easy to think that

this is some kind of internet drama

blown out of proportion. But, what you're

missing is that if you have not been

paying attention to J.K. Rowling's Twitter

for the last, at this point, we're

talking about four or five years, which

is a long time. Like, she's basically used

her platform more often than not to do

trans-bashing. There's a reason why that

this gets talked about so much because,

I mean, she's one of the most famous

authors in the world with an enormous

platform, and she's just using it

constantly to target this small and,

like, already besieged, minority of people

who are facing, like, all kinds of, like,

legislative and cultural backlash in

the U.S. and the U.K. So it's like really

devastating (chuckle) that an author

that, that's this influential is also,

like, this obsessively devoted to

persecute, you know, to contributing

to the persecution of this group of

people, who's already so harassed.

But it's also, I don't know, it's also

kind of a bizarre spectacle, like, in

it's own right it's kind of like another

reason I feel like we're drawn to this

maybe, is that it's kind of like darkly

fascinating. How does this happen?

Like, how do we go from, like, the

Gryffindor common room and, you know,

Severus Snape, to, like, these unhinged

rants about the transexuals. It's weird.

It, it is weird and I think also, I mean,

yeah, if you go to J.K. Rowling's Twitter

right now and scroll through her feed,

it is literal years of talking every

single day, almost exclusively, about

transgender people, for years.

Which I think is the type of behavior

we associate, with like boomer facebook

moms, and then I guess in a sense, she

kind of would have been that, if she

hadn't become a billionaire and one of

the most famous and beloved children's

authors of all time. But she is those

things and the idea of her behaving the

way, like, our homophobic aunt does

or whatever, but like from some castle

in the U.K., is just like a very jarring

image. (Natalie) I think that summarizes

it really well, right, like, it is, like,

your bigoted aunts deranged Facebook post

except on a platform with millions of

people as the audience. I feel like we

as a society, have, like, yet to know how

to deal with this type of thing cause

J.K. Rowling's not the only case of it.

I mean, like, Elon Musk has dabbled

a little bit in some similar forms of

bigotry with a comparable or even

larger platform. But I feel like what's

unique about J.K. Rowling is that

she's, like, single mindedly focused on

trans people as this one issue.

(Matt) So she wasn't always this way

though, and what we're gonna do today

is use J.K. Rowling as what I think is

a valuable case study in the worm hole

that transphobia is. The way that it

can serve as it has for J.K. Rowling

and so many millions of other people

as a portal into the broader world

of right-wing ideology that gets pretty

scary pretty quickly. We're gonna

try to understand why transphobia, and

I think especially when it's cloaked,

no pun intended, as a progressive

feminist cause and especially effective

gateway into the alt right. One day

you're reminding people that you

just like to be referred to as a woman

and that you are a woman and then,

you know, the next day you are

participating in Holocaust denial. It can

happen to you. (Natalie) Many such cases.

(Matt) Many such cases. And so, to begin

this story I wanna go back to 2019

to the first tweet that I remember

seeing of J.K. Rowling's, her foray into

the anti-trans movement, which at the

beginning was very tepid. I am going to

send you the tweet. (Natalie) "Dress

however you please. Call yourself

whatever you like. Sleep with any

consenting adult who'll have you.

Live your best life in peace and security.

But force women out of their jobs for

stating that sex is real? Hashtag I

stand with Maya. Hashtag this is not

a drill." (Matt) So what was the

context of this one?

(Natalie) So, the context is that there

was a English consultant named

Maya Forstater who, I guess she wasn't

fired but her contract was not

renewed because she had, like, refused

to use the correct pronouns for a trans

coworker or something along those lines.

And a lot of so called "gender-critical",

that is "transphobic", people in the U.K.

decided to turn this into a celebrated

cause, they, you know, rallied behind

this hashtag "I stand with maya".

The idea being, like, "oh, we shouldn't

have to submit to gender ideology by,

you know, using the correct pronouns

for trans people in the work place or

whatever. This is where J.K. Rowling

decided to join this discourse

officially. She decided to jump in on

the side of people who think that it's

terribly oppressive to have to use

the correct pronouns for a trans person.

And I guess at first, you know, there was

some ambiguity because you could be

like, "Well she's not transphobic. Maybe

she just believes in free speech, and she

thinks that, you know, that people

shouldn't be fired for having different

opinions." And like okay, like, at

first you could sort of plausibly think

that maybe, given the benefit of the

doubt, that's why she was getting

involved in this. But, like, to people who

kind of know the pattern that

transphobia takes place, we all pretty

much knew that, "Oh, okay she really

is transphobic behind the scenes".

Like, there is no way that you would

-go decide to die on this hill unless
- Matt: Hmm.

you already were. At least that's what I

think now. I mean, I think J.K. Rowling

was at her most dangerous in 2019 and

in 2020 because of the stuff she was

saying seems kind of plausible and

reasonable to the average person, you

know. And so, there's this kind of like

clever selection of which topics to

get behind, right, instead of just,

I don't know, calling trans women "men"

in dresses, or whatever, it's like she's

defending the "right" of people to not

use the correct pronouns if they don't

agree, right? These people

kind of hedge in this way, like, when

they have a kind of like bigoted opinion

instead of just stating it out, right.

They sort of defend their right to have

-that opinion.
- Matt: Mhmm.

So, that was very much with this thing

with Maya Forstater is, right. It's like

she's not saying something sort of

directly transphobic, but she is kind of

indirectly getting there by being like,

"I am going to publicly champion Maya's

right to be transphobic. "

(Matt) I feel like in the early days

she did so much of this plausible,

deniability stuff where it's like, you

know, "I'm just saying sex is real".

Right? And the average person who

isn't, like, a terminally online queer

is going to be like, "Yeah, sex is real,

whatever, like, who cares."

You know? It's like not a big deal.

(Natalie) Yeah, she was very effective

early on at kind of like deciding what

it was that she thought people

were mad about, right? And so she

framed the conversation, "Oh here's why

I'm getting backlashed. I'm getting

backlash because I said quote on quote

'sex is real'. And so, it kind of seems

like if you believe her account of what

people are mad about, then it sounds like

everyone whose mad is unreasonable

because they are mad at her for taking

this kind of - taking what? An abstract,

philosophical position about the

metaphysics of biological sex? Like,

is that what people are mad about?

No, right? It's of course not that

because she is intervening in this

social and political debate, right,

on the side that wants trans people

functionally not to exist in public

life, or not to be acknowledged in

public life. So, that is what people

are mad about, right? But early on,

I think she was able to kind of

frame her position as being this

like, I don't know, almost philosophical

position about the reality of sex or

something, you know? That is what she

wanted to make it sound like instead of

a political position about the place of

transgender people in society.

When you first saw that tweet were, like,

alarm bells ringing?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, at that point

I was like, yeah I basically internally

thought there was like a nine

hundred and ninety-nine out of

one thousand percent chance that

-it's, as people say, over, right?
-Matt: (laughter) Right

It's so over, right? Like I already

basically already kind of knew that.

But I also kind of knew that, like,

well, most people aren't gonna notice

that it's over until she says something

more explicit.

Until she's doing Holocaust denial.

Yeah, until she's doing Holocaust denial,

exactly. But, of course, I've seen

enough people who kind of start this way

with this flirtation with bigotry where

stage one is usually like, "Well I

support the right for people to be bigots"

Like, I don't like that there's this,

like, cancel culture, whatever politically

correct - you can't say anything anymore.

Like, that's usually the prelude to a

bunch of bigoted stuff. It's kind of

like a softer way of getting a foot

in the door. Like, you're not necessarily

committing yourself to saying anything

bigoted. But you'll stand up for the right

of people to say that and you don't

like how, you know, how vicious people

are being towards people who are getting

criticized for saying more bigoted things.

In retrospect, it's clear that she's

preparing the way to be the one saying

those bigoted things herself.

For a while longer, well into 2020,

she, like, continues this road of

like, "sex is real". And so I'm going to

send you another thread.

It's funny how I know all of these

-like, by heart practically
-Matt: Oh (laughter)

-It's like song lyrics (laughter)
-Natalie: Right? I'm a scholar

-of the things she has said about
-Matt: (laughing)

trans people, right? Like, "Ah yes,

-tweet seven, verse three".
-Matt: (wheezes)

I know, cause, like, we've read these

-f***ing tweets so many times
-Natalie: I know,

the last four years has been

dominated by having to read these

terrible opinions again and again.

This is, honestly, no one should be

allowed to get this famous. It's too

dangerous.

(laughter)

Okay, but for the normal people listening

who aren't so online, do you want to read

what she tweeted on June 6, I believe,

2020?

(Natalie) Dear normal people, this is me

reading from the book of Rowling,

chapter six (laughter).

Quote, "If sex isn't real, there's no

same-sex attraction. If sex isn't real,

the lived reality of women globally

is erased. I know and love trans people,

but erasing the concept of sex removes

the ability of many to meaningfully

discuss their lives. It isn't hate to

speak the truth."

Tweet two, "The idea that women like me,

who've been empathetic to trans people

for decades, feeling kinship because

they're vulnerable in the same way

as women - ie. to male violence - 'hate'

trans people because they think sex is

real and has lived consequences -

(English Accent): it is a nonsense."

-Natalie: Sorry, (inaudible) I feel I
-Matt: (laughter)

cannot say, "is a nonsense" without doing

-it in an English accent.
-Matt: (laughing)

(Natalie) I'm gonna switch to

doing an English accent for the last

one because I feel like, I just feel like

(English) "I respect every trans person's

right to live any way that feels

authentic and comfortable to them.

I'd march with you if you were

discriminated against on the basis

of being trans. At the same time, my

life has been shaped by being female.

I do not believe it's hateful to say so."

(Matt) "I'd march with you if you were

being discriminated against."

(Natalie) Yeah, that's a big, big red

flag, right? And this was, like, the

same month that the U.S., like, Donald

Trump had, like, announced, like, an

intention to, like, ban trans healthcare.

(Matt) Yes.

The notion that, like, discrimination

against trans people is this, like,

hypothetical thing that might occur in

the future, right?

If ever there was a trans person who

faced bigotry on the basis of their

identity, I would stand up for them. But

that hasn't happened yet. So, I'm just

-not, I'm not standing up
-(Natalie) Yeah, right.

No one's ever been discriminated against

for being trans. But, like, if it does

happen, I'll march with you.

But, okay, first of all, by the way, these

tweets got hundreds of thousands of likes

- and people were like,
- Natalie: Yes.

"Yes! You're a warrior!" But it's like

again, a normal person who isn't super

online, and, I mean, you know, from

the queer and pro-trans end, but also

from, like, the super TERF-y
anti-trans end.

Like if you aren't a part of either of

those groups, you're reading this

and are like, "What the f*** is she

talking about? Like what is this 'sex

is real' thing?" Like, what is she

talking about?

It's a weird argument, right? Because

it seems on the surface like it's a

linguistic point that she's trying to

make, right? There's this idea, like she

says, quote, "If we get rid of the

concept of sex that removes the

ability of many to discuss their lives."

Okay, this is what I think the assumption

is: it's, like, if we acknowledge that

trans people are who they say they

are, then that means that none of

the rest of us can talk about how gender

has impacted our lives, right? In other

words, think of if a trans woman,
is a woman, then

I guess, you know, "I, J.K,. Rowling, can

never talk about the way that I have

been discriminated against for being

a woman." I mean, it's a little bit of an

oppression olympics almost kind of

- argument, where it's like
- Matt: Mmm

there can only be one oppressed group,

right? And if we talk about how, you

know, there's no way to include trans

people as a valid concept without sort of

somehow, like, deleting or erasing the

entire concept of women. Which, I mean,

it doesn't make any sense, right?

In fact, J.K. Rowling will later use as

an example. Okay what does it mean to

"erase women"? I mean, well, okay, so

she'll use the example of, like, okay,

some hospital somewhere, on a piece of

paperwork says, uses the term "pregnant

person" instead of "pregnant woman".

Why? Because there is transgender men who

can and have gotten pregnant. And so,

saying "pregnant people" is a more, like,

even if you find that to be an awkward

phrase, like, it's still a more inclusive

phrase that is going to help trans men

who need reproductive healthcare

that, you know, conventionally would be

"women's health", right? I just don't

understand why making it inclusive to

transgender men somehow, like, deletes

the concept of women from existence.

Like, (stammers) it just doesn't make

any sense to me. I feel like it's, like,

a weird pretext for being prejudicial.

-It's just such a lie. I mean, you see
-Natalie: Yeah.

this a lot with TERF's trans

exclusionary radical feminists. It's like

the arm of quote on quote, "feminism"

that is basically just defined by

transphobia. Especially towards trans

women.

Yeah, I don't even know if I would say

that it's especially towards trans women.

I would say that there is especially

vitriolic towards trans women

- and they kind of vilify.
- Matt: Mmm

Trans women are sort of cast as, like,

dangerous predators. But trans men, I

feel like, the way that a lot of, like,

including J.K. Rowling, like, talk about

trans men as a quite reprehensible I

- think, too. Like, usually the idea
- Matt: Mmm

is, like, trans men are like confused

girls who've been tricked by, like, the

medical establishment, like, the evil

cabal of endocrinologist who have, like,

somehow, like, hoodwinked vulnerable girls

into thinking that they're men. Which, of

course, is not how the healthcare system

works at all. Like, you really have to

scream and cry to get hormones. Like, no

one is persuading you to do this. In

fact, quite the opposite. Everyone is

telling you not to. So, the idea that

trans men or that any kind of assigned

female at birth trans person is this sort

of confused, vulnerable baby child. Like,

it's not vilification to the extent that

they've vilified trans women as dangerous

predators, but it's in infantilizing in a

way that I think can be just as harmful

in its consequences, right? When someone

says, "Oh, you can't make decisions about

your own body because you're too confused

and childish." Like, you know, that has

devastating consequences which we see.

Any feminist should be aware of how this

works cause this is what they say about

abortion; it's what they about

contraception; it's what they say about

women's health in general. "Shut up,

little girl," right, "You can't make

decisions about your body. We'll do it

for you." It's exactly the same thing J.K.

Rowling is essentially saying to trans

men.

TERFS especially towards trans men

do this like, "We're losing our lesbians.

They're all becoming trans men thing."

Which that as a refrain, I just don't

understand at all because, like,

statistically when you look at, like,

the number of gen Z people who are

coming out as queer, under every single

one of the letters, it's higher in all

of them.
-(Natalie) Right.

Like there are more out lesbians today

than there have ever been.

(stammers) Yes, there's never been more

-lesbians, like, yeah
- Matt: Theres- (laughs) And to be clear

I love that (laughs)

Yeah it's good, it's good actually, yeah.

No, I mean, I feel like it comes from,

it's like a very, like, selfish, like,

childish perspective. It's almost like,

"No don't transition, you're so sexy aha,"

- you know? Like, I feel like, thats kind
- Matt: Yeah (laughs)

of, like, (stammers) and some gay women

do say this about trans men. Like,

"No, all the butch women are

transitioning, like, I wanted to f***

them before, no!" And it's like, okay,

well, too bad, like (scoffs) other people

don't have to live their lives in

accordance with what you find sexually

attractive. Like, again, as a woman

(stammers) you should know this, right?

- you should know that what you're
- Matt: Yeah

doing, what you're speaking about someone

as if your sexual attraction to them

entitles you to their living a certain

way. You should know why that's bad and

why that feels violating and why that robs

someone of autonomy, right?

And with TERFs and this whole thing of,

like, "they're erasing the linguistic

concept of a woman." It's like (sighs)

- what world do you have to live in
- (Natalie) Yeah.

for that to feel like the truth? And

look, I'm not a woman. And so, sometimes

with these conversations I'm very careful

about, like, even J.K. Rowling, a woman

who I disagree with entirely on so many

of these issues, it's like, I don't wanna

police her understanding of her own trauma

- as it pretence to being a woman.
- (Natalie) Yeah.

However, I still, like, we all live in

the same society, and it's like, I'm

just very hard pressed to think that the

word "woman" is going anywhere.

(Natalie scoffs)

It's like, I don't think that, because on

some, like, in some medical papers that

are being published, that they're using

the terms "people who get pregnant,"

"people have periods," I don't think

that means that, like, they're gonna start

calling you in casual conversation

"a person who menstruates."

No. And no one talks like that way.

I've never heard of a trans person

casually refer to cis woman as

"people who menstruate." Because the

entire point of that term is that it

doesn't just refer to cis women.

There are people who have a sort of

visceral reaction to it, which I

guess I can kind of understand. Like,

I think if you were to make, like, an

intelligible, like, understandable

argument out of what J.K. Rowling seems

to be saying in these tweets, I mean I

think you could put it like this,

"For most women, the way that they are

oppressed in society is in fact

intertwined with biology," right? With

women's reproductive role, as most women

are capable of getting pregnant. And

that becomes a area where women's lives

are policed, right? It's interesting how

J.K. Rowling never talks about this,

- right? Not a word, not a word
- Matt: Mhmm

about Roe v Wade being overturned

in the United States. For most women,

biology and misogyny, they certainly are

- intertwined. And there's a case to be
- Matt: Yeah.

made that anyone who's assigned

female at birth does sort of belong

to a oppressed class by virtue of

their reproductive capability. Especially,

like, you know, the sensitivity around,

like, you know, "saying people who

menstruate" or "people who give birth."

I feel like if you hear those phrases in

isolation, they kind of, like, can be

abrasive sounding because there's,

like, a lot of shame and stigma, there

have for thousands of years around

menstruation and, you know, women

often are kind of reduced by patriarchy

to, like, birthing people in a sense,

right? So, I feel like that there's, like,

some grain of something I can sympathize

with her in terms of having a visceral,

negative reaction to these phrases.

But I feel like anyone who takes a second

to cool down, understand the context

of the phrase, will see
that's, like, clearly

not the intention. They know that it's

going to have an emotional effect for a

- lot of women to see those phrases.
- Matt: Mhmm

And so, they kind of decontextualize it

and blast it onto Twitter with, like,

a kind of vague implication that,

"Oh, this is what they are going to

reduce you to," and, like, "they" is who?

"They" is quote on quote trans ideology.

Which is sort of vaguely implied to be

this, like, powerful cabal.

(laughs) Right, which is also incredible

because in real life it's like people

with a hundred followers on Twitter.

Yes, right! It's like you're being yelled

at by, like, random, like, furries.

(laughing)

J.K. Rowling, she does fixate heavily on

her own perceived persecution by trans

people on Twitter. J.K. Rowling often

gets into these, like, feuds, like very

public feuds that she- actually I wanna

google how many followers she has on

Twitter. J.K. Rowling... Do you know

the number by heart?

I mean, I think it used to be like

fourteen million.

Oh! It's fourteen million.

I hate that I know this.

(laughter) Me too.

I don't want these stocks in my head.

J.K. Rowling, to her fourteen million

followers, she, like, regularly puts these

random a**, people on blast, and it's

like, I don't know, I have, what? I have

four hundred thousand Twitter followers,

which is, by the way, too many for a

twink. But, none the less, it's like, lots

of horrible people say horrible things

to me on the internet. You have to

be aware of the power dynamic of, like,

when you have fourteen million followers.

I feel like it was missing from J.K.

Rowling's discussion of how she's, like,

victimized by social media, is any

understanding of power, and I think

that a key thing that is going on with

J.K. Rowling is that she doesn't

conceptualize herself as a powerful

person. I mean, and this is common,

right? Cause, you know, most people

kind of think of themselves as, like,

heroic underdogs, I feel, because, I

don't know, you got bullied as a child,

you got, you know, (stutters) right,

like, in J.K. Rowling's case, like, she

used to live in relative poverty. She was

a single mom, she fled a, you know, a

abusive relationship. And so, I still

think in a way she kind of thinks of

herself as this, like, small, like, scared

person, like, on the run.

Mmmm

I mean, she's had, like, twenty-five years

to, like, catch up to the new reality,

but I feel like internally she still

hasn't, right? I think it's hard for a

lot of people to make this switch where

you realize, "Oh, I am the big fish now,"

right? Like, "I am the one who has power."

And I think that, I mean a lot of what

privilege is is a kind of blindness

to your own power. She hasn't noticed that

she's extremely powerful and influential.

So, it hasn't occurred to her that, like,

I don't know, going after some random

YouTuber with a hundred, you know,

hundred thousands of subscribers, is,

like, weird behavior for a celebrity of

her size.

And not even a YouTuber with a hundred

thousand subscribers, random a** people.

I was just scrolling through her Twitter

the other day getting ready for this

episode, and, like, she was sending

multiple tweets, like, screenshotting

this man's tweets and then sending out

her responses to her fourteen million

followers. This guy named Rajan, who

wrote, "I am a CIS male and an ally

of the LGBTQ community. All of my life

I have fought for diversity and equality.

I advised two Attorney General's on

race and equality issues and prosecuted

on behalf of victims of crime. I know

who I am and am proud of what I stand

for." And she responded with, uh, with

her own tweet, which she was pretending

to speak in his voice, in Rajan's voice.

She wrote, "I am a man who wants to see

girls and women stripped of their rights

and protections for the benefit of

my fellow men." And it's like, okay,

obviously that's not what Rajan was

saying. But then I was like, "Who the hell

is Rajan?" He has four hundred and

fifty-three followers. The tweet which she

sent out to her fourteen million

followers, Rajan's original tweet

had twenty-five likes!

Yeah, it's, like, literally just some guy

and she's just, (stutters) like, there's

no sense of the influence she wields.

I mean, in a way, she does think that

she's just someone's, like, Facebook

aunt. She's behaving in a way that is

indistinguishable from the way- she's not

acting like a public figure.

I just can't understand how J.K. Rowling

has spent, and this is what she does

everyday by the way, listener, feel

free to go to her Twitter. She's beefing

with someone who lives in, like, f******

Iowa. And it's like, I just can't (laughs)

conceptualize, especially if I had a

billion dollars. I don't know. I would

be on, like, a yacht probably. And not

arguing with f****** Rajan four hundred,

fifty-three followers. Rajan, if you're

out there, shout out. You seem like a

great guy.

(laughter)

Yeah, we love Rajan on this podcast.

I just can't make sense of her spending,

I imagine her rocking back n' forth in

the corner of, like, her eleventh living

room in her sixth castle; just, like, on

Twitter sweating.

(scoffs) I think we like to imagine

that when people get, you know, really

rich and famous, then there's a sense of,

like, peace or happiness or tranquility

that accompanies that, but that does not

seem to be the case, right? I mean, I'm

trying to imagine being in that situation.

I feel that, like, once you achieved a

certain level of, like, you know, success

beyond most people's wildest dreams...

It must be hard to know what to do with

that feeling of discontentment that's,

- like, still inside of you.
- (Matt) Mmm

And I think that sometimes people, like,

you know, wildly successful people, like

J.K. Rowling or Elon Musk, they sort of

get addicted to Twitter as this, like,

- source of conflict (scoffs) almost.
- (Matt) Mmm

It's almost like (stutters) once you don't

have to worry about money, once, you know,

you're free of your, you know, your past

abusive relationship, once you've, you

know, accomplish all the things you

previously wanted to accomplish, it's,

like, it's almost like you need to- you

just can't be happy with that. You need

to, like, find a new, like, fight almost.

And so, people go looking on Twitter;

you can always find a fight on Twitter.

I think there's something very unhealthy

about the way a lot of people, uh, relate

to using the internet as a source of

conflict, and then once your ego gets

invested, I think that's, you know, part

of what's going on with J.K. Rowling, of

course, is that because she's come,

you know, she's, like, positioned herself

so firmly on the anti-trans side. She now

feels like she has to defend it viciously.

Because otherwise, that would mean

admitting that she was wrong and admitting

that she's caused a massive amount of

damage.

Yes and you know what? It is really hard

to, like, profess your beliefs in front of

a lot of people. Like I have basically

done that as part of my job of making,

like, social and political content and

commentary online for the lat few years.

Like one of the things that took me

too long to come to grips with is that,

like, sometimes you need to know when

you're wrong. And, like, taking the L as

- the kids say, and I've had to
- (Natalie) Yeah.

take L's online and it's embarrassing

and it makes you feel small. I mean,

Natalie, I know that's happened to you

where you've had to come to the mic and

be like, "Yeah I was wrong about this

thing," even if it takes a while to do

that. That is also one of the greatest,

like, personal lessons that I've taken

away from, like, being online

politically; is that being wrong is

actually, like, I mean it's so f******

corny, but it's like an opportunity.

I think it's, like, genuinely, like,

spiritually good for you to be able to

accept that. It's been helpful to me

overtime to learn, to get a lot of

criticism, and to kind of be at peace

with it, and to not feel like I need to

constantly be, like, a vigilant defender

of my own ego. People are going to say

things about me, they're going to

misrepresent me, they're going to

criticize me, and some of it will be

true, and a lot of it will be false. And

like, you just kind of have to learn to

- find peace with that. Otherwise you'll
- (Matt) Mmm

go crazy. But, yeah, what we have on

our hands here with Ms. Rowling is a case

of someone who is pathologically

incapable of ever letting anything go

ever, right?
- Matt: (laughs) Ever.

Like, I don't think she's ever once

admitted to being wrong about a single

thing.

No, and that includes the Holocaust denial

arc, which I'm teasing the listener with

cause we're not quite there yet.

I wanna return to the role of language

in all of this and, like, semantics,

right? We're going to be talking about

the transphobia serving as a gateway

into further right wing, you know, broader

right wing ideology. But then I also think

that taking it back a step, I think that

some people's entry into transphobia are

these, like, frankly, like, silly semantic

- word arguments.
- (Natalie) Yeah.

They're erasing the word "women." And so,

as another example, what I think is a

powerful example of that: Ana Kasparian.

So, Ana Kasparian, she's one of the

political commentators on the Young Turks,

which is one of the bigger and of the

earlier left wing political YouTube shows.

You know she had her viral, um, "I don't

care what the Bible says! I don't, like...

(video) "I don't care if you're Christian.

In fact, I will fight for you to have

your religious liberty and practice

your Christianity. I believe in that. I

don't believe in Christianity, which means

that you do not get to dictate the way I

live my life based on your religion.

I don't care what the Bible says. You have

every right in the world. All those women

who identify with your religion have every

right in the world to not get an

abortion, to not take birth control.

But they do not have the right to dictate

my life and what I decide to do with

my body. I don't care about your godd*mn

religion."

(Matt) I think she's, like, had some

really great things to say over the years.

And none of that, none of the education,

none of anything stopped her from falling

into transphobic semantic rabbit hole

last May; like all horrible things that

took place on Twitter. So I'm going to

send you the tweets.

Okay so this first tweet is, "I'm a woman.

Please don't ever refer to me as a

person with a uterus, birthing person,

or person who menstruates. How do

people not realize how degrading this is?

You can support the transgender community

without doing this s***."

If you're just taking this tweet at face

value, I don't even disagree with it.

I think, like, yeah, right, don't, you

shouldn't refer to an individual person

as a "birthing person," that's weird. I

agree. I feel like where I disagree is in

the subtext, right? The first question

I have is, in what context did someone

refer to Anna in this way? Did this

happen? Did someone call her

(Natalie) "a person who menstruates"?

Like, in what context? Was the context

on a piece of medical paperwork? Should

phrases such as "a person who menstruates"

replace the phrase "woman" in everyday

English? No, of course not. Who's

suggesting that? Is anyone suggesting

that? I've never once heard trans person

suggest that. So, it's like, we're

arguing against this position that,

like, who are we arguing against?

I don't know. It feels like (stutters) for

some reason there's this need to argue

against this, like, strong man version of

a trans activist, who insist that we stop

using the word "women". I've never heard

someone claim that. I also think, like,

even the extent to which this is used

in medical context is overstated. Like, I

don't know, I'm thinking of, like, recent

times I've interacted with the medical

system. I feel like I'm often, you know,

when you select your gender on medical

paperwork, it's usually male, female,

or, like, other (scoffs) and it'll ask

you to explain. So, I will usually, like,

add, you know, as a context note that

I am a transgender woman. So that, in so

far as that's medically relevant, it's

noted. I have no given birth, nor have I

been to the hospital with someone giving

birth recently. So, I cannot say what the

experience is like. But I guess I'll be

curious to know, like, how often, I don't

know, if someone is listening this, um,

you know, if you, like, had a baby at a

hospital recently, like, how frequently

were phrases like "birthing person" used?

My guess is not very frequently.

- So I'm not sure (stammers) It just
- (Matt) Right.

feels like a sort of imaginary argument

that we're having.

Totally, totally.

(stammers) I'm, like, lacking context for,

like, where is this occurring? I spend a

lot of time around women, actually. And

I feel like I don't see the word- I don't

see these phrases being thrown around

very often these days. And I'm in a very

trans inclusive, you know, kind of social

- environment. So, you'd think if
- Matt: (laughs)

lots of people had replaced the word

"woman" with "person with a uterus," I

think I would have heard that but I

haven't.

(laughs) Right? So, she's starting to get

kind of dogged online and she responds

with tweet number two. Please hold...

Did you receive?

Umm, hold on. Not yet.

Oh, wait. Did it not send to you?

- I don't see it.
- (Matt) Oh, weird.

Okay wait let me try again. Maybe I

just sent it to the wrong person (laughs)

And then out of nowhere you receive it

(laughter)

and its some tweet from a year ago

You might want to figure out who you

- just send that to. It could be kind of
- (Matt laughing)

weird with no context.

(laughing continues)

Okay tweet two, "LOL. The meltdowns over

wanting to be referred to as a woman

rather than a "birthing person" is pretty

wild. I'll never apologize for that,

especially as biological woman who

has had a f****** lifetime of being

told I'm less than. I'm a woman. No

apologies," (sighs) So, again it's like, I

don't know, a lot of this type of

transphobic stuff comes from a kind of,

like, misdirected frustration with

misogyny. Anna reacted with, "Oh, people

are sort of forcing me to be called

the 'birthing person', and then that's

sort of somehow erasing the lifetime of

misogyny that I've had to experience

as a woman." I mean, I think it's like a

kind of scapegoat in a way. I feel that,

like, a lot of times, like, people who

get (stutters) into this gender critical

talking points, it's often a kind of,

like, displaced rage and frustration at

experiences of misogyny, often in, like,

leftist spaces, right? Cause that's a

real thing. Misogyny is pretty rampant on

the left as it is everywhere. And I think

that a lot of women find that hard to

complain about. And it's difficult in part

because men usually are in power. I don't

know, you kind of, as a woman, you kind

of have to, like, pander to men to get

through the day to some extent.

Yeah

So, it's like frightening to take a stand

against men. But trans people this kind

of, like, hated minority that is sort of

easy to, like, it's kind of easy to,

like, dump all of your, like, frustrations

and rage onto trans people because

there's a social momentum behind that

in a way that there sort of isn't against,

like, I don't know, frustration with

misogyny and leftist spaces, for example.

I honestly kinda feel bad for Ana reading

these tweets because obviously there's

some massive life, as she says, a lifetime

of, like, of difficult experiences that's

behind this. And it's blowing up now, but

it's choosing as its target, this very

weird thing that seems to me, to be

slightly off topic.

So these tweets are in March. And then in

July, she is still kind of stuck on

this transgender issue. In a discussion

about various social justice movements

and their methods for accomplishing

their goals, she tweets what I have

selected as to be tweet number three.

Which I will send to you now.

- Oh, this one (scoffs) Yeah this is...
- (Matt laughs)

Okay, and see this is (stutters)
okay, this

tweet- I know I'm talking about the

tweet before I've read it. But I do feel

that this tweet that I'm about to read,

it really kind of does showcase the way

that transphobia is kind of a red flag and

it's often the prelude to a whole bunch

of nonsense. Okay (breaths deeply)

Ana Kasparian quote, "The Civil Rights

Movement did not use the same strategies

as the trans movement. They didn't

barricade speakers they disagreed with in

a classroom for three hours. They

persuaded through non-violence and

showing America their humanity."

So this is (exhales) this is basically the

entire thing that the podcast called,

"The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling" was

about, um. This was what the podcast with

Megan Phelps-Roper of Westboro Baptist

Church fame, uh and J.K. Rowling. A lot

of the argument was, like, "Oh, what we

really hate about the trans movement is

they use, like, illiberal methods. And

it's so unlike all past movements. Like

Gay Rights wasn't like this, and Women's

Rights wasn't like this, and the Civil

Rights Movement, they never did anything

violent and they were always polite and

they never raised their voices and they

never called people names." And it's just,

like, "Well I'm sorry that is historically

not true."

And it's so jarring to see someone like

- Ana Kasparian, who knows all of that,
- (Natalie) Knows, yeah.

though. She knows all of that. I mean, all

of these movements had (stammers)

You think about that one famous, uh,

clip of Angela Davis talking about, like,

whether or not she endorses violence.

And she's just like, "Well, whether or not

I endorse it is besides the point.

Violence is the only thing I've ever known

as a black person in America. "

Have these people heard of Malcolm X?

Have they heard (stammers and scoffs)

Stonewall! Like, come on!

What do these people think the Civil

Rights Movement was? Like, I mean, it's

literally every one of these movements,

too. Like, I mean, again, people think of

Women's Suffrage assumes to be like,
you know,

you think of the women marching with

their banners and it's like, "Oh, they

just had to show people their humanity by

being peaceful," and it's like, churches

were firebombed (scoffs) by suffragettes

in the U.K. People were physically,

they were murdered for Women's Suffrage.

Which is not to say that I am endorsing

these violent methods, but it's like,

I'm about to get so demonetized.

Wait, hold on, I can- let me rephrase that

People were unalived
(Matt laughs)

People were unalived
in the name of women's suffrage, right,

churches became more on fire
than they previously had been,

in the name of women's suffrage, right,

like, this is the historical reality

that people forget because it's
sort of more comfortable I guess

to assume that like, oh,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just had to

get up on a podium and say "I have a dream, look, I'm human"

and then all the white people clapped and said

"Yes, let's have rights for all"
and it's like no, that's not what happened

To desegregate schools in Alabama,
president Eisenhower had to

send in the army, desegregation happened
at gunpoint, it was not a peaceful process

I hope that trans rights can be
accomplished with less violence than that,

and I think, in fact, there's no reason
why that shouldn't be the case

But to suggest that the trans rights movement
is this uniquely violent- it's just isn't

It just isn't. It's just false.

You've tead me up. We've arrived at
Holocaust denialism.

We sure have.

Two weeks ago, JK Rowling
saw a tweet someone had written to her

"The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare
and research, why are you so desperate

to uphold their ideology around gender?"

And, this obviously pissed her off a lot,
because she screenshotted it

and, uh, tweeted it out to her
own audience,

with the additional caption,
where she wrote,

"I just....how How did you type this out
and press send without thinking

'I should maybe check my source for this,
because it might've been a fever dream?'"

And, I just want to add,
before we get into any of this,

my favorite thing about this exchange
is that the tweet which JK Rowling took

which accused her of sharing the Nazi's
ideaology on, uh, trans healthcare,

the tweet has five views.

Not likes.

Wow.

It has five views. That is zero likes.

That is, like, you get five views on
a tweet just by it existing in the ether.

Yeah, that is a-I mean I've almost
never seen a tweet with that few views.

She- [laughing] she went out of her way

to find a tweet that would allow her to

participate in Holocaust denial.

It was like she had to chase this one.

Yeah, that makes it all the more baffling
because it's, like,

okay, I understand why you would say-
why you would start doing

a little casual Holocaust denial
in the heat of the moment,

because, if, I don't know,
you were like on the spot

and like, I don't know, someone was-
someone was- someone had you

backed into a corner and you were just,
like, said whatever you thought you needed

to say to win the argument-

[Matt] Right

-but it's like, this is just, like,
this is just like freeform, like,

completely, like, out of the blue.

You know what, I've been searching
around the dark corners of Twitter lately

and I feel like today is the day
I shall begin denying the Holocaust.

[Matt laughing]

Like, like what?

You need to buy a yacht and just
go on it!

So she tweet this, right?
And so the person accuses-

the person's claim is that Nazis burnt
books on trans healthcare and research,

and JK Rowling says that they must be
experiencing a fever dream

to have claim that.

That is absolutely true.

The Nazis did ban, uh, hordes of books,
of some of the earliest and most important

at the time books on trans healthcare and
research.

Specifically what this person is referencing,

is, uh, the burning of the library of
the Institute for Sexual Research.

So, just, a little bit of quick history:

There was this young doctor, young gay doctor,

in Germany, his name was
Magnus Hirschfeld,

in 1919, he opened the-
I'm gonna, I'm gonna do my best German voice-

the Institute for Sexualwissenschaft.

Which, translates roughly to
the Institute for Sexual Research.

It was the first sexology research center
in the world.

You know, Hirschfeld was gay,
he had grown up in a deeply homophobic

era of Germany, he was super
traumatized, not only by being gay

but witnessing homophobia against
other queer people.

He would later go on to talk about having
witnessed in medical school,

watching a fellow gay student who was
trotted out naked in front of a class

to be humiliated by the rest of the class
for being a quote-unquote degenerate.

So, at this Institute of Sexual Research,
which he opened,

he basically had all of these gay and
trans patients

who he would treat for various
needs.

There were anti-crossdressing laws
in Germany at the time, and he

would get his trans patients this, like,
special transgender ID card

that, like, by today's standards would be,
y'know, strange and demoralizing,

but at the time, it actually legally
protected them from being prosecuted

under these crossdressing laws.

If the cops came up to you, you were like,
"Here's my trans ID, see I'm a certified

transgender," and then they'd be like,
"Okay, you're-" y'know,

Magnus Hirschfeld was- this was, like,
gay-trans, like, cis gay to trans allyship.

Also in the Institute of Sexual Research,
there was among the first libraries

about sexuality and gender.

And this guy was collecting research
a hundred years ago on these topics

that would be considered progressive today.

Um, there was some of the earliest
literature on the various gender-affirming

surgeries, and by 1930,
the Institute was performing some of the

first, you know, what we think of today
as modern gender-affirming surgeries

in the world.

And who was one of his patients?

Lili Elbe.

Lili Elbe!

The Danish girl.

Was one of his patients!

You know, so, the Nazi party comes to rise,

and Hitler wanted to cleanse society of
you know, what he deemed lives

unworthy of living.

On May 6th, 1933, the Nazis raided
the Institute of Sexual Research,

and burned 20,000 of its books
in the street.

And, this was, like, very famously, like,
one of the first Nazi book burnings.

Like, there are photos of it, this isn't,
like, deep buried-

No, it's not obscure. It's not obscure stuff.

It's like one of the most famous photos
of Nazi book burning,

which I guarantee most people have seen.

And, so, this initial tweet that
JK Rowling called this person

basically insane for writing was

"The Nazis burnt books on trans healthcare
and research. Why are you so desperate

to uphold their ideology around gender?"

And so this is just factually true.

Right? Like, whatever you think of
JK Rowling, like, the Nazis did do that,

and she does share their view on trans
healthcare in gen-

like, that's just what's happening.

And so, people start to point out
that, like, babe, you know,

you're doing a little bit of Holocaust
denial by saying that this didn't happen.

Alejandra Caraballo, who is a notable
trans person on Twitter,

she responded, writing, "You're
engaging in Holocaust denial."

JK Rowling responds, "Neither of your
articles support the contention that trans

people were the first victims of the Nazis
or that all research on trans healthcare

was burned in 1930s Germany.
You are engaging in lying, Alejandra."

So, she responds by being, like,
pedantic.

I don't know, it's hard to take-
it's hard to respect this.

It's not engaging at all with, like,
the spirit of what anyone is saying.

I mean, so, first of all, like, we can get-
I mean, we can, and it is interesting,

like, to dive into the actual, like,
historical record of this,

and the way that some of the, you know,
first, like, Nazi book burnings were,

in fact, targeting an early library of
books about gay rights and about

transgender, you know, medicine.

But it also, you know, like,
even without talking about the factual

record, like, like, let's think
big picture here.

Do we really think that the National
Socialist Party was [stammers]

would have just been fine with transgender
people? Like, right?

Like, oh, no, they're against the gays,
and they're against the Jews,

and they're against the Romani, but
sure, that the- the transvestites,

yeah we love them!

Like, like, what?

I mean, and of course, we can verify
historically that, yes, trans people

were persecuted.

I- I've seen a lot of what I consider
extremely bad faith discourse about this

controversy with people saying, like,
"Well, the Nazis didn't have, like, the

category transgender, which is a more
recent invention,"

and yes, that's true, but, like,
okay the Nazis didn't officially persecute

lesbians, either, because I don't think
that- because, I mean, if you look

at the history of, like, lesbophobia,

often the form that lesbophobia takes
is that lesbians are just not seen as real,

right? It's just sort of not acknowledged,
even, as a valid phenomenon, where

male homosexuality is seen as degeneracy,
and then that's something to be persecuted.

Oftentimes, it's just kind of like flatly
denied that lesbians exist.

Now, does that just say that no lesbians
were persecuted in the Holocaust?

Almost certainly not.

I know that like the Nazis had these
categories of like asocial.

[Matt] Correct.

Like, this like, it's like a black triangle
that's like the badge-

[Matt] Yeah

-and I think that a lot of
queer women were sort of

killed on the, on the basis of
being asocial, quote unquote.

So, this kind of, pedantry of being
kind of, well, technically the Nazis

didn't use the wo- like, okay,
but they [stammers] they still killed

queer women, and they still
killed trans people.

So, like, why are you playing this
pedantic game to-

why- because [stammers] they're
engaging in denial of transphobia, right?

[Matt] Well, and it's so exhausting too
because she writes,

"The contention that trans people were the
first victims of the Nazis were that all

or that all research on trans healthcare
was burned in the 1930s."

And it's like she's arguing against the
point that nobody made.

[Natalie] Yeah, she didn't say that-
did Alejandra say that?

[Matt] No!

[Natalie] Did she say that every single
piece of research was destroyed?

[Matt] No! Alejandra didn't say that,
and the original tweet that JK Rowling

said was insane, once again, just said,
"The Nazis burned books on trans healthcare

and research."

That was the claim.

[Natalie] Yeah, so she's consistently,
like, arguing against positions that no one

has taken.

[Matt] Correct, and it's, like,
instead of ever admitting fault,

and, right, and- and she just
shifts the goalpost over and over.

And then that leads you-

Really, with transphobia or with anything
like if you refuse to admit fault in

anything that you say, you will keep
shifting the goalpost because

that will be the only way, that,
in your head, you can maintain

the upper hand in an argument.

This refusal to admit being wrong ever
leads you to some fucking whacky places.

It led her to Holocaust denialism, and it
led Ana Kasparian to saying that

the Civil Rights Movement was entirely
peaceful.

Which, she knows that that's not true!

[Natalie] Well, it's like, if you make-
if you can never admit that you're wrong

about anything, if you make one wrong
turn, you'll never get on the right path

again.

[Matt] Right.

[Natalie] Because if you don't admit that
you've made a wrong turn, then you

can't correct it.

So, I feel like that is part of the-
the fallacy that's going on here

where, like, okay, JK Rowling can't
admit that she was ever wrong about

anything, and so, she has no choice but
to double down and triple down and

quadruple down and just keep walking
in this terrible direction, basically, right?

To completely mix my metaphors.

That's why she has, and will continue to
say more absurd and dangerous things;

because that is the only option
that she has, if she can't admit

that she made a wrong turn somewhere.

[Matt] I want to talk a little bit
about this, like, transphobia to, like,

general right-wing madness pipeline
a little bit.

Media Matters conducted this study where
they made a TikTok account

and in that TikTok account, they only
liked exclusively anti-trans content

to see what the For You Page algorithm
would then feed the account.

Very quickly, the videos-
and they did an analysis of like four hundred

videos that TikTok then fed into their

For You Page-

did not just keep feeding them transphobic
videos, but racist videos, misogynistic

videos, anti-vax and kind of other
right-wing conspiracy theories,

a lot of antisemetic conspiracy theories,