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jk-scrolling · 9 months

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Is This the Weirdest Transphobic Lie Ever? viewer transcript

This one was already essentially done. What I did was attributions and coloring. Also some description of tones and actions, adjusted some wording I heard differently. Hope it adds instead of detracts.

Original video: https://youtu.be/EfzUtEcGluA (Thought Slime)

Sophie from Mars: https://www.youtube.com/@SophiefromMars

Abigail Thorn/Philosophy Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhilosophyTube

Sophie: Mildred.

Mildred: Sophie.

Sophie: Abby.

Abby: Sophie.

(Mildred cutting in)

Mildred: Future editing Mildred here, Abby’s video quality is going to be, let's say, subpar because the internet at her CIA safe house was spotty. Also, the lip synching…You know what? It's not going to be ideal all of the time. We can't always get what we want in this world.

Mildred: Hey, while I got you here, now might be a good time to mention: Content warning for some very pretty severe transmisogyny in this one. (note: the title card reads "Trans mascs gonna catch some strays too.") It’s some of the worst that I think there's been in a Cringe Corner thus far, and if you've been watching this series, you know that is no small bar to clear. Enjoy!

(Back to the show)

Sophie: Have you heard of The Daily Mail?

Abby: No. Never.

Sophie: No, never. Okay. Well, the Daily Mail is-

Mildred: Hold on! As the only person here who is not disgustingly English, my understanding is that it's a very bad right wing newspaper. Is this correct?

Sophie: Yeah. You're pretty much getting it. Would you be surprised to learn that people sometimes go in the Daily Mail and tell lies?

Mildred: No.

Abby: No!

Sophie: Would you be surprised-disappointed to learn that people go in the Daily Mail and tell lies about transgender people?

Abby: The British press telling lies about trans people? Surely not.

Mildred: Doesn't sound right. I'll take your word for it.

Sophie: Titles in the Daily Mail are never just like, really short and snappy. I think the only short and snappy title they’ve ever given was when they were just like “Hitler's Great!”

(note: Yep.

)

Abby: Well, Mr. Beast has really changed the title game when it comes to Daily Mail articles, like it's all about narrative in title now.

Sophie: They should have-they should have added "at 3 a.m." "Challenge." "Surprise."

Mildred: "Gone wrong."

Sophie: "Gone wrong, gone sexual."

Abby: "Uber driver sucked me off." Yeah.

Sophie: (reading Mail headline) “'I was frozen to the spot in shock. It was said to intimidate.' How a friendly chat in the ladies of a London pub turned menacing and plunged a Tory councillor, 22, into the clash between trans rights and women's safety.”

Mildred: Hold up, hold up. There's just so much information that I just got blasted with.

Sophie: I know, the titles are awful.

Mildred: Firstly, what do they mean? What is…22 surely does not refer to age.

Sophie: Oh yes. This is a entirely normal brained 22 year old Tory councillor.

Mildred: Okay, so maybe the Tories across the pond are a little bit different than the ones we have here in Canada. They're all like old white guys here. Why would a 22 year old be a Tory? Doesn't make any sense. Is her name Tory? Is that it?

Sophie: You know how in Game of Thrones where, like, the White Walkers get the baby, and then they like they touch its heart, and its heart turns to ice, and then it turns all pale and white? That's why people are Tories here. At a very young age, they were taken to a Tory headquarters and they were just turned into an anti-person.

Abby: I mean, I guess like the real answer is that some people do just grow up like very, very privileged, and like a lot of people have like wrong political opinions when they're younger-

Mildred: Abby, you're new here, but we don't like to approach these things with that level of good faith.

Abby: Sorry, that's kind of my thing.

(Sophie busting up laughing in the background)

Abby: Yeah, it's like trying to see both sides, like trying to be compassionate, trying to be fair.

Mildred: No, around here we point and laugh, and go hee hee ha ha.

Abby: Should there be an apostrophe there? Should there be an apostrophe? “Ladies.” Doesn't this imply that the conversation was happening inside the ladies themselves?

Mildred: It's a conversation between two wolves inside a lady.

Sophie: So this is Ruby Samson, who has written the article about her experience in the ladies' of a London pub.

Abby: Oh, it's autobiographical?

Sophie: Yes, She wrote it herself. “These days, I don't feel safe going to the ladies' loo alone-…” Oh, well she got the apostrophe there.

Abby: Ladies' there has an apostrophe!

Sophie: Yeah. Yeah. You know what? It's just sloppy, actually. "That's a statement I never thought I'd make. It sounds crazy, doesn't it?”

Mildred: Yeah. Yeah.

Sophie: “I’m neither shy nor fearful, but after my experience at a Westminster pub earlier this month, that's how I feel. Frequented predominantly by civil servants, The Marquis of Granby is near where I work, but it could have just as easily been any pub in the country.”

Mildred: She's making it sound like a Dracula attacked! I'm going to make an assumption here, on context clues, that why she is scared is because she saw a trans woman - who may or may not be you.

Sophie: Well let’s get there!

Abby: You've got a choice of two, Mildred. Common narrative structure suggests it's one of us.

Sophie: Chekhov's [bleeped].

Abby: (snapping fingers) If you put a queen on the shelf, she must go off!

Sophie: “It was a Wednesday night, and I was attending an event upstairs before heading home after a pleasant evening. I went to the ladies' loo, which has two cubicles. I emerged from mine at the same time as the woman next door who, at about six feet tall, towered over me. She wore a skimpy top, which made her shoulders seem bigger, and she spoke with a strikingly deep voice…a trans woman!”

Abby: As if we're supposed to go dun, dun, dun!

Sophie: “The lavatory was cramped and I had to stand directly behind her while waiting to use the wash basin.” Which, you know, that doesn't happen when real women are in the in the bathroom with you. You never have to to wait to use the only sink there.

Mildred: Cis women don't wash their hands, is the thing. It's a male affectation.

Abby: Nor are they ever six feet tall. Nor do they ever have deep voices. No.

Sophie: Then they just included a full-full body length picture of Ruby for some reason.

Abby: Sick coat though, to be fair. It's a nice coat.

Sophie: Yeah. “I can't deny I was a bit shocked, yet there was a sense of novelty.” So yes, you’ve never met a trans woman before.

Abby: Ewww…That's such a…like, a “perhaps this person will amuse me whilst I'm taking a piss." Like ewww.

Sophie: Oh, a minority in the bathroom. How novel. Ooh! “I thought 'this is going well. I am handling the situation fine.'”

Mildred: (overlapping) Very normal-

Abby: (overlapping) What situation?!

Sophie: “It was as she moved towards the door to leave that it happened. I remarked that we had no choice but to awkwardly shake our hands dry, and she turned to me and replied, ‘I'm going to wipe my hands on my penis.’ With that, she disappeared.”

Mildred: (hand acting) In a puff of smoke.

(All laughing)

Abby: As though she was never there at all! Purely a figment of my imagination!

Mildred: With that, she absconded with all of my jewels.

Abby: It would have been extremely funny had the trans woman in question actually said this. It would have been very funny and, like, a very funny trans joke. And also I can imagine that being said as a way of, like, trying to put a cis person who's obviously, like, nervous about being around a trans person - becausethey’retransphobic - at ease.

Abby: Like, that's quite a funny icebreaker, actually!

Sophie: “Until this, our conversation had been quite positive and pleasant. Now I was frozen to the spot in shock. There's no doubt in my mind this was a threat of sorts. Why would you assert that you had a penis in a female single sex space? I felt like I'd been flashed as the penis image was put in my mind by her announcement. It was said to intimidate.”

Abby: Haven’t you done that to the reader, then?

Sophie: The penis image is in my mind now. Thanks Ruby, for flashing us all with this! “The close proximity made it much scarier still. What if she turned violent?”

Abby: What if she had a gun? Well, she didn't, I hasten to add. But what if she did?

Sophie: What if she read me a mean tweet? “It would be 10 minutes before my friends realized I was missing.” I don't know if that's meant to mean that she did actually stay in the bathroom for ten more minutes in shock…

Mildred: It sounds like she's saying, “what if I was assaulted or killed? No one would come looking for me!” I imagine this trans woman coming out of the ladies' loo with her hands covered in blood and then wiping the blood on her penis.

Sophie: “This brief but deeply troubling episode played on my mind for the rest of the week, and I found myself examining all sides of the debate over whether men who self-identify as women - ” Wow. Where did that mask go? Ruby, I liked your mask so much.

Abby: Yeah, see, now we fucking…We've done a fucking bit of…. Little bit of a switcheroo here to make a magic switcheroo, because instead of going from a trans woman, you go on to “it's a man who's pretending."

Sophie: “Who, I reflected, would want to hear about this and who would care?”

Abby: End the article there. End it right right there. Right after that sentence.

Sophie: “Cabinet Minister Kemi Badenoch -” If people are unfamiliar, probably the highest ranking government TERF we have right now, “ - has been vocal on this issue, and I wrote to her about what happened. Doing so made me feel a bit better. I also wrote to the pub.”

Abby: (laughing, aghast) You wrote to the pub?!

Sophie: “One thing I didn't do, however, was tell the police. I didn't want to be accused of transphobia for saying this person was in the wrong bathroom.”

Abby: Well, wha-why would you have to?! What crime has been committed here?

Mildred: She was made to think of a penis. That's essentially like being flashed.

Abby: Even if this had taken place, it's not a crime!

Mildred: How can anyone have this few problems?

(Sophie laughing wildly)

Abby: I mean…she is a Tory councillor.

Mildred: Touché, touché.

Sophie: “I feel it important to state that I support trans people's right to live an authentic lifestyle, and agree that people with gender dysphoria should be able to change their gender after 18.”

Abby: So much to fucking unpack here. First of all, she says she "feels it's important to say that I support trans people's rights to live an authentic lifestyle." As we will see, that does not include accessing the correct spaces, so immediately, like, wrong, and I haven't even finished the sentence. Change gender after 18. This is a fucking big bugbear of mine. And like, I have absolutely zero fucking tolerance for this kind of fucking bullshit, right? Because it's everywhere in the US and I'm fucking going off.

[Flashback clip to earlier in convo] Abby: If you put a queen on the shelf, she must go off.

Abby: It's everywhere in the US and the UK! People are like “Oh, children shouldn't be able to change gender until 18.” In the UK, children are allowed to get abortions without the parents' consent. The reason for that is the law acknowledges the sad possibility that sometimes some parents don't love their children. I mean, if a kid under the age of 18, goes into a doctor's office and says "I need an abortion because my daddy made me pregnant," and the doctor says "I have to tell your daddy about this," there's a non-zero chance that child ends up dead.

Abby: The same is also true with blood transfusions. If a child wants a blood transfusion to survive and the parents have a religious objection, the child has a right to consent to that medical procedure without the parents say so because the law respects children's right to decide what happens to their own bodies in a medical setting.

Abby: And if you agree that children who are cis should be allowed to consent to abortions and blood transfusions without the need for parental approval, and under the age of 18, and you don't think that the trans children should be allowed to do the same thing with regards to medical transition? Then you are fucking definitionally transphobic. Fffuck you!

Mildred: That is a great example of the type of thing that is a real problem. And hearing those things contrasted with what this woman is complaining about (Sophie laughing) is just -

Abby: True.

Mildred: - the full gamut of the human experience right there.

Sophie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we've - we've whiplashed from like very, very, very fake problems, in that it didn't happen, wouldn't be a problem if it did, and was entirely constructed to like…right.

Sophie: “But single sex spaces are paramount to women's safety, sex and gender are different -”

Abby: Ok, I’m fucking stopping again, right?! Again. I'm fucking furious that we've given them any fucking ground on this issue, right? Trans people - not all of us, some trans people - I would include myself in this and Sophie, I think you do, too - some of us do, in fact, change sex, right? Clue is in the fucking word, okay? I am, in fact, female. I had to go through a lot of fucking bullshit to get here. I wasn't always, I'll grant you that! I wasn't born that way. But I am, in fact, female now. Believe me, motherfuckers.

Sophie: Cis women self-identify to go to the women's bathroom. No one checks their fucking [bleeped] license at the door. Like it's not a thing. No one checks any paperwork. It's all self-identification.

Abby: If there is a magic fucking door frame that only allows people of the female sex through, I'm fucking walking straight through that motherfucker. I'm walking straight through it. It's not going to ding because I am, in fact, of the female sex. Get over it.

Sophie: “If someone wants to use a different set of pronouns, I'm completely accepting of that and always try to accommodate them.”

Mildred: No, you're not. (silly) No you isn’t.

Sophie: We’ll check in on that one in a second. Because in this article - in this article - the anonymous transgender is “she” and is “her”, etc…but we will get to a second document in a minute.

Mildred: I just find it very difficult to believe that someone would respect a trans person's pronouns if you also refer to a trans woman as “a man who identifies as a woman.”

Sophie: Mmmhmm. Yep. Yep.

Mildred: I just don't believe that.

Abby: A lot of people think that our problems begin and end with people using the correct language. And I think that belies cis people's fear of saying the wrong thing. And it's like, to be perfectly honest, I don't care if I leave my doctor's office and he says to the nurse “that bloke is off his fucking rocker, right?” I care that he gives me my goddamn medicine. I care about like actual shit. Like, yes, somebody misgenders me and uses the wrong pronouns, and it's going to upset me mildly. Probably, I'm just going to be like, "You're an idiot." Like, look at me. But like (completely fed up noise)

Sophie: When I was in Armenia to get FFS (note: facial feminization surgery) - because the NHS doesn't offer FFS, right - so already I'm halfway around the world to get a surgery I need - I had serious trouble, like, getting around town in Yerevan because so many taxi drivers, they wouldn't even bother. They would go like “Eh” and like, pull away. Just like, drive away immediately. This is the shit that I care about. The shit that actually like impacts my life. I couldn't get around town a lot of the time. I had to do so a lot slower because it involves, like, waiting for the sixth taxi to pull up, and a guy who's like more desperate for a small fee than he was transphobic would accept my- accept my fare.

Mildred: Well, I think rhetorically, the reason that they focus so much on language instead of shit like that is: Number one, they don't want their audience to know that trans people are experiencing those kinds of problems, because it's inherently sympathetic. And number two, like, having to use language to treat a person with respect is literally the only way that it could possibly affect them.

Sophie: It's George Orwin, it's 1967, it's Animal Crossing, iPhone, vuvuzela, etc.

Sophie: “Women are in danger -”

Abby: Yes we are.

Sophie: Yes, of hearing it said “I will wipe my hands on my penis” in the bathroom. “- because there isn't an open dialog about the erosion of women's spaces. People are too afraid to speak out for fear of being CANCELED.”

Abby: There is a dialog, but the dialog is just cis people lying to each other. It's like, totally fucking disconnected from reality. It's like so much of what is called the "trans debate" is just cis people holding a torch under their chin and going OooOOOooooh.

Mildred: But it's also like…you're having- you're doing it right now. You're…you're quite literally talking about it right now, Ruby. What do you mean no one's having the dialog?

Sophie: “People are too afraid to speak out for fear of being canceled. Men’s spaces remain single sex while the alternative is mixed gender.”

Mildred: What?

Sophie: What are you talking about? (laughing)

Abby: You, yourself - hang on a minute - you yourself said two paragraphs ago that sex and gender are different. So not to be like a by-your-own-logic bitch, but…by her own logic. Fucking proofread your article!

Sophie: I guess she just believes that like…like fucking jacked trans dudes with beards are like are all using the women's bathrooms.

Mildred: How would you know? If they're indeed single sex spaces, that would preclude Ruby from going into one.

Sophie: We're just gonna have to wait for like, Ron Sampson to write an article in the Telegraph about how some terrifying man told him “I'll…I'll queef my hands dry.”

(Laughter)

Abby: (daintily) Gross.

Sophie: (laughs) Anyway, "politicians need to note the multitude of examples such as mine and much worse, and take action. That's the thing about my experience. It could easily become the norm. An everyday occurrence.” (dissolves into laughter again

Mildred: What could?

Abby: Your experience of…of…of…of what?!

Sophie: It could easily become the norm! That trans women are going into all the women's bathrooms and saying, “I'll wipe my hands on my penis!"

Abby: I mean, it will NOW.

Sophie: Now maybe this is for emphasis, but I don't know why "are” is in caps here. Anyway, “ARE we to live in fear with-live with the fear that every time we use a public toilet we might encounter a threatening trans woman with a penis?”

Abby: Am I - am I to live with the fear that every time I use a public toilet I might encounter a threatening cis woman with a Daily Mail article?

Mildred: Well actually, yes, that's a reasonable concern, I think, at this point.

Sophie: Yep. Yep.

Abby: Or indeed, if this woman gets her way, am I to live with the fear that every time I use a public toilet I might encounter a threatening man?

Sophie: She has a couple of other examples that are fantastic. So, “In Primark recently, I had my first experience using gender neutral changing rooms. They have a little curtain, but no locking door. I was trying on [pause, slight reverb, inset for future significance] JEANS and felt quite vulnerable and at risk. This blurring of the sexes is now everywhere. I went to Boots Opticians and by accident-”

Abby: Wait. Hang on a minute, hang on a minute, hang on a minute. In Primark, did anything happen?

Sophie: No, she just felt (shrugs) felt like it might.

Mildred: Sorry, I spaced out for a second. Why is she trying on penises at Primark?

(laughter)

Sophie: No, she was trying on jeans! I tried to enunciate very clearly.

Mildred: Jeans, oh. The way that you said that was…I don't know, it sounded like penis to me, but okay.

Sophie: Maybe it was my internet connection, I dunno.

Mildred: Maybe.

Sophie: “I mean, this blurring of the sexes is now everywhere. I went to Boots Opticians and by accident tried on a pair of men's glasses that were too big for my face because men have…”

Sophie: (voice rises like two octaves trying to suppress laughter) “BIOLOGICALLY BIGGER FACES.”

Abby: (squeaky) wHat the fUck?!!

Sophie: As we all know, men contain the Roberts Z’dar gene that makes your face ten miles wide.

Abby: She does wear glasses…Interesting. Scroll up. I remember them. I mean, yeah, that's pretty…I mean, they're pretty big.

Mildred: Men's glasses would just be out to here on her, I guess.

Abby: Big comedy novelty glasses, like with the shape of the new year written in them.

Sophie: I accidentally tried on a pair of glasses that didn't have any lenses and they were just slits.

Mildred: And the eyes were on springs that fell forward. (wobbling motion)

Sophie: I accidentally tried on some glasses that had one blue lens and one red lens.

Abby: How can you type the phrase “biologically bigger faces” and still take yourself seriously? Like, what?

Sophie: “I detailed my experience on Twitter. I was amazed at the responses from women sharing stories about changing rooms and toilets. Of course, the person who intimidated me was not representative of the trans community.” No, she doesn't speak for the trans community. She is-she is no kind of figurehead. We all denounce her.

Sophie: “But my experience highlights the high risk of self ID to women's safety. There needs to be greater protection of women's spaces. Ideally, there should be men's spaces, women's spaces and a gender neutral space.” I guess just one?

Abby: Separate but equal, if you will.

Sophie: Just one gender neutral space is all she wants.

Mildred: For all the gender neutrals out there.

Abby: If you did that, if you actually managed to construct them across the nation in every place where there are toilets, if you built a third one, I would still use the ladies. Because I am, in fact, a woman. So get rekt.

Sophie: “If not, then what happened to me -” which is nothing “- and worse -” anything times zero is zero “- will happen to others. I want everyone to have equal rights, but I'm worried how a few people will ruin those…”

Abby: But! "I want everyone to have equal rights…BUT!"

Sophie: “But as for the Marquis of Granby, I would find it very hard to go back there and use the toilets unless I was with a friend.” Good, Ruby. Fuck off. Don't go there again. “I would be anxious about it. And that's really rather tragic.”

Mildred: My heart breaks.

Abby: It is tragic, Ruby. It's completely tragic.

Sophie: So Ruby didn't actually only write this Daily Mail article. Before she wrote the Daily Mail article, she also wrote a letter to Kemi Badenoch. Kemi Badenoch is the highest ranking government TERF. She's the Minister for Women and Equalities I think?

Abby: Just as important context, I think it was a few months ago, Kemi Badenoch was caught - this is facts, this is factual - Kemi Badenoch was caught writing a secret letter to the Financial Conduct Authority, who was supposed to be independent from the government, encouraging them not to adopt new trans friendly workplace guidelines, so…

Sophie: Extremely cool.

Sophie: This letter, which is, I mean, it's not like it's on official letterhead or whatever, but it is in her role as Tory councillor writing to a government minister.

Abby: Sorry, to be fair, it does actually say in the first sentence she's writing it in a personal capacity, being fair and balanced.

Mildred: And also to be fair and balanced, it does look like she typed it up on her computer, printed it off, and then took a picture of it, so…

Sophie: “Dear Ms. Badenoch” Or Miss Badenoch, I don’t know. I don't know what fancy titles these people are expecting to identify with. “I'm writing this letter in a personal capacity. I'm writing to you in your capacity as Minister for Women and Equalities. I want to tell you about an incident that happened to me on Wednesday, 15th of February at the Marquis of Granby Pub at 41 Ramsay Street, London. I used the upstairs ladies toilet, which has two cubicles.”

Mildred: Why does she keep specifying the amount of cubicles? This is not necessary information.

Sophie: “I came out of a cubicle at the same time as someone else. I waited while (heavy emphasis) they used the basin and they started to make small talk with me about the hand drying not working. I noticed that their voice was very deep and they had a much bigger physique. I mentioned we'd awkwardly have to shake our hands dry, and then they turned to me as they were about to leave and said, ‘I'm going to wipe my hands on my penis.’ I was completely shocked at this comment."

Sophie: "I was aware that this person was a trans woman -” Sorry, I'm very sorry. I'm very, very sorry. She was actually aware that this person was a trans women. "- who wouldn't have female anatomy.”

Abby: Yes she would.

Sophie: She would. Yes, but yes. Yes, we do actually. Get rekt.

Sophie: “But prior to the statement, we were making pleasant small talk. There was no need for the statement. It was said as a threat, and to assert the fact that they had a penis but were in a single sex - a female single sex space. I left the incident knowing that I couldn't report the problem without being accused of transphobia for saying someone was in the wrong bathroom.” It's really interesting how she couldn't report it, but she could write it in the national press and write a letter to Kemi Badenoch about it.

Abby: In fairness, she has reported it and she has been accused of transphobia.

Sophie: "In some ways I was lucky. They made this intimidating comment and then left."

Mildred: (overlapping) "I barely survived!"

Sophie: "If this had gotten physically violent, it could have been at least twenty minutes before someone realized I was off missing.”

Mildred: It was ten in the article! Why is it twenty now?!

Sophie: “Without any chance of anyone hearing me call for help!”

Mildred: HWHAAAT?

Sophie: “How society is progressing I don't feel safe going to a female bathroom alone.”

Abby: Neither do I.

Sophie: Yeah. Yeah, right? “I fear that these incidents will become more and more frequent with no way of having any consequences for the improper use of single sex spaces. With ongoing debates around self ID, I feel many feel they cannot say that someone is in the wrong bathroom even if they're displaying threatening and predatory behavior. I felt like I had been flashed as the image of that penis was put in my mind by its announcement.”

Abby: You felt like you had been, but crucially, you had not. Crucially, it did not actually happen.

Sophie: “I hope you're going to show me about what is being done to ensure single sex spaces do not continue to be eroded as the effect is already being felt by young women. Yours sincerely, Councillor Ruby Samson.” So that's all a really terrifying experience we've heard about.

Abby: Now's a good time to talk about “them/them” and trans women because a lot of cis people, I think, don't quite get this. Some people think, and I think that they mean well, that if you just use they/them to refer to every trans person, that is "not as bad as misgendering" or that's, like, neutral. And I hope if any of those people are watching, that this letter shows you why that is not always the case. I admit that it can be difficult, especially if you don't know somebody's pronouns. I myself will sometimes use "The Coward's They." I'll be like "I don't know this person's pronouns, so I'm going to go for they/them and I'm happy to be corrected." Right? And I will also admit that it can be confusing because some trans women, who call themselves trans women, do also use she/they.

Abby: However, I hope you can see from this particular letter that sometimes, especially in Britain, "they" is the fucking silencer on the gun that is actually he/him, okay? What this person wants to say is quite clearly “he,” because she's arguing that this mystery trans person - who we still don't know the identity of - should not, in fact, be allowed to use women's spaces, but should be sent off to be with men, right?

Abby: So I hope you can recognize now why when you call me "they" on Twitter, I block you.

Sophie: It's uh…it is, uh…a harrowing incident, what's happened to Ruby, here. But many people have been calling it into question.

Mildred: I mean, come on! If she's lying, it would be a pretty embarrassing lie, wouldn’t it?

Sophie: She locked the replies after some people started immediately saying "No, that didn't happen." Here's Katy Montgomerie saying “You unambiguously made up that story wholesale. It's not even slightly believable.” And I replied to this when I first saw the story doing the rounds, and I said, “I don't know what kind of gigachad this hypothetical trans girl is, but I keep trying to imagine a penis that would be in any way appropriate to try to dry your hands on, and I have to conclude it's just massive…"

Sophie: Funny! So funny story. On the 15th of February, there was a vigil for murdered child Brianna Ghey, who was trans, who was quite severely bullied for being trans, and then was found dead in Culcheth having been stabbed. And I, and a lot of other people in the trans London community, attended the vigil. And then, fearing the possibility that we could get, you know, attacked by Far-Right bigots in the area - it has happened to people I know - we decided to hang out at the pub as a group to just like let things cool off before we headed home.

Mildred: This is this is an odd digression. I don't know where you're going with this, but I'll allow it.

Sophie: I just think this is a story you'll find amusing, that's all. So I didn't really take note of what the pub was, but it later turned out…that it was the Marquis of Granby. (music sting: dun dun DUN!) At the time, it was just a weird pub in the Westminster area, that, being in the Westminster area, was obviously full of weird Tories.

Sophie: And yeah, I went to the bathroom, and when I'd done my business and came out of the cubicle, there was a cis woman there. So obviously I was thinking, "How can I handle this situation well? I don't want to treat this person any differently."

(Others laugh)

Sophie: We made some very brief small talk because the bathroom was utter dog shit, and there'd been no toilet roll in my cubicle. So, like, I brought that up. Tried to use the hand dryer, it was terrible, it wasn't doing anything. She said, “We'll have to shake,” and it crossed my mind like, did she mean we were going to shake hands? Obviously that's a ridiculous thing to say, it just crossed my mind. I took a second, and then I thought, "Oh, right. Like shake her hands dry." And then I said, “No, it's cool. I'll just wipe my hands on my jeans.” And then I left.

Sophie: Um. Yeah. So Ruby has not posted anything on Twitter in a little while. She has-she has kept noticeably silent. She's liked a few things.

Mildred: Well, you know, it's not safe these days to be on Twitter.

Sophie: It's not safe, is it? Yeah. She could be called a transphobe.

Mildred: Until they have a single sex social media platform, it's not safe to post.

Sophie: But I did post about it, explaining what I've just explained to you now, and someone who calls himself Ruby's friend - I don't know if she considers him a friend, I can't comment on that - quoted it and said, “I don't believe my friend Ruby Samson is a liar. Regardless, the read out from the situation is cis Tory equals liar and trans anti-Tory equals truth teller. No engagement on the substantive issue of a perceived conflict between trans rights and women's rights. The state of things -”

Mildred: But…you are you! You're not making the assumption that she's lying because she’s cis. You're making that assumption because you witnessed it!

Sophie: It's not cis Tory versus trans anti-Tory. It's “I'll wipe my hands on my jeans,” a normal phrase that is said by, at a guess, millions of people a day, I don't know, versus “I'll wipe my hands on my penis,” a fucking sentence that I had never conceived of before last week. And unfortunately now, I've heard it so many times.

Abby: I guess it is possible she could have misheard you. I mean, like, I can't believe I'm trying to…trying to be compassionate to this woman who has literally written to a government minister calling for me to be excluded from public facilities. Why, oh why, Abby, are you so persistently compassionate?

Sophie: The benefit of the doubt here is, in some ways, weirder than the calculated lie, because the benefit of the doubt version is that she saw a trans woman, and then through the whole interaction - which kind of aligns with what she wrote anyway - she was just thinking “penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis penis." (Clip of Penis Pervert from Mission Hill saying "penis penis penis penis.”) And then when I said “I'll wipe my hands on my jeans,” she, like, had this Freudian mishearing, you know?

Abby: And I guess also, like, even if she did genuinely, sincerely mishear you, to react to that by A) writing notes to the Daily Mail and B) again, let's not forget, writing to a member of government to call for you and everyone like you to be excluded from public life, is not a reasonable way to respond to that sentence, even if it had been said.

Mildred: I agree that it is possible that she thought she heard that. What I don't think is feasible is that, like, anywhere after ten seconds after that, she didn't stop and go "Wait a minute, that sentence makes no sense. She probably said something else." If I'm imitating Ruby, "They probably said something else."

Abby: None of her friends suggested to her, nobody was like “ You sure she said that?”

Sophie: "I'm another one of your Tory entourage, so I obviously believe that trans women will do anything to try to spread their sick, fetishistic, evil agenda onto everyone…But did that really happen?"

Mildred: In her mind, what are you getting out of this? Right? You're walking in, and like, just as you're about to leave the room, just for a sick thrill, you turn around and be like, “I've got a penis, blehhh!!”

Sophie: I find her silence on on the issue kind of interesting, because if it were…if it was simply not me, there are lots of pictures of me online, and she could have very quickly gone "I've looked at pictures of you and you're not the trans woman I was talking about. A different trans woman said to me, 'I'll wipe my hands on my penis.'" Now that would still be a weird situation for her, because I was there that night with my friends. We were the only trans women there. I can verify that. And so, it would have to be one of my friends instead. In that group of friends, I'm the one who's six foot tall and wearing a skimpy top, so.

Mildred: But boy, what a court case that would be though.

Abby: Classic case of she said, they said.

Sophie: Two lawyers constructing absolutely, like, esoteric arguments, trying to argue is it more plausible that someone said, “I'll wipe my hands on my jeans” or “I'll wipe my hands on my penis?” And then ultimately the trans woman goes to jail at the end of the court case, anyway.

Abby: I want to see - well, I don't want to see, but I do want to see - the Crimewatch recreation shot.

Sophie: So she also liked this person, who was arguing about the situation, saying, “No, you've taken the side of this individual who has not confirmed that they are the person because it fits with your comfortable worldview. I trust Ruby. And anyway, someone with a penis should not be using the women's toilets. Case closed.”

Abby: Let's explain exactly why trans women with penises are allowed to use female spaces.

Mildred: 'Cause-'cause they're women.

Abby: Yes. Because we’re women, yes. But also, the government should not have the right to compel citizens to undergo a medical procedure. Vaginoplasties are, first of all, expensive. And secondly, generally pretty safe, but they do carry an element of medical risk, and it is not in line with citizens' human rights for the government to compel people to undergo a surgical procedure before we access a certain public facility. This person, I suspect, without really particularly thinking about it, is implying that the government should have the right to force people to undergo a medical procedure, and that is just fucking barmy!

Sophie: If the law did say in whatever terms "you have to have a pussy to go in the women's loos," you would have to be checking.

Mildred: You are both being too generous with your benefit of the doubt in assuming that if a trans woman had a vaginoplasty, she would be okay with them using the women's room.

Sophie: This was just saying “someone with XY chromosomes should not be using the women's toilets.”

Abby: Yeah, yeah. I realize I'm trying to play chess against a pigeon here. Also I realize that it's the prerogative of the bigot to not use language seriously. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Mildred: You know, as the only person here that uses the men's room, I don't want a bunch of fucking women showing up, and like, seeing what I do in there.

(Sophie cracks up)

Abby: (suspicious) Why? What are you doing?

Mildred: I don’t want you to know! I don't want to tell you!

Sophie: It’s the only single sex space where Mildred can safely indulge in her Magic the Gathering hobby.

Mildred: Nonononononononononono. I'm merely saying that I'm disgusting.

Abby: Yeah, It's very noticeable that at no point during this entire-entire thing has anyone gone, “By the way, here are the stats for, like, this many countries have allowed trans women to use like women's spaces for this amount of time. These are the actual stats for things like assault if that's what you're worried about.” Like, at no point is there serious engagement with this issue provided. You can't debate somebody whose entire position is the denial of facts.

Abby: Like, like people accuse US of denying, like, the facts of biology - which is just like a fucking IMAX level of projection, right? - and I think about this in terms of, like, there's recently been a change in British law such that any trans woman who has, quote, “male genitalia” will now be sent to a men's prison. And it's like, okay, even putting aside the danger of doing that, and like the death sentence, that that might be. LITERALLY.

Abby: Here's a question: What is the legal definition of male genitalia? Like, do you mean…does a trans woman who's had like three months of HRT count? Which, like, massively changes genitalia? Six months? Nine months? Twelve months? Three years of HRT? If you’re like, post orchiectomy? I mean, even if you're only talking about vaginoplasty, what kind of vaginoplasty? There's like three different kinds. What if you get the futa surgery where you've got penis preserving vaginoplasty? What fuckin’ prison do you go to? Are you just constantly being moved around?!

Sophie: If you have the futa surgery where you have a wee wee and a hoo ha, you have to go to the Magneto prison. They actually put you just, like, isolated entirely in plastic, like a huge pit. You're like brought your, like chess set and your meal, like, once a day by a guard.

Mildred: I thought we were going to go more of like an Ashley Judd/Double Jeopardy type situation, where it turns out that if you have both, you cannot be arrested for a crime.

Abby: Lethal Weapon 4.

Sophie; Would we be up for looking at some posts on Mumsnet?

Mildred: It's the purview of this program to find things to cringe at, so…

Sophie: A really interesting thing that I saw, and will not show, is that 4chan? Not on Ruby's side, here. They’re still very much being 4chan, so that's why I'm not showing it, but-

Abby: Chaotic evil.

Sophie: -they do not find “I'll wipe my hands on my penis” to be a believable thing a human being would say. And so none of them are on her side. 4Chan are saying Ruby is a [bleeped], attacking her for being Jewish, saying a lot of other-

Abby: Whoa! The most chaotic possible answers! Damn, that's some good shit. (double thumbs up) I'm making a note to log on to 4chan dot com. Great website.

Mildred: It gets the official Philosophy Tube endorsement.

Sophie: So here's a thread called “Tory Councillor has trans women on the brain” and the original post is describing it pretty much as-as it is, right? Being like “Hey, this is ridiculous. What if she was talking about this? Like, saying all this stuff about a black woman or a gay woman? Would we not get what was going on here?” And then naturally enough, there are the replies.

Abby: And this is an interesting distinction between like American discourse, and British discourse. So, listeners, you will observe that in ShelefttheWeb's comment, you will observe the use of the compound noun “transwomen” without a space. Okay? And I've talked to American trans people about this: In Britain that is a transphobic dog whistle. In America, apparently they wouldn't think twice about doing that. But in Britain, if you exclude the space, it is a transphobic dog whistle, specifically for this reason: Because you will notice ShelefttheWeb writes “black” and “gay” space “women.” So “gay” space “women” are a kind of woman. Whereas the idea behind using the compound noun “transwomen” without a space is to say that this is a new thing. It is not a subcategory of women.

Mildred: Also not how words work. Fool's gold is not gold, and there's still a space there.

Abby: Yeah, true true.

Sophie: Two little pieces of bigot history here. This is yet another repeated earlier move that they've made. They keep on just recycling the same old shit. They used to take one of the 's's out of transsexual, because they were trying to imply that to be transsexual (note: tran + sexual) was a sexuality and inherently had to do with, like, fetish and sex.

Mildred: (heavy scorn) GOT ‘EM!!

Sophie: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This person, CryptoFascistMadamCholet - cool.

Mildred: (silly) Well, let's hear 'em out!

Abby: “Penis does not sound like pants, penis sounds like penis.”

Sophie: There's actually a tweet somewhere, where Ruby replied to someone saying, “Maybe she said pants?”, and she says, “Oh, does penis sound like pants? NO!” And then there are like a hundred replies to her, all saying “Jeans, on the other hand…”

Sophie: So this one I found quite interesting for a couple of reasons. The first one is that they've-they've taken my recent new profile picture on Twitter, and they've highlighted the fact I have a chain in my hand. Now, this chain - they have, there's a reply later on where someone insists that it must be (giggles) for street brawling, because I'm such an obvious East London Street brawler. And that's why they've highlighted it in the picture. This chain, it's a necklace. (note: it's the same necklace she's wearing in the video) And you see, what happened here is I was putting on this little neckerchief situation to take this picture. And so I took off this, and I was holding it in the picture.

Sophie: I just find that male fist with a chain as sign of power stock image (note: referring to image posted in Mumsnet thread) …like, is there actually a stock image that's titled ‘Male Fist?’ Because what about this fist is male, but also like as a sign of power? Or did they get the stock image and then edit the title to be like "it's a male fist?" Yeah. They've posted some sets of nudes that I put on Twitter a while ago onto this thread, and I find this amusing. Obviously, this is a massively disgusting thing that they've done. But it should be noted that the people who go to this forum repeatedly and, you know, people who come into this thread, they kind of live to attack trans women's appearances. They kind of live for making fun of how trans women look. And after this post, no one commented on the nudes. And I just find that very funny.

Abby: I've seen this sort of thing before, when transphobic forums post images of trans women and then talk about, in particular, the ways in which trans women don't, in their eyes, pass in the comments. It's often a way of like, as I said, denying reality. Like, trying to find some way to, like, expose the trick, right? Oh, it's the forehead or it's the eyebrows, or whatever it is. Whereas in reality, those are features that you would find on many cis women as well.

Sophie: It's just like they've come here to attack someone else's appearance to make themselves feel better. And then they posted some pictures of me and had nothing to say.

Sophie: “As an American, I say pants, but my UK friends say trousers. Also, as an American, penis does not sound like pants to my ear. How many of you Brits actually say pants to mean trousers?”

Abby: It's worth flagging up here that there's some, like, obviously quite explicit transphobia going on in here. There're people referring to trans women as men. So it's, I'm afraid, quite obvious that Mumsnet is allowing this kind of explicit transphobia. I don't want just let that slide.

Sophie: No, I mean it's kind of, it's become so notorious that many people regard it to be their kind of raison d’être at this point, as a transphobe organizing site.

Abby: (overlapping) I know that the people who run Mumsnet have said that they kind of encourage debate and they don't allow hate. While here is explicit transphobia

Sophie: There it is.

Abby: Just on display.

Mildred: Yeah, I guess I didn't even really think of that, because to me, I was honestly surprised at how tame it was…And like, keep in mind we're looking at a thread where they literally posted my friend's nudes to make fun of her, and I'm like, “I thought this would be worse.”

Sophie: Again, that speaks to just how unbelievable the “I’ll wipe my hands on my penis” thing is. They can't even really muster the support to, like…they just can't get the energy to defend this as a position. “Wiping one's hands on one's pants would also be unacceptable in a British ladies' lavatory.” What are you talking about?

Mildred: Well, then what do you do?

Sophie: Do you just leave with wet hands?

Abby: You simply wait.

Sophie: You just air dry them.

(Mildred blows on her hands)

Abby: You shake, I guess.

Sophie: You walk around the pub going, “Hey, does anyone have a penis? Help!” Anyway, I think that's the most of-that's the most of it really. There's been a lot of memes of, you know, the butterfly meme. "Is this a penis?" and a pair of jeans flapping by. Yeah.

Sophie: Thank you for joining me for this-this cringe exploration.

Abby: I mean, I do want to say, like, sincerely, Sophie, I'm really sorry this happened to you.

Sophie: It was funny for a couple of days, and then it kind of hit me that I had been sexually harassed in the national press. And it has made me feel a bit less safe about going to the public bathrooms, because what if there is a Tory in there who will write in the Daily Mail?

Abby: Which, of course, is the point.

Sophie: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Abby: What are you doing after this by the way? Do you want to go to the pub? There’s a great one near me. I was there the other night. There was this weird incident where this cis woman, as I came out of bathroom, she was like, “we have to shake our hands dry.” And I just turned and said “balls!”

(Laughter)

Mildred: Well! Thank you so much for joining us on this Cringe Corner, Abby. Where can our audiences find you?

Abby: You can find me all over the place at the moment. You can find me on SkyTV in a series called Django, which has just come out. It's a Western period drama that I'm in. You can find me online on Philosophy Tube on YouTube, which is my show. You can find me on Kill James Bond, which is a podcast about films that I run with two other trans people. And you can find me wherever good content is made. You can also find me on Nebula, where my play "The Prince" is up at the moment, if you are theatrically inclined.

Sophie: It's a good play.

Abby: Thank you very much. And in future you'll be able to find me in other things that I cannot currently talk about. Keep your eyes out

Sophie: Yeah.

Abby: You can also find me in the toilets of the Marquis of Granby pub. You can also find me and Sophie in the nightmares of British Tories everywhere.

Sophie: That's true. Like Freddy Krueger, but trans.

Mildred: (Freddy Krueger voice) Gonna wipe my hands on my penis, bitch!

Abby: How does Freddy Krueger wash his hands? Answers on a postcard, please.

Mildred: I don’t think he does. He's not a very hygienic man. Sophie, in turn, where can our audiences find you? In what bathrooms?

Sophie: Generally the women's bathroom. Unless there's only a gender neutral one, which is obviously terrifying to me. But you can find me at SophiefromMars on most platforms. Sometimes it's SophiefromMars, all one word, and sometimes it's Sophie_from_Mars.

Abby: You gotta put the space in, otherwise it's transphobic.

Sophie: That's true. If you use a space, it is a hate crime. If you want to support my work, you can go to Patreon.com/SophiefromMars, and I'm currently working on a few different things that…some of them might intersect with future episodes of Cringe Corner. If you are a fan of this show, and want more straight faced takes about the things that we talk about sometimes. Not this thing. There's no-there's no essay to write about this one. No.

Abby: Straight faced and biologically bigger faced.

Mildred: Sorry, you said that URL was patreon.com/PenisVagina?

Sophie: Yes. Yeah. Go to the patreon page Penis Jeans Queen. That's me.

#transcript #transphobia #Thought Slime #SophiefromMars #Philosophy Tube #Daily Mail #single sex spaces #bad journalism #incest mention #medical neglect mention #transmisogyny #mumsnet

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