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catherine-montvoisin · 4 years

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debunking contrapoints’ “gender critical” video

i wrote all this out for a friend, and i’m reposting here in case anyone finds it useful. i found his draggy persona really insufferable so i read a transcript rather than sit through the video.

okay so his first point, that he doesn't believe in gendered brains and doesn't think he's always been a woman... he believes he's a woman that used to be a man. like... how? based on what? he's literally saying anyone who identifies as a woman and lives as woman is a woman but... what are you identifying as?

"No trans woman thinks that femininity and womanhood are the same." lol sure jan

"my clothes, makeup, voice, none of this makes me a woman." correct, and okay, then what does? if it’s neither your special lady brain NOR your feminine style, what exactly makes you a woman?

"I’m desperately throwing glitter spaghetti at the wall in hopes the light catches some glimmer of womanhood." what is womanhood?

"Like you’re targeting the people who are the most vulnerable under the present system [of gender] and the leveraging that system against them under the pretense of abolishing it."

Men are not and will never be the most vulnerable people under the system of gender

Women, "TERFS", are NOT the ones weaponizing gender against anyone

“Denying trans people their gender identity because you want to abolish gender is kind of like denying citizenship to immigrants because you want to abolish borders.“

That might be a sensible analogy if not for the fact that the club of "womanhood" is not at all analogous to the club of "citizenship" since, as he doesn't seem to understand, women are the oppressed ones in this system. There are no material benefits to safety or livelihood or ability to have food and shelter by being recognized as a woman, unlike being a citizen. It's purely about you and your precious feelings being validated. How narcissistic do you have to be to compare being "excluded" by women from "sisterhood" to being a refugee denied the safety of a stable country? A far better analogy would be, "denying men access to womanhood because we want to abolish gender is like denying white supremacists access to refugee shelters, because we want to keep refugees protected and safe while we work on abolishing borders."

"You don’t see gender critical feminists in Kim Kardashian’s Instagram comments like, why are you wearing a dress, Kim. No, they don’t attack the gender expression of people with power and influence."

literally not true, radfems criticize libfem celebrities who shake their ass for the camera as "empowerment" literally all the time but anyway

"They're all on twitter, harassing some poor, newly out trans woman with 200 followers and calling her a creepy man"

ah yes, won't someone please think of the poor men for once? the men that can waltz into any women's bathroom for a quick jerk off session or into any women’s sport for a quick woman-beating sesh because they put on some mascara once. the men relentlessly tweeting about how they want to stab a terf up the pussy. those poor fragile souls..

"But I’ve had cis feminists of my race and class tell me that I have no idea what it’s like to be talked over and interrupted by men. Or to experience street harassment or to have to treat every first date like a potentially life-threatening situation and it’s just bizarre to me that they think that. Like, what do you think my experience in the world is?"

You walk around with an exaggerated, over-sexualized, hyper-feminine style and call male attention to yourself by your own choice. Women get this treatment no matter what we do or look like or wear, and you don't have the looming fear of a forced impregnation and being denied an abortion as the ultimate conclusion of any sexual harassment. Because. You're a man.

The idea that he doesn't benefit from male privilege because he thinks he passes is laughable. You can't identify into our out of a privileged experience. That's basic analysis. Did Rachel Dolezal stop being the beneficiary of white privilege because she passed as a transracial?

"What I am saying is that, when I hit my mid-20s and realized that I was inhabiting a gender, body, and sexual persona that were drastically wrong for me. And I tried every possible alternative to transitioning before realizing that I had an irrepressible need to become a woman."

wtf did i just read

inhabiting a gender. who says that, except for men? women don't INHABIT a gender we are boxed and forced into one, and yelled at and guilted and preached at when we try to reach for something above what's been handed to us. that's what none of these men get, gender is a system of oppression. it's not some ethereal, metaphorical "space" our souls exist in.

"Many trans women are feminine and queer before they transition, and have basically always experienced a kind of femmephobia that is rooted in misogyny."

femmephobia is such a ridiculous word. men aren't phobic of female people, they hate and oppress us. it IS misogyny. not "femmephobia rooted in misogyny." feminine and gay boys being treated like shit is due to homophobia and/or the intrinsic belief that anything feminine-related is lesser. aka plain old misogyny.

"Some trans women also identified as women years before transitioning and internalized society’s messaging about women more than society’s messaging about men."

ALL men internalize society’s messaging about women. that’s why they’re misogynists.

wow, so does that mean that transracial people are affected by racism before they come out?

"women bring up male socialization against transwomen because of this sense of injustice that people are claiming their identity without experiencing their oppression."

well yes, but not just our "identity." our rights, our safe spaces, our sports, our scholarships, our LANGUAGE to even talk about and name our oppression

"there is a sense that the essential thing that confirms your identity is pain"

omfg its not just about our precious 'identities' and its literally so male that thats all he thinks it comes down to. it's about our literal safety and our rights to live life on our own terms, not under the thumb of men. pain doesn’t confirm our womanhood, pain is the result of our womanhood. BECAUSE OF GENDER AND PATRIARCHY.

"You don’t know what it’s like to have a body so non-normative that you’re shut out of whole areas of society."

the women banished to menstrual huts and forbidden from even touching their family members while on their period would like a word with you

the women harassed and shamed for breastfeeding their babies would also like a word

the women who’s feet were so tightly bound they were crippled for life and restricted to their homes would like a word

the women who CANT SHOW THEIR HAIR IN PUBLIC BECAUSE ITS SHAMEFUL WOULD LIKE A WORD YOU PRIVILEGED LITTLE SHIT

omfg like is he really arguing that women don't know what it's like to be shunned from public life because of our physical bodies???????????????? dude

and again, unlike him, women didnt get to choose any of this

"not all women experience their womanhood as essentially oppressive or centered around the pains of reproductive capacity."

all women are oppressed on the basis of our ability, or assumed ability, to get pregnant and bear children. i cant believe i have to explain this. its like "first day of feminism class". its our reproductive capacity that has made us the property of men since time immemorial. it doesn’t matter how much or little a particular female feels connected to her reproductive capacity - its existence is enough to make her subordinate to men under patriarchy.

ok, re: his argument that saying woman doesn't matter and its fine to say pregnant people and menstruators etc:

so the big issue with trans ideology is that they are legally and socially dissolving the category of woman. the consequences of that are, among other things, kneecapping the ability of women to argue that we face a coherent and unique system of oppression on the basis of being female

because if anyone can have a vagina and get pregnant, and anyone can be a woman and rape someone with their penis, the entire system of analysis falls apart

there is no oppressor class and oppressed class, it's all random. people with certain parts randomly oppressing and violating people with other parts according to no apparent logic or pattern

so when that happens, how can women make any argument for our own progress as a group? if you take something like access to abortion, or prostitution, or sexual assault and completely divorce them from any larger systemized hierarchy of the sexes in society

they just seem like random acts of criminality or unfairness, not addressable through any systemic changes

so then whats the use of feminism?

somehow, despite having basically 35 minutes of uninterrupted performatively snarky ranting, he never once actually presented an argument in support of his claim to womanhood. he admitted he’s not a woman because of his ladybrain nor because of his glittery make up, but he never actually addressed what makes him a woman. it still seems to boil down to, “because i said so.” not good enough, natalie. not good enough.

#contrapoints #gender critical #the formatting looks weird in desktop on dashboard so if you want to rea #d #probably click through to my actual blog #op

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bi-dazai · 5 years

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a summary of the whole contrapoints thing from someone who has been spending most of her time on twitter and seen it first-hand throughout

(im using screenshots, some ive downloaded from trusted twitter mutuals and some ive made myself. since i have the shinigami eyes extension and many of my twitter mutuals dont, some scs will be inconsistent. i have checked each downloaded sced tweet to make sure theyre real.)

please dont try to start an argument on this post, im just summarising whats happened. ive already argued myself out over on my twitter and whatever point youre trying to make has literally already been said 20 times before.

Basically in late august/september natalie said some inflammatory shit about pronouns and nbs and “binary transes” which she’d said stuff along the lines of in the past. both nb and binary trans folks have criticised her lightly for this kind of attitude in the past as well. she has a pattern of behaviour (including being very...lenient towards terfs) but the stuff she was saying and the bad takes were tolerable, if incorrect and a little ignorant. what she said this time was basically “asking for pronouns in trans spaces is good i guess but it hurts passing/semi-passing transes like me” which is a take that makes no goddamn sense and is extremely ignorant towards both nb folks and trans folks who do not have the luxury of even trying to pass. she exaggerates the actual effect it has on her as well. basically the entire tweet reads really badly (the discussion was about asking for pronouns in trans spaces):

peter coffin made some batshit crazy takes (as usual) including inventing the term “enby cultural capital” which he refused to actually evaluate on past asking people to read a book (if you cant clarify your point on your own then you have an issue). he started tweeting like a madman and making it painfully clear how hard he will go to bats for natalie despite him being nb himself (many people joked/suspected that its because he wants to fuck her, same with philosophytube, and honestly looking at how they see her that isnt hard to believe).

natalie went off twitter for a while, eventually leaving an apology that was actually alright and made me and several others believe she would return a little more understanding of trans intra-community issues, especially in terms of class because she has always had an issue with ignorance from that angle. she said she had a friend called gwen taking over (nobody knows who this is nor had they ever heard of this friend, leaving some people suspicious that she may have made her up. im not going to confirm or deny this because i have no clue.)

idk what peter coffin was up to because at this point i and most ppl had officially stopped listening to him but i believe he was angrily tweeting about cancel culture. a lot of people were as well, even though the bulk of the criticisms of natalie had been written and expressed in a mature, appropriate way. some of my twitter mutuals who had been involved in discussing natalie’s past trends with these issues as well as her lack of class consciousness and (probably) accidental antisemitism began to get messages from what was very clearly alt-right trolls trying to doxx natalie. it was real information, which is extremely concerning, but no person published it and her criticisers that got those dms were vocal about not bullying or doxxing natalie. natalie wasn’t pushed away because of “cancel culture”, and “cancel culture” really isnt a real thing and many contra fans believed this too until she came under criticism, which highlights a pretty weird mentality but whatever.

anyway, she came back this week with a new video titled “opulence” which i dont care for watching so i just read about it from my twitter mutuals who did. since i didnt watch it ill only summarise its criticisms very basically.

to put it simply the main criticisms of the video were that she conflated trans aesthetic with literal opulence and class again, which people weren’t a fan of. she talked about her experience over the last few weeks, spinning it her way because how else would she spin it, thats to be expected. it was mostly just the usual contra, flawed takes and a bit of class ignorance...except for one blaring massive issue which is absolutely undeniable proof for where she’s heading with her politics and her content.

on that video, natalie invited infamous transmed, the guy who outed lana wachowski for money, buck angel, to collab with her. this guy is infamous in the trans community for being a cis bootlicking bigot. he makes kalvin garrah look like a lovely guy. he’s been around for a very long time and he’s very famous for being a massive asshole. heres just a taste of the kind of attitude he carries:

contra has previously spoken up about why you shouldn’t platform bigots. so her platforming a bigot has some very very obvious implications.

needless to say, people were and are pretty mad and very disappointed. a large majority of her fans have been against this.

when oliver (philosophytube) promoted the video on his twitter many replies to his quote tweet were his fans begging him to be even mildly critical of contra.

on contra’s subreddit (for clarification, natalie isnt a mod there and im not sure about how involved she is on the sub) there was even a thread created in which MANY of her fans on there expressed criticism of contra’s views. the mods then locked the post, deleted comments, and banned the use of the word “truscum” because it was offensive i guess? it was a move very close to “terf is a slur” territory

furthermore, some pretty infamous transphobes have been in support of her and buck angel in the past, including ian miles cheong which is...wow. some of these are scs from a twitter mutual, but the ones with red names are from me - i have the shinigami eyes extension, so basically any person with a red name is a known transphobe (im surprised buck isnt marked yet lol).

finally, ill put some threads here that give a pretty good analysis and view of the situation imo

#long post #contrapoints

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luaminesce · 4 years

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(TW: queerphobia)

So I usually don't discuss queer issues much on here, but after seeing this shit on Twitter, I have to at least say something about it because I'm pretty fucking fuming about it. Some of you may or may not be aware of the certain tweet(s) I'm talking about (if you're active on LGBTQIA+ Twitter, or like me, you don't use Twitter but you hear things from time-to-time), but to enlighten you, for those who don't know what I'm talking about; there has been a certain tweet circulating around queer Twitter on labels in the community, which is, as you may guess from my "fuming" comment, exclusionary and invalidating of basically any label that doesn't fit under the "main queer umbrella". Basically, it mocks and belittles certain nondescript labels/identities that don't spefically fit neatly into any "letter" of the alphabet soup (microlabels? I think that's the term), such as pansexual, agender, genderfluid, and, you guessed it, demi, aro and asexuality. And of course, as you can expect, the repiles to that tweet are filled with... exclusionist rethoric and general queerphobia; and how Tumblr ruined the queer community "by allowing kids to run rampant with far too many labels" (because inclusivity, rather than exclusionism, really ruined queer Tumblr (/s)); and belitted the spilt attraction model as "bullshit". Yeah, I'm angry. And upset. As soon as I read the first few words of the tweet I was like: "yep, this is exclusionist bullshit" (and then made the mistake of reading the repiles in the silm hope someone, anyone was calling out OP's bullshit), and it just reminded me of how much ace/queer exclusionism/TERFism (because all queer exclusionism can be traced back to TERF circles) has premated the online queer community, esapially when it comes to idenities beyound the gay/straight and gender binary. Okay, yes, the abandance of labels beyond the "main" queer labels may be "overwhemling" to those who are out of the loop on the subject, but it doesn't make them any less valid. Just because someone may not fully understand labels doesn't make them any less valid; if it's the right label for you, then it's valid (and labels can change over time! just remember that!). So to any of my queer peeps out there, no matter who you identify, ace, demi, NB, fluid, or otherwise queer; y'all valid; don't let anyone else try to define who you are (and yes, I am aware this is going into sentalmentalism, but I don't care); y'all awesome people! (And to the exclsionists out there; fuck right off. Signed, one angry queer.)

#some of this may be misspelt but eh I'm too tired to proofread #TW: aphobia #TW: ace exclusionism #TW: queerphobia #TW: queer exclusionism

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jeannesutton · 7 years

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Good Friday

So, I was in the audience at an event today about Irish feminism, and let’s just say some comments elicited a few ‘oh, oh this is happening’ faces. Here is a piece I wrote for Sarah Waldron’s The Coven in July 2015. Skimmed it v briefly there as I copied and pasted from an archive site.

The piece was was entitled:

That Madeleine Albright Quote

A few months ago I went to an International Women’s Day party hosted by a literary press. There was red and white wine. I think some prosciutto dotted plates. Hummus was probably on the menu too. As regards olives, I do not recall.

The event was packed and well-meaning people were turned away at the door, where ticket prices were donated to a very worthy women’s charity. Floor-to-ceiling book shelves propped up humans who couldn’t source seats. The atmosphere was sweltering, and most of the women present were in knitwear – which, while fitting with the vibe, didn’t help.

Adding to this claustrophobic feeling was a couple caressing each other in plain sight, standing in front of me and my friend. Very close. They were doing that early-days-of-the-relationship lean back into each other. The curve of her arse pressing up against his supportive – she performed a reading later – groin. I love seeing couples thinking they’re getting away with foreplay in public. All that smug love with heavy eyelids is the nicest thing to be a part of when you’ve just fallen in.

The readings were good. Throughout a series of confessional excerpts and poems two big dogs lumbered through the crowd, moving too awkwardly to be petted. They were not in the mood, and one dog went outside briefly to shit and came back in, trailing a stench, which we all said nothing about. That would have been rude, especially while someone was busy pouring their soul out in a self-aware mid-Atlantic tone.

After the interval we managed to find seats. But they weren’t ours for long, because we had to leave soon after.

Earlier I had spotted one of Ireland’s leading 1970s feminists in the crowd. Her writing was something I had sought out in charity book shops as a teenager, getting shouted at in religion class for being pro-choice. (I had a habit of staying in the grey when it came to condemning the hypothetical women detailed on printed pages from our ‘morality’ workbooks.)

This capital letter Feminist was the type of woman who did the Irish state some service, even if the official state hated her at the time. I didn’t approach her; I thought about telling her that her various books were excellent but decided to hold back. Turns out my reluctance to gush was a good decision.

The Famous Feminist asked for the floor, and she was granted it with a cheer. The day that was in it and all.

Young men and women behind me were manning the bar and poured her wine, for she had asked for some. They passed it along frantically like a swishing parcel, desperate that she be holding a glass. That was the first weird thing. Then she began speaking.

She spoke about a news story of inter-familial surrogacy, an irrelevant issue that she somehow thought we should all consider before voting on the then-upcoming gay marriage referendum. What she was trying to say wasn’t subtle. Later, those who wanted to transition gender were treated to an insulting throwaway line about ‘trends’.

People were laughing along. Faces you recognise from bylines. Was I missing out on the joke? It’s not everyday I attend a literary salon with a feminist bent, but I was pretty sure this sort of talk is the type you keep off the playlist.

My friend and I stood up and left. We were both visibly upset. An intern stopped us at the backdoor and asked us why we were leaving. In my incensed confusion I rambled about being a journalist.I said I should have recorded what was happening. (Side note: I have never made a Freedom of Information request so let that settle that label.) Then we stormed out and called the woman, whose books on injustice have brought me to tears, every name under the moon.

They say never meet your heroines. They’re all complicated now anyway.

—

When I was studying law in Canada, I took a class with a now deceased lecturer who wrote a book called How America Gets Away With Murder. He was such a brilliant and kind man. On St. Patricks Day he laughed and sang ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ to me and the other girl from Trinity. I could barely keep up and he was nice enough to let me barely pass. As part of his classes on International Criminal Law we looked at the Bosnian conflict in dizzying detail. It was all new to me. When I was younger that war was Euronews at breakfast before school.

During this spate of lectures, Madeleine Albright’s name kept popping up. You know, the celebrated female diplomat who once made a guest appearance on The Gilmore Girls? The woman who said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Blame that gal for a few hundred op-eds that have made the same point.

Anyway, I was a bit flustered as one of our classes progressed to discover that this Goodreads Quote of the Day stalwart was actually considered by some parties to be a warmonger who, as US Secretary of State at the time, made an already fractious war even more violent. ‘Madeleine’s War‘ was what some called it.

Before, her famous sentence about women supporting each other was all I needed to think she was great. Unquestionably fabulous. A reserve line for impassioned conversations with women about other women. Now Madeline’s words make me feel uneasy. What happens when your support comes with certain terms and conditions?

The concept Internet Feminism reads as dismissive, but when it comes to disappointment in Great Women it’s the first thing that rises to my mind. Words like TERF tell you all you need to know when it couples a big name in your feed. Tweet something nice about Lena Dunham and there’s always an incoming mention telling you how you’re wrong. Illumination is good, but the HD camera focus on examining every aspect of a woman who embraces the term ‘feminist’ makes me jittery. One friend was taken to task recently, in real life, by a guy for not using her internet influence to talk more about abortion.

But then the woman at the party needed an IRL calling out. And more of an internet one. (My tweets led nowhere really, and only resulted in another established feminist calling me ‘silly’.) Looking back, I know there were reasons for people to keep calm and say nothing.

Yet I still expected more. I wanted a rousing speech about the right things. And when that didn’t work out, I wanted an angry audience.

I don’t know if it is possible to have heroines anymore. You can’t put your faith in anyone entirely, because gravity. That woman you think is ace? She probably once tweeted something silly, speedy words that a mob will eventually twist into an unforgivable manifesto. Thank you, search function. Maybe when you introduce yourself at an event she might act distracted and look over your shoulder for the duration of the exchange. Or she could be just human and owe you nothing, having no expectation of your Madeleine Albright prescribed ‘help’.

Jeanne Sutton is a writer based in Dublin. She is a senior editor at Image Daily and a founder of the Women’s Museum of Ireland. She has a Tumblr and tweets at @jeannedesutun.

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